Another and another stepped forward, friends and kinsmen of his.
“Nine of you. With yourself there will be ten. You must do the best you can, Jeriji, for I can spare no more,” said Sobuza impatiently. And the pursuit was resumed.
Lying back from the hollow in a lateral spur, shut in by ironstone cliffs, was a small kraal, and this place had been chosen by the Igazipuza for their last stand. Hither all their women and cattle had been sent, and here they were resolved to die—to die fighting hard. And no better place could they have chosen than this grim cul de sac. It would be impossible to surround them. Only when they had been driven back step by step—forced against the very face of the iron cliff itself, would the last man be exterminated.
Over this weird death-trap there towered a great cloud of dust, and the rocks re-echoed the lowing and trampling of the cattle and the shouts of their drivers, the shrill voices of women, and the squalling of children. And still the messengers of retribution marched on, a fell purpose in each grim countenance; eyeballs rolling with a lurid fury, weapons gripped, step elastic and eager. The dawn had broken lowering and murky, and there was no sun. The wind sang mournfully through the hollow; moaning among the cliffs, as with the wail of spirit voices over the drama of carnage and massacre which was here to be played out. As in the first instance, the Igazipuza had selected a place where their assailants would be obliged to approach them from below.
Sobuza having satisfied himself that all the fighting force of the rebel clan was before him, sent back two swift runners to order forward the detachment he had left on the outer ridge, with the exception of a few who were to remain to cut off any stray fugitives who might break through. The contingency that anything like a number might do so seemed hardly worth reckoning on. Then he ordered the immediate attack.
As the king’s troops came sweeping up the slope, in perfect line of battle, regular and unbroken, there floated to their ears, rising in dull menace on the fitful puffs of the morning, the weird rhythmical chorus of a war-song.
“Cubs of the Lion we,
Whose roar sounds Death;
Vultures who sit on high,
Whose swoop means Death;
Serpents who creep below,
Whose fangs deal Death—
We drink of the blood of men,
We laugh at Death!
“Wizards of thunder we
Whose voice rolls Death;
Wizards of lightning we
Who flash forth Death!
Ho! ‘hunting-dogs of the king,’
Come, taste our Death!
We drink of the blood of men—
We drink your Death!”
The great ironstone cliffs echoed back the weird words of the savage strophe with almost the effect of articulate repetition, and when, in its final paean of defiance, the chorus swelled to a clamourous, threatening roar, the disgust and hatred and repulsion which ran through the minds of the king’s soldiers knew no bounds. For to the average Zulu nothing is more repellent than any suggestion of dark dealing, and the gruesome import of the song of the Igazipuza, who had already earned a reputation for wizardry in its foulest form, inspired in the minds of these a fell determination to rid the earth of the whole evil brood.
“Usútu!”
“Igazi—Pu—Za!”