"Yau! Listen to our father," they cried. "He is joking, indeed. Yau! Farewell, Nyonyoba. Fare thee well." And they sped away, still screaming with laughter.
The old induna looked quizzically after them, then at Laurence. Then he took snuff.
"One might do worse, Silawayo," repeated Laurence. "I have known worse times than those I have already undergone here. But all I possess I have lost. My slaves your people have killed, and my ivory and goods the king has taken, leaving me nothing but my arms and ammunition. Tell me, then, do the Ba-gcatya give their daughters for nothing, or how shall a man who is so poor think to set up a kraal of his own?"
The induna laughed dryly.
"We are all poor that way, for all we own belongs to the king. Yet the Great Great One is open handed. He might return some of your goods, Nyonyoba."
This, by the way, was Laurence's sobriquet among these people, bestowed upon him by reason of his skill and craft in stalking wild game.
It was even as he had said. This raid had gone far towards undoing the results of their lawless and perilous enterprise—a portion of his gains were safe, but this last blow was of crippling force. And only a day or so prior to it he had been revelling in the prospect of a speedy return to civilized life, to the enjoyment of wealth for the remainder of his allotted span. He recalled the misgivings uttered by Holmes, that wealth thus gained would bring them no good, for the curse of blood that lay upon it. Poor Holmes! The prophecy seemed to have come true as regarded the prophet—but for himself? well, the loss reconciled him still more to his life among the Ba-gcatya.
Of Tyisandhlu he had seen but little. Now and then the king would send for him and talk for a time upon things in general, and all the while Laurence would feel that the shrewd, keen eyes of this barbarian ruler were reading him like a book. Tyisandhlu, moreover, had expressed a wish that a body of picked men should be armed with the rifles taken from the slavers, and instructed in their use; and to this Laurence had readily consented.
"Yet consider, Ndabezita,"[2] he had said, "is it well to teach them reliance on any weapon rather than the broad spear? For had your army possessed fire-weapons, never would it have eaten up our camp out yonder. It would have spent all its time and energy shooting, and that to little purpose. It would have had time to think, and then the warriors would have brought but half a heart to the last fierce charge."