“Ho, Isipau!” called out a great voice. “Come now and talk with some of your old friends.”
“I think not, Ziboza,” came the answer. “For the looks of most of you are not friendly.”
“Are you come to capture the Great Great One, Isipau?” jeered another voice, and a shout of derision backed up the words.
“No. I came to find a comrade who was left behind sick. I have found him—and now, amadoda, when I return I can speak more than one good word on behalf of the Great Great One, and of those who suffered me to return when they might have given me some trouble.”
“When thou returnest, Isipau!” roared several of the young warriors with a burst of mocking laughter. “When thou returnest! Au! But that will be never.”
“Nobody knows. I do not—you do not. But it will be better for all here if I do return.”
For a while there was no response, save another burst of laughter. Then Ziboza spoke:
“Come now over to us, Isipau. We will take thee to the Black Elephant.”
Blachland pondered. Could he trust them? If they actually meant to take him to the King, then indeed he stood a good chance, for he did not believe that Lo Bengula would allow him to be harmed, and he did believe that once face to face with him he could persuade the fugitive King to surrender. But could he trust them, that was the crux?
Rapidly he ran over the situation within his mind. This Ziboza he knew fairly well as an inveterate hater of the whites, one of those moreover who had perpetually urged upon Lo Bengula the necessity of murdering all white men in his country. He thought too, of the moment, when disarmed and helpless, he should stand at their mercy, and what that “mercy” would mean why more than one act of hideous barbarity which he himself had witnessed, was sufficient to remind him. Moreover, even while thus balancing probabilities, certain scraps of smothered conversation reached his ears. That decided him. He would not place himself within their power. It only remained to sell his life dearly.