“Yeh-bo, Nkose, and by black ones, too, if with it they can buy cattle and wives. Hau! In the abode of the mighty dead there is much of it.”
Blachland didn’t start, but his nerves were all a thrill. The man’s words were plain enough. A quantity of treasure had been buried with the dead King. That was the interpretation.
“Is the gold like this, Hlangulu?” he said, producing a sovereign.
“Eh-hé, Nkose!” assented the Matabele. “It is in a bag, so high,”—holding his hand about a couple of feet from the ground.
Then they talked, the white man and the savage,—talked long and earnestly. The superstitions of the latter precluded him from going near the dreaded sepulchre, let alone entering it. But for the former no such barrier existed. Hlangulu knew a way of getting him through the pickets: then he could accomplish a double purpose, explore the interior of the King’s grave, and bring away the concealed wealth which lay there; and this they would share equally.
It was quite dark when they separated: Blachland all braced up by the prospect of a new and interesting adventure, which, coming when it did, was peculiarly welcome; Hlangulu to dream of an idyllic existence, in some far-away land where Lo Bengula’s arm could not reach, where he could sit in his kraal and count his vast herds of cattle, and buy wives, young and new, whenever inclined.