Now the first words filled all with great delight, but for the last, au! We, who when we “see red” spare nothing that has life, how should such words commend themselves to us? But we remembered that this was a man whose business was peace.
So Ngubazana bent before the white isanusi, who blessed him with one of his strange signs. Then he leaped with joy into the ranks of The Scorpions, clutching his weapons, and humming to himself the war-song.
Chapter Twenty Four.
The Song of the Shield.
The regiments, organised and armed, and decorated for war, filed through the great entrance of the kraal Kwa’zingwenya, and formed up in a vast half-circle upon the plain outside, whither the King had already proceeded, and the Bayéte was roared forth in tremendous volume as the Great Great One stalked majestically into the open formation thus left. His words were few:
“Warriors,” he said, “yonder is a nation’s death or a nation’s life.” Then he gave the signal for the war-dance to begin.
This was short, for we had no time to spare for ornamental ceremonies. When the dance and the song were at their height, they ceased suddenly, and there was dead silence.
Umzilikazi was standing in the midst, clad in his full war costume of white flowing hair and leopard-skin and beadwork, his head crowned with nodding ostrich plumes of black and white. In his left hand he held his lion-skin shield, tufted with the tail of the beast, and a light casting spear.