As we marched forth thus to war the sky was by degrees blackening up for rain, and a deep, distant roll of thunder was heard from time to time creeping over the ridge of the world. The old women, whose furrowed faces and ragged top-knots stuck over the kraal palisades as they watched us deploy into rank, were dumb and shaking with apathy and fear, for in them still lived an ingrained terror of the might of Tshaka, whereas we young people had almost forgotten it, and with us it was a mere tradition. Of young women and girls there seemed to be none in the kraal, or if there were they were keeping in hiding. And though my thoughts now were all of war, I could not refrain from looking backward to try and obtain a glimpse of Lalusini. But in vain.
Not backward should I have looked, however, but forward; for now, as we turned the corner of a hill, a sound as of singing was heard in front. Whau! There on a little rise stood Lalusini herself. She was arrayed in her beautiful beaded dress, and wore her heavy golden ornaments. Behind her came a great number of girls, all carrying green boughs in their hands and singing songs of war and of victory, as was their wont to hearten us when we set out upon any expedition of weight and importance.
As we came near, Lalusini drew a little apart from the rest, and standing thus upon the summit of the rise, in full view of the whole army, her proudly-reared head and splendid form thrown out by the livid thundercloud behind the hill, she lifted up her voice and sang, this time not in the dark tongue of the Bakoni, but in pure Zulu. And the wild sweetness of her voice was of the sort which renders warriors mad.
“A song of the Shield,
In the battle’s ring!
A droop of the Shield
Guards the life of a King.
“Proud tuft, proud hide,
Which the White Bull gave!
Now the White Bull’s pride
Shall a nation save.
“Burnt kraal, stamped field—
Thick the vultures soar,
And laugh o’er the Shield
In the van of war.
“Rolls the battle song
On the war-wave’s crest,
Bringing might to the strong,
To the weak ones - rest.
“Great is small,
Little is great.
Who may fall
In the coming Fate.
“Who may fear
On the death-soaked field?
None who hear
The Song of The Shield!”
Now the last words were taken up by her band of attendant girls, but the voices of these were soon lost in the great rolling volume of the warriors’ chorus, which was caught up and tossed along the ranks as the roaring of a mighty ocean—
“Who may fear
On the death-soaked field?
None who hear
The Song of The Shield.”
As they marched past, a quick, keen flash darted down from heaven immediately upon the singer, whom all men thought was stricken—yet not; for in the sudden silence that followed, and the muttering rumble of the thunder-tone, she still stood—that splendid daughter of a race of kings—her eyes still turned skyward, her form outlined in its beautiful curves against the livid blue of the storm-cloud.
After this we marched in silence, no more singing or noise of any kind being allowed. But as we held on swiftly through the night, this great array of armed men, like a destroying flight of locusts in its straight, fell course, the echo of that wonderful song was still in every ear, its burden in every heart; and it seemed to each warrior that he had the strength of ten; for the Song of the Shield was surely the song of victory.
To us came from time to time runners, bearing tidings from Mgwali. No move forward had been made by the impi from Zululand, yet now and again, far below upon the plain, our outpost, which had taken the place of that of Mhlangana, could discern a point of white, which was the swift signal of those who had been posted at intervals to watch, and pass along word to Dingane’s leaders.
“Whau! We will give them a brave good-morning, Untúswa,” said the King, as, having gained our position along the ridges of Inkume, shortly after midnight, the Great Great One and I had crept carefully up to Mgwali’s outlook. “See, now, I desire not to hurry the battle, yet the sun will not be very high before we shall whisper them to come on. Thy strategy has been good, Untúswa, yet perchance they will remember the pass in the Kwahlamba and fear to enter this. Ah! would that we could roll down the mountain itself upon them here as there. It would save us many men.”