Our eyes opened wide, and a deep-throated gasp escaped us. What a place to burn! What countless herds to sweep away! was the thought in each man’s mind.
Behind this town rose a great hill, steep-sided, flat-topped, and belted by lines of cliffs. There were further hills beyond it, but this one stood out from all, seeming to stand by itself upon the plain. We almost forgot the near presence of a great number of enemies. These, however, now closed in around us.
“Draw near, strangers,” said the man who had first hailed us, and who seemed to be a leader of some kind—“the Chief of the People of the Blue Cattle sits before you.”
I beheld, seated upon a leopard skin, a man just past middle age. He was a well-built man, tall and sinewy, and more martial-looking than any of his people. He was seated alone, a few councillors attending him several paces in the background, and save for a battle-axe, no arms were near him. He wore ornaments of gold, as we noticed did quite a number of the people, and the axe itself was profusely inlaid with gold.
“This people,” I thought, “if not warlike, is skilful in making weapons. Good. It shall make weapons for its masters, the conquerors of the world.”
“Greeting, Chief of the Blue Cattle,” I said, taking up the title by which he had been named; and, indeed, looking upon the countless herds which were scattered over the plain, I noticed that the greater number were of a bluish-white colour.
He frowned, thinking I accosted him with scant deference, which was true, for we Amazulu, People of the Heavens, do not bend low before the chiefs of such tribes as this.
“Why do you approach me with weapons in your hand, stranger? Is this a custom among yourselves when approaching a chief?”
“Our weapons were placed in our hands by the Great Great One—the Black Elephant, whose voice trumpets afar. Not until we return into his presence again do we lay them down,” I answered shortly.
All this while I was keenly watching the chief’s face, and I read therein a bragging nature, but a coward spirit underlying it. He, for his part, was noting our large stature and fearless bearing, our great shields and heavy-bladed spears, and I knew he was impressed thereby.