Now, Nkose, it was a dreadful moment for me, for at first there was dead silence. All were too amazed even to exclaim. I merely uttered a disdainful click, shaking my head. But Lalusini—she turned towards Nangeza, glanced her up and down, and laughed—laughed softly, musically. Then, waving her hands into the air, she began to sing, and the words were in the tongue of the Bakoni, which none there present understood. Yet her voice was musical and sweet, and in it there thrilled a mystery. All watched in silence as she moved her hands and feet to the measure of her chant. Since I understood this tongue, Nkose, I listened as though a great serpent were tightening its coils more and more around me, for her words were dark and full of a strange and terrifying mystery. Her song ceased.
“What dost thou seek here now, my sister?” softly said the King, for even he could not refuse to acknowledge the influence of her charm. “Is it to make múti among thine own people, having had enough of the Bakoni dogs whom we have eaten up?”
“I think there are enough who make such múti here, Black Elephant,” she answered. “Not for this have I come. I am here to save the Father of a new nation.”
“Hau!” we gasped, stricken well-nigh dumb, for the words were spoken slow and sad, and with weighty warning. None doubted but that they applied to a near attack on the part of our most to be dreaded enemies, and at once all men’s minds flew to the impis of Dingane advancing upon us in force—or, perhaps, the Amabuna, or even both in concert. Dismay was on every face, for we liked not to be thus taken by surprise. But upon that of Umzilikazi was a frown of terrible import, which meant badly for those from whose quarter the foe should first appear, they having failed to report it.
“Thy words are dark indeed,” he said. “Explain, sorceress, for time does not wait.”
But Lalusini, for reply, only returned a swift, silent glance. Then once more she burst into song, again in the Bakoni tongue. Her head was thrown back, and she seemed to be gazing at some momentous object invisible to us. She seemed to lose herself, to utterly forget our presence, as her voice rose wild and sweet and clear. Yes, indeed, there was a mystery in her song, and it seemed to me that the words had a very certain meaning; also that, all the while standing facing me as she was, her glance betimes met mine quickly, as in a flash, and with a purpose. It was, I felt, in her mind that I should mark her words and weigh them well. Thus they ran:—
“The Lion sinks
To the serpent’s fang;
The eagle drops
To the bowstring’s twang.
“Great is small;
Little is great;
Great ones fall
When the mean deal fate.
“The serpent’s coil
Hides the fangs of death;
A coil of blue
Veils the serpent’s breath.
“See the White Bull’s pride
O’er the Black Bull wave;
Now, the White Bull’s hide
May the Black Bull save.”
Whau, Nkose! Then was amazement my master—I its slave! The “coil of blue!” Such a blue-beaded girdle was that of Nangeza’s skirt, beside which she wore little else when summoned before the King. Upon this my eyes fixed themselves, only, however, to follow once more the meaning glance of Lalusini. And the King sat wondering, yet not understanding the múti song. And above his head, waving softly to and fro in the hand of its bearer, rose aloft the royal white shield. It was as the buzzing of bees within my ears that I heard the voice of the Great Great One.
“I have a mind to end this indaba,” he was saying. “Thou, Nangeza, hast a pestilent tongue and an evil heart; wherefore my servant Untúswa must seek a new wife, for thy place among us shall be empty. Take her hence. The alligators are hungry.”
“So, too, is Death, thou fool who art King!” yelled Nangeza. I saw her hand swift at her girdle. Something flashed through the air. It struck—struck hard and quivering—into the great white shield, which, quick as the movement, as the flash itself, I had snatched from the shield-bearer, and whirled down so as to cover the person of the King. It was one of those short, javelin-shaped arrows, such as were used by the mountain tribes, and sometimes among the Bakoni. And the point thereof was green and sticky with the most deadly of poisons.