On my last return from Bulawayo, I found that Marzwe had taken my advice, and had sent messengers on the Saturday morning to call all his people in to the fort. These men ought to have returned with the women and children on the following day, but owing to their dilatory ways, and their unfailing habit of "never doing to-day what can be put off till to-morrow," they did not do so.
On the following morning, Monday, 4th May, Lieutenants Parkin and Webb started off early for the Khami river, taking the mule waggon with them, Lieutenant Howard and myself intending to follow them up and choose a site for the fort immediately after breakfast. Just before discussing this meal, Marzwe came out and reported to me that one of his men had heard shots fired in the direction of his kraal. None of my sentries or horse-guards having heard these shots, I half thought there was no truth in the report. However, I sent Mr. Simms and two other good men to scout round the back of some kopjes, about two miles to the west of our position, beyond which the shots were said to have been fired.
Shortly after the scouts had left, two of the men sent on the previous Saturday to bring in the women and children turned up, saying that Marzwe's town had been attacked at daylight by a portion of Maiyaisa's impi, and some of his people killed. A little later a young girl arrived at the fort with an assegai-wound in her right side just above the hip-bone. The wound was not a dangerous one, and after it had been washed and dressed, the child was able to tell her story, which was to the effect that Marzwe's kraal had been surrounded in the night, and every man, woman, and child in it murdered just at dawn.
Although, with the few mounted men at my disposal, I knew it would be madness to engage any large number of Matabele, unless I could get them in perfectly open country where there was no chance of being surrounded, I was not inclined to let this affair pass without endeavouring to ascertain exactly what had happened. Van Rooyen at once agreed to put off his visit to Bulawayo and accompany me with his three troopers to the scene of the reported massacre, and I sent a messenger to tell Lieutenant Parkin to return immediately to Mabukitwani with ten good men mounted on his best horses. When he arrived, my three scouts had also returned, having seen nothing, and I found myself in command of about twenty-five mounted men; some of the horses, however, were in wretched condition, and altogether unfit for hard work.
When the report of the massacre of his whole family, as well as a large number of his people, was brought to Marzwe, he received it with the utmost stoicism, only saying, "They wanted me; they were looking for me; they wanted my skin." Whether he believed it or not I cannot say, but he never betrayed the slightest sign of emotion.
It was already past mid-day when I was at last able to get away with my little force, travelling across country under the guidance of an elderly savage armed with a shield, and two long-bladed insinuating-looking assegais, and at the same time adorned with a chimney-pot hat, of all things in the world, thus combining in his own person the attributes of primitive savagery and the most advanced civilisation of Western Europe.
Before we were a couple of miles from camp we met a lot of women and children making for the fort, who said that they had fled from some of Marzwe's outlying villages early that morning as they had heard firing going on in the direction of the chief's kraal. Soon after passing these people we got into country where a small force such as mine might have been very easily surrounded and cut up by a hostile impi, as the ground was very broken and on every side of us were small hills and rocky ridges, the whole being covered with dense, scrubby bush, in many parts of which a Kafir would have been invisible at a distance of thirty yards. Had this sort of country continued for any great distance, I would not have risked taking my men on indefinitely over ground so very favourable to any force of hostile Matabele which might chance to be there. However, after a time we emerged into country of a more open character, where the bush was much less dense, and where one was not constantly shut in amongst kopjes and scrub-covered ridges.
Just here one of my flanking parties came on a woman carrying a large bundle of blankets and other household goods on her head. On being questioned, she told us that at daylight that morning Marzwe's kraal had been attacked and three of his men killed, as well as one girl who had endeavoured to escape with the rest of the men. The girl referred to proved afterwards to be the damsel who had been wounded in the side by an assegai, but who had managed to evade her enemies and make her way to our fort at Mabukitwani. All the rest of the women and children, together with the cattle, sheep, and goats, the woman said, had been captured by Maiyaisa's people, who, however, she thought were in no great force, being only a small raiding party detached from the main body at the Khami river.
But now comes the sequel, about which the wounded girl had known nothing. Amongst Marzwe's men who had escaped from the first onslaught on the kraal was one Obas. [10] This man had recognised that the attacking force was not a large one, and he at once went round to all the outlying villages and collected a very considerable number of his chief's retainers, and taking command of them, followed up the raiders, and not only rescued all the women and children who had been taken captive but also killed eleven of the enemy, and retook all the cattle, sheep, and goats they were driving off. This good news was soon confirmed by Obas himself, whom we met coming on with all the recaptured women and children and cattle. He was a well-built, active-looking Kafir of middle height, light in colour, and with good features, altogether a good specimen of the best type of Matabele. He was armed with a Martini-Henry rifle, as were some few of his followers, whilst all carried assegais. He told us much the same story as we had heard from the woman who had just passed, except that he informed us that the number of Marzwe's men who had been killed was four, instead of three.