“Saduko’s wild men,” he answered in the same low voice, “outlaws of his tribe who live among the rocks.”
Now I scanned them sideways, while pretending to light my pipe and so forth, and certainly they seemed a remarkably savage set of people. Great, gaunt fellows with tangled hair, who wore tattered skins upon their shoulders and seemed to have no possessions save some snuff, a few sleeping-mats, and an ample supply of large fighting shields, hardwood kerries or knob-sticks, and broad ixwas, or stabbing assegais. Such was the look of them as they sat round us in silent semicircles, like aas-vögels—as the Dutch call vultures—sit round a dying ox.
Still I smoked on and took no notice.
At length, as I expected, Saduko grew weary of my silence and spoke. “These are men of the Amangwane tribe, Macumazahn; three hundred of them, all that Bangu left alive, for when their fathers were killed, the women escaped with some of the children, especially those of the outlying kraals. I have gathered them to be revenged upon Bangu, I who am their chief by right of blood.”
“Quite so,” I answered. “I see that you have gathered them; but do they wish to be revenged on Bangu at the risk of their own lives?”
“We do, white Inkoosi,” came the deep-throated answer from the three hundred.
“And do they acknowledge you, Saduko, to be their chief?”
“We do,” again came the answer. Then a spokesman stepped forward, one of the few grey-haired men among them, for most of these Amangwane were of the age of Saduko, or even younger.
“O Watcher-by-Night,” he said, “I am Tshoza, the brother of Matiwane, Saduko’s father, the only one of his brothers that escaped the slaughter on the night of the Great Killing. Is it not so?”
“It is so,” exclaimed the serried ranks behind him.