“Because the king’s word was that I should bring him to the king living,” answered Kambula. Then he added cheerfully: “Still, if the king wishes it, I can kill him at once.”
“I don’t know,” said Dingaan doubtfully; “perhaps he can mend guns.” Next, after reflecting a while, he bade a shield-holder to fetch someone, I could not hear whom.
“Doubtless,” thought I to myself, “it is the executioner,” and at that thought a kind of mad rage seized me. Why should my life be ended thus in youth to satisfy the whim of a savage? And if it must be so, why should I go alone?
In the inside pocket of my ragged coat I had a small loaded pistol with two barrels. One of those barrels would kill Dingaan—at five paces I could not miss that bulk—and the other would blow out my brains, for I was not minded to have my neck twisted or to be beaten to death with sticks. Well, if it was to be done, I had better do it at once. Already my hand was creeping towards the pocket when a new idea, or rather two ideas, struck me.
The first was that if I shot Dingaan the Zulus would probably massacre Marie and the others—Marie, whose sweet face I should never see again. The second was that while there is life there is hope. Perhaps, after all, he had not sent for an executioner, but for someone else. I would wait. A few minutes more of existence were worth the having.
The shield-bearer returned, emerging from one of the narrow, reed-hedged passages, and after him came no executioner, but a young white man, who, as I knew from the look of him, was English. He saluted the king by taking off his hat, which I remember was stuck round with black ostrich feathers, then stared at me.
“O Tho-maas” (that is how he pronounced “Thomas”), said Dingaan, “tell me if this boy is one of your brothers, or is he a Boer?”
“The king wants to know if you are Dutch or British,” said the white lad, speaking in English.
“As British as you are,” I answered. “I was born in England, and come from the Cape.”
“That may be lucky for you,” he said, “because the old witch-doctor, Zikali, has told him that he must not kill any English. What is your name? Mine is Thomas Halstead. I am interpreter here.”