Now, at these ominous words, that might mean so much or so little, the sweat started to my brow, and a shiver went down my back.
“Perhaps I shall and perhaps I shall not, O king,” I answered. “The world is as full of chances to-day as it was not long ago when I shot at the sacred vultures on Hloma Amabutu. Still, I think that my wife will never be yours, O king.”
“Ow!” said Dingaan; “this little white ant is making another tunnel, thinking that he will come up at my back. But what if I put down my heel and crush you, little white ant? Do you know,” he added confidentially, “that the Boer who mends my guns and whom here we call ‘Two-faces,’ because he looks towards you Whites with one eye and towards us Blacks with the other, is still very anxious that I should kill you? Indeed, when I told him that my spies said that you were to ride with the Boers, as I had requested that you should be their Tongue, he answered that unless I promised to give you to the vultures, he would warn them against coming. So, since I wanted them to come as I had arranged with him, I promised.”
“Is it so, O king?” I asked. “And pray why does this Two-faces, whom we name Pereira, desire that I should be killed?”
“Ow!” chuckled the obese old ruffian; “cannot you with all your cleverness guess that, O Macumazahn? Perhaps it is he who needs the tall white maiden, and not I. Perhaps if he does certain things for me, I have promised her to him in payment. And perhaps,” he added, laughing quite loud, “I shall trick him after all, keeping her for myself, and paying him in another way, for can a cheat grumble if he is out-cheated?”
I answered that I was an honest man, and knew nothing about cheats, or at what they could or could not grumble.
“Yes, Macumazahn,” replied Dingaan quite genially. “That is where you and I are alike. We are both honest, quite honest, and therefore friends, which I can never be with these Amaboona, who, as you and others have told me, are traitors. We play our game in the light, like men, and who wins, wins, and who loses, loses. Now hear me, Macumazahn, and remember what I say. Whatever happens to others, whatever you may see, you are safe while I live. Dingaan has spoken. Whether I get the tall white girl, or do not get her, still you are safe; it is on my head,” and he touched the gum-ring in his hair.
“And why should I be safe if others are unsafe, O king?” I asked.
“Oh! if you would know that, ask a certain ancient prophet named Zikali, who was in this land in the days of Senzangacona, my father, and before then—that is, if you can find him. Also, I like you, who are not a flat-faced fool like these Amaboona, but have a brain that turns in and out through difficulties, as a snake does through reeds; and it would be a pity to kill one who can shoot birds wheeling high above him in the air, which no one else can do. So whatever you see and whatever you hear, remember that you are safe, and shall go safely from this land, or stay safely in it if you will, to be my voice to speak with the Sons of George.
“Now return to the commandant, and say to him that my heart is his heart, and that I am very pleased to see him here. To-morrow, and perhaps the next day, I will show him some of the dances of my people, and after that I will sign the writing, giving him all the land he asks and everything else he may desire, more than he can wish, indeed. Hamba gachlé, Macumazahn,” and, rising with surprising quickness from his chair, which was cut out of a single block of wood, he turned and vanished through the little opening in the reed fence behind him that led to his private huts.