“Good! we shall escape them. The moon will be up in an hour, and we can trek away.”
The lad’s face fell.
“Alas!” he said, “it is impossible; there is a spy watching the camp now. He is up there among the rocks; I saw him as I brought the oxen home. If we move he will report it, and we shall be overtaken in an hour.”
Mr. Alston thought for a moment, and then made up his mind with the rapidity that characterises men who spend their lives in dealing with savage races.
“Mazooku!” he called to a Zulu who was sitting smoking by the camp-fire, a man whom Ernest had hired as his particular servant. The man rose and came to him, and saluted.
He was not a very tall man; but, standing there nude except for the “moocha” round his centre, his proportions, especially those of the chest and lower limbs, looked gigantic. He had been a soldier in one of Cetywayo’s regiments, but having been so indiscreet as to break through some of the Zulu marriage laws, had been forced to fly for refuge to Natal, where he had become a groom, and picked up a peculiar language, which he called English. Even among a people where all the men are fearless he bore a reputation for bravery. Leaving him standing awhile, Mr. Alston rapidly explained the state of the case to Ernest, and what he proposed to do. Then turning, he addressed the Zulu:
“Mazooku, the Inkoos here, your master, whom you black people have named Mazimba, tells me that he thinks you a brave man.”
The Zulu’s handsome face expanded into a smile that was positively alarming in its extent.
“He says that you told him that when you were Cetywayo’s man in the Undi Regiment, you once killed four Basutos, who set upon you together.”
Mazooku lifted his right arm and saluted, by way of answer, and then glanced slightly at the assegai-wounds on his chest.