“Would it not have been safer to send another man with him?”
“Yes; but I was afraid that if the scout saw two men coming towards him he would make off, however innocent they might look. Our horses are dead, and if that fellow escapes we shall never get out of this place alive. It would be folly to expect Basutos to distinguish between Boers and Englishmen when their blood is up; and besides, Secocoeni has sent orders that we are to be killed, and they would not dare to disobey. Look, there goes Mr. Mazooku with an assegai as big as a fire-shovel.”
The kopje, or stony hill, where the spy was hid, was about three hundred yards from the little hollow in which the camp was formed, and across the stretch of bushy plain between the two Mazooku was quietly strolling, his assegai in one hand and two long sticks in the other. Presently he vanished in the shadow, for the sun was rapidly setting, and, after what seemed a long pause to Ernest, who was watching his movements through a pair of field-glasses, reappeared walking along the shoulder of the hill right against the sky-line, his eyes fixed upon the ground as though he were searching among the crevices of the rocks for the medical herbs which Zulus prize.
All of a sudden Ernest saw the stalwart form straighten itself and spring down into a dip, which hid it from sight, with the assegai in its hand raised to the level of its head. Then came a pause, lasting perhaps for twenty seconds. On the farther side of the dip was a large flat rock, which was straight in a line with the fiery ball of the setting sun. Suddenly a tall figure sprang up out of the hollow on to this rock, followed by another figure, in whom Ernest recognised Mazooku. For a moment the two men, looking from their position like people afire, struggled together on the top of the flat stone, and Ernest could clearly distinguish the quick flash of their spears as they struck at each other; then they vanished together over the edge of the stone.
“By Jove!” said Ernest, who was trembling with excitement, “I wonder how it has ended?”
“We shall know presently,” answered Mr. Alston, coolly. “At any rate, the die is cast one way or other, and we may as well make a bolt for it. Now, you Zulus, down with those tents and get the oxen inspanned, and look quick about it, if you don’t want a Basutu assegai to send you to join the spirit of Chaka.”
The voorlooper Jim had by this time communicated his alarming intelligence to the driver and other Kafirs, and Mr. Alston’s exhortation to look sharp was quite unnecessary. Ernest never saw camp struck or oxen inspanned with such rapidity before. But before the first tent was fairly down, they were all enormously relieved to see Mazooku coming trotting cheerfully across the plain, droning a little Zulu song as he ran. His appearance, however, was by no means cheerful, for he was perfectly drenched with blood, some of it flowing from a wound in his left shoulder, and the rest evidently, till recently, the personal property of somebody else. Arrived in front of where Mr. Alston and Ernest were standing, he raised his broad assegai, which was still dripping blood, and saluted.
“I hear,” said Mr. Alston.
“I have done the Inkoosi Mazimba’s bidding. There were two of them; the first I killed easily in the hollow, but the other, a very big man, fought well for a Basutu. They are dead, and I threw them into a hole, that their brothers might not find them easily.”
“Good! go wash yourself and get your master’s things into the waggon. Stop! let me sew up that cut. How came you to be so awkward as to get touched by a Basutu?”