The Zulu chief listened intently to all the arguments pro and con, but never opened his mouth until Grenville, addressing him in the Zulu tongue, asked him to express his opinion upon the matter under notice.
“Can my father,” he said, “tell his son Amaxosa, whither the Black One (Zero) has journeyed?”
“Surely, my brother,” answered Grenville, “didst thou not hear when but yesterday we stood yonder tethered like oxen for the slaughter that he had compassed thrice three days’ travel towards the east, and that his bloodhounds could not return in time to gnaw the flesh from our broken bones?”
“Ay, Inkoos,” was the reply, “I heard the words, but yet believed them not. Hearken! my father, when the Black One went forth, he went at dead of night, and with him went the savage dogs and but one hundred men with guns. Think, then, my father, for well thou knowest that did the Black One journey but one day towards the rising sun without a full impi at his back, he would be eaten up by the Arab tribes, who dwell outside this land of witchcraft, and who hate him even as we do. More, my father, I know that the men lied when they spoke, for only yester morn did I see two of the snow-white message birds arrive, and they came from the mountains of the distant southern lands.
“Hearken to my words, oh, chiefs! and if ye follow them, doubt not that all shall yet go well.
“To-morrow night, when the moon rises, will the Black One rest beneath the cool shadow of yon distant peak; let us be there, oh! chiefs, and he shall sleep the sleep that never wakes in life.
“Thus shall the matter go—thou knowest well the place, my father—the evil ones will come in from the southern lands—the Lands of Lakes and Rivers—and will set their kraal beneath the great white mountain, and towards the setting sun, at the spot in the deep hollow where there ever flows a spring of clear, sweet water, where is a mighty wall of rock on this side and on that side, and a hill hard to be climbed towards the further north; and it shall be, my father, that when the evil ones, filled with food and worn with the toil of the day, have entered into the trap, and have lain them down to rest, that we will turn from its course the flowing waters of the great river which runs on the path of the rising sun, and will fill the place with weeping, and with the bodies of dead men.
“With ten of these low black fellows (Zanzibaris) will I turn the river, and with those that remain, and with the spears and guns, shalt thou, my father, safely keep the northern hill, and it shall be that ere the arrows of the dawn glance upon the snows of the great white mountain, the evil ones shall be stamped flat and eaten up, and the foul carcase of the Black Master of Evil himself, shall be but food for the vultures and the wolves. I have spoken.”
The Zulu’s idea was, unquestionably, a very fine one, and promised to rid our friends of their arch-enemy, together with a hundred of the very vilest of his following at one fell swoop, and it was therefore determined that the plan should be adopted in its entirety, their own party thus taking the initiative.
If the scheme failed, the little band would be really no worse off than they were at the present time, whilst if it succeeded—and with the cunning of the Zulu at its back, it certainly had every chance of success—the campaign would be capitally inaugurated by drawing the lion’s teeth at the very first attempt. Zero, it was conceded upon all sides, was the one man to be feared, and could they but dispose of him out of hand, the Mormon-cum-Slaver fraternity would be like a ship without a helm, and would very soon find itself in unpleasantly rough water.