That night we camped near a kraal of one of the minor indunas and noted that there was less cordiality than usual. Tuys strolled over to the great fire and talked for some time with the warriors. In a little while he came back quite excited.
"Debeseembie, Lomwazi's brother, is over there," he said. "He is inside the kraal, but some of his men let out the fact that he was there. I wonder what he is doing? Suppose we try and find out."
This seemed a good idea, and Tuys went about it in his own cunning way. He strolled over to the fire and told one of the warriors that he had a bottle of gin for Debeseembie, but that he would only deliver it to him personally. Then he came back to where I was stretched on my blankets.
Now a Swazi, like all other kaffirs, will do anything for alcohol, even to the sacrifice of his royal dignity. Debeseembie was the son of a queen and the brother of the late King Buno; nevertheless, he was standing respectfully nearby within a few minutes.
"Nkoos, you have a present for me?" he asked, and I could see his eyes flash in anticipation.
"Yes, if you will sit and talk a while," I told him, and then produced a bottle. Tuys poured out a generous drink and gave it to him. Debeseembie choked it down, just as the kaffirs always do, and then gasped for breath for a moment.
Then Tuys began talking about many things, none of them with much bearing on the information we wanted. In a little while Debeseembie had another drink. He is the most sincere of all the royal family and I have always found him to be very trustworthy. He is not a good liar and seems to know it.
Gradually we led the conversation to the coming coronation and finally asked him the leading question: How soon will it be? He was not angered and gave us the first direct intimation of the trouble we had suspected.
"My brother, Lomwazi, doesn't want it to take place," he said; "and he has great power over our mother. He frightens her by telling her that she will have to die when Sebuza is crowned. All the people of Swaziland want to have a king and are tired of Labotsibeni and Lomwazi, and Tzaneen is working for her son's coronation. No one can tell when Sebuza will be made king. It may be never!"
That was what we wanted to know. Debeseembie, always at the old queen's elbow, ought to know what he was talking about and we felt that he had told the truth. A few moments later I gave him our last bottle of gin and he stumbled back to his kraal.