Nomusa would like to have watched more, but again the Zulus were on the march. They were in a hurry to get home, and they rested only briefly.
In the distance they could see the rolling hills on which the kraals were situated. Nomusa was glad that this was so, for she was very tired. How good it would be to lie on her mat and sleep and sleep!
She was not keeping up with the others very well, but no one seemed to pay any attention. Ahead of her she could see Damasi walking with Zabala. They were having a good time laughing and talking together, and Nomusa thought crossly that Damasi seemed to have forgotten she was with them. He did not even look back to see where she was.
As she moved wearily along, Nomusa kept on thinking of the joy of returning. How glad she would be to see her mother and the baby sister! How she would hug her chubby little brother! And Mdingi and funny Kangata—
Nomusa’s busy thoughts made her forget her weariness, but they made her less cautious, too. If she had been intent on where she was walking, she would have been suspicious of the place in the trail where some branches had fallen and the grasses were oddly disturbed. She would have gone around it as the others had.
But Nomusa’s thoughts were far away, and the next thing she knew she lay at the bottom of a pit, on top of the body of a small leopard. It was dead, with an arrow in its neck. Her first feeling was that she was thankful the leopard was dead. But soon she realized that she could not get out of the pit without help. In a frenzy she began shouting for someone to come and help her. How long must she stay here? Would she ever get out? The hunters might even reach the kraals before they knew she was missing.
Nomusa was brave, but it was dark and hot in the pit, and she was very tired. The minutes crawled by, and she began to feel less and less a fearless hunter and more and more a frightened ten-year-old girl.
Maybe she would never see her mother and her brothers and sisters again. Maybe they would never find her and never know what had happened to her. Tears welled up in Nomusa’s eyes in spite of herself. Again she called, this time somewhat feebly. Thirst consumed her, and her body felt unbearably hot and sticky. Why, oh why, had she ever wanted to be a hunter? If only she had stayed at home this would never have happened to her.
She tried several times to make toeholds in the sheer sides of the pit, but the soft earth crumbled away. By now she didn’t even know what time of day it was. It seemed ages since she had fallen into the pit. She shuddered fearfully at the thought of being there all night. A live animal might fall in, too; Nomusa’s vivid imagination pictured all sorts of dreadful encounters with snarling, clawing lions and leopards.