"Inkoos, I have met this girl before, I have met her when I have been sent to buy 'maas' (buttermilk) at the kraal."
"Good!"
"Inkoos, the girl came to bring heavy news, such as will press upon your heart. Secocoeni, chief of the Bapedi, who lives over yonder under the Blue Mountains, has declared war against the Boers."
"I hear."
"Sikukuni wants rifles for his men, such as the Boers use. He has heard of the Inkosis hunting here. To-night he will send an Impi to kill the Inkosis and take their guns."
"These are the words of the Intombi?"
"Yes, Inkoos, these are her very words. She was sitting outside the hut, grinding 'imphi' (Kafir corn) for beer, when she heard Secocoeni's messenger order her father to call the men together to kill us to-night."
"I hear. At what time of the night was the killing to be?"
"At the first break of dawn, so that they may have light to take the waggon away by."
"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 the 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.
"Well, I tell your master that I do not believe you. It is a lie you speak to him; you ran away from Cetywayo because you did not like to fight and be killed as the king's ox, as a brave man should."
The Zulu coloured up under his dusky skin, and again glanced at his wounds.
"Ow-w!" he said.
"Bah! there is no need for you to look at those scratches; they were left by women's nails. You are nothing but a woman. Silence! who told you to speak? If you are not a woman, show it. There is an armed Basuto among those rocks. He watches us. Your master cannot eat and sleep in peace when he is watched. Take that big stabbing assegai you are so fond of showing, and kill him, or die a coward! He must make no sound, remember."
Mazooku turned towards Ernest for confirmation of the order. A Zulu always likes to take his orders straight from his own chief. Mr. Alston noticed it, and added:
"I am the Inkoosi's mouth, and speak his words."
Mazooku saluted again, and turning, went to the waggon to fetch his assegai.
"Tread softly, or you will wake him; and he will run from so great a man," Mr. Alston called after him sarcastically.
"I go among the rocks to seek 'mouti'" (medicine), the Zulu answered with a smile.
"We are in a serious mess, my boy," said Mr. Alston to Ernest, "and it is a toss-up if we get out of it. I taunted that fellow so that there may be no mistake about the spy. He must be killed, and Mazooku would rather die himself than not kill him now."
"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 into the shadow, for the sun was setting rapidly. After what seemed a long pause to Ernest, who was watching his movements through a pair of field-glasses, he 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 another, 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 Basuto assegai to send you to join the spirit of Chaka."
The voorlooper 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 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
