Next morning I told Umslopogaas of the visit I had received from the_Induna_ of the King who wished me to come to the royal kraal. He noddedand said,
"As it chances certain thieves attacked me on my journey, which is whyone or two of my people remain behind who will never travel again. Wemade good play with those thieves; not one of them escaped," headded grimly, "and their bodies we threw into a river where are manycrocodiles. But their spears I brought away and I think that they aresuch as the King's guard use. If so, his search for them will be long,since the fight took place where no man lives and we burned the shieldsand trappings. Oho! he will think that the ghosts have taken them."
That morning we trekked on fast, fearing lest a regiment searching forthese "thieves" should strike and follow our spoor. Luckily the ox thatthe lion had killed was one of some spare cattle which I was drivingwith me, so its loss did not inconvenience us. As we went Umslopogaastold me that he had duly appointed Lousta and his wife Monazi to rulethe tribe during his absence, an office which they accepted doubtfully,Monazi acting as Chieftainess and Lousta as her head _Induna_ orCouncillor.
I asked him whether he thought this wise under all the circumstances,seeing that it had occurred to me since I made the suggestion, that theymight be unwilling to surrender power on his return, also that otherdomestic complications might ensue.
"It matters little, Macumazahn," he said with a shrug of his greatshoulders, "for of this I am sure, that I have played my part with thePeople of the Axe and to stop among them would have meant my death,who am a man betrayed. What do I care who love none and now have nochildren? Still, it is true that I might have fled to Natal with thecattle and there have led a fat and easy life. But ease and plenty I donot desire who would live and fall as a warrior should.
"Never again, mayhap, shall I see the Ghost-Mountain where the wolvesravened and the old Witch sits in stone waiting for the world to die,or sleep in the town of the People of the Axe. What do I want with wivesand oxen while I have _Inkosikaas_ the Groan-maker and she is true tome?" he added, shaking the ancient axe above his head so that the sungleamed upon the curved blade and the hollow gouge or point at the backbeyond the shaft socket. "Where the Axe goes, there go the strength andvirtue of the Axe, O Macumazahn."
"It is a strange weapon," I said.
"Aye, a strange and an old, forged far away, says Zikali, by awarrior-wizard hundreds of years ago, a great fighter who was also thefirst of smiths and who sits in the Under-world waiting for it to returnto his hand when its work is finished beneath the sun. That will besoon, Macumazahn, since Zikali told me that I am the last Holder of theAxe."
"Did you then see the Opener-of-Roads?" I asked.
"Aye, I saw him. He it was who told me which way to go to escape fromZululand. Also he laughed when he heard how the flooded rivers broughtyou to my kraal, and sent you a message in which he said that the spiritof a snake had told him that you tried to throw the Great Medicine intoa pool, but were stopped by that snake, whilst it was still alive. This,he said, you must do no more, lest he should send another snake to stop_you_."
"Did he?" I replied indignantly, for Zikali's power of seeing orlearning about things that happened at a distance puzzled and annoyedme.
Only Hans grinned and said,
"I told you so, Baas."
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