The King's Assegai: A Matabili Story. Mitford Bertram

leaped. I could leap in those days as well as run. My leap carried me clear over the stockade, right into the thick of the swarming Basutu. But I was alone. None had followed.

      “Then I saw red. How I cut and slashed with the strong, broad – bladed assegai in my hand! Grinning, furious faces hemmed me in; a bright forest of blades struck and hacked at me from every side. I could feel the burning sear of wounds, the stunning shock of knob-kerries on my great war-shield. I could feel more – I could feel blood, that of my enemies; I could feel the keen blade of my assegai shearing through them, as they fell one upon another. Ah, the madness of it! The ecstasy of it! What a glorious form of death was this! I, alone, beset by foes – felling them around me like trees! I, alone, where none had dared follow! Ha! surely no braver deed was ever done! The King would be satisfied now! Dancing, leaping, thrusting, parrying, I hewed my way through the encompassing crowd, further and further into the kraal, further and further to death. But for death I cared nothing now, and I laughed aloud. My furious war-shout was answered by my comrades outside. Ah, but – they were still outside!

      “Now my end would be gained. A curl of blue smoke arose from above the lines of huts, and towards this I was making, surely, craftily, cunningly. I had left off fighting now, and was dodging my enemies round and among the huts. Ha! they could not overtake me, for had they not to do with the King’s chief runner? – and there were none to stop me, for all were engaged in defending the stockade.

      “The fire at last! It burned bright and clear in front of a larger hut than the rest, and round it sat a ring of witch-doctresses mumbling incantations. So intent were they upon this that I drove my assegai through the nearest before they discovered that a Zulu warrior was in their very midst. Au! the she-cats! What a yell they gave as they flung themselves on the ground and screeched for mercy! But I laughed, and, having speared two more of them as they lay there, I snatched the flaming brands from the fire and flung them upon the thatch of half a dozen of the nearest huts, which in an instant were a mass of flame and smoke.

      “All this had taken but a moment of time, and now, as my pursuers came up, I shovelled as much of the fire upon my shield as I had time to do, then started to run, dodging them round the huts as before. As I came to the stockade again, those defending it looked round, and seeing a strange figure bearing fire upon a shield, must have taken me in the fray for one of their own witch-doctresses, and instead of attacking me they waited to see what I would do. But they had not long to wait.

      “Darting through them, I poured the whole glowing burning mass into the stockade; and, indeed, it was high time, for my shield was nearly charred through. The thick thorn-fence was as dry as months of uninterrupted sunshine could make it. It caught at once, shooting out into myriads of serpentine tongues of fire. Hau! It roared, it crackled, and already the flames from the huts I had first set on fire were darting like lightning from thatch to thatch!

      “‘I return, men of the King!’ I roared, fearing to be mistaken for one of the Basutu and speared as I leaped back over the stockade. A shout of recognition greeted my words, and, striking right and left, I plunged through the now flaming fence, through the fire itself.

      “‘Now we have them!’ I cried, as I once more found myself among my own people. ‘A pretty blaze! Now have we smoked the game from its cover!’

      “As the words left my lips there burst forth a wild shrieking and yelling. The wind had fanned the flames so that the kraal was now one mass of red fire and whirling smoke-clouds. The women and children, panic-stricken, were fleeing wildly, rushing headlong upon our spears. But just then the fighting Basutu, massing into a body, charged furiously out of the kraal on the side I was attacking. With their heads lowered, emitting from their teeth a succession of the most shrill and strident whistles, striking to right and to left with their assegais and battle-axes, on they came. Not even the King’s troops could have charged more impetuously, more unswervingly. Whau! In a moment they were in our midst. In a moment we had closed up around them. Their whole fighting strength was here, and we had hemmed it in. In a moment they were all broken up into furious struggling groups – and how they fought, how we fought! It was silence then. No man spoke – no man shouted. You could hear only the gasp of laboured breathing, the stamp of striving feet, the jarring crash of shields and weapons, the dull thump of a falling body, the crackling roar of the blazing kraal, whence clouds of smoke were floating across our faces and blinding our eyes so that we could hardly see each other, and struck and stabbed wildly at random, to the peril of friend as well as of foe. But it could not last – we were too many, too invincible. We stood stupidly staring at each other, swaying, tottering with exhaustion and excitement, for the fray had been fierce. Before, around us, lay heaps of weltering corpses, hacked and battered, the blood welling from scores of spear-stabs. These we ripped according to our custom; those of the enemy, that is; for of our own warriors there were also heaps of slain; indeed, the Basutu had fought like cornered lions. No prayer for mercy was upon their lips. Brave, fierce, defiant to the last, they had fallen.

      “And now above the crackling roar of the flames and the wild, fierce, triumphant shout which swelled to the heavens from our victorious throats came the doleful shrieking of women, who saw their little ones speared or flung into the flames, who themselves lay beneath the sharp kiss of the spear-blade; for we Zulus, when we see red, spare no living thing. And we saw red that day – ah, yes, we saw red. Ha! By the time a man could have counted fifty from the moment the fighting had ceased not one who had inhabited that kraal, even to the last dog, was left alive.

      “‘Hau!’ cried Gungana, the second induna in command of our impi, as he stood gazing upon a heap of the slaughtered women, among whom were several who were young and pleasant to look upon. ‘Hau! I think we have made too much of a mouthful of the King’s enemies. Now, some of these would have been better alive than dead, for of girls among us we have none too many. It is a pity we did not save some.’

      “‘Perhaps so,’ said I. ‘But, deferring to your head-ring, O Gungana, I seem to have heard the King say he liked not these intermarriages, and the mingling of the blood of the Amazulu, “the People of the Heavens,” with that of inferior races.’

      “I fancied that Gungana looked at me somewhat askance, and a queer smile played about his bearded lips. He was that same induna who had come over to us with Tshaka’s force, and him our King had promoted to great honour.

      “‘Whau, Untúswa! Thou art but a boy, and claimest to know over-much of the King’s mind,’ he said.

      “‘In fear I do so, my father,’ I replied deferentially. ‘I ask nothing but such a fight as we have had to-day. And have I not fought?’ showing my hacked and charred shield and my body streaming with blood from several ugly gashes. ‘Did I not put in the fire that smoked these wolves out of their den? And now, O my father, will you not whisper it in the ear of the King that the son of Ntelani, although but a boy, can fight, can plan?’

      “‘It may be that I will do so, Untúswa,’ he answered.

      “But that strange look was still upon his face as he turned away, and I liked it not. For by this time my continual presence about the King was looked upon with distrust by many of the indunas. Even my father was jealous of me, and this being so, wherefore should Gungana look upon me with more favourable eyes? But it was in his power to speak the word which should obtain for me my head-ring, or not to speak it, wherefore I treated him almost as deferentially as I would the King himself. Moreover, I flattered him.

      “‘Au!’ I cried, ‘am I not but a thoughtless boy? Who am I that I should boast of my own deeds in the presence of an induna of the King, before the brain which thought for the impi, before the eyes which were the sight of the impi? Let it be but whispered in the King’s ear that the son of Ntelani was near the right hand of Gungana throughout the battle. That will be distinction enough.’

      “This told. The induna turned half round to listen, and a different expression came into his face. This time he looked pleased.

      “‘Rest easy, son of Ntelani,’ he said. ‘The man whom I sent to set fire to the kraal will not be forgotten.’

      “We Zulus are not like you white people, Nkose, whose faces