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

to save us from defeat, which would have meant ruin to Gungana, if not death. And now he coolly gave me to understand that all the credit of it, the generalship of it, was to belong to him. This I had thought was the feat which should win me honour among the people, and my head-ring at the approving word of the King, and now it was all to go to the credit of my commander. I could hardly keep my face from speaking the wrath and disgust I felt – yet I did so, and called out that Gungana was my father, and as his child I had been privileged to do his bidding. For although it flashed upon me that if ever a day of reckoning should come Gungana would fare badly at my hands, yet now I wanted his good word; wherefore I flattered him.

      “Just then my eye was attracted by a movement among a heap of bodies lying piled up near me. I thought I heard a smothered groan. Then all the wolf-nature of my warrior blood sprang up within me. Here, then, was something more to slay. Good! With kindling eyes I gripped anew my broad assegai and leaped to the group of bodies. Yes; it was a groan. A pair of legs was protruding from the pile and feebly moving. Seizing them by the ankles, I tugged with all my might.

      “‘Come forth,’ I growled, for I was holding my assegai in my mouth to leave both hands free. ‘Come forth, and taste blade over again. Ha! killing is the only thing good to live for, after all. Come forth!’

      “Jerking out these words, I threw the corpses aside as one might throw faggots from a stack of firewood. Then another tug, and I found I was holding by the legs the body of an old man, wrinkled and white-bearded. Beyond a gash or two in the chest, he seemed unwounded, but his head was covered with blood. Clearly, a blow had felled him, but how was he still alive, how had he escaped being ripped, as is our custom?

      “‘Ha! I will make that good,’ I muttered savagely, seizing my assegai with that intent.

      “But something in the old man’s aspect arrested my arm.

      “He was, as I have said, very wrinkled and white-bearded. But his eyes – ah, such eyes! bright, keen, glittering – they were the eyes of a youth who, shoulder to shoulder with his fellow-warriors, is sweeping down upon his first enemy, instead of the filmy orbs of an old man who is tired of looking on this world. They seemed to burn, to pierce through me, to wither up all the strength of my right arm. I could not strike the spear down into his vitals; I could not remove my gaze from his. It was terrible! If his eyes burned like this while he was weak and wounded, and almost lifeless, what would they be like in the full vigour of health? And then I saw that his neck and body were hung with trappings and charms such as the izanusi (Witch-doctors) use.

      “‘Strike and slay me, if thou wilt, son of the King’s induna,’ he said, and his eyes seemed to glitter more fiercely, like those of a snake. ‘But if so, thou shalt never attain thy dearest desire.’

      “‘Son of the King’s induna,’ he had said. This was tagati (Wizardry) indeed. How did he know my estate?

      “‘And what desire I the most at this moment?’ said I.

      “‘The head-ring,’ he whispered.

      “‘All young warriors desire that,’ I answered with a laugh. ‘Tell me, O my father, if thy múti is strong enough, what desire I further, together with the isicoco?’

      “‘The dark-handled assegai of the King,’ he answered, without a moment’s pause.

      “‘Whau!’ I cried, bringing my hand to my mouth, and starting back in staring, open-mouthed amazement. This was more than marvellous. The promise which Umzilikazi had made to me, half laughingly, when we two were alone together, was known to this old sorcerer of an alien race, who must have been many days distant at the time. Nor, of course, had he ever seen Nangeza, who alone shared the secret. My desire for the head-ring proved nothing as to his wonder-working powers, because, as I had said, all young men wished for that. But this! In truth it was more than marvellous!

      “‘Thy múti is indeed strong, O my father!’ I went on when I had recovered a little. ‘But say – shall I obtain that which I desire?’

      “‘If I die here thou shalt never obtain it. If I live thou shalt have the King’s dark-handled assegai.’

      “Now, while I had been talking with this wonderful old man, my comrades and the bulk of our impi had been seated on the ground resting after the violence and fury of the fight. Some, too, had wounds to attend to; but all were sitting or lying about resting, and the place where I now stood being a little depression in the ground, they had not noticed me. Now, however, attracted by the sound of voices, several of them came swaggering up.

      “‘Ha, Untúswa!’ roared the foremost. ‘You have found more meat to kill. Come, we will help you kill it.’ And, poising his assegai, he sprang forward to the old Mosutu witch-doctor.

      (Mosutu and Basutu. Basutu is a plural word, and denotes the tribe, or more than one member of it. The singular is Mosutu.)

      “‘Stand! Stand back!’ I thundered. ‘This is not a man to kill. He must be taken to the King.’

      “‘To the King! Ha, ha! The King does not want to see the faces of such withered old images. You are mad, Untúswa.’

      “‘Mad or sane, this man shall be taken to the King,’ I answered.

      “‘Ha! Since when has Untúswa, the umfane been made an induna?’ they jeered. ‘Of a truth he believes himself a bigger man than the King.’

      (Umfane: “boy,” i.e., technically, one who has not attained to the distinction of the head-ring.)

      “And others, drawn by the tumult, had come to join the first, and now the air rang with roars and shouts of derision. But above them all the old man’s marvellously prophetic words still echoed in my ears. At all risks I was determined to save him.

      “‘Who is the most about the King, O pack of fools?’ I cried. ‘Yourselves or I? Know, then, that the Elephant, whose tread shaketh the world, has heard much of these Basutu izanusi, who learn their magic in dark caves of the mountains – has often wished to converse with them and test their skill. Here is one of them at last, and go to the King he shall. I would not give much for the life of the man who slays him.’

      “Standing over the old witch-doctor with my assegai in my hand confronting that riotous, roaring crowd, flushed with victory and bloodshed, I know not how things might have gone even then. But at that moment the induna Gungana, attracted by the tumult, himself drew near, and that in time to catch my last words.

      “‘Give way!’ he said, striding through the group – ‘give way! What is this? An isanusi, and alive? By the head-ring of the Great Great One from whose rule we have gone out, but he must have brought himself to life again, for assuredly all were slain but a moment before. Ha! that is well. Now shall the King have his oft-expressed wish. He shall behold this Mosutu rain-maker, and test his magic. What – is that you, Untúswa?’

      “Now, it happened that Umzilikazi had expressed no such wish. In my despair of finding a plea, I had invented this as a reason for sparing the old magician. I could see now that Gungana’s design was to supplant me in this, even as he had done in my plan for overmastering the Basutu kraal. If sparing the life of the old witch-doctor proved acceptable to the King, he, Gungana, would get the credit for it; if not – then I laughed to myself, for in that case he would have fallen into his own trap. And if anything should go wrong with the King hereafter, who but Gungana was it who had brought this foreign wizard into our camp? But before I could answer a shout went up from the warriors standing in the background, and all heads were turned accordingly.

      “‘The King! The King is coming!’ And the words were taken up by all there present, and, with the phrases of bonga flowing thick and fast from our lips, all eyes were turned upon a cloud of dust on the horizon – distant, but drawing nearer and nearer.

      “‘Go now, Untúswa, who art the chief runner. Go now, and meet the Great Great One with word of our victory,’ commanded Gungana.”

      Chapter Four.

      The Tyay’igama Dance

      “Hardly