The King's Assegai. Mitford Bertram

      “Still the King’s impi could not understand that we intended seriously to give battle; and indeed, as we gazed forth upon this immense sea of tossing spears and tufted shields rolling up towards us, it was little to be wondered at. For we were as a mouthful to it. Yet every man of us was fighting for his life, and under such circumstances the meanest of animals will show bravery. But yet we were fighting for something more—for freedom, for the pride of setting up a new nation.

      “On they came, those waves of a living sea, and the earth shook beneath the rumble of their tread; the air rustled with the hissing of their plumes. And as they advanced they raised the great battle-song of Tshaka, its echoes tossing like thunder from cliff to cliff:—

      “ ‘Waqeda - qeda izizwe!

       Uyauhlasela pi-na?’

       “ ‘Thou hast made an end - made an end of the nations.

       Whither now wilt thou maraud?’ ”

      “Above was the narrow opening of the pass, and between, for a little distance, a well-nigh open space. Here we met them hand to hand; here we held them back, while those behind pressed them onward by sheer force of weight. Foot by foot we met them, forced slowly back, but ever with our faces toward them. The ground was wet with blood, alive with falling, writhing bodies. The heights rang back our screams of rage, our defiant war-cries, and the clangour of our blows. Foot by foot we gave way; but they never got above us, never got around us. Thus shone forth the generalship of our chief in choosing this for our fighting-ground.

      “Above us the pass narrowed to a steep rock-gateway overhung by lofty slopes. Suddenly, at the signal of a loud, sharp whistle, our men ceased the fight as though slain, and, turning, sprang into retreat, pouring through this great natural door. With a roar the king’s impi dashed forward in pursuit, then paused in obedience to the mandate of its leaders, who suspected a snare.

      “But only for a moment did it thus halt. The mighty mass of our would-be destroyers surged up the pass and began to stream through the narrow defile. On they came, shouting ever the battle-cry; and then—Whau, Nkose! you should have soon what happened! It was as though the mountains were falling in upon us. For from either side great masses of rock came crashing down the slopes—enormous blocks of stone—some splitting into fragments as they bounded and rolled, others crashing, in their stupendous size, upon the warriors of Tshaka. These in dismay tried to draw back, but could not, for the weight of those behind pressed them on; failing in this, they bounded forward, and our assegais were there to receive them, while all the time the rolling rocks were crashing down upon their rear, filling up the entire mouth of the gap. We had shut back the army of Tshaka as it were by a gate. The great pile of rocks which filled the gap was far too high for men to leap over, too loose to be pulled down, lest the entire mass should fall upon and crush them. Such was the strategy of our chief.

      “And now upon those of our enemies who were thus walled in with us there bore down the whole of our force, led by Umzilikazi in person. Those of us who were in flight turned, re-formed, and sprang like lightning to the charge; while others of us, who had been lying concealed, leaped from our ambush, and, forming a dense half-circle, we rushed upon the warriors of Tshaka. These were about two thousand, we being four times their number. But, encouraged by the roars of their brethren on the other side, they stood their ground. Whau! it was like a contest of lions! When we whirled down upon them they met us in full shock; about them there was no giving way. But by the time a man might have counted a hundred, nigh half their number had fallen; but we, too, had lost fearfully. In the same time again there would not have been one left, when Umzilikazi, waving his great shield, cried, in tones of thunder, to give them a truce.

      “ ‘Yield, Gungana!’ he cried to the induna in command. ‘Yield, men of Tshaka! To fight on is death; to return to the king is death. We go to find a new kingdom. Join us—for it is better to live than to die.’

      “ ‘Thou sayest truly, son of Matyobane,’ replied Gungana, after a moment of hesitation. Many, too, were there in that body who in their hearts favoured Umzilikazi, and were tired of the hard rule of Tshaka. If they went back to the King with their task unperformed, or badly performed, certain death awaited, and from the stout resistance we had made they deemed our force to be greater than it was. So the warriors agreed to accept their lives and come under our chief.

      “This settled, we resumed our flight. And with this new accession to our fighting strength, we moved up the pass, singing back at those who would have followed, in derision, the war-song of Tshaka, but altered to, ‘We go to find new nations to conquer.’ Then it grew dark, but still we pressed on to where our women and cattle were awaiting us higher up, and, marching through the night, the next morning we gained the other side of the mountains.

      “Then it was as the word of our chief had promised us. Fair and rolling plains lay beneath us, stretching as far as the eye could behold, dotted with kraals and cattle, and away in the distance coursed herds of game—elands and springboks and gnus and many other kinds. Then our eyes and our hearts were glad, and great and mighty was the acclamation with which we greeted him who had thus led us forth, and with one voice we all cried the royal ‘Bayéte!’ A new nation hailed Umzilikazi as King.”

Chapter Two.

       Table of Contents

      The King’s Promise.

      “We saw no more of Tshaka’s impi. Perhaps it was that a great cloud came upon the mountains after our passage and rested there for days, and they attempted to follow, and failed because of the darkness and the mist, or refrained from following at all. Anyhow, this cloud came, as I have said, and all men hailed it as a good omen and that Umzilikazi’s múti (Medicine, mystery, magic. In this sense, the latter) had caused it to gather thus, in order that we might evade further pursuit.

      “But as we swept down upon this new land like a swarm of devastating locusts—ah, the terror of its people! The report was cried from kraal to kraal that the great Zulu sea had overflowed the mountains, and was sweeping on to engulf all within the black fury of its wrath. Wherefore soon we found nothing but empty kraals, whose people had fled, but we took their cattle and their grain, and laughed and went on. Then, as our march progressed further and further, we began to find kraals which were not empty, and whose people had neglected to remove out of our destroying path. Au! it was something to see the faces of these as we sprang upon them with our fierce, roaring war-shout, which was as the thunders of heaven. Their faces were those of men already dead, and dead they soon were, for our spears devoured them as they stood, or as they lay, screaming for mercy. But mercy was no part of our plan in those days—not that Umzilikazi loved bloodshed for its own sake, or was wantonly cruel, as some of the white men say, but it was necessary to stamp out all the people in our path, to leave none behind who should say to Tshaka’s impis pursuing us: ‘This way has Umzilikazi gone.’ So a broad trail of fire and blood marked our course, which, indeed, a man might trace by watching the clouds of vultures aloft in the heavens. But time went on, and we moved further and further from Zululand, and still no pursuit.

      “Now, of all this killing I and many others of the younger warriors soon grew tired. It was too much like cattle-slaying, falling upon these unresisting people, who had no fight in them. What we desired was to meet an enemy in arms, and some, fired with all this blood-shedding, even whispered of turning back to meet the impis of Tshaka in fair fight. However, when we came near the country of the Basutu we got fighting enough, for these people were brave, and though they would not meet us in the open, would retire to their cliff dwellings and hill forts and resist us fiercely, studding the approaches to their strongholds with assegai points to cut our feet and legs to pieces as we drew near, or rolling down showers of rocks upon us, so that we must flee or be crushed. This sort of fighting was not to our tastes, and we would taunt them and call them cowards for skulking behind rocks instead of coming forth to meet us in the open, man to man; and yet they were not cowards, for every race has its own method of fighting—besides,