"You want us to walk into their trap, rather than draw them out?"
Mungo asked.
"You'll not draw them out. I think their commander here is Gandang, the king's half-brother. He is far too cunning to come at us in the open. If you want to fight them, it must be in the bad ground."
"When the serpent is coiled, with his head drawn back and his mouth agape to show the venom hanging like drops of dew upon his fangs, then the wise man does not stretch out his hands towards him." Gandang spoke softly, and the other indunas cocked their heads to listen to his words. "The wise man waits until the serpent uncoils and begins to creep away, then he steps upon the head and crushes it. We must wait. We must wait to take them in the forests, when the wagons are strung out, and the outriders cannot see one another. Then we cut the column into pieces and swallow each one, a mouthful at a time."
"Yet my young men are tired of waiting," said Manonda, facing Gandang across the fire. Manonda was the commander of the elite Insukamini impi, and though there was silver on his head, there was still fire in his heart. They all knew him to be brave to the edge of folly, quick to take an insult, and quicker still to revenge it.
"These white barbarians have marched unopposed across our lands, while we trail around them like timid girls guarding our maidenheads and giggling behind our hands. My young men grow weary of waiting, Gandang, and I with them."
"There is a time for timidity, Manonda, my cousin, and there is a time to be brave."
"The time to be brave is when your enemy stands brazenly before you. They are six hundred, you have counted them yourself, Gandang, and we are six thousand."
Manonda grinned mockingly around the circle of listening men. On the brow of each was the headring of high office, and on their arms and legs the tassels of courage.
"Shame on those that hesitate," said Manonda, the Bold.
"Shame on you, Bazo. Shame on you, Ntabene. Shame on you, Gainbo." His voice was filled with scorn, and as he said each of their names they hissed with angry denial.
Then suddenly here was a sound from beyond the circle of squatting indunas, a sound in the night that chilled and silenced them all. It was the eerie wail of mourning for the dead, and as they listened it came closer, and with it were many other voices.
Gandang sprang to his feet and challenged loudly.
"Who comes?"
And out of the darkness a dozen guards, half dragged and half carried an old woman. She wore only a skirt of untanned hyena skin, and around her neck the grisly accoutrements and trappings of the witch's trade. Her eyes were rolled up into her head so that the whites flashed in the firelight, and her spittle foamed on her slack lips. From her throat issued the wails of mourning for the dead.
"What is it, witch?" Gandang demanded, his superstitious fears twisting his mouth and darkening his eyes.
"What tidings do you bring?"
"The white men have desecrated the holy places. They have destroyed the chosen one of the spirits. They have slaughtered the priests of the nation. They have entered the cave of the Umlimo in the sacred hills, and her blood is splashed upon the ancient rocks. Woe unto all of us. Woe unto those who do not seek revenge. Kill the white men. Kill them all!" The witch threw off the restraining hands of the guard and, with a wild shriek, hurled herself into the midst of the leaping flames of the watch-fire.
Her skirt burst into flames. Her wild bush of hair burned like a torch. They drew back in horror.
"Kill the white men," screamed the witch from out of the flames, and they stared as her skin blackened and her flesh peeled from off her bones. She collapsed and a torrent of sparks flew up into the overhanging branches of the forest, and then there was only the crackle and drum of the fire.
Bazo stood in the stunned silence, and he felt the rage rising from deep within his soul. Staring into the flames at the black and twisted remains of the witch, he felt the same need of sacrifice, an atonement and a surcease from the rage and the grief.
He saw in the yellow flames an image of Tanase's beloved face, and something seemed to tear in his chest.
Jee!" he said, drawing out the war cry, giving expression to his rage. Jee!" He lifted the assegai and pointed the blade in the direction of the river and the white men's laager which lay not more than a mile beyond the dark silhouette of the hills. Jee!" and the night breeze turned the tears cold as the snow-melt from the Drakensberg mountains upon his cheeks.
Jee!" Manonda took up the chant, and stabbed towards the enemy, and the divine madness descended upon them. Gandang was the only one who had reason and fear of consequence left to him.
"Wait!"he cried. "Wait, my children and my brothers."
But they were gone already, racing away into the darkness to rouse their sleeping impis.
Zouga Ballantyne could not sleep, though his back and thighs still ached for rest from hard riding, and the earth under his blanket was no harder than that on which he had passed a thousand other nights. He lay and listened to the snores and occasional dreamers" gabble from the men around him, while vague forebodings and dark thoughts kept him from joining them in slumber.
Once again vivid memories of the little tragedy in the cave of the Umlimo returned to plague him, and he wondered how long it would be before the news of the atrocity reached the king and his indunas. It might take weeks for a witness to come down from the cave of the Matopos, but when that happened, he would know it by the actions of the Matabele indunas.
From the opposite side of the laager a sky-rocket went hissing up into the night sky, and popped into little red stars high in the heavens. The pickets had been firing a rocket every hour, to guide a missing patrol into the laager.
Now Zouga reached under the saddle that was his pillow and brought out the gold hunter watch. In the light of the sky rocket he checked the time. It was three o'clock in the morning. He threw off his blanket, and groped for his boots. While he pulled them on, his premonition of lurking evil grew stronger.
He strapped on his bandolier and checked the Webley service revolver hanging on the webbing. Then he stepped over the sleeping blanket-wrapped forms around him and went down to the horse lines. The bay gelding whickered as it recognized him, and Jan Cheroot woke.
"It is all right," Zouga told him quietly, but the little Hottentot yawned and, with the blanket over his shoulders like a shawl, hobbled across to stir the ashes of his cooking-fire. He set the blue enamel coffee pot on the coals and, while it was heating, they sat side by side and talked quietly like the old friends that they were.
"Less than sixty miles to Gubulawayo," Jan Cheroot murmured. "It's taken us more than thirty years, but now at last I feel we are coming home."
"I have bought up almost forty land grants," Zouga agreed. "That is nearly a quarter of a million acres. Yes, Jan Cheroot, we are coming home at last. By God, it's been a long, hard road, though, from the pit of Kimberley mine to the Zambezi -" Zouga broke off and listened.
There had been a faint cry, almost like a night bird, from beyond the laager.
"The Mashona," Jan Cheroot grunted. "The general should have let them stay in the laager."
During the slow trek up from Iron Mine Hill, many small groups of Mashona had come to the wagons, begging protection from the assembling Matabele. They knew from bitter experience what to expect when the impis swept across the land in battle array.
"The general could not take that chance." Zouga shook his head. "There may be Matabele spies amongst them, he has to guard against treachery."
Mungo Sint John had ordered the refugees to keep clear of the laager, and now there were three or four hundred, mostly black women and children, camped amongst the thorn trees on the river bank, five hundred yards from the nearest wagon.
Zouga lifted the coffee pot from the coals and poured the steaming black brew into his mug, then he cocked his head again to listen. There was a faint hubbub, a distant chorus of shrieks and shouts from the direction of the river. With the mug in his hand Zouga strolled across to the nearest wagon in the square, and climbed UP onto the disselboom. He peered out of the laager, towards the river.