These animals were their wealth and their very reason for existence. As mujiba they had attended the birthings, in the veld, and helped to beat off the hyena and the other predators. They knew each animal by name and loved them with that special type of love that will make the pastoral man lay down his own life to protect his herds.
In the front rank was a warrior so old that his legs were thin as those of the marabou stork and whose skin was the colour of a tobacco pouch and puckered in a network of fine wrinkles. It seemed there was no moisture left in his dried out ancient frame, and yet fat heavy tears rolled down his withered cheeks as he watched the cattle shot down.
The crash of rifle fire went on until sunset, and when it at last was silent, the kraal was filled with carcasses. They lay upon each other in deep windrows like the wheat after the scythes have passed. Not a single Matabele had left the scene, they watched in silence now, their mourning long ago silenced.
"The carcasses must be burned," Mungo St. John strode down the front rank of warriors. "I want the carcasses covered with wood. No man is spared this labour, neither the sick nor the old. Every man will wield an axe, and when they are covered, I will put the fire to it myself." "What is the mood of the people?" Bazo asked softly, and Babiaan, the senior of all the old king's councillors, answered him.
It was not lost on the others in the packed beehive thatched hut that Babiaan's tone was respectful.
"They are sick with grief," said Babiaan. "Not since the death of the old king has there been such despair in their hearts as now that the cattle are being killed." "It is almost as though the white men wish to plunge the assegai in their own breast." Bazo nodded. "Each cruel deed strengthens us, and confirms the prophecy of the Umlimo.
Can there be one amongst you who still has doubts?" "There are no doubts. We are ready now," replied Gandang, his father, and yet he also looked to Bazo for confirmation, and waited for his reply.
"We are not ready." Bazo shook his head. "We will not be ready until the third prophecy of the Umlimo has come to pass." "When the hornless cattle are eaten up by the cross"," Sornabula. whispered.
"We saw the cattle destroyed today, those that the pestilence has spared." "That is not the prophecy," Bazo told them. "When it comes, there will be no doubt in our minds. Until that time we must continue with the preparations. What is the number of the spears, and where are they held?" One by one the other indunas stood and each made his report. They listed the numbers of warriors that were trained and ready, where each group was situated and how soon they could be armed and in the field.
When the last one had finished, Bazo went through the form of consulting the senior indunas, and then gave the field commanders their objectives.
"Suku, and una of the Imbezu impi. Your men will sweep the road from the Malundi drift southwards to Gwanda mine. Kill anybody you find upon the road, cut the copper wires at each pole. The amadoda working at the mine will be ready to join you when you reach there.
There are twenty-eight whites at Gwanda, including the women and the family at the trading-post. Afterwards, count the bodies to make certain that none has escaped." Suku repeated the orders, war perfectly displaying the phenomenal recall of the illiterate who cannot rely on written notes, and Bazo nodded and turned to the next commander to give him his instructions and to hear them recited back to him.
It was long after midnight before all of them had received and repeated their orders, and then Bazo addressed them again.
"Stealth and speed are our only allies. No warrior will carry a shield, for the temptation to drum upon it in the old way would be too strong. Steel alone, silent steel. There will be no singing the war songs when you run, for the leopard does not growl before he springs.
The leopard hunts in darkness, and when he enters the goat-shed he spares nothing as easily as he rips the throat from the billy, he kills also the nanny and the kids." "Women?" asked Babiaan sombrely.
"Even as they shot down Ruth and Imbali,"Bazo nodded. "Children?" asked another and una
"Little white girls grow up to bear little white boys, and little white boys in their turn grow up to carry guns. When a wise man finds a mamba's lair, he kills the snake and crushes the eggs under foot."
"Will we spare none?" "No, , Bazo confirmed quietly, but there was something in his voice that made Gandang, his father, shiver. He recognized the moment when the real power shifted from the old bull to the younger. Indisputably, Bazo was now their leader.
So it was Bazo who said at last, "Indaba peUle! The meeting is finished!" And one by one the indunas saluted him and left the the hut and slipped away into the night, and when the last was gone, the screen of goatskins at the back was pushed aside and Tanase stepped out and came to Bazo.
"I am so proud," she whispered, "that I want to weep like a silly girl." It was a long column, counting the women and children, almost a thousand human beings. It was strung out over a mile, winding like a maimed adder down out of the hills. Again custom was being flouted, for although the men led, they were burdened with grain bags and cooking-pots. Of ala, they would have carried only their shield and weapons. There were more than the two hundred strong men that Bazo had promised Henshaw.
The women came after them. Many of the men had brought more than one wife and some as many as four. Even the very young girls, those not yet in puberty, carried rolls of sleeping-mats balanced upon their heads, and the mothers had their infants slung upon their hips so that they could suckle from a fat black breast while on the march. Juba's roll of matting was as heavy as any of them. However, despite her great bulk, the younger women had to step out to keep pace with her.
Her high clear soprano led the singing.
Bazo came back along the column at an easy lope, unmarried girls turned their heads, careful not to unbalance their burdens, to watch him as he passed, and then they whispered and giggled amongst themselves, for though he was ravaged and scarred, the aura of power and purpose that surrounded him was intensely attractive to even the youngest and flightiest of them.
Bazo came level with Juba, and fell in at her side. "Mamewethu."
He greeted her respect hilly "The burdens of your young girls will be a little lighter after we cross the river. We will leave three hundred assegais concealed in the millet-bins and buried under the goat shed of Suku's people." "And the rest of them? "Juba asked.
"Those we will take with us to the Harkness Mine. A place of concealment has been prepared. From there your girls will take them out a few at a time to the outlying villages." Bazo started back towards the head of the column, but Juba called him back.
"My son, I am troubled, deeply troubled." "It grieves me, little Mother. What troubles you?" "Tanase tells me that all the white folk are to be kissed with steel." "All of them," Bazo nodded.