"Ah! die perhaps, that is right," said one of the Amabuna, with an evil laugh.
"A King of the Amazulu does not die of words nor of fear," replied Tambusa, fiercely scornful. "Yet hearken to my message, even the "word"
of the Great Great One, whose mouth I am. Thus he speaks: "We made an agreement, have I not kept it? I have returned the guns and horses I promised; I have sent in part of the cattle I promised, I would have sent in all, but you preferred to leave the remainder with me for the present. Well, it is there, send and take it, or shall I send it in?
Now you demand twice the number, and this I do not understand. Now you prepare to invade us in armed force, and threaten to make Mpande King in my place. This also I do not understand, and have sent my induna, Tambusa, as my "mouth" to say so. He is also my "ears," and will listen to and bring back your words to me." Thus spoke the Great Great One by whose light we live."
"Ha! The Great Great One by whose light we live!" jeered some of the Amabuna. "A Great Great murderer, who shall soon die."
To this Tambusa made no reply. His head was proudly erect, on his face a sneer of hate and scorn such as he could hardly conceal. Then the chief of the Amabuna spoke:
"To you we have nothing to say. To your captain"--for so he designated the King--"we have nothing to say. When the time comes we shall act, and come it will, very soon."
"We, too, know how to act," answered Tambusa. "_Hlalani gahle_! I retire."
He turned to leave--turned, to find a line of guns pointed full upon him at but a few paces distant.
"Halt--Kafir!"
The tone, the insult, the scowl on the s.h.a.ggy faces which glared at him from under their wide-brimmed hats, roused all the savage fighting blood in Tambusa, and those who beheld him say that the great veins in his forehead swelled until they seemed about to burst with the pressure of his head-ring. "Kafir!" Thus these refuse whites dared to address the chief induna of the royal race of Zulu, second only in greatness to the King himself! But he was helpless, for, as a peace amba.s.sador, he had of course been obliged to lay down his arms on entering the camp.
Now he turned to the leaders of the Amabuna, who were talking with their heads together.
"See you this?" he said, waving his hand towards the line of men who stood threatening him with their guns. "See you this? I, a peace messenger, am insulted and threatened. I, a peace messenger, am detained, when I would depart as I came. In truth, it is not good to trust to the good faith of the Amabuna."
"In truth it is not good to trust to the good faith of the Amazulu,"
answered the leader sternly. "Say, were not our people peace messengers--our people whose bones lie outside Nkunkundhlovu--who trusted in the good faith of that murderer, your chief?"
"Ha! But you? You are a holy people--a people of G.o.d, you told the King. We are only poor, ignorant black people," said Tambusa, taunting them, in his scornful wrath.
"But there is a G.o.d of justice," quickly replied the leader, "and He has delivered you into our hands to be dealt with as one of the chief murderers of our people. The others He will deliver to us in time. But enough of that. This is the matter now. The treacherous and cruel murder of our people at Nkunkundhlovu was counselled by you, Tambusa.
By you it was planned and arranged, by your orders it was carried out.
What have you to say?"
"That is not the matter about which I am here," replied the induna. "If ye would have me answer on that matter, ye should have sent men to bring me here, if they could have done it. It is a matter as to which now I will say no word."
"That is perhaps as well," answered the leader, "for here we have enough to prove your guilt over and over again." And with the words Tambusa saw the trap into which he had walked. Mpande had denounced him to the Amabuna--Mpande, whose death he had repeatedly counselled. He was as good as dead. Yet he only smiled, rearing his tall and stately form to its full height, and the smile was one of hatred and scorn and contempt.
But so deeply did it sting those Amabuna that they broke forth into curses, and some of them, rising from their seats, shook their fists in his face, crowding around him, and fairly howling with rage, all talking at once as they heaped every abusive name upon him, the King and the whole Zulu race. But the smile of contempt and scorn only deepened on the face of Tambusa as he stood therein his great stature like some mighty tree, while they snarled and leaped around him like jackals. At last he who sat at the head of the council succeeded in quieting them.
"Then you have nothing to say--no reason to urge why the punishment of death should not be dealt out to you?" said this man, speaking solemnly.
"There may be others, perhaps--others more guilty than yourself. If there is anything you can tell us--"
But here he stopped, for Tambusa had interrupted him by a loud, harsh laugh, so fierce that it sounded like a war-cry.
"Others? Anything I can tell you?" he repeated, with a very roar. "I, an induna of the right hand of the Great King, to give _you_ information! _Whau_! ye must be madmen. Not to save a hundred lives would I give you information as to even the youngest boy just enrolled among those who bear shields. Do I fear death--I, Tambusa? Why, I stare it in the face every day. And I think, _Ntshwai-ntshwai_, when death has been the game some of you must have seen my face before."
[Ntshwai-ntshwai. A nickname bestowed upon the Boers by the Zulus, being in fact an imitation of the swishing sound of their wide leather breeches as they moved.]
"He confesses!" cried those standing around. "Enough--enough. Let him be shot."
The leader of the council, having obtained silence, spoke:
"On your own showing, Tambusa, you are guilty of counselling and planning the cruel and treacherous murder of our brothers at Nkunkundhlovu while they were at that place by the invitation of the King and Zulu nation. They were set upon and slain in cold blood while partaking of Zulu hospitality; and for your share in this unprovoked and abominable ma.s.sacre this council adjudges you, Tambusa, to suffer death; and that, in execution of this sentence, you be taken outside the camp and forthwith shot."
There was a deep silence as the leader ceased speaking. It was broken by the voice of Tambusa:
"I, too, have something to say."
All started. Would this braggart, they thought, turn coward, and endeavour at the last moment to save his life? Ah, they little knew.
"Speak, then," said the leader. "But let it be brief."
"This boy," said Tambusa, with a wave of the hand towards Nkombazana, who squatted a little distance off. "He has slain no Amabuna. Let him go home."
No reply was made at first, and the Amabuna looked at each other. But Nkombazana, who had heard all, now sprang to his feet. He to go home, when his father and chief was to die here? No, no! Then, with flashing eyes, he began bellowing out the number of Amabuna he had slain. Why, he had helped to batter out the brains of that very party, and had ripped up white women with his own spear what time we rushed the waggon camp. If his chief was to die, he would die with him. A warrior must follow his chief everywhere.
Well, he obtained his wish. The leaders would have spared him at first, but when they heard him glorying in the slaughter of their countrymen-- and countrywomen, too--they soon desisted in their attempts, and the Amabuna at large howled for his blood.
So Tambusa and his young follower were ordered to proceed in the midst of their armed guard to the outskirts of the camp to meet their death.
No further word did Tambusa speak, save one of commendation of the bravery shown by his follower. He strode forth in the midst of his guard, his head thrown back--his great stature and fearless countenance worthy of a Zulu of the n.o.blest rank and birth. When they ordered him to halt he did so, and, facing round upon the line of levelled guns, stood proudly, with folded arms, his young follower standing equally fearless at his side. A line of flame shot forth, and a rolling crash.
Tambusa and Nkombazana sunk quietly to the ground, pierced by many bullets, dying without a struggle.
Such, then, was the end of Tambusa, and although, _Nkose_, I had no liking for him nor he for me--indeed, had he lived he would ever have been my bitterest enemy--yet his end was that of a brave man, and in every way worthy of an induna of the Zulu nation who sat at the right hand of the King.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
THE DIVIDING OF THE NATION.
The time had been well chosen for the return of the Bapongqolo to the heart of the nation, for now the Amabuna were advancing upon us, and with them Nongalaza at the head of a strong army, made up of the rebel traitors whom he had induced to desert their true king. The killing of Tambusa while on a message of peace had infuriated Dingane. He ordered Nkunkundhlovu to be burnt, vowing to rebuild it no more until he had driven the rebels and their white friends from the land, and exacted a fearful vengeance for the slaughter of his faithful induna. So the _iza.n.u.si_ were called up, and we were doctored for battle, and Lalusini, or Mahlula, as she was known here, together with her band of girls decked out in their richest dresses, stood forth and heartened the warriors by their songs of battle and victory; even as she had once heartened us to defeating, under the shadow of my white shield, these very warriors with whom I now fought, and a section of whom I was now leading. Yes, these hundreds of men, the Bapongqolo, were worth much to Dingane now.
The day had come at last, and the nation was divided. And now, with the one great struggle for the very life of the nation at our gates, Dingane showed himself, as he never had so shown himself before, as a n.o.ble and worthy warrior-king of a mighty warrior people.
It was the morning of the battle, that great struggle which should mean, to him and his, all or nothing. Ha! he was great, he was majestic, that warrior King, as he came forth to address his children--to hearten us for what lay before us. Not that we needed burning words of encouragement, for of all that dense array crouching there behind their shields, not one at that moment but longed for the gleam of the spears of Nongalaza to come into view.
Then the King stood forth arrayed in full war dress, his great form towering to the height of the waving ostrich plumes which rose above his head-ring--his head thrown back in royal pride as his eyes swept proudly over the dense ranks of those who adhered to him--and his words rolled like thunder upon the still air:
"My children, the day is upon us at last when the might of the People of the Heavens is to be put upon its sorest trial; the day which is to decide whether the name of Zulu is to blaze forth again in all its brightness, to strike terror once more upon the world, or to become a forgotten thing. For a s.p.a.ce it has been hidden, but only that it might blaze forth again the more brightly. Yonder there come against us enemies. There are those who came among us with false words--calling themselves a holy people--and striving, with fair words, to wrest from us the lands which, bit by bit, we have added to the greatness of our nation--a people which knows not how to keep faith--a people which, in its greed, knows not how to observe its own agreements--a nation which slays amba.s.sadors bearing a peace message. But worse. With that people, who comes? Who but they who would divide the nation--who, to do this, have not scrupled to place their neck beneath the foot of this other race--of these Amabuna, the sc.u.m and refuse of all white peoples-- they of our own blood--they who have grown great under the shadow of the House of Senzangakona. These indeed are worse than dogs, for even a dog will not bite the hand that fattens him. Ha! and with them is one of the House of Senzangakona--yet not, for it cannot be that a real bough of that great and royal tree can have joined with the refuse of all the white races, to turn and destroy his father"s house. Some b.a.s.t.a.r.d must it be--changed at birth--some low, base b.a.s.t.a.r.d, foisted by fraud upon the House of Senzangakona. And he, he who would, by the favour of the Amabuna, call himself King, where is he? Not among those who come against us. He is not even a leader of men. See him skulk behind the guns of the Amabuna while my dog, Nongalaza, leads his army for him.
His army! _Hau_! a pack of cur dogs whom the lion-cubs of Zulu shall disperse howling, for how shall so base and traitorous a band of runaways face and stand against the might of these?"
And as Dingane waved his hand over the a.s.sembled army a sound went up like the sullen roar of a sea-wave that curls and breaks. The King went on:
"My children! this is a time, not for talking, but for doing. I, your father, am here with you--I, your leader. Let the lion-cubs of Zulu fall on bravely under the eye of the lion. Lo! those who direct you are men to follow. Where is Umhlela? where is Silwane? where Nomapela and Untuswa?" And with each name a storm of applause rolled from the warriors. "Where they are, there follow. Lo! I see the enemy. Lo!
there are they who come against us. In perfect order, rank upon rank, go now to meet them. Fall on and strike--and strike hard. Strike until not one of them is left. Go, my children! Go, lion-cubs of Zulu!"
Away in the distance a dust-cloud was advancing, and through it the sheen and flash of spears. With a great roar the whole army sprang to its feet and saluted the King, who stood, with head thrown back and outstretched arm, pointing with his spear towards the approaching host; and as the regiments formed up in columns and began their march, moving out over the plain like huge black serpents, the war-song of Dingane rolled forth like thunder upon the still and brooding air:
"Us"eziteni!