Part 19 (1/2)
Now, _Nkose_, I ae andht, which you will rereat kraal, I found rief The little white girl was lost!
She had not been wandering, not even playing outside with the other children When last seen she was creeping through the door of the hut wherein she usually dwelt--that of Fuest of my wives--and this hut she had never been seen to leave When last seen it was shortly before the setting of the sun
This was a matter to be turned inside-out, and that speedily, to which end I called up all those concerned, and questioned them one by one; the children who had last been with her, er wives were half-eza only laughed evilly, saying that it could be but a shty chief like myself the loss of a wretched little whelp of the A that I always held Kwelanga to be not of the Areater race
”So, woly, ”it hty one for all here concerned, for did not the King give Kwelanga into our care? Ha! the alligators have been robbed of their food to-night--it may be that to-morrow they will be full”
I could see fear upon the faces of those who heard hed evilly I was resolved now that the end of such doings had come The morroould show
”Now to the search!” I cried ”The little one may have wandered abroad and have sunk down to sleep in the forest She may not be far”
”Perhaps yonder h, as the wild howling of a hyena sounded very near ”While such are h will be found of any child who has sunk down to sleep in the forest, and it has long been night”
Aus liked to ht And the voices of the hyenas and other beasts wailing dishost ani the blood of those who still lived as ave host ani disobeyed them So we set out, by twos and threes, on our search
There was a half-ht we searched--ah, yes, hoe searched! We hunted hither and thither like wild dogs questing a scent, beneath the dark shades of the forest trees, where the beasts would howl dis away in the brake would ht were abroad We searched over the openness of the plain, and aed rocks where we had found the white _isanusi_ We searched indeed far out beyond any distance such a little child could travel But we searched in vain
Not only through the night did we search, but well on into the next day
So white, like a skull or bones, lying away fro near it would prove to be a stone, or perchance the skull of a kid or a buck, devoured by wild ani kraals around us but these returned bearing no news, and at last so thoroughly had we searched that I was constrained to believe that it was as Nangeza had so evilly suggested--the little one had wandered away fro lost herself, had been carried off or devoured by wild animals
Now my own heart was sad and sore, for, _Nkose_, I loved this little creature, with the eyes of heaven and hair like the sun, who men, and who had come to look upon me as her father; and, indeed, she would soreat dark one and laugh, and ask whether hers would grow black, too, when she beca, joyous laughter never again--ah, _Nkose_, er wives, Nxope and Fumana, they made terrible moan, far more so than they would have made over child of their own blood
It careater reason to make moan, and that on behalf of the after the disappearance of Kwelanga an arate of my kraal, and in a loud voice su's na upon the ar that Umzilikazi had sent to ”eat up” my kraal, by reason of the manner in which its trust had been fulfilled; nor was I ubu!” I said ”What is the will of the Great Great One?”
”This, son of Ntelani,” answered the leader of the arubu who had headed the party in pursuit of eza, and as present when I slew Njalo-njalo; ”this--that thou betakest thyself at all speed to the Black Elephant, ould confer with thee That for thee For these, they o with us, every one, to the last ubu?” I asked, troubled ”Into the Dark Unknown?”
”Not so, Untuswa Into the presence of the King”
They looked relieved at this I thought, though it ony, for the assegais of the ”eaters-up” are swifter than the teeth of the alligators And so they started, hemmed in by the spears of the warriors, while I alone strode on in advance, by no means easy in my mind because of as to befall, for soht
A little way outside the great kraal Kwa'zingwenya was a grassytrees, and from this the plain sloped away, s the Pool of the Alligators Beneath the shade of these trees Uhout the whole day, hearing and settling disputes, talking over the affairs of the nation, or it i drill upon the open plain before him Here now I found his at your kraal?”
he said, when I had saluted ”Where is Kwelanga?”
”Now are all our hearts sore, Black Elephant,” I answered, ”for search has been diligently , son of Ntelani There has been _tagati_ herein, and some shall die”
”The will of the Great Great One is the delight of his children,” I replied ”Lo--now here are they who ht across the plain the whole company of my people, surrounded by the spears of the warriors who custodied the aloud the _Bayete_, and on every face was staes of fear and dread