Part 33 (1/2)
To this question Ka has private words for the ear of Macumazahn Therefore weor dead”
”Alleh to summon them to my help, he looked behind him towards the main body of the Boers, who by this tiuarded by a great number of Zulus ”Allan,” he went on, ”if you are not afraid, I think that you e about the treaty to send to h you”
”I a afraid in a place like this?”
”Ask that Kaffir if the king gives you safe conduct,” said Retief
I did so, and Kambula answered:
”Yes, for this visit Who a's unspoken words?” [which ,” coo, Allan, since you ain It is clear that Dingaan did not ask that you should co Noish I had left you at hooing to the king's private enclosure on foot and without my rifle, since I was not allowed to appear before hiate of the kraal accompanied by Hans, who led reeted an to ask a number of questions about the Boers, especially if they were not people who had rebelled against their own king and run away from him
I answered, Yes, they had run away, as they wanted more room to live; but I had told him all about that when I saw him before He said he knew I had, but he wished to hear ”whether the same words caht know if I were a truea while, he looked atfashi+on and asked:
”Have you brought irl with eyes like two stars, Macuirl whom you refused to me, and whoave all the white people to you; she for whose sake you ?”
”No, O Dingaan,” I answered; ”there are no wo us Moreover, this rily ”By the Head of the Black One, have you dared to make a wife of her whoht; you little white ant, ork in the dark and only peep out at the end of your tunnel when it is finished; you wizard, who by your reatest king in all the world--for it was ic that killed those vultures on Hloma Amabutu, not your bullets, Macumazahn--say, why should I not make an end of you at once for this trick?”
I folded e contrast we e, black tyrant with the royal air, for to do him justice he had that, at whose nod hundreds went the way of death, and I, a nificant white boy, for in appearance, at any rate, I was nothingthat coolness was my only chance, ”I answer you in the words of the Coreat chief
Do you take ive up my oife to you who already have so many? Moreover, you cannot kill me because I have the word of your captain, Kambula, that I am safe with you”
This reply seemed to amuse hies of ree, he passed frohter
”You are quick as a lizard,” he said ”Why should I, who have so many wives, want one more, ould certainly hate me? Just because she is white, and would make the others, who are black, jealous, I suppose
Indeed, they would poison her, or pinch her to death in aAlso, you are right; you have o hence unharh you escape me between the stones, I will pull off your tail I have said that I want to pluck this tall white flower of yours, and I will pluck her I knohere she dwells Yes, just where the wagon she sleeps in stands in the line, for ive orders that whoever is killed, she is to be spared and brought toSo perhaps you will meet this wife of yours here, Macuht mean so much or so little, the sweat started to my brow, and a shi+ver went down my back
”Perhaps I shall and perhaps I shall not, O king,” I answered ”The world is as full of chances to-day as it was not long ago when I shot at the sacred vultures on Hloma Amabutu Still, I think that aan; ”this little white ant isthat he will come up at my back But what if I put down my heel and crush you, little white ant? Do you know,” he added confidentially, ”that the Boer who uns and whom here we call 'Two-faces,'
because he looks towards you Whites with one eye and towards us Blacks with the other, is still very anxious that I should kill you? Indeed, when I told him that my spies said that you were to ride with the Boers, as I had requested that you should be their Tongue, he answered that unless I proainst coed with hi?” I asked ”And pray why does this Two-faces, e name Pereira, desire that I should be killed?”
”Ow!” chuckled the obese old ruffian; ”cannot you with all your cleverness guess that, O Macumazahn? Perhaps it is he who needs the tall white s for me, I have pro quite loud, ”I shall trick hi hirumble if he is out-cheated?”
I answered that I was an honestabout cheats, or at what they could or could not gruenially ”That is where you and I are alike We are both honest, quite honest, and therefore friends, which I can never be with these Amaboona, who, as you and others have told ht, like men, and ins, wins, and who loses, loses Now hear me, Macumazahn, and remember what I say Whatever happens to others, whatever you aan has spoken Whether I get the tall white girl, or do not get her, still _you_ are safe; it is onin his hair
”And why should I be safe if others are unsafe, O king?” I asked