"Inkoosi," he said, when he had scraped away the tears produced by the
snuff, "I have come to ask you a favour. You heard Umbezi say to-day
that he will not give me his daughter, Mameena, unless I give him a
hundred head of cows. Now, I have not got the cattle, and I cannot earn
them by work in many years. Therefore I must take them from a certain
tribe I know which is at war with the Zulus. But this I cannot do unless
I have a gun. If I had a good gun, Inkoosi--one that only goes off
when it is asked, and not of its own fancy, I who have some name could
persuade a number of men whom I know, who once were servants of my
father, or their sons, to be my companions in this venture."
"Do I understand that you wish me to give you one of my good guns with
two mouths to it (i.e. double-barrelled), a gun worth at least twelve
oxen, for nothing, O Saduko?" I asked in a cold and scandalised voice.
"Not so, O Watcher-by-Night," he answered; "not so, O
He-who-sleeps-with-one-eye-open" (another free and difficult rendering
of my native name, Macumazahn, or more correctly, Macumazana)--"I should
never dream of offering such an insult to your high-born intelligence."
He paused and took another pinch of snuff, then went on in a meditative
voice: "Where I propose to get those hundred cattle there are many more;
I am told not less than a thousand head in all. Now, Inkoosi," he added,
looking at me sideways, "suppose you gave me the gun I ask for, and
suppose you accompanied me with your own gun and your armed hunters, it
would be fair that you should have half the cattle, would it not?"
"That's cool," I said. "So, young man, you want to turn me into a
cow-thief and get my throat cut by Panda for breaking the peace of his
country?"
"Neither, Macumazahn, for these are my own cattle. Listen, now, and
I will tell you a story. You have heard of Matiwane, the chief of the
Amangwane?"
"Yes," I answered. "His tribe lived near the head of the Umzinyati,
did they not? Then they were beaten by the Boers or the English, and
Matiwane came under the Zulus. But afterwards Dingaan wiped him out,
with his House, and now his people are killed or scattered."
"Yes, his people are killed and scattered, but his House still lives.
Macumazahn, I am his House, I, the only son of his chief wife, for
Zikali the Wise Little One, the Ancient, who is of the Amangwane blood,
and who hated Chaka and Dingaan--yes, and Senzangakona their father
before them, but whom none of them could kill because he is so great and
has such mighty spirits for his servants, saved and sheltered me."