"Did I not tell you, Macumazahn, that when two bucks met they would
fight?" whispered Mameena suavely into my ear.
"Yes, Mameena, you did--or rather I told you. But you did not tell me
what the doe would do."
"The doe, Macumazahn, will crouch in her form and see what happens--as
is the fashion of does," and again she laughed softly.
"Why not do your own hunting, Masapo?" asked Saduko. "Come, now, I
will promise you good sport. Outside this kraal there are other hyenas
waiting who call me chief--a hundred or two of them--assembled for a
certain purpose by the royal leave of King Panda, whose House, as we all
know, you hate. Come, leave that beef and beer and begin your hunting of
hyenas, O Masapo."
Now Masapo sat silent, for he saw that he who thought to snare a baboon
had caught a tiger.
"You do not speak, O Chief of the little Amansomi," went on Saduko, who
was beside himself with rage and jealousy. "You will not leave your beef
and beer to hunt the hyenas who are captained by an umfokazana! Well,
then, the umfokazana will speak," and, stepping up to Masapo, with the
spear he carried poised in his right hand, Saduko grasped his rival's
short beard with his left.
"Listen, Chief," he said. "You and I are enemies. You seek the woman I
seek, and, mayhap, being rich, you will buy her. But if so, I tell you
that I will kill you and all your House, you sneaking, half-bred dog!"
With these fierce words he spat in his face and tumbled him backwards.
Then, before anyone could stop him, for Umbezi, and even Masapo's
headmen, seemed paralysed with surprise, he stalked through the kraal
gate, saying as he passed me: "Inkoosi, I have words for you when you are at liberty."
"You shall pay for this," roared Umbezi after him, turning almost green
with rage, for Masapo still lay upon his broad back, speechless, "you
who dare to insult my guest in my own house."
"Somebody must pay," cried back Saduko from the gate, "but who it is
only the unborn moons will see."
"Mameena," I said as I followed him, "you have set fire to the grass,
and men will be burned in it."
"I meant to, Macumazahn," she answered calmly. "Did I not tell you
that there was a flame in me, and it will break out sometimes? But,
Macumazahn, it is you who have set fire to the grass, not I. Remember
that when half Zululand is in ashes. Farewell, O Macumazana, till we
meet again, and," she added softly, "whoever else must burn, may the
spirits have you in their keeping."
At the gate, remembering my manners, I turned to bid that company a
polite farewell. By now Masapo had gained his feet, and was roaring out
like a bull: "Kill him! Kill the hyena! Umbezi, will you sit still and see me, your
guest--me, Masapo--struck and insulted under the shadow of your own hut?
Go forth and kill him, I say!"