"Aye," answered the Amangwane, "the plan of the white Inkoosi is good;
he is clever as a weasel; we will have his plan and no other."
So Saduko was overruled and my counsel adopted.
All that day we rested, lighting no fires and remaining still as the
dead in the dense bush. It was a very anxious day, for although the
place was so wild and lonely, there was always the fear lest we should
be discovered. It was true that we had travelled mostly by night in
small parties, to avoid leaving a spoor, and avoided all kraals; still,
some rumour of our approach might have reached the Amakoba, or a party
of hunters might stumble on us, or those who sought for lost cattle.
Indeed, something of this sort did happen, for about midday we heard a
footfall, and perceived the figure of a man, whom by his head-dress we
knew for an Amakoba, threading his way through the bush. Before he saw
us he was in our midst. For a moment he hesitated ere he turned to fly,
and that moment was his last, for three of the Amangwane leapt on him
silently as leopards leap upon a buck, and where he stood there he died.
Poor fellow! Evidently he had been on a visit to some witch-doctor, for
in his blanket we found medicine and love charms. This doctor cannot
have been one of the stamp of Zikali the Dwarf, I thought to myself;
at least, he had not warned him that he would never live to dose his
beloved with that foolish medicine.
Meanwhile a few of us who had the quickest eyes climbed trees, and
thence watched the town of Bangu and the valley that lay between us and
it. Soon we saw that so far, at any rate, Fortune was playing into our
hands, since herd after herd of kine were driven into the valley during
the afternoon and enclosed in the stock-kraals. Doubtless Bangu intended
on the morrow to make his half-yearly inspection of all the cattle of
the tribe, many of which were herded at a distance from his town.
At length the long day drew to its close and the shadows of the evening
thickened. Then we made ready for our dreadful game, of which the stake
was the lives of all of us, since, should we fail, we could expect no
mercy. The fifty picked men were gathered and ate food in silence.
These men were placed under the command of Tshoza, for he was the most
experienced of the Amangwane, and led by the three guides who had dwelt
among the Amakoba, and who "knew every ant-heap in the land," or so
they swore. Their duty, it will be remembered, was to cross the valley,
separate themselves into small parties, unbar the various cattle kraals,
kill or hunt off the herdsmen, and drive the beasts back across the
valley into the pass. A second fifty men, under the command of Saduko,
were to be left just at the end of this pass where it opened out into
the valley, in order to help and reinforce the cattle-lifters, or, if
need be, to check the following Amakoba while the great herds of beasts
were got away, and then fall back on the rest of us in our ambush nearly
two miles distant. The management of this ambush was to be my charge--a
heavy one indeed.