'Tis plain,
As anatomists tell us, that never again
Shall life revisit the foully slain
When once they've been cut through the jugular vein.
In my circumstances at that moment this statement seemed altogether too suggestive, so I shut up the book and remarked,
If you are wanderers who want food, as I judge by your being so thin, I am sorry that I have little meat, but my servants will give you what they can.
Ow!
said the spokesman, he calls us wanderers! Either he must be a very great man or he is mad.
You are right. I am a great man,
I answered, yawning, and if you trouble me too much you will see that I can be mad also. Now what do you want?
We are messengers from the great Chief Umslopogaas, Captain of the People of the Axe, and we want tribute,
answered the man in a somewhat changed tone.
Do you? Then you won't get it. I thought that only the King of Zululand had a right to tribute, and your Captain's name is not Cetywayo, is it?
Our Captain is King here,
said the man still more uncertainly.
Is he indeed? Then away with you back to him and tell this King of whom I never heard, though I have a message for a certain Umslopogaas, that Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, intends to visit him to-morrow, if he will send a guide at the first light to show the best path for the waggon.
Hearken,
said the man to his companions, this is Macumazahn himself and no other. Well, we thought it, for who else would have dared—
Then they saluted with their axes, calling me Chief
and other fine names, and departed as they had come, at a run, calling out that my message should be delivered and that doubtless Umslopogaas would send the guide.
So it came about that, quite contrary to my intention, after all circumstances brought me to the Town of the Axe. Even to the last moment I had not meant to go there, but when the tribute was demanded I saw that it was best to do so, and having once passed my word it could not be altered. Indeed, I felt sure that in this event there would be trouble and that my oxen would be stolen, or worse.
So Fate having issued its decree, of which Hans's version was that Zikali, or his Great Medicine, had so arranged things, I shrugged my shoulders and waited.
