his chest, and then locked his arms around the animal's neck and held on.
The bull tried to toss him, hooking and throwing his head high, but the man held on, and was cruelly thrown about, but his body blocked the bull's sight and brought him to a halt. The racing line closed about him instantly, and abruptly the bull's great humped body was smothered by the rush of naked black men.
For long seconds the bull struggled to remain upright, but they bore him down and tore his legs out from under him so he hit the dusty earth with a heavy thump and a groaning bellow. A dozen men seized the long horns, and, using their leverage, began to twist them against the massive inert weight of his pinned body. Slowly, sweating and straining, they forced his head around, and the bull kicked his hooves in the air, his bellows becoming more desperate and strangled.
The King leapt up and down in his chair, screaming with excitement, and the roar of voices was like the sound of surf on a gale-driven coast of rock.
inch by inch, the huge homed head revolved, and then suddenly there was no longer resistance. Zouga heard the crack of the vertebrae, sharp as a musket shot even above the thunder of the assembled nation. The homed head flicked through another half turn, the legs stiffened skywards for a moment, and the bull's bowels voided in a liquid green stream.
The sweat-drenched warriors lifted the carcass shoulder high and bore it bodily across the arena to lay it at Mzilikazi 's feet.
On the third and -last day of the ceremony, Mzilikazi stalked out into the centre of the cattle-pen. He made a frail and bent figure in the vast open space, and the noon sun burned down from above so that there was almost no shadow under him. The nation was quiet, forty thousand human beings watching one old man and there was not a whisper, nor a sound of breathing.
in the centre of the arena Mzilikazi paused and raised his war-spear above his head. The watching ranks stiffened as he revolved slowly, and then stopped facing towards the south. He drew back his spear arm, poised for a moment while the tension in the watchers was a palpable emanation from forty thousand charged bodies.
Then the King gave a little hop, and began slowly to revolve, the crowd sighed and swayed and then grew silent as again the King poised with his blade pointed towards the east. Then another little hop as he teased them deliberately, drawing out the moment with the timing of a natural showman.
Then suddenly his spear arm shot forward and the tiny toylike weapon flew from his hand in a high sparkling parabola, and dropped to bury its point in the baked earth. To the north! ' thundered the nation. 'Bayete! The great bull has chosen the north! 'We go northwards to raid the Makololo, Gandang told Zouga. 'I will leave with my impi in the dawn. ' He paused, and then smiled briefly. 'We will meet again, Bakela. 'If the gods are kind, ' Zouga agreed, and Gandang laid one hand on his shoulder, squeezed briefly, and then turned away.
Slowly, without looking back, Gandang walked away into the darkness which was clamorous with the singing and the sound of the drums.
'Your guns would be terrible weapons if they did not have to be reloaded, Mzilikazi piped in his querulous old man's voice. 'But to fight with them a man must have a fast horse, so that he may fire and then gallop away to reload.'
zouga squatted by the King's chair in the royal enclosure as he had for almost thirty successive days. The King sent for him each day, and he must listen to Mzilikazi's wisdom and eat huge quantities of half-raw beef washed down by pot after pot of beer. Without a horse my warriors will overrun them before they can reload, even as we did to the Griquas, and afterwards we picked up over three hundred of their precious guns from the battlefield.'
Zouga. nodded his agreement, smiling inwardly as he imagined the amadoda trying those tactics on a square of British infantry.
Mzilikazi broke off to lift the beer pot. and then as he lowered it the sparkle of one of Zouga's tunic buttons caught his eye, and he leaned across to pluck at it.
Resignedly Zouga took the clasp knife from his pocket and carefully cut the threads that held the button. He handed it to the King, and Mzilikazi grinned with pleasure and held it to the sunlight. Only five to go, Zouga thought ironically. He felt like the Christmas turkey being plucked a feather at a time.
His lapel badges and field officer's pips had long since been taken by the King, as had his belt buckles and helmet badge. The paper, Zouga started and the King waved airily, dismissing the reference to the concession.
He might be on the verge of senility and certainly he was an alcoholic, drinking seven gallons of beer each day, by Zouga's count, but still Mzilikazi possessed a cunning and devious intellect with a natural grasp of his own bargaining weaknesses and strengths. He had teased Zouga for thirty days, just as he had teased the watching nation on the third day of the Chawala, while they had waited for him to burl the war-spear.
Now the King turned away from Zouga. at the mention of the concession, and transferred his attention to the young couple who knelt before him. They had been accused, and come before the King for judgement.
That day, in between chatting with Zouga, Mzilikazi had received emissaries bearing tribute from two of his vassal chieftains, he had rewarded a young herdboy for saving his herd from a marauding lion, he had sentenced to death another who had been seen drinking milk directly from the udder of one of his charges, he had listened to the reports of a messenger from the impis campaigning in the north against the Makololo, and now his attention was on the accused couple before him.
The girl was a lovely creature, with long delicately formed limbs and a sweetly rounded face with full flaring lips over small very white teeth. She kept her eyes tightly closed, so as not to look upon the King's wrath, and her body was shaken with tremors of terror as she knelt before him. The man was a finely muscled young warrior, from one of the unmarried regiments, who had still to win the honour of being allowed to 'go in to the women. Rise up, woman, that the King may see your shame, the voice of the accuser rang out, and hesitantly, timidly, still with her eyes tightly closed, the girl lifted her forehead from the dusty earth, and sat back on her heels.
Her naked stomach, drum tight and round as a ripening fruit, bulged out above the tiny beaded apron.
The King sat hunched in his chair, brooding silently for many minutes, then he asked the warrior, Do you deny this thing?
'I do not deny it, Nkosi Nkulu. 'Do you love this wench? As I love life itself, my King. ' The man's voice was low and husky, but firm and without a quaver to it.
The King brooded again.
