'Why not, Little Hawk?'
'You do not ask where I am going.'
'i need a road.' Isazi shrugged. 'The one to the north is no longer or harder than the road to the south.'
The jackal yipped again, but much closer this time, and Bazo paused, changed the assegai to his right hand, and answered the cry, cupping his palm over his mouth to give resonance to the sound; and then he moved on to where a small stone kopje shone in the moonlight like a pile of silver bullion.
'Bazo!' The greeting was a whisper, soft as the night wind in the pale grass, and a shadow stepped from amongst the moon shadows at the base of the kopje.
'Kamuza, my brother.' Bazo went to him and embraced him, open hands upon his shoulders.
'i have a stone in my belly, heavy with sorrow at this parting.'
'We will share the road again, one day, we will drink from the beer pot and fight with our shoulders touching-' Kamusa answered him quietly. 'But now we are both upon the king's business.'
Kamuza slipped the thongs that held his kilt in place, and it sagged heavily to his knees, leaving him naked.
'Hurry,' he said. 'I must return before the curfew bell.'
Since the Diamond Trade Act, blacks were not allowed on the streets of Kimberley once the curfew bell had rung.
'You were not marked by the police?' Bazo asked, as he removed his own kilt and changed it with Kamuza.
'They are everywhere, like pepper ticks in the new spring grass,' Kamuza grunted. 'But I was not followed.'
Bazo weighed the fur kilt in both hands while Kamuza swiftly belted the replacement about his own waist.
'Show me,' Bazo said, and Kamuza took the kilt back from his hands and spread it on one of the flat moonwashed boulders.
He picked at the knotted thong that doubled the waistband, and as it came undone he opened the secret pouch of soft tanned leather, crusted with ceramic trade beads.
The pouch ran the full length of the wide waistband, the opening concealed by the decorative beadwork, and the interior of the long pouch was divided into cells, like a wasp's nest.
In each stitched leather cell nestled a large pebble that glistened with a slick soapy sheen in the moonlight.
'Count them,' Kamuza instructed. 'Let us agree on the number, and let Lobengula, the great Black Elephant, count the same number into his mighty hands when you lay the belt before him at the kraal of Gubulawayo, the place of killing., Bazo touched each diamond with his fingertip, his lips moving silently. 'Amashurni amatatu!'
'Thirty,' Kamuza repeated. 'It is agreed.'
And they were all large clean stones, the smallest the size of the first joint of a man's little finger.
Bazo tied the kilt about his waist, the fleecy tails of the bat-eared fox dangling to his knees.
'It looks well upon you' Kamuza nodded, and then went on. 'Tell Lobengula, the Great Elephant, that I am his dog and I grovel in the dirt at his feet. Tell him that there will be more of the yellow coins and the bright stones. Tell him that his children labour each day in the pit, and there will be more, many more. Every man who takes the road north will bring him riches.' Kamuza stepped forward and laid his right hand on Bazo's shoulder.
'Go in peace, Bazo the Axe.'
'Stay in peace, my brother, and may the days disappear like raindrops into the desert sand until we smile upon each other once more.
Isazi put the span to its first real test in the drift of the Vaal river.
The grey waters were barely flowing, but they covered the hubs of the tall iron-shod rear wheels, and the bottom was broken waterwom rock that clanked and rolled under pressure, threatening to jam the wheels and denying purchase to the driving hooves of the span.
Yet they ran the wagon through under load, leaning into the yokes, noses down almost touching the surface of the river, and the wagon tent jolting and rocking behind them.
Until, under the steep cut up the far bank, the rear wheels stuck and the wagon bed tilted alarmingly. Then Isazi showed his expertise. He swung the team wide, giving them a run at it, and when he called to his leaders and burst the air asunder with the thirty-foot lash that tapered to the thickness of twine they went in stifflegged, jerked her clear, and took the load out of the river bed at a canter, while Isazi pranced and sang their praises and even Umfaan smiled.
Ralph ordered an early outspan under the tall trees on the far bank, for there was good grass and unlimited water, and the next leg of the road to his grandfather Moffat's mission station was a hundred and twenty miles, hard and dry going all the way.
'See, Little Hawk,' Isazi was still rapturous over the performance of his span. '- See how clever they are. They pick a good patch of grass and eat it up; they do not wander from patch to patch, wasting their time and strength, as lesser beasts might do. Soon they will settle with the cud, and in the morning they will be strong and rested.
Each of them is a prince among cattle!'
'From tomorrow we begin night marches,' Ralph ordered, and Isazi's smile faded and he looked severe.
'I had already made that decision,' he said sternly, 'but where did you ever hear of night marching, Little Hawk?
