Martini-Henry rifle to his king and Lobengula held it in his lap and rubbed the cold blued metal of the block with one forefinger and then held the finger to his nose to smell the fresh grease.
'Sting the mamba with his own venom,'he murmured 'This is the fang of the mamba.'
'The lad, Henshaw, son of Bakela, has a wagon filled with these.'
'Then he will be welcome,' Lobengula nodded. 'But now let me hear all this from the mouth of your own son. Bring him to me.'
Bazo lay face down on the hard clay floor of the king' hut, and he chanted the ritual praises with a catch in his throat, and brave as he was, he sweated with fear in the king's presence.
'Rise up, Bazo the Axe,' Lobengula broke impatiently. Come closer.'
Bazo crept forward on all fours, and he offered the beaded kilt. Lobengula spilled the diamonds from it in a glowing puddle and he stirred them with his finger.
'There are prettier stones than these in every river of my land,' he said. 'These are ugly., 'The buni are mad for them. No other stone satisfy them, but for these their hunger is so great that they will kill any who stand in their way.'
'Tear the lion with his own claws.' Lobengula repeat the prophecy of the Umlimo and then went on, !' these ugly little stones the claws of the lion? Then, they are, let all men see how Lobengula is ready with claws.'
And he clapped his hands for his wives to come to him.
The royal hut was crowded now, rank upon rank of squatting men faced the low platform on which Lobengula lay. Every man of them except Bazo wore the headring of the induna, and their names were the rolls of glory of the Matabele nation.
There was Somabula, the lion-hearted old warrior, and beside him Babiaan, royal prince of Kumalo, and all the others. Their ranks were silent and attentive, their faces grave in the light of the fire which had been built up and whose flames leapt almost to the high-domed roof of the king's hut.
They were watching the king.
Lobengula lay on his back on the built-up platform beyond the fire. There was a low carved headrest under the nape of his neck. Only the tip of his penis was covered by the dried and hollowed-out gourd, otherwise he was stark naked. His great belly was mountainous and his limbs were like tree trunks.
Four of his wives squatted about him in a circle, each of them with a calabash of rendered white beef fat beside her. They anointed the king smearing the fat thickly over his body from his throat to his ankles. Then when it was done they rose silently, and stooped out through the opening in the back of the hut which led to the women's quarters.
Singing softly, shuffling and swaying to the song, another ffle of younger wives began to wind into the hut; each of them carried upon her head a beer pot of fired clay; but these pots were not filled with the bubbling millet beer.
The wives knelt on each side of the king, and at a word from the senior wife they dipped into the clay pots and each of them came out with a large uncut diamond in her fingers. They began sticking the stones on the king's skin, and the thick coating of grease held them in the patterns that they built up to ornament Lobengula's gleaming limbs.
They worked swiftly, for they had done this before, and under their fingers Lobengula was transformed. He became a creature of mythology: half man, half glittering scaled fish.
The diamonds caught the beam of the fire, and sent it spinning against the thatched walls and high roof, darting insects of golden light that flashed in the eyes of the watchers and dazzled them so that they grunted with amazement, and their voices went up like a choir in praise of their king.
At last the work was done and the wives crept away and left Lobengula lying on the thick soft furs, covered from throat to wrist to ankle in a silver burning coat of scail, each link of which was a priceless diamond; and as the king's chest and belly rose and subsided to the tide of his breathing, so this immense treasure burned and flamed.
'Indunas of Matabele, Princes of Kurnalo, hail your King.'
'Bayete! Bayete!' The royal salute burst from their throats. 'Bayete!' Then the silence was complete but expectant, for it had become the king's custom that after this ritual display of the contents of the nation's treasury, he would dispense honours and rewards.
'Bazo,' Lobengula's voice was sonorous. 'Stand forward!'
The young man rose from his lowly position in the rear-most rank.
'Bayete, Nkosi,'
'Bazo, you have pleased me. I grant you a boon. What shall it be. Speak!'
'i crave only that the king should know the depth of my duty and love for him. Set me a task, I pray you, and if it should be fierce and hard and bloody, my heart and my mouth will sing the king's praises for ever.'
On Chaka's royal buttocks, your pup is hungry for glory.'
Lobengula looked to Gandang in the front rank of indunas. 'And he shames all those who ask for trinkets and cattle and women., He thought a moment, and then chuckled.
'In the direction of the sunrise, two days' march beyond the forests of Somabula, on a high hilltop lives a Mashona dog who deems himself such a great magician and rainmaker that he is beyond the king's arm. His name is Pemba.' And there was a hiss of indrawn breath from the squatting ranks of elders. Three times in the past season the king had sent impis to Pemba's hilltop, and three times they had returned empty-handed. The name Pemba mocked them all. 'Take fifty men from your old regiment, Little Axe, and fetch Pemba's head so that I can see his insolent smile with my own eyes.'
'Bayete!' Bazo's joy carried him in a single bound over the grey heads of the indunas. He landed lightly in the space before the fire and he whirled into the giya, the challenge dance: 'Thus will I stab the traitor dog and thus will I rip out the bellies of his sons The indunas grinned and nodded indulgently, but their smiles were tinged with regret
