war rattles on their ankles clashed and the hunting choru. s was like the deep baying of hounds.
One tall indoda lifted his shield high to clear his spear arm for the killing stroke, and the blade flashed as it started down, and then the movement froze.
'Henshaw!' The name exploded out of the warrior's straining throat, and then Bazo continued the stroke, but at the last instant rolled his wrist and the flat of the heavy blade smashed against Ralph's skull above his temple; and he pitched forwards, face down against the sandy earth, and lay still as death.
'You took the irons from the horse's hooves.' Bazo nodded approval. 'That was a good trick. If you had not slept so long this morning, we might never have caught up with you.'
'Tom is dead now,' replied Ralph.
He was propped against the trunk of a mopani tree.
There was a bright scarlet smear of gravel rash on one cheek where he had hit the ground when he was thrown from the saddle. The hair above his temple was caked with black dried blood where the flat of Bazo's blade had knocked him senseless, and he was bound at ankles and wrists with thongs of rawhide. Already his hands were vuff!' and blue from the constriction of his bonds.
'Yes!' Bazo nodded again gravely, and looked at the carcass of the horse where it lay fifty paces away. 'He was a good horse, and now he is dead.' He looked back at Ralph. 'The indoda whom we will bury today was a good man, and now he is dead also.'
All about them squatted ranks of Matabele warriors, all Bazo's men drawn up in a dense black circle, sitting on their shields and listening intently to every word spoken.
'Your men fell upon me without warning, as though I were a thief or a murderer. I defended myself as any man would do.'
U 'And are you not a thief then, Henshaw?' Bazo interrupted.
'What question is that?' Ralph demanded.
'The birds, Henshaw. The stone birds.'
'I do not know what you speak of,' Ralph challenged angrily, pushing himself away from the tree trunk and staring arrogantly at Bazo.
'You know, Henshaw. You know about the birds, for we have spoken about them many times. You know also the king's warning that to despoil the ancient places is death to any man, for I myself have told you of it., Still Ralph glared his defiance.
'Your spoor led straight to the burial place of the kings and straight away from it, and the birds are gone. Where are they, Henshaw?'
A moment longer Ralph continued his show, and then he shrugged and smiled and sank back against the tree.
'They are gone, Bazo, flown afar where you cannot follow them. it was the prophecy of the Umlimo, beyond the powers of mortal men to prevent.'
At the mention of the prophetess, a shadow of sorrow passed over Bazo's face.
'Yes, it was part of the prophecy,' he agreed. 'And now it is time to carry out the orders of the king.' He stood up and addressed the squatting ranks of Matabele.
'All of you heard the king's word,' he said. 'What must be done, must be done in secret; it must be done by me alone, and no other may witness it, nor speak of it after, even in a whisper, on pain of slow and lingering death.
You have all heard the king's word. 'We have heard the king's word,' they agreed in deep sonorous chorus.
'Go!' Bazo commanded. 'Wait for me at great Zimbabwe, and wipe from your eyes the things you have seen this day.'
His warriors sprang up and saluted him. They shouldered the body of the man that Ralph had slain, using their shields as a litter, and they bore him away.
The double column of running warriors snaked away across the glade and into the forest.
Bazo watched them go, leaning on his own shield, and then he turned back to Ralph, heavily and unwillingly.
'i am the king's man,' he said softly. 'Strictly charged with your death. What I have to do today will leave a deep scar in my heart for all my life, though I live to be an old greyhead. The memory of this thing will keep me from sleep, and turn the food sour and heavy in my belly.' Slowly he paced to where Ralph lay and stood over him. 'I will never forget this deed, Henshaw, though I will never be able to speak of it, not to my father or my favourite wife. I must Jock it in the darkness of my soul.'
'If you must do it, then do it swiftly,' Ralph challenged him, trying to show no fear, trying to keep his gaze steady.
'Yes,' Bazo nodded, and shifted his grip on the shaft of the spear.
'Intercede for me with your God, Henshaw,' he said, and struck.
Ralph cried out at the stinging burn of razor steel, and his blood burst from the wound and spilled into the dry earth.
Bazo dropped to his knee beside him and scooped up [ the blood in his cupped hands. He splashed it on his arms and chest. He smeared it on the haft and blade of his spear, until the bright steel was dulled.
Then Bazo leapt up and ripped a strip of bark from the mopani tree. He plucked a bunch of green leaves and came back to Ralph's side. He held together the lips of the deep wound in Ralph's forearm, then he placed the bunch of leaves over it and bound it up with the strip of bark.
