That night as she lay in his arms, Cathy asked Ralph the question they were all asking one another.
'What will Lobengula do?'
'What can he do?' Ralph stroked her hair, the way he might caress a favourite puppy. 'He has signed the concession, taken his gold and guns, and promised Papa the roa d to Mashonaland.'
'They say he has eighteen thousand men waiting across the Shashi.'
'Then let them come, Katie, my lass. There are not a few amongst us who would welcome the chance to teach King Ben's buckaroos a sharp lesson.'
'That's a terrible thing to say,' she said without conviction.
'But it's the truth, by God.'
She no longer chided him when he blasphemed so lightly, for the days and ways of Khami Mission seemed to be part of a fading dream.
Then one day, early in July of 1890, the mirror of a heliograph winked its eye across the dusty, sun-washed distances. It was the word for which they had waited all these months. The British Foreign Secretary had at last approved the occupation of Mashonaland by the representatives of the British South Africa Company.
The long ponderous column uncoiled like a serpent.
At its head rode Colonel Pennefather in company uniform, and at his right hand the guide Frederick Selous, whose duty it would be to take the column wide of any Matabele settlements, to cross the low malarial lands before the rains broke and to lead them up the escarpment to the sweet and healthy airs of the high plateau.
The Union Jack unfurled above their heads and a bugler sounded the advance.
'Heroes every one of them,' Ralph grinned at Cathy.
'But it's up to the likes of me to see our heroes through.'
His shirtsleeves were rolled high on his muscled arms and a disgracefully stained hat was cocked over one eye.
'When I come back, we'll be richer by eighty thousand pounds,' he told her, and lifted her off the ground with his embrace.
'Oh Ralph, how I wish I were coming with you.'
'You know mister Rhodes has forbidden any women to cross the frontier, and you'll be a damned sight safer and more comfortable at Lily's Hotel in Kimberley with Jordan to keep an eye on you.'
'Then be careful, my darling,' she cautioned him, breathless from his hug.
'No need for that, Katie, my sweet. The devil looks after his own.'
'These are not men coming to dig holes.' Gandang stood forth from the circle of indunas. 'They are dressed as soldiers; they bring guns that can break down the granite hills with their smoke.'
'What did the king promise Lodzi?' demanded Bazo. at he may come in peace to look for gold. Why does he march against us like an army?'
Bazo spoke for the young men. 'Oh great King, the spears are bright and our eyes are red. We are fifteen thousand men; can the king's enemies stand against us?'
Lobengula looked at his handsome eager young face.
sometimes the most dangerous enemy is a hasty heart,' he said, softly.
'And at other times, Bull Elephant of Kurnalo, it might be a tardy spear arm.'
A shadow of irritation at importunate youth passed behind the king's eyes; then he sighed. 'Who knows?' he agreed. 'Who knows where the enemy lies?'
'The enemy lies before you, great King; he has crossed the Shashi river and he has come to take your land from you,' Somabula told him. And then Gandang stood again: 'Let the spears go, Lobengula, Son of Mzilikazi, let your young men run, or as the sun will rise tomorrow, that surely will you live to regret it.'
'That I cannot do,' Lobengula said softly. 'Not yet. I cannot use the assegai when words may still suffice.' He roused himself and his voice firmed.
'Go, Gandang, my brother, take your hot-hearted son with you. Go to the leader of these soldiers and ask him why he comes into my lands in battle array, and bring his answer to me here.'
Frederick Selous rode ahead, a trooper with an axe following him, and he pointed out the trees to be cut.
The trooper blazed them with a slash of the axe, and followed Selous on. The axemen came up behind them, fifty of them, riding in pairs. One man dismounted, handed his reins to his partner, spat on his already callused hands and, hefting the axe, addressed himself to the trunk of the doomed tree.
While his axe thudded and the wood chips flew white as bone in the sunlight, the second man sat in the saddle, his rifle in his hands, and he watched the forest around him for the first plumed head and long tasselled shield to appear. When the tree crackled and toppled, the axeman mounted and they rode on to the next, where he took his turn on guard while his mate swung the axe. Behind them the bullock spans came plodding to chain the fallen trunks and drag them out of the road, and then the whole ponderous caravan rumbled forward.
It was slow work, and on the third day Ralph rode to the head of the column to discuss with Selous the possibility of using the steam engine to haul the smaller trees, roots and all, from the sandy earth. They had left their horses with a trooper and walked forward for a better view of the way ahead when Ralph said quietly: 'Stand your ground, mister Selous. Do not draw your pistol, and, in God's name, do not show any agitation.'
There were dark and moving shadows in the forest all around them, and then suddenly the dreaded long shields were there, forming a wall across their front.
