Jameson swung his horse to face them.
'Back!' he shouted. 'Back, I say.' He lifted his rifle to enforce his order, and one of the Matabele instinctively copied the gesture, ha threatening the little group of mounted white men with his rifle.
Mungo Sint John flung up his rifle, and as it touched his shoulder he fired. The shot was a thunderous burst of sound in the dusty air, and the heavy bullet smashed into the Matabele's naked chest. His rifle clattered on the ground, and a little feather of bright crimson sprayed from his chest. The warrior pirouetted slowly, almost gracefully, until they looked into the shocking gape of the exit wound between his shoulder blades.
Then the warrior collapsed, and his legs kicked convulsively.
'Do not touch a white man!' Bazo bellowed into the terrible silence, but not more than half a dozen of the horsemen understood the language. To the others it sounded like a killing order. The crash of volleyed rifle fire mingled with the trample of hooves and whinny of panicky horses. The banks of blue gunsmoke blended with the billowing pale dust and the rippling plumes of running warriors.
Bazo's impi was streaming away into the forest, carrying their wounded with them, and slowly the rifle fire stuttered and faded, and the horses quietened. The little group sat, silent and appalled, and stared at the Matabele dead strewn across the open ground ahead of them. They looked like the abandoned toys of a petulant child.
Ralph Ballantyne had not drawn the gold-engraved Winchester from its boot, and there was a long unlit cheroot between his white teeth. He spoke around it, smiling ironically, but his eyes were cold and green and hard.
'I count thirty-three of 'em down, Doctor Jim,' he said loudly. 'Not a bad bag really, even though they were sitting birds.' And he struck a Vesta against the thigh of his riding breeches and lit the cheroot; then he gathered the reins and turned his horses's head back towards the fort.
Lobengula turned the small canvas bag of sovereigns in his narrow graceful hands. He stood in the centre of the goat kraal, and there were only three Matabele with him, Gandang and Somabula and Babiaan. The others he had sent away.
Before him stood a little white group. Zouga had brought Louise with him to the meeting. He had not dared leave her alone in the cottage beyond the stockade of the royal kraal, not with the mood of the Matabele as it had been ever since Jameson's massacre at Fort Victoria.
Facing the king also, but a little separated from the other couple, stood Robyn and Clinton Codrington.
Still fingering the bag of gold, Lobengula turned his face to Robyn.
'See, Nomusa, these are the gold queens that you advised me to accept from Lodzi.'
'I am deeply ashamed, oh King,' Robvn whispered.
'Tell me faithfully, did I give away my land when I signed the paper?'
'No, King, you gave away only the gold beneath it.'
'But how can men dig for gold without the land over it' Lobengula asked, and Robyn was silent and miserable.
'Nomusa, you said that Lodzi was a man of honour.
So why does he do these things to me? His young men swagger across my land and call it their own. They shoot down my warriors, and now they gather a great army against me, with wagons and guns and thousands of soldiers. How can Lodzi do this to me, Nomusa?'
'I cannot answer you, oh King. I deceived you as I was myself deceived.'
Lobengula sighed. 'I believe you, Nomusa. There is still no quarrel between us. Bring your family, all your people here to my kraal that I may protect you through the dark times that lie ahead.'
'I do not deserve the king's consideration.' She choked on the words.
'No harm will come to you, Nomusa. You have Lobengula's word upon it.' He turned slowly back to Zouga.
'This gold, Bakela. Does it pay me for the blood of my young men?' And he threw the bag at Zouga's feet. 'Pick UP your gold, Bakela, and take it back to Lodzi.'
'Lobengula, I am your friend, and I tell you this as a friend. If you refuse the monthly payment, then Lodzi will look upon it as a breaking of faith.'
'Was not the killing of my young men a breaking of faith, Bakela?'
Lobengula asked sadly. 'If it was not, then my people believe it to be so. The regiments are gathered, so that they darken the Hills of the Indunas; they wear their plumes and carry their assegais and their guns, and their eyes are red. The blood of Matabele has been spilled, Bakela, and the enemies of the king gather against him.'
'Hear me, oh King, think a while before you let your young men run. What do they know of fighting Englishmen?' Zouga was angry now, and the scar on his cheek burned red as a welt raised by the lash of a whip.
'My young men will eat them up,' said Lobengula simply. 'As did the Zulu at the Hill of the Little Hand.'
'After the Little Hand came Ulundi,' Zouga reminded him. 'The earth was black with the Zulu dead, and they put chains on the legs of the Zulu King and sent him to an island far across the sea.'
'Bakela, it is too late. I cannot hold my young men, I have held them too long. They must run now.'
'Your young men are brave when there are old Mashona women to stab, and young babies to disembowel, but they have never met real men.'
Gandang hissed with anger behind the Icing's shoulder, but Zouga went on firmly.
'Send them home to dally with their women and preen their feathers, for if you let them run, then you will be lucky if you live to see your kraal burning and your herds being driven off.'
This time all three of the senior indunas hissed, and Gandang started forward impulsively, but Lobengula spread his hand to restrain him.
