had been saving for the children's room, despite her protests. But he's a native, dear! Every evening, he took the prisoner's meal down to him in the pannikin, inspected the wound and dressed it afresh.
Then while he waited for Pungushe to eat, he sat on the top step in the doorway to the shed and they smoked a cigarette while they talked. If the valley belongs now to King Georgey, how is it that you build your house here, plant your gardens and graze your mules? I am the king's man, Mark explained. You are an induna? Pungushe paused with a spoon of food halfway to his mouth, and stared at Mark incredulously. You are one of the king's counsellors? I am the keeper of the royal hunt. Mark used the old Zulu title, and Purigushe shook his head sadly. My father's father was once the keeper of the royal hunt but he was a man of great consequence, with two dozen wives, a man who had fought in a dozen wars and killed so many enemies that his shield was as thick with oxtails as there is grass on the hills in springtime. The oxtail was the decoration which the king grants a warrior to adorn his shield when he has distinguished himself in battle.
Pungushe finished his meal and added simply, 'King Chaka knew better than to send a child to do man's work. The next evening Mark saw that the wound was healing cleanly and swiftly. The man's tremendous fitness and strength were responsible for that. He was able to sit crosslegged now, and there was a new jauntiness in the way he held his head. It would be sooner than Mark had thought that Pungushe would be fit enough to make the journey to Ladyburg, and Mark felt an odd sinking feeling of regret. King Georgey is doubtlessly a great, wise and all-seeing king, Pungushe opened the evening's debate. Why then does he wait until sundown to begin work that should have been started at dawn? If he wanted to avoid the great emptiness in this valley, his father should have begun the work. The king's affairs are many, in far countries. He must rely on indunas to advise him who are not as wise or allseeing, Mark explained. The Abelungu, the white men, are like greedy children, grabbing up handfuls of food they cannot eat.
Instead they smear it over their faces. There are greedy and ignorant black men also, Mark pointed out. Some who even kill leopards with steel traps for their fur. To sell to the greedy white men, to dress their ignorant women, Pungushe agreed, and that makes the score deuce, Mark thought as he gathered up the empty pannikins.
The next evening Pungushe seemed sad, as at the time of leave-taking.
You have given. me much on which I must think heavI ily, he said. You will have much time to do so, Mark agreed. In between the breaking of rocks. And Pungushe ignored the reference. There is weight in your words, for one who is still young enough to be herding the cattle, he qualified the compliment. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, Mark translated into Zulu and Pungushe nodded solemnly, and in the morning he was gone.
He had opened the thatch at the back of the roof, and wriggled through the small hole. He had taken his kaross and left Marion's blankets neatly folded on the mattress.
He had tried for the steel spring-trap, but Mark had locked it in the kitchen, so he had left it and gone northwards in the night.
Mark was furious for so misjudging his prisoner's recovery, and he muttered darkly as he plunged along after him on Trojan. This time I'm going to shoot the bastard on sight, he promised, and realized at that moment that Pungushe had backtracked on him. He had to dismount and laboriously unravel the confused trail.
Half an hour later, Pungushe led him into the river, and it was well after noon when he at last found where the Zulu had left the water, stepping lightly on a fallen log.
He finally lost the cold spoor in the rocky ground on the far rim of the valley, and it was almost midnight when he rode weaffly back to the thatched cottage. Marion had his dinner ready and ten gallons of hot bath water bubbling on the fire.
Six weeks later, Pungushe returned to the valley. Mark sat astounded on the stoep of the cottage, and watched him come.
He walked with the long gliding stride that showed he was fully recovered from his wound. He wore the beaded loin-cloth and the jackal-skin cloak over his shoulders. He carried two of the short-shafted stabbing assegai, with the broad steel blades, and his wives followed at a respectable distance behind him.
There were three of them. They were bare-breasted, with the tall clay headdress of the Zulu matron. The senior was of the same age as her husband, but her dugs were flat and empty as leather pouches and she had lost her front teeth.
The youngest wife was a child still in her teens, a pretty plump little thingwith jolly melon breasts, and a fat brown infant on her hip.
Every wife carried an enormous bundle on her head, balancing it easily without use of hands, and they were followed by a gaggle of naked and half -naked children. Like their mothers, the little girls each carried a headload, the size of it directly proportional to the age and stature of the bearer. The smallest, perhaps four years of age, carried a beer gourd the size of a grapefruit, echoing faithfully the straight erect carriage and swaying buttocks of her seniors.
Mark counted seven sons and six daughters.
I see you, Jamela. Pungushe paused below the stoep. I see you also, Pungushe, Mark acknowledged cautiously, and the Zulu squatted down comfortably on the lowest step. His wives settled down at the edge of Marion's garden, politely out of earshot. The youngest wife gave one of her fat breasts to the infant and he suckled lustily. It will rain tomorrow, said Pungushe. Unless the wind goes into the north. In which case it will not rain again until the full moon. That is so, Mark agreed. Rain now would be good for the grazing. It will bring the silwane down from the Portuguese territory beyond the Pongola.
Mark's astonishment had now given way to lively curiosity. There is talk in the villages, common word among all the people that has only recently come to my ears, Pungushe went on airily. It is said that Jamela, the new keeper of the royal hunt of King Georgey, is a mighty warrior who has slain great multitudes of the king's enemies in the war beyond the sea. The jackal paused and then went on, Albeit, he is still unbearded and green as the first flush of the spring-time grass. Is that the word? Mark inquired politely. It is said that King Georgey has granted Jamela a black oxtail to wear on his shield. A black oxtail is the highest honour, and might loosely be considered the equivalent of a M. M. I am also a warrior, Pungushe pointed out. I fought with Bombata at the gorge, and afterwards the soldiers came and took away my cattle. This is how I became a man of silwane, and a mighty hunter. We are brothers of the spear, Mark conceded. But now I will make ready my isi-A-du-du, my motorcycle, so that we may ride to Ladyburg and speak with the magistrate there of matters of great interest to all of us. Jamela! The Zulu shook his head grievingly, like a father with an obtuse son. You aspire to be a man of the silwane, you aspire to fill the great emptiness, and yet who will there be to teach you, who will open your eyes to see and your ears to hear, if I am in the kraal of King Georgey breaking his rocks? You have come to help me? Mark asked. You and your beautiful fat wives, your brave sons and nubile daughters? It is even so. This is a noble thought, Mark conceded. I am Zulu of royal blood, Pungushe agreed. Also my fine steel trap was stolen from me, even as my cattle were stolen thus making me a poor man once more. I see, Mark nodded. It remains only for me to put out of my mind the business of leopard skins and dead buffalo? It is even so. Doubtless I will also find it in my heart, to pay you for this help and advice. That also is so. What size is the coin in which you will be paid? Pungushe shrugged
