Adventure stories; Africa -- Fiction; Hunting guides -- Fiction; Quatermain, Allan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
“The Umtetwas will go after the oxen presently,” he answered, “and we
have seen enough of them.”
“Quite enough,” I answered, with enthusiasm; “I never want to see
another; but where are we to go? Here we are alone with one gun and a
little girl in the vast and lonely veldt. Which way shall we turn?”
“Our faces were towards the north before we met the Zulus,” answered
Indaba-zimbi; “let us still keep them to the north. Ride on,
Macumazahn; to-night when we off-saddle I will look into the matter.”
So all that long afternoon we rode on, following the course of the
river. From the nature of the ground we could only go slowly, but
before sunset I had the satisfaction of knowing that there must be at
least twenty-five miles between us and those accursed Zulus. Little
Tota slept most of the way, the motion of the horse was easy, and she
was worn out.
At last the sunset came, and we off-saddled in a dell by the river.
There was not much to eat, but I soaked some biscuit in water for Tota,
and Indaba-zimbi and I made a scanty meal of biltong. When we had done
I took off Tota’s frock, wrapped her up in a blanket near the fire we
had made, and lit a pipe. I sat there by the side of the sleeping
orphaned child, and from my heart thanked Providence for saving her
life and mine from the slaughter of that day. What a horrible
experience it had been! It seemed like a nightmare to look back upon.
And yet it was sober fact, one among those many tragedies which dotted
the paths of the emigrant Boers with the bones of men, women, and
children. These horrors are almost forgotten now; people living in
Natal now, for instance, can scarcely realize that some forty years ago
six hundred white people, many of them women and children, were thus
massacred by the Impis of Dingaan. But it was so, and the name of the
district, _Weenen_, or the Place of Weeping, will commemorate them for
ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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