Zulu (African people) -- Fiction; Zululand (South Africa) -- History -- Fiction
The soldiers did not stir, only a captain stepped out bidding him give
up his spear and yield himself, or be killed. Richard walked forward
and at a sign from the captain, men sprang at him, lifting their
kerries, to dash out his brains. Then suddenly in front of Richard
there appeared something faint and white, something that walked before
him. The soldiers saw it, and the kerries fell from their hands. The
regiment behind saw it, and turning, burst away like a scared herd of
cattle. They did not wait to seek the gates, they burst through the
fence of the enclosure, and were gone, leaving it flat behind them. The
King and his Councillors saw it also, and more clearly than the rest.
_“The Inkosazana!”_ they cried. “It is the Inkosazana who walks before
him that she loved!” and they fell upon their faces. Only Dingaan
remained seated on his stool.
“Go,” he said hoarsely to Richard, “go, thou wizard, north or south or
east or west, if only thou wilt take that Spirit with thee, for she
bodes evil to my land.”
So Richard, who had seen nothing, marched away from the kraal
Umgugundhlovu, and once more set his face towards the north, the north
that drew him as it draws the needle of a compass.
The road that Rachel and the dwarfs had travelled he travelled also.
Although from day to day he knew not where his feet would lead him,
still he travelled it step by step. Nor did any hurt come to him. In
the country where men dwelt, being forewarned of his coming by
messengers, they brought him food and guarded him, and when he passed
out into the wilderness some other power guarded him. He had no fear at
all. At night he would lie down without a fire, and the lions would
roar about him, but they never harmed him. He would plunge into a swamp
or a river and always pass it safely. When water failed he would find
it without search; when there was no food, it would seem to be brought
to him. Once an eagle dropped a bustard at his feet. Once he found a
buck fresh slain by leopards. Once when he was very hungry he saw that
he had laid down to sleep by a nest of ostrich eggs, and this food he
cooked, making fire after the native fashion with sharp sticks, as he
knew how to do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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