You may think this
was rash, but I was so well known in Zululand, where for many years,
by special leave of the king, I was allowed to go whither I would quite
unmolested and, indeed, under the royal protection, that I felt no fear
for myself so long as I went alone.
"Accordingly one evening I crossed the drift and headed for a kloof in
which I was told the kraal stood. Ten minutes' ride brought me in sight
of it. It was not a large kraal; there may have been six or eight huts
and a cattle enclosure surrounded by the usual fence. The situation,
however, was very pretty, a knoll of rising ground backed by the wooded
slopes of the kloof. As I approached, I saw women and children running
to the kraal to hide, and when I reached the gateway for some time
no one would come out to meet me. At length a small boy appeared who
informed me that the kraal was 'empty as a gourd.'
"'Quite so,' I answered; 'still, go and tell the headman that Macumazahn
wishes to speak with him.'
"The boy departed, and presently I saw a face that seemed familiar to
me peeping round the edge of the gateway. After a careful inspection its
owner emerged.
"He was a tall, thin man of indefinite age, perhaps between sixty and
seventy, with a finely-cut face, a little grey beard, kind eyes and very
well-shaped hands and feet, the fingers, which twitched incessantly,
being remarkably long.
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