Since the Zulus under Chaka
killed out my people, the Ndwandwe, year by year I have plotted
and waited to see them wedded to the assegai. Now it has come
about. You white men have stamped them flat upon the plain of
Ulundi; they are no more a nation. And yet I am not happy, for
after all it was the House of Senzangacona and not the people of
the Zulus, that harmed me and mine, and Cetewayo still lives.
While the queen bee remains there may be a hive again. While an
ember still glows in the dead ashes, the forest may yet be fired.
Perhaps when Cetewayo is dead, then I shall be happy. Only his
death and mine are set by Fate as close together as two sister
grains of corn upon the cob."
I turned the subject, again asking his leave to depart to Natal
or to join the English army.
"You cannot go yet," he answered sternly, "so trouble me no more.
The land is full of wandering bands of Zulus who would kill you
and your blood would be on my head. Moreover, if they saw a
white woman who had sheltered with me, might they not guess
something? To dress a doll for the part of the Inkosazana-y-Zulu
is the greatest crime in the world, Macumazahn, and what would
happen to the Opener of Roads and all his House if it were even
breathed that he had dressed that doll and thus brought about the
war which ruined them? When Cetewayo is killed and the dead are
buried and peace falls upon the land, the peace of death, then
you shall go, Macumazahn, and not before.
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