In compliment, perhaps, to the tribe, he wore nearly the same dress. Slowly seating himself on a rudely chiselled stone, Mozelkatse glanced around his warriors proudly, without noticing his visitors. He was a man of large size, apparently in the full vigour of his age, and of great muscular development, the colour of his skin alone detracting from his appearance.
There was an air of thought and command in his face, and, unlike his warriors, his hair was thrown back, his broad forehead being encircled with a fillet of ostrich feathers, terminating in a single plume hanging behind.
Heavy rings of highly-polished copper spanned the thick part of the arms, and lighter ones the wrist. The neck was adorned with a necklace, partly formed of bits of gold strung together, from which depended a dagger, and over the broad, hairy, black breast, floated one magnificent ostrich plume. A tawny lion skin was thrown over the stone on which he sat, while a robe of panther skins hung from his waist.
His right hand held the same kind of short stick carried by the warriors, while the left rested on his naked knee. Only that the forehead was rather low, and the mouth too large, Mozelkatse might have passed muster as a splendid specimen of coloured humanity.
A chief named Masheesh now stepped forward and presented the soldier and the missionary to the king, briefly explaining in his own tongue the object which led the strangers to the country. The missionary next addressed the king, asking his acceptance of the presents, which were laid at his feet by Luji, wrapped in an ox hide, the principal object being a handsome pair of pistols, silver-mounted, which seemed to please Mozelkatse. Bowing his head in token of acceptance, the king waved his hand, and two braves stepping forward took up the hide and its contents, conveying them into the king’s hut.
Settling himself in his seat, Mozelkatse looked round the circle, and all at once poured forth a torrent of words, which were those of welcome to the white men who had come to see him, ending with a request that they would settle among and trade with his people. The circle of black warriors applauded, striking their shields with their spears, and as their numbers had greatly increased, there not being less than two hundred and fifty armed men in the enclosure, the applause was noisy enough. As it died away, Wyzinski rose and stood before the chief, his clear silvery voice ringing through the enclosure, “Some years since,” said he, “I was travelling with my brethren far away on the banks of the Limpopo. I saw much of the various nations around, and by chance met with intelligent men of the tribe which calls Mozelkatse king.”
The savage bent his head in token of acknowledgment of the compliment, glancing round the circle of his braves proudly.
“I began,” continued Wyzinski, “to speak their language, and as I did so became aware of strange stories as to a spot far away towards the north, where stone buildings exist. One of these I was told was as large as Mozelkatse’s kraal, having an opening about half its height, through which they who desire to see the ruins must pass. My Matlokotlopo brethren told also of strange figures cut in stone, and of curiously carved birds also in stone. These houses must have once been the dwellings of the white man, and the legends our fathers have taught tell us of such white men, who came many thousand years since from the regions of the rising sun, landing on these shores. To reach these ruins, to prove that our fathers spoke the truth, is our object, and in the name of our ancestors we ask thy protection, chief.”
Drawing his robes round him, Wyzinski sat down, and for fully a minute there was a dead silence.
“The broken huts exist,” at length replied the king, “though none of us have ever seen them, and none know what far-away tribe made them. To reach them my white brethren must pass over the vast plains which lie between the Limpopo and the Zambesi, which the foot of the white man has never yet trod. The elephant and the lion abound there. The savage moohoohoo breed undisturbed, and not less cruel tribes, to whom Mozelkatse’s name carries no terror, inhabit them. Let my white brethren stay to hunt, and to trade with us. A party of my braves shall seek the fallen huts and bring back the images.”
The rattling sound of the rude applause was once more heard.
“No, chief,” replied Wyzinski; “we are not traders. We have turned from our road to ask your aid. Give it, and we shall succeed. The report will go far and wide that through the protection of a great king our fathers’ truth has been manifested, and traders will follow in our footsteps. Speed us on our journey, chief.”
Mozelkatse did not reply, and for a few moments there was a deep silence. It was broken in a sudden and startling manner. A little man, almost a dwarf, deformed in person and fearfully ugly, leaped into the circle. Executing a wild dance, which he accompanied with shrill screams, he spun round, the warriors crouching down and applauding, not as heretofore with their spears, but by beating on the hard baked ground with their sticks, sometimes altogether, sometimes in an irregular manner.
Stopping as suddenly as he had begun in his mad dance, the sorcerer, for such he was, threw himself violently on the ground at Mozelkatse’s feet, breaking as he did so a necklace of bones which he wore round his neck. For the first time the living circle of dusky braves gave way, and all able to do so crowded round the sorcerer, who with fixed and straining eyes was staring at the masses of bones lying here and there, from the position of which the augury was to be drawn. Luckily for the travellers, the omen was tolerably propitious, the seer pronouncing that though there was danger in the path, the white chiefs should return in safety.
The circle was again formed, and a long discussion ensued, in the course of which several of the more noted chiefs joined in, and the result was a mass of evidence as to the existence of ruins somewhere in the neighbourhood of Manica, a country lying to the northward, well watered by tributaries of the Zambesi, all the evidence being however merely hearsay. Eventually the king’s aid and protection were promised, and Mozelkatse retired, two braves as he did so advancing, and taking from their sheaths the long glittering knives, performed a curious dance round the strangers, eventually cutting away the grass upon which they had sat, and burying it in a hole under the stone which had served as a throne. This being a ceremony always performed by the chief who wishes to retain the friendship of his visitors, during their temporary absence, was of good augury. The audience was at an end, the king disappearing inside his hut, and the Union Jack being struck, the new comers, escorted by a band of armed braves, singing a monotonous song, and accompanying themselves with the regular but discordant noise of the spears striking against the shields, marched off to the camp, where an ox previously purchased was slaughtered, cut up, and distributed among the braves, the absent but friendly sorcerer not being forgotten.
“A curious interview, Wyzinski and one I am not sorry to have got through,” observed Hughes, as the two were seated that evening, near the camp fire.
“At all events, we may look upon the point as gained, and from this day will date our search for the ruined cities of Zulu Land,” replied Wyzinski.
The night was dark, and the radius lit up by the blaze was of small extent. Luji and his man had lit their fire under a huge boulder of rock, which had rolled down apparently from the mountain range at whose feet they were encamped. The Matlokotlopo fires could be seen twinkling on the hill-top, and before them lay the plain, watered by the Limpopo, whose sinuous course they had marked, running like a blue thread through the land, from the rude council chamber of the tribe. From the boulder round which the men were squatted came the noise of many tongues, among which that of Luji played a prominent part; away on the plain the jackals and hyenas were to be heard, and the night breeze came rustling the leaves of the tree underneath which the two were talking by the fire.
“How strange,” said Hughes, breaking a long silence, “that a land so beautifully situated and so temperate in its climate should be so sparsely populated, and so utterly uncultivated!”
“It won’t remain so long,” replied the missionary. “Natal is a sugar and coffee producing country, and