"There is no food," the women told Tanase. "Soon we will starve."
And they sent her stumbling back northwards, seeking and questioning, trying to blind herself to the agonies of a defeated nation, until one day she stooped in through the entrance of a dim and smoky cave, and a vaguely familiar figure rose to greet her.
"Tanase, my child, my daughter."
Only then did Tanase recognize her, for the abundant flesh had melted off the woman's frame and her once bounteous breasts hung slack as empty pouches against her belly.
"Juba, my mother," Tanase cried, and ran into her embrace. It was a long time after that before she could speak through her sobs.
"oh my mother, do you know what has become of Bazo?"
Juba pushed her gently to arm's length and looked into her face. When Tanase saw the devastating sorrow in Juba's eyes, she cried out with dread.
"He is not dead!"
"Come, my daughter," Juba whispered, and led her deeper into the cave, along a natural passageway through the living rock, and there was a graveyard smell on the cool dark air, the odour of corruption and rotting flesh.
The second cavern was lit only by a burning wick floating in a bowl of oil. There was a litter against the far wall, On it lay a wasted skeletal body, and the smell of death was overpowering.
Fearfully Tanase knelt beside the litter and lifted a bunch of leaves off one of the stinking wounds.
"He is not dead," Tanase repeated. "Bazo is not dead."
"Not yet," agreed Juba. "His father and those of his men who survived the white men's bullets, carried my son to me on his shield. They bid me save him, but nobody can save him."
"He will not die," said Tanase fiercely. "I will not let him die." And she leaned over his wasted body and pressed her lips to the fever-hot flesh. "I will not let you die," she whispered.
The Hills of the Indunas were deserted; no beast grazed upon them for the herds had long ago been driven afar to try to save them from the invaders. There were no vultures or crows sailing high above the hills, for the Maxim guns had laid a richer feast for them barely twenty-five miles eastwards at the Zembesi crossing.
The royal kraal of Gubulawayo was almost, deserted.
The women's quarters were silent. No child cried, no young girl sang, no crone scolded. They were all hiding in the magical Matopos hills.
The barracks of the fighting regiments were deserted.
Two thousand dead on the Shangani, three thousand more at Zembesi, and nobody would ever count those who had crawled away to die like animals in the caves and thickets.
The survivors had scattered, some to join the women in the hills, the others to cower, bewildered and demoralized, wherever they could find shelter.
Of all the fighting impis of Matabele, only one remained intact, the Inyati regiment of Induna Gandang, the king's half-brother. Gandang alone had been able to resist the madness of hurling his men over open ground at the waiting Maxim guns, and now he waited for his king's orders in the hills just north of the royal kraal with his impi gathered about him.
In all of Gubulawayo, there was one small group remaining. Twenty-six of these were white men and women. They were the traders and concession-hunters who had been at the kraal when Jameson had marched from Iron Mine Hill. With them, were the Codrington family, Clinton and Robyn and the twins. Lobengula had ordered them all to remain under his protection, while the impis were out in battle array, and now he had called them to the goat kraal for his last audience.
Drawn up before the two new brick-built houses which had replaced the great thatched hut, were Lobengula's four Cape wagons with the teams already in the traces.
About the wagons were a small party of the royal retainers: two of the king's senior wives, four elderly indunas, and a dozen or so slaves and servants.
The king himself sat on the box of the leading wagon.
in that wagon were all Lobengula's treasures, a hundred big tusks of ivory, the little sealed pots of uncut diamonds, and the canvas bags stencilled with the name "The Standard Bank Ltd" containing the sovereigns paid to him during the four years since he had granted the concession to the British South Africa Company, four thousand sovereigns, less than a sovereign for every one of his dead warriors.
Around the wagon were gathered the white men, and Lobengula looked down upon them. The king had become an old man in the few short weeks since he had thrown the war spear on the Hills of the Indunas. There were deep lines of sorrow and espair carved around his mouth and eyes. His eyes were rheumy and shortsighted, his hair bleached silver-grey, his body bloated and misshapen, and his breathing was racked and irregular like that of a dying animal.
"Tell your queen, white men, that Lobengula kept his word. Not one of you has been harmed," he wheezed.
"Daketela and his soldiers will be here tomorrow. If you go out upon the eastern road, you will even meet them before nightfall." Lobengula paused and sed to catch his breath, then went on. "Go now. There is nothing more I have to say to you."
They were silent, subdued, and strangely chastened, as they trooped out of the goat kraal. Only Robyn and her family remained.
The twins stood on each side of Robyn. At twenty-one years of age, they were as tall as she. it seemed that the three of them were sisters, for they all had the clear eyes and glossy hair of healthy young women.
Clinton Codrington, standing behind them, stooped and bald, dressed in sober broadcloth that was mossy green with age and shiny at the cuffs and elbows, seemed father to Robyn as well as to the twins.
The king looked down upon them with a terrible regret.
It is the last time that you will make my eyes glad, Nomusa," he said.
oh King, my heart is on fire for you. I think of what has happened and how I advised you."
Lobengula held up his hand to silence her. "Do not torture yourself, Nomusa. You have been a true friend of many years, and what you did was done in friendship.
Nothing you or I could have done would have changed the manner of it. It was the prophecy; it was as certain as the fall of the leaves from the msasa trees when the frosts are on the hills."
Robyn ran forward to the wagon, and Lobengula stooped to take her hand.
"Pray to your three gods that are one god for me, Nomusa."
"He will hear you, Lobengula, you are a good man."
"No man is all goodness or all evil," the king sighed.
"Now, Nomusa, soon Daketela and his soldiers will be here. Tell him that Lobengula says thus. "I am beaten, white men, my impis are eaten up. Let me go now, do not hunt me further, for I am an old sick man. I wish only to find a place where I may mourn my people, and at last die in peace."
"I will tell them, Lobengula."
"And will they listen, Nomusa?"
She could not face him, and she dropped her eyes. "You know they will not listen."
"My poor people," whispered Lobengula. "Will you look after my poor people when I am gone, Nomusa?"
"I swear it to you, oh King," Robyn said fiercely. "I will stay at Khami Mission until the day that I die, and I will devote my life to your people."
Then Lobengula smiled, and once again there was a flash of the old mischievous twinkle in his eye.
"I give you the royal permission which I denied you all these years, Nomusa. From this day forward any of my people, man or woman or child of Matabele who wish to pray with you, you may pour water on their heads and make the cross of your three gods over them."
Robyn could not reply.
"Stay in peace, Nomusa," said Lobengula, and his wagon rumbled slowly out through the gates of the stockade.
Clinton Codrington reined in the mule on the crest of the rise above the royal kraal, and he groped for Robyn's hand. They sat silently on the seat of the little Scotch cart, watching the last pale shreds of dust thrown up by the king's wagons disappearing away in the north across the grassy plain.
"They will never leave him in peace," Robyn said softly, "Lobengula is the prize," Clinton agreed. "Without him, Jameson and Rhodes will have no victory."