Benita obeyed, and from under cover of the tent where the Matabele could not see her, watched and listened. The party that approached consisted of a chief and about twenty men, who marched behind him as a guard. Benita knew that chief. He was the captain Maduna, he of the royal blood whose life she had saved. By his side was a Natal Zulu, Robert Seymour’s driver, who could speak English and acted as interpreter.
“White man,” said Maduna, “a message has reached us from our king. Lobengula makes a great war and has need of us. He summons us back from this petty fray, this fight against cowards who hide behind walls, whom otherwise we would have killed, everyone, yes, if we sat here till we grew old. So for this time we leave them alone.”
Robert answered politely that he was glad to hear it, and wished them a good journey.
“Wish yourself a good journey, white man,” was the stern reply.
“Why? Do you desire that I should accompany you to Lobengula?”
“No, you go before us to the kraal of the Black One who is even greater than the child of Moselikatse, to that king who is called Death.”
Robert crossed his arms and said: “Say on.”
“White man, I promised you life if you would show us how to pierce or climb those walls. But you have made fools of us—you have set us to cut through rock with spears and axes. Yes, to hoe at rock as though it were soil—you who with the wisdom of your people could have taught us some better way. Therefore we must go back to our king disgraced, having failed in his service, and therefore you who have mocked us shall die. Come down now, that we may kill you quietly, and learn whether or no you are a brave man.”
Then it was, while her lover’s hand was moving towards the pistol hidden beneath his coat, that Benita, with a quick movement, emerged from the waggon in which she crouched, and stood up at his side upon the driving box.
“Ow!” said the Captain. “It is the White Maiden. Now how came she here? Surely this is great magic. Can a woman fly like a bird?” and they stared at her amazed.
“What does it matter how I came, chief Maduna?” she answered in Zulu. “Yet I will tell you why I came. It was to save you from dipping your spear in the innocent blood, and bringing on your head the curse of the innocent blood. Answer me now. Who gave you and your brother yonder your lives within that wall when the Makalanga would have torn you limb from limb, as hyenas tear a buck? Was it I or another?”
“Inkosi-kaas—Chieftainess,” replied the great Captain, raising his broad spear in salute. “It was you and no other.”
“And what did you promise me then, Prince Maduna?”
“Maiden of high birth, I promised you your life and your goods, should you ever fall into my power.”
“Does a leader of the Amandabele, one of the royal blood, lie like a Mashona or a Makalanga slave? Does he do worse—tell half the truth only, like a cheat who buys and keeps back half the price?” she asked contemptuously. “Maduna, you promised me not one life, but two, two lives and the goods that belong to both. Ask of your brother there, who was witness of the words.”
“Great Heavens!” muttered Robert Seymour to himself, as he looked at Benita standing with outstretched hand and flashing eyes. “Who would have thought that a starved woman could play such a part with death on the hazard?”
“It is as this daughter of white chiefs says,” answered the man to whom she had appealed. “When she freed us from the fangs of those dogs, you promised her two lives, my brother, one for yours and one for mine.”
“Hear him,” went on Benita. “He promised me two lives, and how did this prince of the royal blood keep his promise? When I and the old man, my father, rode hence in peace, he loosed his spears upon us; he hunted us. Yet it was the hunters who fell into the trap, not the hunted.”