“Very good,” I answered; “but that mountain cannot be stormed with three hundred men, fortified as it is with walls and schanzes.  Our band would be destroyed before ever we came to the kraal, since, owing to the sentries who are set everywhere, it would be impossible to surprise the place.  Also you have forgotten the dogs, Saduko.  Moreover, even if it were possible, I will have nothing to do with the massacre of women and children, which must happen in an assault.  Now, listen to me, O Saduko.  I say let us leave the kraal of Bangu alone, and this coming night send fifty of our men, under the leadership of the guides, down to yonder bush, where they will lie hid.  Then, after moonrise, when all are asleep, these fifty must rush the cattle kraal, killing any who may oppose them, should they be seen, and driving the herd out through yonder great pass by which we have entered the land.  Bangu and his people, thinking that those who have taken the cattle are but common thieves of some wild tribe, will gather and follow the beasts to recapture them.  But we, with the rest of the Amangwane, can set an ambush in the narrowest part of the pass among the rocks, where the grass is high and the euphorbia trees grow thick, and there, when they have passed the Nek, which I and my hunters will hold with our guns, we will give them battle.  What say you?”

Now, Saduko answered that he would rather attack the kraal, which he wished to burn.  But the old Amangwane, Tshoza, brother of the dead Matiwane, said: 

“No, Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, is wise.  Why should we waste our strength on stone walls, of which none know the number or can find the gates in the darkness, and thereby leave our skulls to be set up as ornaments on the fences of the accursed Amakoba?  Let us draw the Amakoba out into the pass of the mountains, where they have no walls to protect them, and there fall on them when they are bewildered and settle the matter with them man to man.  As for the women and children, with Macumazahn I say let them go; afterwards, perhaps, they will become our women and children.”

“Aye,” answered the Amangwane, “the plan of the white Inkoosi is good; he is clever as a weasel; we will have his plan and no other.”

So Saduko was overruled and my counsel adopted.

All that day we rested, lighting no fires and remaining still as the dead in the dense bush.  It was a very anxious day, for although the place was so wild and lonely, there was always the fear lest we should be discovered.  It was true that we had travelled mostly by night in small parties, to avoid leaving a spoor, and avoided all kraals; still, some rumour of our approach might have reached the Amakoba, or a party of hunters might stumble on us, or those who sought for lost cattle.