“‘Wambe is a great chief,’ said Nala, ’and this woman is his wife, whom he has a right to claim.  She must return to him, but her feet are sore with walking, she cannot come now.  In eight days from this day she shall be delivered at the kraal of Wambe; I will send her with a party of my men.  As for the white hunter and his men, I have nought to do with them, and cannot answer for their misdeeds.  They have wandered hither unbidden by me, and I will deliver them back whence they came, that Wambe may judge them according to his law; they shall be sent with the girl.  For you, go your ways.  Food shall be given you without the kraal, and a present for Wambe in atonement of the ill-doing of my daughter.  I have spoken.’

“At first the heralds seemed inclined to insist upon Maiwa’s accompanying them then and there, but on being shown the swollen condition of her feet, ultimately they gave up the point and departed.

“When they were well out of the way I emerged from the hut, and we went on to discuss the situation and make our plans.  First of all, as I was careful to explain to Nala, I was not going to give him my experience and services for nothing.  I heard that Wambe had a stockade round his kraal made of elephant tusks.  These tusks, in the event of our succeeding in the enterprise, I should claim as my perquisite, with the proviso that Nala should furnish me with men to carry them down to the coast.

“To this modest request Nala and the head men gave an unqualified and hearty assent, the more hearty perhaps because they never expected to get the ivory.

“The next thing I stipulated was, that if we conquered, the white man John Every should be handed over to me, together with any goods which he might claim.  His cruel captivity was, I need hardly say, the only reason that induced me to join in so hair-brained an expedition, but I was careful from motives of policy to keep this fact in the background.  Nala accepted this condition.  My third stipulation was that no women or children should be killed.  This being also agreed to, we went on to consider ways and means.  Wambe, it appeared, was a very powerful petty chief, that is, he could put at least six thousand fighting men into the field, and always had from three to four thousand collected about his kraal, which was supposed to be impregnable.  Nala, on the contrary, at such short notice could not collect more than from twelve to thirteen hundred men, though, being of the Zulu stock, they were of much better stuff for fighting purposes than Wambe’s Matukus.

“These odds, though large, under the circumstances were not overwhelming.  The real obstacle to our chance of success was the difficulty of delivering a crushing assault against Wambe’s strong place.  This was, it appeared, fortified all round with schanses or stone walls, and contained numerous caves and koppies in the hill-side and at the foot of the mountain which no force had ever been able to capture.  It is said that in the time of the Zulu monarch Dingaan, a great impi of that king’s having penetrated to this district, had delivered an assault upon the kraal then owned by a forefather of Wambe’s, and been beaten back with the loss of more than a thousand men.