That morning we trekked on fast, fearing lest a regiment searching for these “thieves” should strike and follow our spoor.  Luckily the ox that the lion had killed was one of some spare cattle which I was driving with me, so its loss did not inconvenience us.  As we went Umslopogaas told me that he had duly appointed Lousta and his wife Monazi to rule the tribe during his absence, an office which they accepted doubtfully, Monazi acting as Chieftainess and Lousta as her head Induna or Councillor.

I asked him whether he thought this wise under all the circumstances, seeing that it had occurred to me since I made the suggestion, that they might be unwilling to surrender power on his return, also that other domestic complications might ensue.

“It matters little, Macumazahn,” he said with a shrug of his great shoulders, “for of this I am sure, that I have played my part with the People of the Axe and to stop among them would have meant my death, who am a man betrayed.  What do I care who love none and now have no children?  Still, it is true that I might have fled to Natal with the cattle and there have led a fat and easy life.  But ease and plenty I do not desire who would live and fall as a warrior should.

“Never again, mayhap, shall I see the Ghost-Mountain where the wolves ravened and the old Witch sits in stone waiting for the world to die, or sleep in the town of the People of the Axe.  What do I want with wives and oxen while I have Inkosikaas the Groan-maker and she is true to me?” he added, shaking the ancient axe above his head so that the sun gleamed upon the curved blade and the hollow gouge or point at the back beyond the shaft socket.  “Where the Axe goes, there go the strength and virtue of the Axe, O Macumazahn.”

“It is a strange weapon,” I said.

“Aye, a strange and an old, forged far away, says Zikali, by a warrior-wizard hundreds of years ago, a great fighter who was also the first of smiths and who sits in the Under-world waiting for it to return to his hand when its work is finished beneath the sun.  That will be soon, Macumazahn, since Zikali told me that I am the last Holder of the Axe.”

“Did you then see the Opener-of-Roads?” I asked.

“Aye, I saw him.  He it was who told me which way to go to escape from Zululand.  Also he laughed when he heard how the flooded rivers brought you to my kraal, and sent you a message in which he said that the spirit of a snake had told him that you tried to throw the Great Medicine into a pool, but were stopped by that snake, whilst it was still alive.  This, he said, you must do no more, lest he should send another snake to stop you.”

“Did he?” I replied indignantly, for Zikali’s power of seeing or learning about things that happened at a distance puzzled and annoyed me.

Only Hans grinned and said,

“I told you so, Baas.”

On we travelled from day to day, meeting with such difficulties and dangers as are common on roadless veld in Africa, but no more, for the grass was good and there was plenty of game, of which we shot what we wanted for meat.  Indeed, here in the back regions of what is known as Portuguese South East Africa, every sort of wild animal was so numerous that personally I wished we could turn our journey into a shooting expedition.