"Treachery!" I said. "Who is it?"
"Saduko, with the Amakoba and Amangwane soldiers and others. I know them
by their head-dresses," answered Maputa in a cold voice.
"Do you mean that Saduko has gone over to Cetewayo with all his
following?" I asked excitedly.
"What else, Macumazahn? Saduko is a traitor: Umbelazi is finished," and
he passed his hand swiftly across his mouth--a gesture that has only one
meaning among the Zulus.
As for me, I sat down upon a stone and groaned, for now I understood
everything.
Presently the Usutu raised fierce, triumphant shouts, and once again
their impi, swelled with Saduko's power, began to advance up the slope.
Umbelazi, and those of the Isigqosa party who clung to him--now, I
should judge, not more than eight thousand men--never stayed to wait the
onslaught. They broke! They fled in a hideous rout, crashing through
the thin, left horn of the Usutu by mere weight of numbers, and
passing behind us obliquely on their road to the banks of the Tugela. A
messenger rushed up to us, panting.
"These are the words of Umbelazi," he gasped. "O Watcher-by-Night and O
Maputa, Indhlovu-ene-sihlonti prays that you will hold back the Usutu,
as the King bade you do in case of need, and so give to him and those
who cling to him time to escape with the women and children into
Natal. His general, Saduko, has betrayed him, and gone over with three
regiments to Cetewayo, and therefore we can no longer stand against the
thousands of the Usutu."
"Go tell the prince that Macumazahn, Maputa, and the Amawombe regiment
will do their best," answered Maputa calmly. "Still, this is our advice
to him, that he should cross the Tugela swiftly with the women and the
children, seeing that we are few and Cetewayo is many."
The messenger leapt away, but, as I heard afterwards, he never found
Umbelazi, since the poor man was killed within five hundred yards of
where we stood.
Then Maputa gave an order, and the Amawombe formed themselves into a
triple line, thirteen hundred men in the first line, thirteen hundred
men in the second line, and about a thousand in the third, behind whom
were the carrier boys, three or four hundred of them. The place assigned
to me was in the exact centre of the second line, where, being mounted
on a horse, it was thought, as I gathered, that I should serve as a
convenient rallying-point.
In this formation we advanced a few hundred yards to our left, evidently
with the object of interposing ourselves between the routed impi and the
pursuing Usutu, or, if the latter should elect to go round us, with that
of threatening their flank. Cetewayo's generals did not leave us long in
doubt as to what they would do. The main body of their army bore away
to the right in pursuit of the flying foe, but three regiments, each
of about two thousand five hundred spears, halted. Five minutes passed
perhaps while they marshalled, with a distance of some six hundred yards
between them. Each regiment was in a triple line like our own.