For four full days we journeyed thus, keeping, so far as I could judge, about twenty or thirty miles to the east of that road by which I had left Zululand before and re-entered it with Retief and his commission.  Evidently I was an object of great interest to the Zulus of the country through which we passed, perhaps because they knew me to be the sole survivor of all the white men who had gone up to visit the king.  They would come down in crowds from the kraals and stare at me almost with awe, as though I were a spirit and not a man.  Only, not one of them would say anything to me, probably because they had been forbidden to do so.  Indeed, if I spoke to any of them, invariably they turned and walked or ran out of hearing.

It was on the evening of the fourth day that Kambula and his soldiers received some news which seemed to excite them a great deal.  A messenger in a state of exhaustion, who had an injury to the fleshy part of his left arm, which looked to me as though it had been caused by a bullet, appeared out of the bush and said something of which, by straining my ears, I caught two words—­“Great slaughter.”  Then Kambula laid his fingers on his lips as a signal for silence and led the man away, nor did I see or hear any more of him.  Afterwards I asked Kambula who had suffered this great slaughter, whereon he stared at me innocently and replied that he did not know of what I was speaking.

“What is the use of lying to me, Kambula, seeing that I shall find out the truth before long?”

“Then, Macumazahn, wait till you do find it out, and may it please you,” he replied, and went off to speak with his people at a distance.

All that night I heard them talking off and on—­I, who lay awake plunged into new miseries.  I was sure that some other dreadful thing had happened.  Probably Dingaan’s armies had destroyed all the Boers, and, if so, oh! what had become of Marie?  Was she dead, or had she perhaps been taken prisoner, as Dingaan had told me would be done for his own vile purposes?  For aught I knew she might now be travelling under escort to Umgungundhlovu, as I was travelling to Natal.

The morning came at last, and that day, about noon, we reached a ford of the Tugela which luckily was quite passable.  Here Kambula bade me farewell, saying that his mission was finished.  Also he delivered to me a message that I was to give from Dingaan to the English in Natal.  It was to this effect:  That he, Dingaan, had killed the Boers who came to visit him because he found out that they were traitors to their chief, and therefore not worthy to live.  But that he loved the Sons of George, who were true-hearted people, and therefore had nothing to fear from him.  Indeed, he begged them to come and see him at his Great Place, where he would talk matters over with them.

I said that I would deliver the message if I met any English people, but, of course, I could not say whether they would accept Dingaan’s invitation to Umgungundhlovu.  Indeed, I feared lest that town might have acquired such a bad name that they would prefer not to come there without an army.