. Jan Boom, who was
driving the other waggon, was quick to follow my example, and to the
accompaniment of a cannonade of whip cracking and ear-splitting yells,
the two spans tugged out laboriously over the heavy miry road.

So far as our disturbers were concerned, I kept silence, by way of
showing that I considered them beneath my notice, until I saw that their
mouthings and gesticulations as they kept pace with us on either side,
were likely to _schrik_ our two horses, leading on behind, to the point
of nearly causing them to break their reims and rush away the devil knew
where.

"Who are ye?" I shouted. "Who are ye that come bellowing down upon me
like a pack of kraal curs? You are not children either, for I see among
you men with rings. Go away."

But the ringed men, to my surprise, were among the most boisterous.

"Turn back, Umlungu," cried one of them. "Turn back. It is the word of
our father, Mawendhlela."

Mawendhlela! The name set my misgivings at rest in a moment.
Mawendhlela a chief by virtue of birth and possessions, a man who was no
warrior but one of the few Zulus at that time who was addicted to gin,
and disliked me because I had always steadfastly refused either to trade
or give him any.

"Mawendhlela!" I echoed. "_Hau_! I go to a bull that roars louder
than he. I go to Majendwa--to Majendwa I say. Now--go away."

But this, to my surprise, they showed no inclination to do. On the
contrary they closed up in such wise as to bring the front waggon to a
standstill. Short of cutting a way through them there was no method of
proceeding, and there were about a hundred of them, all bristling with
assegais. I had my revolver on though it was not visible, and for all
their numbers I made up my mind to shoot the first who should lay a hand
upon my people or my oxen: for there are times when forbearance may be
stretched to a dangerous limit. What would have happened next I won't
pretend to guess, but some sort of diversion must have occurred, for
heads were turned, looking back over the way they had come. Then the
crowd parted, precipitately too, some tumbling over each other's heels
in their alacrity to get out of the way, and through the lane thus
opened there rode up at a furious pace, a man--a white man.

"Here, get out of this!" he bellowed, firing off a very blast of
profanity. "Turn your blanked oxen round, and trek back--d'you hear?
trek back a sight quicker than you came. D'you