at dawn, and you must bid them
farewell, telling them that you will follow and camp to-morrow night
at the mouth of the pass, which you will enter at the next daybreak.
Meanwhile now at once we will send out my servant, Zinti, dressed like a
Pondo lad, to search the country, and find if there is not another
path by which the pass can be turned, for if such a way exists he will
discover it and report to us to-morrow at nightfall, since he, who is
stupid in many things, was born with the gift of seeking out roads and
remembering them; also he knows how to be silent if questioned."

The chief and his captains thought this plan good, and thanked the
Swallow for it, praising her wisdom, and within an hour, having been
instructed what he must do and where he should meet them, Zinti was
despatched upon his errand.

Next morning the envoys departed suspecting nothing, and taking with
them gifts and the ox of ceremony; and that night the army of Sigwe
encamped within a mile of the pass, to the right and left of which
stretched tall and difficult cliffs.

About an hour after sunset Zinti crept into the camp and asked for food
to eat, for he had travelled far and was hungry; moreover, he had been
chased by some Pondo soldiers to whom, feigning the fool he was commonly
supposed to be, he would make no answer when they questioned him. When
he had eaten he made his report to Sigwe, Suzanne, and Sihamba, and the
gist of it was that he had found a good road by which men might safely
ascend the cliffs, though not so easily as they could travel through the
gorge. Following this road, he added, they could pass round the Pondo
town, avoiding its fortifications, and coming out at the cattle kraals
at the back of the town, for he had climbed a high tree and mapped out
the route with his eye. Then followed a council of war, and the upshot
of it was that, under the leadership of Zinti, the army marched off in
silence an hour before midnight, leaving its cooking fires burning to
deceive the Pondos.

They climbed the cliffs by the path he showed them, and, travelling all
night, at dawn found themselves before the cattle kraals, which, as
no enemy was expected, were unguarded except by the herds. These they
cleared of the cattle, some thousands of them, and marched on at speed,
sending a message back to the town by the herds that this was the luck
which those must expect who attempted to trap the Swallow in a snare set
for a rock-rabbit.