They turned too, and ran after me, throwing spears at
me and trying to cut me off. But none of them could catch me--no, not
one. I went like the wind; I went like a buck when the dogs wake it
from sleep; and presently the sound of their chase grew fainter and
fainter, till at last I was out of sight and alone.
CHAPTER III
MOPO VENTURES HOME
I threw myself down on the grass and panted till my breath came back;
then I went and hid in a patch of reeds down by a swamp. All day long
I lay there thinking. What was I to do? Now I was a jackal without a
hole. If I went back to my people, certainly they would kill me, whom
they thought a thief. My blood would be given for Noma's, and that I
did not wish, though my heart was sad. Then there came into my mind
the thought of Chaka, the boy to whom I had given the cup of water
long ago. I had heard of him: his name was known in the land; already
the air was big with it; the very trees and grass spoke it. The words
he had said and the vision that my mother had seen were beginning to
come true. By the help of the Umtetwas he had taken the place of his
father Senzangacona; he had driven out the tribe of the Amaquabe; now
he made war on Zweete, chief of the Endwande, and he had sworn that he
would stamp the Endwande flat, so that nobody could find them any
more.
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