Wow! men do not break them,
but wolves do, and last night we saw wolves a-hunting; nor did they
hunt alone, Mopo. Wow! this is a haunted land!"
Then we went on in silence, and all the way the stone face of the
Witch who sits aloft forever stared down on us from the mountain top.
At length, an hour before sundown, we came to the open lands, and
there, on the crest of a rise beyond the river, we saw the kraal of
the People of the Axe. It was a great kraal and well built, and their
cattle were spread about the plains like to herds of game for number.
We went to the river and passed it by the ford, then sat down and
waited, till presently I saw the man whom I had sent forward returning
towards us. He came and saluted me, and I asked him for news.
"This is my news, Mopo," he said: "I have seen him who is named
Bulalio, and he is a great man--long and lean, with a fierce face, and
carrying a mighty axe, such an axe as he bore last night who hunted
with the wolves. When I had been led before the chief I saluted him
and spoke to him--the words you laid upon my tongue I told to him. He
listened, then laughed aloud, and said: 'Tell him who sent you that
the mouth of Dingaan shall be welcome, and shall speak the words of
Dingaan in peace; yet I would that it were the head of Dingaan that
came and not his mouth only, for then Axe Groan-Maker would join in
our talk--ay, because of one Mopo, whom his brother Chaka murdered, it
would also speak with Dingaan.
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