!" cried Tambusa.
"_Hambani-gahle, abatagati_!" ["Go in peace, doer of dark deeds."]

Then the hissing and the roars of the savage slayers ceased, and the
whole mass of our people trooped back from the place of slaughter,
howling, in derision, the song they had made for the Amabuna.

"The mouth of the white man is open very wide;
It _has_ been filled--it _has_ been filled."

Thus they died, those Amabuna--nor did one of them escape; for even
their servants, whom they had left outside to hold their horses, were
all seized at the same time, and taken to the place of doom. As Tambusa
had declared, the head of the snake was crushed at last.

It is said by you white people, _Nkose_, that Dingane acted a cruel and
treacherous part in thus causing the leaders of the Amabuna to be slain.
That may be, when seen with a white man's eyes. But seen with ours the
thing is different. These Amabuna had come to take a large portion of
the Zulu country from the Zulu people, and, had they done so, how long
would it have been before they had taken the whole? They made a show of
asking the land from the King, but had Dingane refused to listen to
them, would they have gone back the way they came? Is that the manner
of the Amabuna, I would ask you, _Nkose_? Again, if their hearts were
good, and free from deceit, why did they not send messengers to
Nkunkundhlovu before they entered the land as they did, to obtain the
answer of the King and the Zulu people? But instead of doing this, they
came over Kwahlamba in great numbers, with their horses and their guns,
their waggons and their oxen, their cattle and their women, falling upon
the land like a vast swarm of devouring locusts. Whether they obtained
leave or not, they had come to stay, and that we did not wish; and
further, by thus entering the Zulu country in armed force without the
King's permission! they had deserved death.

It is true that these people who had been slain were the King's guests,
but then we have a custom under which one great chief must not go to the
kraal of another great chief of equal rank. The great chief of the
Amabuna claimed to be the equal of the House of Senzangakona. He did
not approach the King as a subject, but as an equal; and by our custom
Dingane was justified in causing him and his followers to be slain, for
he had placed himself within the power of the King, and that as an
equal. _Whau, Nkose_! You white people and ourselves see things