The covenant - James A. Michener [304]
They would strike at duskall three of themwhen the king was more or less detached from his knobkerrie guards. 'I'll fetch my assegai,' Nxumalo said, and as he went toward his kraal he realized that Dingane had modified the plan so that only he, Nxumalo, would be seen by anyone watching. This meant that when the tumult erupted, he as a commoner could be thrown to the maddened crowd. 'We'll have none of that, Dingane,' he muttered, and he diverted his course to the wives' kraal, where Thandi was waiting for his signal, and he told her that within the hour she must try to escape, prepared to flee north.
He then went back and told his remaining wife, 'Be ready to leave at dusk.' She did not ask why or where, for, like the others, she had deduced that he was soon to be impaled. His survival was hers, and to be saved she must trust him.
As the sun started its descent on 22 September 1828, the three untrusting conspirators met casually, checked one another to be sure the stabbing assegais were ready, then walked like supplicants with a petition for their king and brother.
'Mhlangana, what do you seek?'
The answer, a lunging assegai under the heart. 'Dingane! From you I expected treachery . . .' Another leaping assegai.
And then Nxumalo, trusted advisor, driving his assegai deep into Shaka's side.
'Mother! Mother!' the great king cried. Clutching at air, he tried to steady himself, went dizzy, and stumbled to his knees. 'Nandi!' he wept. 'My father's children have come to kill me.' But when he saw the blood come spouting from his wounds he lost all strength and toppled forward, crying, 'Mother!' for love of whom he had erected a mighty kingdom.
In the mad confusion following the assassination, Nxumalo, accompanied by one wife, the gift of Shaka, and the lovely Thandi, scrambled across the Umfolozi River and headed northwest. They hoped to overtake their friend Mzilikazi, rumored to be building a new sanctuary there for his fugitive Matabele.
With them they had four children, two by Thetiwe, the first wife, and two by number two, who had died because she owned a cat. They had with them a small herd of cattle, some cooking utensils, and not much else. Four other fugitives joined them, and this complement of eleven were prepared to live or die as accidents and hard work determined.
By the end of the first week they had become a resolute band, skilled in improvising the weapons and tools needed for the endless journeys ahead. They traveled slowly, stopping at likely refuges, and they foraged brilliantly. Thandi, the youngest, was especially good at thievery from kraals they passed, and kept the family in a reasonable supply of food.
They ate everything, killing such animals as they could and gathering berries and roots like grubbing creatures in a forest. At the end of the first month they were a tight, dangerous group of travelers, and when one of the men caught himself a wife from a small village, they became twelve.
Like thousands of homeless blacks in this period, they had but two ideas, to escape what they knew and to grasp at anything that would enable them to exist. Nxumalo hoped to overtake Mzilikazi and take service in some capacity with a king who promised in almost every respect to be superior to Shaka. 'Not as handsome,' he told his wives, 'and not as brave in battle, but in everything else a notable king.'
From time to time the little family stopped at some kraal, risking the dangers involved, and by so doing they discovered that Mzilikazi had moved far to the west, so they set out in serious pursuit.
And then they learned the meaning of the word Mfecanethe crushing, the sad migrations, for they came upon an area, fifteen miles wide and stretching endlessly, in which every living thing had been destroyed. There were no kraals, no walls, no cattle, no animals, and certainly no human beings. Few armies in history had created such total desolation, and if Nxumalo and his family had not brought food with them, they would have perished.
As it was,