This, indeed, proved to be the case, for I am sure that there was no man among all those wild fellows who would not have served me to the death, and to this day my name is a power among them and their descendants.

Also it has grown into something of a proverb among all those Kafirs who know the story.
They talk of any great act of liberality in an idiom as "a gift of Macumazana," and in the same way of one who makes any remarkable renunciation, as "a wearer of Macumazana's blanket," or as "he who has stolen Macumazana's shadow." Thus did I earn a great reputation very cheaply, for really I could not have taken those cattle; also I am sure that had I done so they would have brought me bad luck.

Indeed, one of the regrets of my life is that I had anything whatsoever to do with the business.
Our journey back to Umbezi's kraal--for thither we were heading--was very slow, hampered as we were with wounded and by a vast herd of cattle.

Of the latter, indeed, we got rid after a while, for, except those which I had given to my men, and a hundred or so of the best beasts that Saduko took with him for a certain purpose, they were sent away to a place which he had chosen, in charge of about half of his people, under the command of his uncle, Tshoza, there to await his coming.
Over a month had gone by since the night of the ambush when at last we outspanned quite close to Umbezi's, in that bush where first I had met the Amangwane free-spears.

A very different set of men they looked on this triumphant day to those fierce fellows who had slipped out of the trees at the call of their chief.