Many were drowned, and others were bruised by rocks, but of this they thought little since she was safe and they had found her again, to have lost whom would have been a shame from generation to generation. She watched the captains reckoning up the number of the dead, and when Tamboosa and some of them came to make report of it to her, a shadow as of pity floated across her stony eyes.
"Not on my head," she cried, "not on my head! There is blood between the Inkosazana and her people of the Zulus, and that blood avenges itself in blood," and she laughed her eerie laugh.
"It is true, it is just, O Queen," answered Tamboosa solemnly; "the nation must pay for the sin of its children as the wild beast, Ibubesi, has paid for his sins."
Then as they could travel no further that day, they built a hut, and lit a great fire by which Rachel sat and dried herself, nor did she take any harm from the water, for as the Zulus had said, it seemed as though nothing could harm her now.
The soldiers also lit fires and despatched messengers to neighbouring kraals commanding them to bring food, and to send maidens to attend on the Inkosazana, while others went to a mountain to call all this ill-tidings from hill to hill till it came to the Great Place of the King.