Then, with the remaining wife, cut to pieces as
he was, he crept to the river and through it to Natal. Not long after
this wife died also; it was said from grief at the loss of her child.
Mavovo did not marry again, perhaps because he was now a man without
means, for Cetewayo had taken all his cattle; also he was made ugly by
an assegai wound which had cut off his right nostril. Shortly after
the death of his second wife he sought me out and told me he was a
chief without a kraal and wished to become my hunter. So I took him
on, a step which I never had any cause to regret, since although
morose and at times given to the practice of uncanny arts, he was a
most faithful servant and brave as a lion, or rather as a buffalo, for
a lion is not always brave.
Another man whom I did not send for, but who came, was an old
Hottentot named Hans, with whom I had been more or less mixed up all
my life. When I was a boy he was my father's servant in the Cape
Colony and my companion in some of those early wars. Also he shared
some very terrible adventures with me which I have detailed in the
history I have written of my first wife, Marie Marais.
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