For one moment he thought.

Might not these hunters be hunted?
Could he not destroy them by the jaws of the wolves as once before they had destroyed a certain impi of the king's?
Ay, if he had seen them but one hour before, then scarcely a man of them should have lived to reach the stream, for he would have waylaid them with his wolves.

But now it might not be; the soldiers neared the ford, and Galazi knew well that his grey people would not hunt on the further plain, though for this he had heard one reason only, that which was given him by the lips of the dead in a dream.
What, then, might be done?
One thing alone: warn Umslopogaas.

Yet how?
For him who could swim a rushing river, there was, indeed, a swifter way to the place of the People of the Axe--a way that was to the path of the impi as is the bow-string to the strung bow.

And yet they had travelled well-nigh half the length of the bow.