Saduko and Umbelazi were fighting there.
In ordinary circumstances, strong and active as he was, Saduko would have had no chance against the most powerful Zulu living.

But the prince was utterly exhausted; his sides were going like a blacksmith's bellows, or those of a fat eland bull that has been galloped to a standstill.
Moreover, he seemed to me to be distraught with grief, and, lastly, he had no shield left, nothing but an assegai.
A stab from Saduko's spear, which he partially parried, wounded him slightly on the head, and cut loose the fillet of his ostrich plume, that same plume which I had seen blown off in the morning, so that it fell to the ground.

Another stab pierced his right arm, making it helpless.

He snatched the assegai with his left hand, striving to continue the fight, and just at that moment we came up.
"What are you doing, Saduko ?" I cried.

"Does a dog bite his own master ?" He turned and stared at me; both of them stared at me.
"Aye, Macumazahn," he answered in an icy voice, "sometimes when it is starving and that full-fed master has snatched away its bone.