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Nada the Lily 1207.txt
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Nada the Lily 1207.txt
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Produced by John Bickers
NADA THE LILY
By H. Rider Haggard
DEDICATION
Sompseu:
For I will call you by the name that for fifty years has been honoured
by every tribe between Zambesi and Cape Agulbas,--I greet you!
Sompseu, my father, I have written a book that tells of men and matters
of which you know the most of any who still look upon the light;
therefore, I set your name within that book and, such as it is, I offer
it to you.
If you knew not Chaka, you and he have seen the same suns shine, you
knew his brother Panda and his captains, and perhaps even that very Mopo
who tells this tale, his servant, who slew him with the Princes. You
have seen the circle of the witch-doctors and the unconquerable Zulu
impis rushing to war; you have crowned their kings and shared their
counsels, and with your son's blood you have expiated a statesman's
error and a general's fault.
Sompseu, a song has been sung in my ears of how first you mastered this
people of the Zulu. Is it not true, my father, that for long hours you
sat silent and alone, while three thousand warriors shouted for your
life? And when they grew weary, did you not stand and say, pointing
towards the ocean: "Kill me if you wish, men of Cetywayo, but I tell
you that for every drop of my blood a hundred avengers shall rise from
yonder sea!"
Then, so it was told me, the regiments turned staring towards the Black
Water, as though the day of Ulundi had already come and they saw the
white slayers creeping across the plains.
Thus, Sompseu, your name became great among the people of the Zulu, as
already it was great among many another tribe, and their nobles did you
homage, and they gave you the Bayete, the royal salute, declaring by the
mouth of their Council that in you dwelt the spirit of Chaka.
Many years have gone by since then, and now you are old, my father. It
is many years even since I was a boy, and followed you when you went up
among the Boers and took their country for the Queen.
Why did you do this, my father? I will answer, who know the truth. You
did it because, had it not been done, the Zulus would have stamped out
the Boers. Were not Cetywayo's impis gathered against the land, and was
it not because it became the Queen's land that at your word he sent them
murmuring to their kraals? (1) To save bloodshed you annexed the country
beyond the Vaal. Perhaps it had been better to leave it, since "Death
chooses for himself," and after all there was killing--of our own
people, and with the killing, shame. But in those days we did not guess
what we should live to see, and of Majuba we thought only as a little
hill!
Enemies have borne false witness against you on this matter, Sompseu,
you who never erred except through over kindness. Yet what does that
avail? When you have "gone beyond" it will be forgotten, since the sting
of ingratitude passes and lies must wither like the winter veldt. Only
your name will not be forgotten; as it was heard in life so it shall be
heard in story, and I pray that, however humbly, mine may pass down with
it. Chance has taken me by another path, and I must leave the ways
of action that I love and bury myself in books, but the old days and
friends are in my mind, nor while I have memory shall I forget them and
you.
Therefore, though it be for the last time, from far across the seas I
speak to you, and lifting my hand I give your "Sibonga" (2) and that
royal salute, to which, now that its kings are gone and the "People of
Heaven" are no more a nation, with Her Majesty you are alone entitled:--
Bayete! Baba, Nkosi ya makosi!
Ngonyama! Indhlovu ai pendulwa!
Wen' o wa vela wasi pata!
Wen' o wa hlul' izizwe zonke za patwa nguive!
Wa geina nge la Mabun' o wa ba hlul' u yedwa!
Umsizi we zintandane e ziblupekayo!
Si ya kuleka Baba!
Bayete, T' Sompseu! (3)
and farewell!
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
To Sir Theophilus Shepstone, K.C.M.G., Natal. 13 September, 1891.
(1) "I thank my father Sompseu for his message. I am glad that he has
sent it, because the Dutch have tired me out, and I intended to
fight them once and once only, and to drive them over the Vaal.
Kabana, you see my impis are gathered. It was to fight the Dutch
I called them together; now I send them back to their homes."
--Message from Cetywayo to Sir. T. Shepstone, April, 1877.
(2) Titles of praise.
(3) Bayete, Father, Chief of Chiefs!
Lion! Elephant that is not turned!
You who nursed us from of old!
You who overshadowed all peoples and took charge of them,
And ended by mastering the Boers with your single strength!
Help of the fatherless when in trouble!
Salutation to you, Father!
Bayete, O Sompseu!
PREFACE
The writer of this romance has been encouraged to his task by a purpose
somewhat beyond that of setting out a wild tale of savage life. When he
was yet a lad,--now some seventeen years ago,--fortune took him to South
Africa. There he was thrown in with men who, for thirty or forty years,
had been intimately acquainted with the Zulu people, with their history,
their heroes, and their customs. From these he heard many tales and
traditions, some of which, perhaps, are rarely told nowadays, and in
time to come may cease to be told altogether. Then the Zulus were still
a nation; now that nation has been destroyed, and the chief aim of
its white rulers is to root out the warlike spirit for which it was
remarkable, and to replace it by a spirit of peaceful progress. The Zulu
military organisation, perhaps the most wonderful that the world has
seen, is already a thing of the past; it perished at Ulundi. It was
Chaka who invented that organisation, building it up from the smallest
beginnings. When he appeared at the commencement of this century, it was
as the ruler of a single small tribe; when he fell, in the year 1828,
beneath the assegais of his brothers, Umhlangana and Dingaan, and of his
servant, Mopo or Umbopo, as he is called also, all south-eastern Africa
was at his feet, and in his march to power he had slaughtered more than
a million human beings. An attempt has been made in these pages to set
out the true character of this colossal genius and most evil man,--a
Napoleon and a Tiberiius in one,--and also that of his brother and
successor, Dingaan, so no more need be said of them here. The author's
aim, moreover, has been to convey, in a narrative form, some idea of the
remarkable spirit which animated these kings and their subjects, and to
make accessible, in a popular shape, incidents of history which are now,
for the most part, only to be found in a few scarce works of reference,
rarely consulted, except by students. It will be obvious that such a
task has presented difficulties, since he who undertakes it must for a
time forget his civilisation, and think with the mind and speak with the
voice of a Zulu of the old regime. All the horrors perpetrated by the
Zulu tyrants cannot be published in this polite age of melanite and
torpedoes; their details have, therefore, been suppressed. Still much
remains, and those who think it wrong that massacre and fighting
should be written of,--except by special correspondents,--or that the
sufferings of mankind beneath one of the world's most cruel tyrannies
should form the groundwork of romance, may be invited to leave this
book unread. Most, indeed nearly all, of the historical incidents
here recorded are substantially true. Thus, it is said that Chaka did
actually kill his mother, Unandi, for the reason given, and destroy an
entire tribe in the Tatiyana cleft, and that he prophesied of the coming
of the white man after receiving his death wounds. Of the incident of
the Missionary and the furnace of logs, it is impossible to speak so
certainly. It came to the writer from the lips of an old traveller in
"the Zulu"; but he cannot discover any confirmation of it. Still, these
kings undoubtedly put their soldiers to many tests of equal severity.
Umbopo, or Mopo, as he is named in this tale, actually lived. After he
had stabbed Chaka, he rose to great eminence. Then he disappears from
the scene, but it is not accurately known whether he also went "the way
of the assegai," or perhaps, as is here suggested, came to live near
Stanger under the name of Zweete. The fate of the two lovers at the
mouth of the cave is a true Zulu tale, which has been considerably
varied to suit the purposes of this romance. The late Mr. Leslie, who
died in 1874, tells it in his book "Among the Zulus and Amatongas." "I
heard a story the other day," he says, "which, if the power of writing
fiction were possessed by me, I might have worked up into a first-class
sensational novel." It is the story that has been woven into the plot of
this book. To him also the writer is indebted for the artifice by which
Umslopogaas obtained admission to the Swazi stronghold; it was told to
Mr. Leslie by the Zulu who performed the feat and thereby won a wife.
Also the writer's thanks are due to his friends, Mr. F. B. Fynney, (1)
late Zulu border agent, for much information given to him in bygone
years by word of mouth, and more recently through his pamphlet "Zululand
and the Zulus," and to Mr. John Bird, formerly treasurer to the
Government of Natal, whose compilation, "The Annals of Natal," is
invaluable to all who would study the early history of that colony and
of Zululand.
As for the wilder and more romantic incidents of this story, such as the
hunting of Umslopogaas and Galazi with the wolves, or rather with the
hyaenas,--for there are no true wolves in Zululand,--the author can only
say that they seem to him of a sort that might well have been mythically
connected with the names of those heroes. Similar beliefs and traditions
are common in the records of primitive peoples. The club "Watcher of the
Fords," or, to give its Zulu name, U-nothlola-mazibuko, is an historical
weapon, chronicled by Bishop Callaway. It was once owned by a certain
Undhlebekazizwa. He was an arbitrary person, for "no matter what was
discussed in our village, he would bring it to a conclusion with a
stick." But he made a good end; for when the Zulu soldiers attacked him,
he killed no less than twenty of them with the Watcher, and the spears
stuck in him "as thick as reeds in a morass." This man's strength was
so great that he could kill a leopard "like a fly," with his hands only,
much as Umslopogaas slew the traitor in this story.
Perhaps it may be allowable to add a few words about the Zulu mysticism,
magic, and superstition, to which there is some allusion in this
romance. It has been little if at all exaggerated. Thus the writer well
remembers hearing a legend how the Guardian Spirit of the Ama-Zulu was
seen riding down the storm. Here is what Mr. Fynney says of her in the
pamphlet to which reference has been made: "The natives have a spirit
which they call Nomkubulwana, or the Inkosazana-ye-Zulu (the Princess
of Heaven). She is said to be robed in white, and to take the form of
a young maiden, in fact an angel. She is said to appear to some
chosen person, to whom she imparts some revelation; but, whatever
that revelation may be, it is kept a profound secret from outsiders.
I remember that, just before the Zulu war, Nomkubulwana appeared,
revealing something or other which had a great effect throughout the
land, and I know that the Zulus were quite impressed that some calamity
was about to befall them. One of the ominous signs was that fire is said
to have descended from heaven, and ignited the grass over the graves
of the former kings of Zululand. ... On another occasion Nomkubulwana
appeared to some one in Zululand, the result of that visit being, that
the native women buried their young children up to their heads in sand,
deserting them for the time being, going away weeping, but returning at
nightfall to unearth the little ones again."
For this divine personage there is, therefore, authority, and the same
may be said of most of the supernatural matters spoken of in these
pages. The exact spiritual position held in the Zulu mind by the
Umkulunkulu,--the Old--Old,--the Great--Great,--the Lord of Heavens,--is
a more vexed question, and for its proper consideration the reader must
be referred to Bishop Callaway's work, the "Religious System of the
Amazulu." Briefly, Umkulunkulu's character seems to vary from the idea
of an ancestral spirit, or the spirit of an ancestor, to that of a god.
In the case of an able and highly intelligent person like the Mopo of
this story, the ideal would probably not be a low one; therefore he is
made to speak of Umkulunkulu as the Great Spirit, or God.
It only remains to the writer to express his regret that this story is
not more varied in its hue. It would have been desirable to introduce
some gayer and more happy incidents. But it has not been possible. It is
believed that the picture given of the times is a faithful one, though
it may be open to correction in some of its details. At the least, the
aged man who tells the tale of his wrongs and vengeance could not be
expected to treat his subject in an optimistic or even in a cheerful
vein.
(1) I grieve to state that I must now say the late Mr. F. B. Fynney.
NADA THE LILY
INTRODUCTION
Some years since--it was during the winter before the Zulu War--a White
Man was travelling through Natal. His name does not matter, for he plays
no part in this story. With him were two wagons laden with goods, which
he was transporting to Pretoria. The weather was cold and there was
little or no grass for the oxen, which made the journey difficult; but
he had been tempted to it by the high rates of transport that prevailed
at that season of the year, which would remunerate him for any probable
loss he might suffer in cattle. So he pushed along on his journey, and
all went well until he had passed the little town of Stanger, once the
site of Duguza, the kraal of Chaka, the first Zulu king and the uncle of
Cetywayo. The night after he left Stanger the air turned bitterly cold,
heavy grey clouds filled the sky, and hid the light of the stars.
"Now if I were not in Natal, I should say that there was a heavy fall of
snow coming," said the White Man to himself. "I have often seen the sky
look like that in Scotland before snow." Then he reflected that there
had been no deep snow in Natal for years, and, having drunk a "tot" of
squareface and smoked his pipe, he went to bed beneath the after-tent of
his larger wagon.
During the night he was awakened by a sense of bitter cold and the low
moaning of the oxen that were tied to the trek-tow, every ox in its
place. He thrust his head through the curtain of the tent and looked
out. The earth was white with snow, and the air was full of it, swept
along by a cutting wind.
Now he sprang up, huddling on his clothes and as he did so calling to
the Kaffirs who slept beneath the wagons. Presently they awoke from
the stupor which already was beginning to overcome them, and crept out,
shivering with cold and wrapped from head to foot in blankets.
"Quick! you boys," he said to them in Zulu; "quick! Would you see the
cattle die of the snow and wind? Loose the oxen from the trek-tows and
drive them in between the wagons; they will give them some shelter." And
lighting a lantern he sprang out into the snow.
At last it was done--no easy task, for the numbed hands of the Kaffirs
could scarcely loosen the frozen reims. The wagons were outspanned
side by side with a space between them, and into this space the mob of
thirty-six oxen was driven and there secured by reims tied crosswise
from the front and hind wheels of the wagons. Then the White Man crept
back to his bed, and the shivering natives, fortified with gin, or
squareface, as it is called locally, took refuge on the second wagon,
drawing a tent-sail over them.
For awhile there was silence, save for the moaning of the huddled and
restless cattle.
"If the snow goes on I shall lose my oxen," he said to himself; "they
can never bear this cold."
Hardly had the words passed his lips when the wagon shook; there was a
sound of breaking reims and trampling hoofs. Once more he looked out.
The oxen had "skrecked" in a mob. There they were, running away into the
night and the snow, seeking to find shelter from the cold. In a minute
they had vanished utterly. There was nothing to be done, except wait for
the morning.
At last it came, revealing a landscape blind with snow. Such search as
could be made told them nothing. The oxen had gone, and their spoor was
obliterated by the fresh-fallen flakes. The White Man called a council
of his Kaffir servants. "What was to be done?" he asked.
One said this thing, one that, but all agreed that they must wait to act
until the snow melted.
"Or till we freeze, you whose mothers were fools!" said the White
Man, who was in the worst of tempers, for had he not lost four hundred
pounds' worth of oxen?
Then a Zulu spoke, who hitherto had remained silent. He was the driver
of the first wagon.
"My father," he said to the White Man, "this is my word. The oxen are
lost in the snow. No man knows whither they have gone, or whether they
live or are now but hides and bones. Yet at the kraal yonder," and he
pointed to some huts about two miles away on the hillside, "lives a
witch doctor named Zweete. He is old--very old--but he has wisdom, and
he can tell you where the oxen are if any man may, my father."
"Stuff!" answered the White Man. "Still, as the kraal cannot be colder
than this wagon, we will go and ask Zweete. Bring a bottle of squareface
and some snuff with you for presents."
An hour later he stood in the hut of Zweete. Before him was a very
ancient man, a mere bag of bones, with sightless eyes, and one hand--his
left--white and shrivelled.
"What do you seek of Zweete, my white father?" asked the old man in a
thin voice. "You do not believe in me and my wisdom; why should I help
you? Yet I will do it, though it is against your law, and you do wrong
to ask me,--yes, to show you that there is truth in us Zulu doctors, I
will help you. My father, I know what you seek. You seek to know where
your oxen have run for shelter from the cold! Is it not so?"
"It is so, Doctor," answered the White Man. "You have long ears."
"Yes, my white father, I have long ears, though they say that I grow
deaf. I have keen eyes also, and yet I cannot see your face. Let me
hearken! Let me look!"
For awhile he was silent, rocking himself to and fro, then he spoke:
"You have a farm, White Man, down near Pine Town, is it not? Ah! I
thought so--and an hour's ride from your farm lives a Boer with four
fingers only on his right hand. There is a kloof on the Boer's farm
where mimosa-trees grow. There, in the kloof, you shall find your
oxen--yes, five days' journey from here you will find them all. I say
all, my father, except three only--the big black Africander ox, the
little red Zulu ox with one horn, and the speckled ox. You shall not
find these, for they have died in the snow. Send, and you will find
the others. No, no! I ask no fee! I do not work wonders for reward. Why
should I? I am rich."
Now the White Man scoffed. But in the end, so great is the power of
superstition, he sent. And here it may be stated that on the eleventh
day of his sojourn at the kraal of Zweete, those whom he sent returned
with the oxen, except the three only. After that he scoffed no more.
Those eleven days he spent in a hut of the old man's kraal, and every
afternoon he came and talked with him, sitting far into the night.
On the third day he asked Zweete how it was that his left hand was white
and shrivelled, and who were Umslopogaas and Nada, of whom he had let
fall some words. Then the old man told him the tale that is set out
here. Day by day he told some of it till it was finished. It is not all
written in these pages, for portions may have been forgotten, or put
aside as irrelevant. Neither has it been possible for the writer of it
to render the full force of the Zulu idiom nor to convey a picture of
the teller. For, in truth, he acted rather than told his story. Was the
death of a warrior in question, he stabbed with his stick, showing how
the blow fell and where; did the story grow sorrowful, he groaned, or
even wept. Moreover, he had many voices, one for each of the actors in
his tale. This man, ancient and withered, seemed to live again in the
far past. It was the past that spoke to his listener, telling of deeds
long forgotten, of deeds that are no more known.
Yet as he best may, the White Man has set down the substance of the
story of Zweete in the spirit in which Zweete told it. And because the
history of Nada the Lily and of those with whom her life was intertwined
moved him strangely, and in many ways, he has done more, he has printed
it that others may judge of it.
And now his part is played. Let him who was named Zweete, but who had
another name, take up the story.
CHAPTER I. THE BOY CHAKA PROPHESIES
You ask me, my father, to tell you the tale of the youth of Umslopogaas,
holder of the iron Chieftainess, the axe Groan-maker, who was named
Bulalio the Slaughterer, and of his love for Nada, the most beautiful of
Zulu women. It is long; but you are here for many nights, and, if I live
to tell it, it shall be told. Strengthen your heart, my father, for I
have much to say that is sorrowful, and even now, when I think of Nada
the tears creep through the horn that shuts out my old eyes from light.
Do you know who I am, my father? You do not know. You think that I am an
old, old witch-doctor named Zweete. So men have thought for many years,
but that is not my name. Few have known it, for I have kept it locked in
my breast, lest, thought I live now under the law of the White Man, and
the Great Queen is my chieftainess, an assegai still might find this
heart did any know my name.
Look at this hand, my father--no, not that which is withered with fire;
look on this right hand of mine. You see it, though I who am blind
cannot. But still, within me, I see it as it was once. Ay! I see it red
and strong--red with the blood of two kings. Listen, my father; bend
your ear to me and listen. I am Mopo--ah! I felt you start; you start
as the regiment of the Bees started when Mopo walked before their ranks,
and from the assegai in his hand the blood of Chaka (1) dropped slowly
to the earth. I am Mopo who slew Chaka the king. I killed him with
Dingaan and Umhlangana the princes; but the wound was mine that his life
crept out of, and but for me he would never have been slain. I killed
him with the princes, but Dingaan, I and one other slew alone.
(1) The Zulu Napoleon, one of the greatest geniuses and most wicked
men who ever lived. He was killed in the year 1828, having
slaughtered more than a million human beings.--ED.
What do you say? "Dingaan died by the Tongola."
Yes, yes, he died, but not there; he died on the Ghost Mountain; he lies
in the breast of the old Stone Witch who sits aloft forever waiting for
the world to perish. But I also was on the Ghost Mountain. In those days
my feet still could travel fast, and vengeance would not let me sleep.
I travelled by day, and by night I found him. I and another, we killed
him--ah! ah!
Why do I tell you this? What has it to do with the loves of Umslopogaas
and Nada the Lily? I will tell you. I stabbed Chaka for the sake of my
sister, Baleka, the mother of Umslopogaas, and because he had murdered
my wives and children. I and Umslopogaas slew Dingaan for the sake of
Nada, who was my daughter.
There are great names in the story, my father. Yes, many have heard the
names: when the Impis roared them out as they charged in battle, I have
felt the mountains shake and seen the waters quiver in their sound. But
where are they now? Silence has them, and the white men write them down
in books. I opened the gates of distance for the holders of the names.
They passed through and they are gone beyond. I cut the strings that
tied them to the world. They fell off. Ha! ha! They fell off! Perhaps
they are falling still, perhaps they creep about their desolate kraals
in the skins of snakes. I wish I knew the snakes that I might crush them
with my heel. Yonder, beneath us, at the burying place of kings, there
is a hole. In that hole lies the bones of Chaka, the king who died for
Baleka. Far away in Zululand there is a cleft upon the Ghost Mountain.
At the foot of that cleft lie the bones of Dingaan, the king who died
for Nada. It was far to fall and he was heavy; those bones of his are
broken into little pieces. I went to see them when the vultures and the
jackals had done their work. And then I laughed three times and came
here to die.
All that is long ago, and I have not died; though I wish to die and
follow the road that Nada trod. Perhaps I have lived to tell you this
tale, my father, that you may repeat it to the white men if you will.
How old am I? Nay, I do not know. Very, very old. Had Chaka lived he
would have been as old as I. (2) None are living whom I knew when I was
a boy. I am so old that I must hasten. The grass withers, and the winter
comes. Yes, while I speak the winter nips my heart. Well, I am ready to
sleep in the cold, and perhaps I shall awake again in the spring.
(2) This would have made him nearly a hundred years old, an age rarely
attained by a native. The writer remembers talking to an aged Zulu
woman, however, who told him that she was married when Chaka was
king.--ED.
Before the Zulus were a people--for I will begin at the beginning--I was
born of the Langeni tribe. We were not a large tribe; afterwards, all
our able-bodied men numbered one full regiment in Chaka's army, perhaps
there were between two and three thousand of them, but they were brave.
Now they are all dead, and their women and children with them,--that
people is no more. It is gone like last month's moon; how it went I will
tell you by-and-bye.
Our tribe lived in a beautiful open country; the Boers, whom we call the
Amaboona, are there now, they tell me. My father, Makedama, was chief of
the tribe, and his kraal was built on the crest of a hill, but I was not
the son of his head wife. One evening, when I was still little, standing
as high as a man's elbow only, I went out with my mother below the
cattle kraal to see the cows driven in. My mother was very fond of these
cows, and there was one with a white face that would follow her about.
She carried my little sister Baleka riding on her hip; Baleka was a
baby then. We walked till we met the lads driving in the cows. My mother
called the white-faced cow and gave it mealie leaves which she had
brought with her. Then the boys went on with the cattle, but the
white-faced cow stopped by my mother. She said that she would bring it
to the kraal when she came home. My mother sat down on the grass and
nursed her baby, while I played round her, and the cow grazed. Presently
we saw a woman walking towards us across the plain. She walked like one
who is tired. On her back was a bundle of mats, and she led by the hand
a boy of about my own age, but bigger and stronger than I was. We waited
a long while, till at last the woman came up to us and sank down on the
veldt, for she was very weary. We saw by the way her hair was dressed
that she was not of our tribe.
"Greeting to you!" said the woman.
"Good-morrow!" answered my mother. "What do you seek?"
"Food, and a hut to sleep in," said the woman. "I have travelled far."
"How are you named?--and what is your people?" asked my mother.
"My name is Unandi: I am the wife of Senzangacona, of the Zulu tribe,"
said the stranger.
Now there had been war between our people and the Zulu people, and
Senzangacona had killed some of our warriors and taken many of our
cattle. So, when my mother heard the speech of Unandi she sprang up in
anger.
"You dare to come here and ask me for food and shelter, wife of a dog of
a Zulu!" she cried; "begone, or I will call the girls to whip you out of
our country."
The woman, who was very handsome, waited till my mother had finished her
angry words; then she looked up and spoke slowly, "There is a cow by you
with milk dropping from its udder; will you not even give me and my
boy a gourd of milk?" And she took a gourd from her bundle and held it
towards us.
"I will not," said my mother.
"We are thirsty with long travel; will you not, then, give us a cup of
water? We have found none for many hours."
"I will not, wife of a dog; go and seek water for yourself."
The woman's eyes filled with tears, but the boy folded his arms on his
breast and scowled. He was a very handsome boy, with bright black eyes,
but when he scowled his eyes were like the sky before a thunderstorm.
"Mother," he said, "we are not wanted here any more than we were wanted
yonder," and he nodded towards the country where the Zulu people lived.
"Let us be going to Dingiswayo; the Umtetwa people will protect us."
"Yes, let us be going, my son," answered Unandi; "but the path is long,
we are weary and shall fall by the way."
I heard, and something pulled at my heart; I was sorry for the woman
and her boy, they looked so tired. Then, without saying anything to my
mother, I snatched the gourd and ran with it to a little donga that was
hard by, for I knew that there was a spring. Presently I came back with
the gourd full of water. My mother wanted to catch me, for she was very
angry, but I ran past her and gave the gourd to the boy. Then my mother
ceased trying to interfere, only she beat the woman with her tongue all
the while, saying that evil had come to our kraals from her husband, and
she felt in her heart that more evil would come upon us from her son.
Her Ehlose (3) told her so. Ah! my father, her Ehlose told her true.
If the woman Unandi and her child had died that day on the veldt, the
gardens of my people would not now be a wilderness, and their bones
would not lie in the great gulley that is near U'Cetywayo's kraal.
(3) Guardian spirit.--ED.
While my mother talked I and the cow with the white face stood still and
watched, and the baby Baleka cried aloud. The boy, Unandi's son,
having taken the gourd, did not offer the water to his mother. He drank
two-thirds of it himself; I think that he would have drunk it all had
not his thirst been slaked; but when he had done he gave what was left
to his mother, and she finished it. Then he took the gourd again, and
came forward, holding it in one hand; in the other he carried a short
stick.
"What is your name, boy?" he said to me as a big rich man speaks to one
who is little and poor.
"Mopo is my name," I answered.
"And what is the name of your people?"
I told him the name of my tribe, the Langeni tribe.
"Very well, Mopo; now I will tell you my name. My name is Chaka, son of
Senzangacona, and my people are called the Amazulu. And I will tell you
something more. I am little to-day, and my people are a small people.
But I shall grow big, so big that my head will be lost in the clouds;
you will look up and you shall not see it. My face will blind you; it
will be bright like the sun; and my people will grow great with me; they
shall eat up the whole world. And when I am big and my people are big,
and we have stamped the earth flat as far as men can travel, then I will
remember your tribe--the tribe of the Langeni, who would not give me
and my mother a cup of milk when we were weary. You see this gourd; for
every drop it can hold the blood of a man shall flow--the blood of one
of your men. But because you gave me the water I will spare you, Mopo,
and you only, and make you great under me. You shall grow fat in my
shadow. You alone I will never harm, however you sin against me; this I
swear. But for that woman," and he pointed to my mother, "let her make
haste and die, so that I do not need to teach her what a long time death
can take to come. I have spoken." And he ground his teeth and shook his
stick towards us.
My mother stood silent awhile. Then she gasped out: "The little liar! He
speaks like a man, does he? The calf lows like a bull. I will teach him
another note--the brat of an evil prophet!" And putting down Baleka, she
ran at the boy.
Chaka stood quite still till she was near; then suddenly he lifted the
stick in his hand, and hit her so hard on the head that she fell down.
After that he laughed, turned, and went away with his mother Unandi.
These, my father, were the first words I heard Chaka speak, and they
were words of prophecy, and they came true. The last words I heard him
speak were words of prophecy also, and I think that they will come true.
Even now they are coming true. In the one he told how the Zulu people
should rise. And say, have they not risen? In the other he told how they
should fall; and they did fall. Do not the white men gather themselves
together even now against U'Cetywayo, as vultures gather round a dying
ox? The Zulus are not what they were to stand against them. Yes, yes,
they will come true, and mine is the song of a people that is doomed.
But of these other words I will speak in their place.
I went to my mother. Presently she raised herself from the ground and
sat up with her hands over her face. The blood from the wound the stick
had made ran down her face on to her breast, and I wiped it away with
grass. She sat for a long while thus, while the child cried, the cow
lowed to be milked, and I wiped up the blood with the grass. At last she
took her hands away and spoke to me.
"Mopo, my son," she said, "I have dreamed a dream. I dreamed that I
saw the boy Chaka who struck me: he was grown like a giant. He stalked
across the mountains and the veldt, his eyes blazed like the lightning,
and in his hand he shook a little assegai that was red with blood. He
caught up people after people in his hands and tore them, he stamped
their kraals flat with his feet. Before him was the green of summer,
behind him the land was black as when the fires have eaten the grass. I
saw our people, Mopo; they were many and fat, their hearts laughed, the
men were brave, the girls were fair; I counted their children by
the hundreds. I saw them again, Mopo. They were bones, white bones,
thousands of bones tumbled together in a rocky place, and he, Chaka,
stood over the bones and laughed till the earth shook. Then, Mopo, in
my dream, I saw you grown a man. You alone were left of our people. You
crept up behind the giant Chaka, and with you came others, great men of
a royal look. You stabbed him with a little spear, and he fell down and
grew small again; he fell down and cursed you. But you cried in his ear
a name--the name of Baleka, your sister--and he died. Let us go home,
Mopo, let us go home; the darkness falls."
So we rose and went home. But I held my peace, for I was afraid, very
much afraid.
CHAPTER II. MOPO IS IN TROUBLE
Now, I must tell how my mother did what the boy Chaka had told her, and
died quickly. For where his stick had struck her on the forehead there
came a sore that would not be healed, and in the sore grew an abscess,
and the abscess ate inwards till it came to the brain. Then my mother
fell down and died, and I cried very much, for I loved her, and it
was dreadful to see her cold and stiff, with not a word to say however
loudly I called to her. Well, they buried my mother, and she was soon
forgotten. I only remembered her, nobody else did--not even Baleka, for
she was too little--and as for my father he took another young wife and
was content. After that I was unhappy, for my brothers did not love me,
because I was much cleverer than they, and had greater skill with the
assegai, and was swifter in running; so they poisoned the mind of my
father against me and he treated me badly. But Baleka and I loved each
other, for we were both lonely, and she clung to me like a creeper to
the only tree in a plain, and though I was young, I learned this: that
to be wise is to be strong, for though he who holds the assegai kills,
yet he whose mind directs the battle is greater than he who kills. Now I
saw that the witch-finders and the medicine-men were feared in the land,
and that everybody looked up to them, so that, even when they had only
a stick in their hands, ten men armed with spears would fly before them.
Therefore I determined that I should be a witch-doctor, for they alone
can kill those whom they hate with a word. So I learned the arts of the
medicine-men. I made sacrifices, I fasted in the veldt alone, I did all
those things of which you have heard, and I learned much; for there is
wisdom in our magic as well as lies--and you know it, my father, else
you had not come here to ask me about your lost oxen.
So things went on till I was twenty years of age--a man full grown. By
now I had mastered all I could learn by myself, so I joined myself on to
the chief medicine-man of our tribe, who was named Noma. He was old, had
one eye only, and was very clever. Of him I learned some tricks and more
wisdom, but at last he grew jealous of me and set a trap to catch me. As
it chanced, a rich man of a neighbouring tribe had lost some cattle, and
came with gifts to Noma praying him to smell them out. Noma tried and
could not find them; his vision failed him. Then the headman grew angry
and demanded back his gifts; but Noma would not give up that which he
once had held, and hot words passed. The headman said that he would kill
Noma; Noma said that he would bewitch the headman.
"Peace," I said, for I feared that blood would be shed. "Peace, and let
me see if my snake will tell me where the cattle are."
"You are nothing but a boy," answered the headman. "Can a boy have
wisdom?"
"That shall soon be known," I said, taking the bones in my hand. (1)
(1) The Kafir witch-doctors use the knuckle-bones of animals in their
magic rites, throwing them something as we throw dice.--ED.
"Leave the bones alone!" screamed Noma. "We will ask nothing more of our
snakes for the good of this son of a dog."
"He shall throw the bones," answered the headman. "If you try to stop
him, I will let sunshine through you with my assegai." And he lifted his
spear.
Then I made haste to begin; I threw the bones. The headman sat on the
ground before me and answered my questions. You know of these matters,
my father--how sometimes the witch-doctor has knowledge of where the
lost things are, for our ears are long, and sometimes his Ehlose tells
him, as but the other day it told me of your oxen. Well, in this case,
my snake stood up. I knew nothing of the man's cattle, but my Spirit was
with me and soon I saw them all, and told them to him one by one, their
colour, their age--everything. I told him, too, where they were, and how
one of them had fallen into a stream and lay there on its back drowned,
with its forefoot caught in a forked root. As my Ehlose told me so I
told the headman.
Now, the man was pleased, and said that if my sight was good, and he
found the cattle, the gifts should be taken from Noma and given to me;
and he asked the people who were sitting round, and there were many, if
this was not just. "Yes, yes," they said, it was just, and they would
see that it was done. But Noma sat still and looked at me evilly. He
knew that I had made a true divination, and he was very angry. It was a
big matter: the herd of cattle were many, and, if they were found where
I had said, then all men would think me the greater wizard. Now it was
late, and the moon had not yet risen, therefore the headman said that
he would sleep that night in our kraal, and at the first light would
go with me to the spot where I said the cattle were. After that he went
away.
I too went into my hut and lay down to sleep. Suddenly I awoke, feeling
a weight upon my breast. I tried to start up, but something cold pricked
my throat. I fell back again and looked. The door of the hut was open,
the moon lay low on the sky like a ball of fire far away. I could see
it through the door, and its light crept into the hut. It fell upon the
face of Noma the witch-doctor. He was seated across me, glaring at me
with his one eye, and in his hand was a knife. It was that which I had
felt prick my throat.
"You whelp whom I have bred up to tear me!" he hissed into my ear, "you
dared to divine where I failed, did you? Very well, now I will show you
how I serve such puppies. First, I will pierce through the root of your
tongue, so that you cannot squeal, then I will cut you to pieces slowly,
bit by bit, and in the morning I will tell the people that the spirits
did it because you lied. Next, I will take off your arms and legs. Yes,
yes, I will make you like a stick! Then I will"--and he began driving in
the knife under my chin.
"Mercy, my uncle," I said, for I was frightened and the knife hurt.
"Have mercy, and I will do whatever you wish!"
"Will you do this?" he asked, still pricking me with the knife. "Will
you get up, go to find the dog's cattle and drive them to a certain
place, and hide them there?" And he named a secret valley that was known
to very few. "If you do that, I will spare you and give you three of
the cows. If you refuse or play my false, then, by my father's spirit, I
will find a way to kill you!"
"Certainly I will do it, my uncle," I answered. "Why did you not trust
me before? Had I known that you wanted to keep the cattle, I would never
have smelt them out. I only did so fearing lest you should lose the
presents."
"You are not so wicked as I thought," he growled. "Get up, then, and do
my bidding. You can be back here two hours after dawn."
So I got up, thinking all the while whether I should try to spring on
him. But I was without arms, and he had the knife; also if, by chance, I
prevailed and killed him, it would have been thought that I had murdered
him, and I should have tasted the assegai. So I made another plan. I
would go and find the cattle in the valley where I had smelt them out,
but I would not bring them to the secret hiding-place. No; I would
drive them straight to the kraal, and denounce Noma before the chief, my
father, and all the people. But I was young in those days, and did not
know the heart of Noma. He had not been a witch-doctor till he grew old
for nothing. Oh! he was evil!--he was cunning as a jackal, and fierce
like a lion.. He had planted me by him like a tree, but he meant to
keep me clipped like a bush. Now I had grown tall and overshadowed him;
therefore he would root me up.
I went to the corner of my hut, Noma watching me all the while, and took
a kerrie and my small shield. Then I started through the moonlight. Till
I was past the kraal I glided along quietly as a shadow. After that, I
began to run, singing to myself as I went, to frighten away the ghosts,
my father.
For an hour I travelled swiftly over the plain, till I came to the
hillside where the bush began. Here it was very dark under the shade
of the trees, and I sang louder than ever. At last I found the little
buffalo path I sought, and turned along it. Presently I came to an open
place, where the moonlight crept in between the trees. I knelt down and
looked. Yes! my snake had not lied to me; there was the spoor of the
cattle. Then I went on gladly till I reached a dell through which the
water ran softly, sometimes whispering and sometimes talking out loud.
Here the trail of the cattle was broad: they had broken down the ferns
with their feet and trampled the grass. Presently I came to a pool. I
knew it--it was the pool my snake had shown me. And there at the edge of
the pool floated the drowned ox, its foot caught in a forked root. All
was just as I had seen it in my heart.
I stepped forward and looked round. My eye caught something; it was the
faint grey light of the dawn glinted on the cattle's horns. As I looked,
one of them snorted, rose and shook the dew from his hide. He seemed big
as an elephant in the mist and twilight.
Then I collected them all--there were seventeen--and drove them before
me down the narrow path back towards the kraal. Now the daylight came
quickly, and the sun had been up an hour when I reached the spot where
I must turn if I wished to hide the cattle in the secret place, as Noma
had bid me. But I would not do this. No, I would go on to the kraal
with them, and tell all men that Noma was a thief. Still, I sat down and
rested awhile, for I was tired. As I sat, I heard a noise, and looked
up. There, over the slope of the rise, came a crowd of men, and leading
them was Noma, and by his side the headman who owned the cattle. I rose
and stood still, wondering; but as I stood, they ran towards me shouting
and waving sticks and spears.
"There he is!" screamed Noma. "There he is!--the clever boy whom I have
brought up to bring shame on me. What did I tell you? Did I not tell you
that he was a thief? Yes--yes! I know your tricks, Mopo, my child! See!
he is stealing the cattle! He knew where they were all the time, and now
he is taking them away to hide them. They would be useful to buy a wife
with, would they not, my clever boy?" And he made a rush at me, with his
stick lifted, and after him came the headman, grunting with rage.
I understood now, my father. My heart went mad in me, everything began
to swim round, a red cloth seemed to lift itself up and down before my
eyes. I have always seen it thus when I was forced to fight. I screamed
out one word only, "Liar!" and ran to meet him. On came Noma. He struck
at me with his stick, but I caught the blow upon my little shield, and
hit back. Wow! I did hit! The skull of Noma met my kerrie, and down he
fell dead at my feet. I yelled again, and rushed on at the headman. He
threw an assegai, but it missed me, and next second I hit him too. He
got up his shield, but I knocked it down upon his head, and over he
rolled senseless. Whether he lived or died I do not know, my father; but
his head being of the thickest, I think it likely that he lived. Then,
while the people stood astonished, I turned and fled like the wind. They
turned too, and ran after me, throwing spears at me and trying to cut me
off. But none of them could catch me--no, not one. I went like the wind;
I went like a buck when the dogs wake it from sleep; and presently the
sound of their chase grew fainter and fainter, till at last I was out of
sight and alone.
CHAPTER III. MOPO VENTURES HOME
I threw myself down on the grass and panted till my breath came back;
then I went and hid in a patch of reeds down by a swamp. All day long I
lay there thinking. What was I to do? Now I was a jackal without a hole.
If I went back to my people, certainly they would kill me, whom they
thought a thief. My blood would be given for Noma's, and that I did not
wish, though my heart was sad. Then there came into my mind the thought
of Chaka, the boy to whom I had given the cup of water long ago. I had
heard of him: his name was known in the land; already the air was big
with it; the very trees and grass spoke it. The words he had said and
the vision that my mother had seen were beginning to come true. By the
help of the Umtetwas he had taken the place of his father Senzangacona;
he had driven out the tribe of the Amaquabe; now he made war on Zweete,
chief of the Endwande, and he had sworn that he would stamp the Endwande
flat, so that nobody could find them any more. Now I remembered how this
Chaka promised that he would make me great, and that I should grow fat
in his shadow; and I thought to myself that I would arise and go to him.
Perhaps he would kill me; well, what did it matter? Certainly I should
be killed if I stayed here. Yes, I would go. But now my heart pulled
another way. There was but one whom I loved in the world--it was
my sister Baleka. My father had betrothed her to the chief of a
neighbouring tribe, but I knew that this marriage was against her wish.
Perhaps my sister would run away with me if I could get near her to tell
her that I was going. I would try--yes, I would try.
I waited till the darkness came down, then I rose from my bed of weeds
and crept like a jackal towards the kraal. In the mealie gardens I
stopped awhile, for I was very hungry, and filled myself with the
half-ripe mealies. Then I went on till I came to the kraal. Some of my
people were seated outside of a hut, talking together over a fire. I
crept near, silently as a snake, and hid behind a little bush. I knew
that they could not see me outside the ring of the firelight, and I
wanted to hear what they said. As I guessed, they were talking of me
and called me many names. They said that I should bring ill-luck on the
tribe by having killed so great a witch-doctor as Noma; also that the
people of the headman would demand payment for the assault on him. I
learned, moreover, that my father had ordered out all the men of the
tribe to hunt for me on the morrow and to kill me wherever they found
me. "Ah!" I thought, "you may hunt, but you will bring nothing home to
the pot." Just then a dog that was lying by the fire got up and began to
sniff the air. I could not see what dog it was--indeed, I had forgotten
all about the dogs when I drew near the kraal; that is what comes of
want of experience, my father. The dog sniffed and sniffed, then he
began to growl, looking always my way, and I grew afraid.
"What is the dog growling at?" said one man to another. "Go and see."
But the other man was taking snuff and did not like to move. "Let the
dog go and see for himself," he answered, sneezing, "what is the good of
keeping a dog if you have to catch the thief?"
"Go on, then," said the first man to the dog. And he ran forward,
barking. Then I saw him: it was my own dog, Koos, a very good dog.
Presently, as I lay not knowing what to do, he smelt my smell, stopped
barking, and running round the bush he found me and began to lick my
face. "Be quiet, Koos!" I whispered to him. And he lay down by my side.
"Where has that dog gone now?" said the first man. "Is he bewitched,
that he stops barking suddenly and does not come back?"
"We will see," said the other, rising, a spear in his hand.
Now once more I was terribly afraid, for I thought that they would catch
me, or I must run for my life again. But as I sprang up to run, a big
black snake glided between the men and went off towards the huts. They
jumped aside in a great fright, then all of them turned to follow the
snake, saying that this was what the dog was barking at. That was my
good Ehlose, my father, which without any doubt took the shape of a
snake to save my life.
When they had gone I crept off the other way, and Koos followed me. At
first I thought that I would kill him, lest he should betray me; but
when I called to him to knock him on the head with my kerrie, he sat
down upon the ground wagging his tail, and seemed to smile in my face,
and I could not do it. So I thought that I would take my chance, and we
went on together. This was my purpose: first to creep into my own hut
and get my assegais and a skin blanket, then to gain speech with Baleka.
My hut, I thought, would be empty, for nobody sleeps there except
myself, and the huts of Noma were some paces away to the right. I came
to the reed fence that surrounded the huts. Nobody was to be seen at the
gate, which was not shut with thorns as usual. It was my duty to close
it, and I had not been there to do so. Then, bidding the dog lie down
outside, I stepped through boldly, reached the door of my hut, and
listened. It was empty; there was not even a breath to be heard. So I
crept in and began to search for my assegais, my water-gourd, and my
wood pillow, which was so nicely carved that I did not like to leave it.
Soon I found them. Then I felt about for my skin rug, and as I did so my
hand touched something cold. I started, and felt again. It was a man's
face--the face of a dead man, of Noma, whom I had killed and who had
been laid in my hut to await burial. Oh! then I was frightened, for Noma
dead and in the dark was worse than Noma alive. I made ready to fly,
when suddenly I heard the voices of women talking outside the door of
the hut. I knew the voices; they were those of Noma's two wives, and one
of them said she was coming in to watch by her husband's body. Now I was
in a trap indeed, for before I could do anything I saw the light go out
of a hole in the hut, and knew by the sound of a fat woman puffing
as she bent herself up that Noma's first wife was coming through it.
Presently she was in, and, squatting by the side of the corpse in such a
fashion that I could not get to the door, she began to make lamentations
and to call down curses on me. Ah! she did not know that I was
listening. I too squatted by Noma's head, and grew quick-witted in my
fear. Now that the woman was there I was not so much afraid of the dead
man, and I remembered, too, that he had been a great cheat; so I thought
I would make him cheat for the last time. I placed my hands beneath his
shoulders and pushed him up so that he sat upon the ground. The woman
heard the noise and made a sound in her throat.
"Will you not be quiet, you old hag?" I said in Noma's voice. "Can you
not let me be at peace, even now when I am dead?"
She heard, and, falling backwards in fear, drew in her breath to shriek
aloud.
"What! will you also dare to shriek?" I said again in Noma's voice;
"then I must teach you silence." And I tumbled him over on to the top of
her.
Then her senses left her, and whether she ever found them again I do not
know. At least she grew quiet for that time. For me, I snatched up the
rug--afterwards I found it was Noma's best kaross, made by Basutos of
chosen cat-skins, and worth three oxen--and I fled, followed by Koos.
Now the kraal of the chief, my father, Makedama, was two hundred paces
away, and I must go thither, for there Baleka slept. Also I dared not
enter by the gate, because a man was always on guard there. So I cut my
way through the reed fence with my assegai and crept to the hut where
Baleka was with some of her half-sisters. I knew on which side of the
hut it was her custom to lie, and where her head would be. So I lay down
on my side and gently, very gently, began to bore a hole in the grass
covering of the hut. It took a long while, for the thatch was thick,
but at last I was nearly through it. Then I stopped, for it came into my
mind that Baleka might have changed her place, and that I might wake the
wrong girl. I almost gave it over, thinking that I would fly alone, when
suddenly I heard a girl wake and begin to cry on the other side of the