THE LOSS OF UMSLOPOGAAS
Now, after the smelling out of the witch-doctors, Chaka caused a watch
to be kept upon his mother Unandi, and his wife Baleka, my sister, and
report was brought to him by those who watched, that the two women came
to my huts by stealth, and there kissed and nursed a boy—one of my
children. Then Chaka remembered the prophecy of Nobela, the dead
_Isanusi_, and his heart grew dark with doubt. But to me he said
nothing of the matter, for then, as always, his eyes looked over my
head. He did not fear me or believe that I plotted against him, I who
was his dog. Still, he did this, though whether by chance or design I
do not know: he bade me go on a journey to a distant tribe that lived
near the borders of the Amaswazi, there to take count of certain of the
king’s cattle which were in the charge of that tribe, and to bring him
account of the tale of their increase. So I bowed before the king, and
said that I would run like a dog to do his bidding, and he gave me men
to go with me.
Then I returned to my huts to bid farewell to my wives and children,
and there I found that my wife, Anadi, the mother of Moosa, my son, had
fallen sick with a wandering sickness, for strange things came into her
mind, and what came into her mind that she said, being, as I did not
doubt, bewitched by some enemy of my house.
Still, I must go upon the king’s business, and I told this to my wife
Macropha, the mother of Nada, and, as it was thought, of Umslopogaas,
the son of Chaka. But when I spoke to Macropha of the matter she burst
into tears and clung to me. I asked her why she wept thus, and she
answered that the shadow of evil lay upon her heart, for she was sure
that if I left her at the king’s kraal, when I returned again I should
find neither her nor Nada, my child, nor Umslopogaas, who was named my
son, and whom I loved as a son, still in the land of life. Then I tried
to calm her; but the more I strove the more she wept, saying that she
knew well that these things would be so.
Now I asked her what could be done, for I was stirred by her tears, and
the dread of evil crept from her to me as shadows creep from the valley
to the mountain.
She answered, “Take me with you, my husband, that I may leave this evil
land, where the very skies rain blood, and let me rest awhile in the
place of my own people till the terror of Chaka has gone by.”
“How can I do this?” I said. “None may leave the king’s kraal without
the king’s pass.”
“A man may put away his wife,” she replied. “The king does not stand
between a man and his wife. Say, my husband, that you love me no
longer, that I bear you no more children, and that therefore you send
me back whence I came. By-and-bye we will come together again if we are
left among the living.”
“So be it,” I answered. “Leave the kraal with Nada and Umslopogaas this
night, and to-morrow morning meet me at the river bank, and we shall go
on together, and for the rest may the spirits of our fathers hold us
safe.”
So we kissed each other, and Macropha went on secretly with the
children.
Now at the dawning on the morrow I summoned the men whom the king had
given me, and we started upon our journey. When the sun was well up we
came to the banks of the river, and there I found my wife Macropha, and
with her the two children. They rose as I came, but I frowned at my
wife and she gave me no greeting. Those with me looked at her askance.
“I have divorced this woman,” I said to them. “She is a withered tree,
a worn out old hag, and now I take her with me to send her to the
country of the Swazis, whence she came. Cease weeping,” I added to
Macropha, “it is my last word.”
“What says the king?” asked the men.
“I will answer to the king,” I said. And we went on.
Now I must tell how we lost Umslopogaas, the son of Chaka, who was then
a great lad drawing on to manhood, fierce in temper, well grown and
broad for his years.
We had journeyed seven days, for the way was long, and on the night of
the seventh day we came to a mountainous country in which there were
few kraals, for Chaka had eaten them all up years before. Perhaps you
know the place, my father. In it is a great and strange mountain. It is
haunted also, and named the Ghost Mountain, and on the top of it is a
grey peak rudely shaped like the head of an aged woman. Here in this
wild place we must sleep, for darkness drew on. Now we soon learned
that there were many lions in the rocks around, for we heard their
roaring and were much afraid, all except Umslopogaas, who feared
nothing. So we made a circle of thorn-bushes and sat in it, holding our
assegais ready. Presently the moon came up—it was a full-grown moon and
very bright, so bright that we could see everything for a long way
round. Now some six spear-throws from where we sat was a cliff, and at
the top of the cliff was a cave, and in this cave lived two lions and
their young. When the moon grew bright we saw the lions come out and
stand upon the edge of the cliff, and with them were two little ones
that played about like kittens, so that had we not been frightened it
would have been beautiful to see them.
“Oh! Umslopogaas,” said Nada, “I wish that I had one of the little
lions for a dog.”
The boy laughed, saying, “Then, shall I fetch you one, sister?”
“Peace, boy,” I said. “No man may take young lions from their lair and
live.”
“Such things have been done, my father,” he answered, laughing. And no
more was said of the matter.
Now when the cubs had played awhile, we saw the lioness take up the
cubs in her mouth and carry them into the cave. Then she came out
again, and went away with her mate to seek food, and soon we heard them
roaring in the distance. Now we stacked up the fire and went to sleep
in our enclosure of thorns without fear, for we knew that the lions
were far away eating game. But Umslopogaas did not sleep, for he had
determined that he would fetch the cub which Nada had desired, and,
being young and foolhardy, he did not think of the danger which he
would bring upon himself and all of us. He knew no fear, and now, as
ever, if Nada spoke a word, nay, even if she thought of a thing to
desire it, he would not rest till it was won for her. So while we slept
Umslopogaas crept like a snake from the fence of thorns, and, taking an
assegai in his hand, he slipped away to the foot of the cliff where the
lions had their den. Then he climbed the cliff, and, coming to the
cave, entered there and groped his way into it. The cubs heard him,
and, thinking that it was their mother who returned, began to whine and
purr for food. Guided by the light of their yellow eyes, he crept over
the bones, of which there were many in the cave, and came to where they
lay. Then he put out his hands and seized one of the cubs, killing the
other with his assegai, because he could not carry both of them. Now he
made haste thence before the lions returned, and came back to the thorn
fence where we lay just as dawn was breaking.
I awoke at the coming of the dawn, and, standing up, I looked out. Lo!
there, on the farther side of the thorn fence, looking large in the
grey mist, stood the lad Umslopogaas, laughing. In his teeth he held
the assegai, yet dripping with blood, and in his hands the lion cub
that, despite its whines and struggles, he grasped by the skin of the
neck and the hind legs.
“Awake, my sister!” he cried; “here is the dog you seek. Ah! he bites
now, but he will soon grow tame.”
Nada awoke, and rising, cried out with joy at the sight of the cub, but
for a moment I stood astonished.
“Fool!” I cried at last, “let the cub go before the lions come to rend
us!”
“I will not let it go, my father,” he answered sullenly. “Are there not
five of us with spears, and can we not fight two cats? I was not afraid
to go alone into their den. Are you all afraid to meet them in the
open?”
“You are mad,” I said; “let the cub go!” And I ran towards Umslopogaas
to take it from him. But he sprang aside and avoided me.
“I will never let that go of which I have got hold,” he said, “at least
not living!” And suddenly he seized the head of the cub and twisted its
neck; then threw it on to the ground, and added, “See, now I have done
your bidding, my father!”
As he spoke we heard a great sound of roaring from the cave in the
cliff. The lions had returned and found one cub dead and the other
gone.
“Into the fence!—back into the fence!” I cried, and we sprang over the
thorn-bushes where those with us were making ready their spears,
trembling as they handled them with fear and the cold of the morning.
We looked up. There, down the side of the cliff, came the lions,
bounding on the scent of him who had robbed them of their young. The
lion ran first, and as he came he roared; then followed the lioness,
but she did not roar, for in her mouth was the cub that Umslopogaas had
assegaied in the cave. Now they drew near, mad with fury, their manes
bristling, and lashing their flanks with their long tails.
“Curse you for a fool, son of Mopo,” said one of the men with me to
Umslopogaas; “presently I will beat you till the blood comes for this
trick.”
“First beat the lions, then beat me if you can,” answered the lad, “and
wait to curse till you have done both.”
Now the lions were close to us; they came to the body of the second
cub, that lay outside the fence of thorns. The lion stopped and sniffed
it. Then he roared—ah! he roared till the earth shook. As for the
lioness, she dropped the dead cub which she was carrying, and took the
other into her mouth, for she could not carry both.
“Get behind me, Nada,” cried Umslopogaas, brandishing his spear, “the
lion is about to spring.”
As the words left his mouth the great brute crouched to the ground.
Then suddenly he sprang from it like a bird, and like a bird he
travelled through the air towards us.
“Catch him on the spears!” cried Umslopogaas, and by nature, as it
were, we did the boy’s bidding; for huddling ourselves together, we
held out the assegais so that the lion fell upon them as he sprang, and
their blades sank far into him. But the weight of his charge carried us
to the ground, and he fell on to us, striking at us and at the spears,
and roaring with pain and fury as he struck. Presently he was on his
legs biting at the spears in his breast. Then Umslopogaas, who alone
did not wait his onslaught, but had stepped aside for his own ends,
uttered a loud cry and drove his assegai into the lion behind the
shoulder, so that with a groan the brute rolled over dead.
Meanwhile, the lioness stood without the fence, the second dead cub in
her mouth, for she could not bring herself to leave either of them. But
when she heard her mate’s last groan she dropped the cub and gathered
herself together to spring. Umslopogaas alone stood up to face her, for
he only had withdrawn his assegai from the carcase of the lion. She
swept on towards the lad, who stood like a stone to meet her. Now she
met his spear, it sunk in, it snapped, and down fell Umslopogaas dead
or senseless beneath the mass of the lioness. She sprang up, the broken
spear standing in her breast, sniffed at Umslopogaas, then, as though
she knew that it was he who had robbed her, she seized him by the loins
and moocha, and sprang with him over the fence.
“Oh, save him!” cried the girl Nada in bitter woe. And we rushed after
the lioness shouting.
For a moment she stood over her dead cubs, Umslopogaas hanging from her
mouth, and looked at them as though she wondered; and we hoped that she
might let him fall. Then, hearing our cries, she turned and bounded
away towards the bush, bearing Umslopogaas in her mouth. We seized our
spears and followed; but the ground grew stony, and, search as we
would, we could find no trace of Umslopogaas or of the lioness. They
had vanished like a cloud. So we came back, and, ah! my heart was sore,
for I loved the lad as though he had indeed been my son. But I knew
that he was dead, and there was an end.
“Where is my brother?” cried Nada when we came back.
“Lost,” I answered. “Lost, never to be found again.”
Then the girl gave a great and bitter cry, and fell to the earth
saying, “I would that I were dead with my brother!”
“Let us be going,” said Macropha, my wife.
“Have you no tears to weep for your son?” asked a man of our company.
“What is the use of weeping over the dead? Does it, then, bring them
back?” she answered. “Let us be going!”
The man thought these words strange, but he did not know that
Umslopogaas was not born of Macropha.
Still, we waited in that place a day, thinking that, perhaps, the
lioness would return to her den and that, at least, we might kill her.
But she came back no more. So on the next morning we rolled up our
blankets and started forward on our journey, sad at heart. In truth,
Nada was so weak from grief that she could hardly travel, but I never
heard the name of Umslopogaas pass her lips again during that journey.
She buried him in her heart and said nothing. And I too said nothing,
but I wondered why it had been brought about that I should save the
life of Umslopogaas from the jaws of the Lion of Zulu, that the lioness
of the rocks might devour him.
And so the time went on till we reached the kraal where the king’s
business must be done, and where I and my wife should part.
On the morning after we came to the kraal, having kissed in secret,
though in public we looked sullenly on one another, we parted as those
part who meet no more, for it was in our thoughts, that we should never
see each other’s face again, nor, indeed, did we do so. And I drew Nada
aside and spoke to her thus: “We part, my daughter; nor do I know when
we shall meet again, for the times are troubled and it is for your
safety and that of your mother that I rob my eyes of the sight of you.
Nada, you will soon be a woman, and you will be fairer than any woman
among our people, and it may come about that many great men will seek
you in marriage, and, perhaps, that I, your father, shall not be there
to choose for you whom you shall wed, according to the custom of our
land. But I charge you, as far as may be possible for you to do so,
take only a man whom you can love, and be faithful to him alone, for
thus shall a woman find happiness.”
Here I stopped, for the girl took hold of my hand and looked into my
face. “Peace, my father,” she said, “do not speak to me of marriage,
for I will wed no man, now that Umslopogaas is dead because of my
foolishness. I will live and die alone, and, oh! may I die quickly,
that I may go to seek him whom I love only!”
“Nay, Nada,” I said, “Umslopogaas was your brother, and it is not
fitting that you should speak of him thus, even though he is dead.”
“I know nothing of such matters, my father,” she said. “I speak what my
heart tells me, and it tells me that I loved Umslopogaas living, and,
though he is dead, I shall love him alone to the end. Ah! you think me
but a child, yet my heart is large, and it does not lie to me.”
Now I upbraided the girl no more, because I knew that Umslopogaas was
not her brother, but one whom she might have married. Only I marvelled
that the voice of nature should speak so truly in her, telling her that
which was lawful, even when it seemed to be most unlawful.
“Speak no more of Umslopogaas,” I said, “for surely he is dead, and
though you cannot forget him, yet speak of him no more, and I pray of
you, my daughter, that if we do not meet again, yet you should keep me
in your memory, and the love I bear you, and the words which from time
to time I have said to you. The world is a thorny wilderness, my
daughter, and its thorns are watered with a rain of blood, and we
wander in our wretchedness like lost travellers in a mist; nor do I
know why our feet are set on this wandering. But at last there comes an
end, and we die and go hence, none know where, but perhaps where we go
the evil may change to the good, and those who were dear to each other
on the earth may become yet dearer in the heavens; for I believe that
man is not born to perish altogether, but is rather gathered again to
the Umkulunkulu who sent him on his journeyings. Therefore keep hope,
my daughter, for if these things are not so, at least sleep remains,
and sleep is soft, and so farewell.”
Then we kissed and parted, and I watched Macropha, my wife, and Nada,
my daughter, till they melted into the sky, as they walked upon their
journey to Swaziland, and was very sad, because, having lost
Umslopogaas, he who in after days was named the Slaughterer and the
Woodpecker, I must lose them also.