THE FINDING OF NADA
Umslopogaas marshalled his companies.
“There is little light left,” he said, “but it must serve us to start
these conies from their burrows. Come, my brother Galazi, you know
where the conies hide, take my place and lead us.”
So Galazi led the impi. Turning a corner of the glen, he came with them
to a large open space that had a fountain in its midst, and this place
was full of thousands of cattle. Then he turned again to the left, and
brought them to the inner side of the mountain, where the cliff hung
over, and here was the mouth of a great cave. Now the cave was dark,
but by its door was stacked a pile of resinous wood to serve as
torches.
“Here is that which will give us light,” said Galazi, and one man of
every two took a torch and lit it at a fire that burned near the mouth
of the cave. Then they rushed in, waving the flaring torches and with
assegais aloft. Here for the last time the Halakazi stood against them,
and the torches floated up and down upon the wave of war. But they did
not stand for very long, for all the heart was out of them. _Wow!_ yes,
many were killed—I do not know how many. I know this only, that the
Halakazi are no more a tribe since Umslopogaas, who is named Bulalio,
stamped them with his feet—they are nothing but a name now. The People
of the Axe drove them out into the open and finished the fight by
starlight among the cattle.
In one corner of the cave Umslopogaas saw a knot of men clustering
round something as though to guard it. He rushed at the men, and with
him went Galazi and others. But when Umslopogaas was through, by the
light of his torch he perceived a tall and slender man, who leaned
against the wall of the cave and held a shield before his face.
“You are a coward!” he cried, and smote with Groan-Maker. The great axe
pierced the hide, but, missing the head behind, rang loudly against the
rock, and as it struck a sweet voice said:—
“Ah! soldier, do not kill me! Why are you angry with me?”
Now the shield had come away from its holder’s hands upon the blade of
the axe, and there was something in the notes of the voice that caused
Umslopogaas to smite no more: it was as though a memory of childhood
had come to him in a dream. His torch was burning low, but he thrust it
forward to look at him who crouched against the rock. The dress was the
dress of a man, but this was no man’s form—nay, rather that of a lovely
woman, well-nigh white in colour. She dropped her hands from before her
face, and now he could see her well. He saw eyes that shone like stars,
hair that curled and fell upon the shoulders, and such beauty as was
not known among our people. And as the voice had spoken to him of
something that was lost, so did the eyes seem to shine across the
blackness of many years, and the beauty to bring back he knew not what.
He looked at the girl in all her loveliness, and she looked at him in
his fierceness and his might, red with war and wounds. They both looked
long, while the torchlight flared on them, on the walls of the cave,
and the broad blade of Groan-Maker, and from around rose the sounds of
the fray.
“How are you named, who are so fair to see?” he asked at length.
“I am named the Lily now: once I had another name. Nada, daughter of
Mopo, I was once; but name and all else are dead, and I go to join
them. Kill me and make an end. I will shut my eyes, that I may not see
the great axe flash.”
Now Umslopogaas gazed upon her again, and Groan-Maker fell from his
hand.
“Look on me, Nada, daughter of Mopo,” he said in a low voice; “look at
me and say who am I.”
She looked once more and yet again. Now her face was thrust forward as
one who gazes over the edge of the world; it grew fixed and strange.
“By my heart,” she said, “by my heart, you are Umslopogaas, my brother
who is dead, and whom dead as living I have loved ever and alone.”
Then the torch flared out, but Umslopogaas took hold of her in the
darkness and pressed her to him and kissed her, the sister whom he
found after many years, and she kissed him.
“You kiss me now,” she said, “yet not long ago that great axe shore my
locks, missing me but by a finger’s-breadth—and still the sound of
fighting rings in my ears! Ah! a boon of you, my brother—a boon: let
there be no more death since we are met once more. The people of the
Halakazi are conquered, and it is their just doom, for thus, in this
same way, they killed those with whom I lived before. Yet they have
treated me well, not forcing me into wedlock, and protecting me from
Dingaan; so spare them, my brother, if you may.”
Then Umslopogaas lifted up his voice, commanding that the killing
should cease, and sent messengers running swiftly with these words:
“This is the command of Bulalio: that he who lifts hand against one
more of the people of the Halakazi shall be killed himself”; and the
soldiers obeyed him, though the order came somewhat late, and no more
of the Halakazi were brought to doom. They were suffered to escape,
except those of the women and children who were kept to be led away as
captives. And they ran far that night. Nor did they come together again
to be a people, for they feared Galazi the Wolf, who would be chief
over them, but they were scattered wide in the world, to sojourn among
strangers.
Now when the soldiers had eaten abundantly of the store of the
Halakazi, and guards had been sent to ward the cattle and watch against
surprise, Umslopogaas spoke long with Nada the Lily, taking her apart,
and he told her all his story. She told him also the tale which you
know, my father, of how she had lived with the little people that were
subject to the Halakazi, she and her mother Macropha, and how the fame
of her beauty had spread about the land. Then she told him how the
Halakazi had claimed her, and of how, in the end, they had taken her by
force of arms, killing the people of that kraal, and among them her own
mother. Thereafter, she had dwelt among the Halakazi, who named her
anew, calling her the Lily, and they had treated her kindly, giving her
reverence because of her sweetness and beauty, and not forcing her into
marriage.
“And why would you not wed, Nada, my sister?” asked Umslopogaas, “you
who are far past the age of marriage?”
“I cannot tell you,” she answered, hanging her head; “but I have no
heart that way. I only seek to be left alone.”
Now Umslopogaas thought awhile and spoke. “Do you not know then, Nada,
why it is that I have made this war, and why the people of the Halakazi
are dead and scattered and their cattle the prize of my arm? I will
tell you: I am come here to win you, whom I knew only by report as the
Lily maid, the fairest of women, to be a wife to Dingaan. The reason
that I began this war was to win you and make my peace with Dingaan,
and now I have carried it through to the end.”
Now when she heard these words, Nada the Lily trembled and wept, and,
sinking to the earth, she clasped the knees of Umslopogaas in
supplication: “Oh, do not this cruel thing by me, your sister,” she
prayed; “take rather that great axe and make an end of me, and of the
beauty which has wrought so much woe, and most of all to me who wear
it! Would that I had not moved my head behind the shield, but had
suffered the axe to fall upon it. To this end I was dressed as a man,
that I might meet the fate of a man. Ah! a curse be on my woman’s
weakness that snatched me from death to give me up to shame!”
Thus she prayed to Umslopogaas in her low sweet voice, and his heart
was shaken in him, though, indeed, he did not now purpose to give Nada
to Dingaan, as Baleka was given to Chaka, perhaps in the end to meet
the fate of Baleka.
“There are many, Nada,” he said, “who would think it no misfortune that
they should be given as a wife to the first of chiefs.”
“Then I am not of their number,” she answered; “nay, I will die first,
by my own hand if need be.”
Now Umslopogaas wondered how it came about that Nada looked upon
marriage thus, but he did not speak of the matter; he said only, “Tell
me then, Nada, how I can deliver myself of this charge. I must go to
Dingaan as I promised our father Mopo, and what shall I say to Dingaan
when he asks for the Lily whom I went out to pluck and whom his heart
desires? What shall I say to save myself alive from the wrath of
Dingaan?”
Then Nada thought and answered, “You shall say this, my brother. You
shall tell him that the Lily, being clothed in the war-dress of a
warrior, fell by chance in the fray. See, now, none of your people know
that you have found me; they are thinking of other things than maids in
the hour of their victory. This, then, is my plan: we will search now
by the starlight till we find the body of a fair maid, for, doubtless,
some were killed by hazard in the fight, and on her we will set a
warrior’s dress, and lay by her the corpse of one of your own men.
To-morrow, at the light, you shall take the captains of your soldiers
and, having laid the body of the girl in the dark of the cave, you
shall show it to them hurriedly, and tell them that this was the Lily,
slain by one of your own people, whom in your wrath you slew also. They
will not look long on so common a sight, and if by hazard they see the
maid, and think her not so very fair, they will deem that it is death
which has robbed her of her comeliness. So the tale which you must tell
to Dingaan shall be built up firmly, and Dingaan shall believe it to be
true.”
“And how shall this be, Nada?” asked Umslopogaas. “How shall this be
when men see you among the captives and know you by your beauty? Are
there, then, two such Lilies in the land?”
“I shall not be known, for I shall not be seen, Umslopogaas. You must
set me free to-night. I will wander hence disguised as a youth and
covered with a blanket, and if any meet me, who shall say that I am the
Lily?”
“And where will you wander, Nada? to your death? Must we, then, meet
after so many years to part again for ever?”
“Where was it that you said you lived, my brother? Beneath the shade of
a Ghost Mountain, that men may know by a shape of stone which is
fashioned like an old woman frozen into stone, was it not? Tell me of
the road thither.”
So Umslopogaas told her the road, and she listened silently.
“Good,” she said. “I am strong and my feet are swift; perhaps they may
serve to bring me so far, and perhaps, if I win the shadow of that
mountain, you will find me a hut to hide in, Umslopogaas, my brother.”
“Surely it shall be so, my sister,” answered Umslopogaas, “and yet the
way is long and many dangers lie in the path of a maid journeying
alone, without food or shelter,” and as he spoke Umslopogaas thought of
Zinita his wife, for he guessed that she would not love Nada, although
she was only his sister.
“Still, it must be travelled, and the dangers must be braved,” she
answered, smiling. “Alas! there is no other way.”
Then Umslopogaas summoned Galazi the Wolf and told him all this story,
for Galazi was the only man whom he could trust. The Wolf listened in
silence, marvelling the while at the beauty of Nada, as the starlight
showed it. When everything was told, he said only that he no longer
wondered that the people of the Halakazi had defied Dingaan and brought
death upon themselves for the sake of this maid. Still, to be plain,
his heart thought ill of the matter, for death was not done with yet:
there before them shone the Star of Death, and he pointed to the Lily.
Now Nada trembled at his words of evil omen, and the Slaughterer grew
angry, but Galazi would neither add to them nor take away from them. “I
have spoken that which my heart hears,” he answered.
Then they rose and went to search among the dead for a girl who would
suit their purpose; soon they found one, a tall and fair maiden, and
Galazi bore her in his arms to the great cave. Here in the cave were
none but the dead, and, tossed hither and thither in their last sleep,
they looked awful in the glare of the torches.
“They sleep sound,” said the Lily, gazing on them; “rest is sweet.”
“We shall soon win it, maiden,” answered Galazi, and again Nada
trembled.
Then, having arrayed her in the dress of a warrior, and put a shield
and spear by her, they laid down the body of the girl in a dark place
in the cave, and, finding a dead warrior of the People of the Axe,
placed him beside her. Now they left the cave, and, pretending that
they visited the sentries, Umslopogaas and Galazi passed from spot to
spot, while the Lily walked after them like a guard, hiding her face
with a shield, holding a spear in her hand, and having with her a bag
of corn and dried flesh.
So they passed on, till at length they came to the entrance in the
mountain side. The stones that had blocked it were pulled down so as to
allow those of the Halakazi to fly who had been spared at the entreaty
of Nada, but there were guards by the entrance to watch that none came
back. Umslopogaas challenged them, and they saluted him, but he saw
that they were worn out with battle and journeying, and knew little of
what they saw or said. Then he, Galazi, and Nada passed through the
opening on to the plain beyond.
Here the Slaughterer and the Lily bade each other farewell, while
Galazi watched, and presently the Wolf saw Umslopogaas return as one
who is heavy at heart, and caught sight of the Lily skimming across the
plain lightly like a swallow.
“I do not know when we two shall meet again,” said Umslopogaas so soon
as she had melted into the shadows of the night.
“May you never meet,” answered Galazi, “for I am sure that if you meet
that sister of yours will bring death on many more than those who now
lie low because of her loveliness. She is a Star of Death, and when she
sets the sky shall be blood red.”
Umslopogaas did not answer, but walked slowly through the archway in
the mountain side.
“How is this, chief?” said he who was captain of the guard. “Three went
out, but only two return.”
“Fool!” answered Umslopogaas. “Are you drunk with Halakazi beer, or
blind with sleep? Two went out, and two return. I sent him who was with
us back to the camp.”
“So be it, father,” said the captain. “Two went out, and two return.
All is well!”