THE COMING OF NADA
One night—it was a night of full moon—I sat alone with Umslopogaas in
my hut, and we spoke of the matter of our plots; then, when we had
finished that talk, we spoke of Nada the Lily.
“Alas! my uncle,” said Umslopogaas sadly, “we shall never look more on
Nada; she is surely dead or in bonds, otherwise she had been here long
ago. I have sought far and wide, and can hear no tidings and find
nothing.”
“All that is hidden is not lost,” I answered, yet I myself believed
that there was an end of Nada.
Then we were silent awhile, and presently, in the silence, a dog
barked. We rose, and crept out of the hut to see what it might be that
stirred, for the night drew on, and it was needful to be wary, since a
dog might bark at the stirring of a leaf, or perhaps it might be the
distant footfall of an impi that it heard.
We had not far to look, for standing gazing at the huts, like one who
is afraid to call, was a tall slim man, holding an assegai in one hand
and a little shield in the other. We could not see the face of the man,
because the light was behind him, and a ragged blanket hung about his
shoulders. Also, he was footsore, for he rested on one leg. Now we were
peering round the hut, and its shadow hid us, so that the man saw
nothing. For awhile he stood still, then he spoke to himself, and his
voice was strangely soft.
“Here are many huts,” said the voice, “now how may I know which is the
house of my brother? Perhaps if I call I shall bring soldiers to me,
and be forced to play the man before them, and I am weary of that.
Well, I will lie here under the fence till morning; it is a softer bed
than some I have found, and I am worn out with travel—sleep I must,”
and the figure sighed and turned so that the light of the moon fell
full upon its face.
My father, it was the face of Nada, my daughter, whom I had not seen
for so many years, yet across the years I knew it at once; yes, though
the bud had become a flower I knew it. The face was weary and worn, but
ah! it was beautiful, never before nor since have I seen such beauty,
for there was this about the loveliness of my daughter, the Lily: it
seemed to flow from within—yes, as light will flow through the thin
rind of a gourd, and in that she differed from the other women of our
people, who, when they are fair are fair with the flesh alone.
Now my heart went out to Nada as she stood in the moonlight, one
forsaken, not having where to lay her head, Nada, who alone was left
alive of all my children. I motioned to Umslopogaas to hide himself in
the shadow, and stepped forward.
“Ho!” I said roughly, “who are you, wanderer, and what do you here?”
Now Nada started like a frightened bird, but quickly gathered up her
thoughts, and turned upon me in a lordly way.
“Who are you that ask me?” she said, feigning a man’s voice.
“One who can use a stick upon thieves and night-prowlers, boy. Come,
show your business or be moving. You are not of this people; surely
that moocha is of a Swazi make, and here we do not love Swazis.”
“Were you not old, I would beat you for your insolence,” said Nada,
striving to look brave and all the while searching a way to escape.
“Also, I have no stick, only a spear, and that is for warriors, not for
an old _umfagozan_ like you.” Ay, my father, I lived to hear my
daughter name me an _umfagozan_—a low fellow!
Now making pretence to be angry, I leaped at her with my kerrie up,
and, forgetting her courage, she dropped her spear, and uttered a
little scream. But she still held the shield before her face. I seized
her by the arm, and struck a blow upon the shield with my kerrie—it
would scarcely have crushed a fly, but this brave warrior trembled
sorely.
“Where now is your valour, you who name me _umfagozan?_” I said: “you
who cry like a maid and whose arm is soft as a maid’s.”
She made no answer, but hugged her tattered blanket round her, and
shifting my grip from her arm, I seized it and rent it, showing her
breast and shoulder; then I let her go, laughing, and said:—
“Lo! here is the warrior that would beat an old _umfagozan_ for his
insolence, a warrior well shaped for war! Now, my pretty maid who
wander at night in the garment of a man, what tale have you to tell?
Swift with it, lest I drag you to the chief as his prize! The old man
seeks a new wife, they tell me?”
Now when Nada saw that I had discovered her she threw down the shield
after the spear, as a thing that was of no more use, and hung her head
sullenly. But when I spoke of dragging her to the chief then she flung
herself upon the ground, and clasped my knees, for since I called him
old, she thought that this chief could not be Umslopogaas.
“Oh, my father,” said the Lily, “oh, my father, have pity on me! Yes,
yes! I am a girl, a maid—no wife—and you who are old, you, perchance
have daughters such as I, and in their name I ask for pity. My father,
I have journeyed far, I have endured many things, to find my way to a
kraal where my brother rules, and now it seems I have come to the wrong
kraal. Forgive me that I spoke to you so, my father; it was but a
woman’s feint, and I was hard pressed to hide my sex, for my father,
you know it is ill to be a lonely girl among strange men.”
Now I said nothing in answer, for this reason only: that when I heard
Nada call me father, not knowing me, and saw her clasp my knees and
pray to me in my daughter’s name, I, who was childless save for her,
went nigh to weeping. But she thought that I did not answer her because
I was angry, and about to drag her to this unknown chief, and implored
me the more even with tears.
“My father,” she said, “do not this wicked thing by me. Let me go and
show me the path that I shall ask: you who are old, you know that I am
too fair to be dragged before this chief of yours. Hearken! All I knew
are dead, I am alone except for this brother I seek. Oh! if you betray
me may such a fate fall upon your own daughter also! May she also know
the day of slavery, and the love that she wills not!” and she ceased,
sobbing.
Now I turned my head and spoke towards the hut, “Chief,” I said, “your
_Ehlosé_ is kind to you to-night, for he has given you a maid fair as
the Lily of the Halakazi”—here Nada glanced up wildly. “Come, then, and
take the girl.”
Now Nada turned to snatch up the assegai from the ground, but whether
to kill me, or the chief she feared so much, or herself, I do not know,
and as she turned, in her woe she called upon the name of Umslopogaas.
She found the assegai, and straightened herself again. And lo! there
before her stood a tall chief leaning on an axe; but the old man who
threatened her was gone—not very far, in truth, but round the corner of
the hut.
Now Nada the Lily looked, then rubbed her eyes, and looked again.
“Surely I dream?” she said at last. “But now I spoke to an old man, and
in his place there stands before me the shape of one whom I desire to
see.”
“I thought, Maiden, that the voice of a certain Nada called upon one
Umslopogaas,” said he who leaned upon the axe.
“Ay, I called: but where is the old man who treated me so scurvily?
Nay, what does it matter?—where he is, there let him stop. At least,
you are Umslopogaas, my brother, or should be by your greatness and the
axe. To the man I cannot altogether swear in this light; but to the axe
I can swear, for once it passed so very near my eyes.”
Thus she spoke on, gaining time, and all the while she watched
Umslopogaas till she was sure that it was he and no other. Then she
ceased talking, and, flinging herself on him, she kissed him.
“Now I trust that Zinita sleeps sound,” murmured Umslopogaas, for
suddenly he remembered that Nada was no sister of his, as she thought.
Nevertheless, he took her by the hand and said, “Enter, sister. Of all
maidens in the world you are the most welcome here, for know I believed
you dead.”
But I, Mopo, ran into the hut before her, and when she entered she
found me sitting by the fire.
“Now, here, my brother,” said Nada, pointing at me with her finger,
“here is that old _umfagozan_, that low fellow, who, unless I dream,
but a very little while ago brought shame upon me—ay, my brother, he
struck me, a maid, with his kerrie, and that only because I said that I
would stab him for his insolence, and he did worse: he swore that he
would drag me to some old chief of his to be a gift to him, and this he
was about to do, had you not come. Will you suffer these things to go
unpunished, my brother?”
Now Umslopogaas smiled grimly, and I answered:—
“What was it that you called me just now, Nada, when you prayed me to
protect you? Father, was it not?” and I turned my face towards the
blaze of the fire, so that the full light fell upon it.
“Yes, I called you father, old man. It is not strange, for a homeless
wanderer must find fathers where she can—and yet! no, it cannot be—so
changed—and that white hand? And yet, oh! who are you? Once there was a
man named Mopo, and he had a little daughter, and she was called
Nada—Oh! my father, my father, I know you now!”
“Ay, Nada, and I knew you from the first; through all your man’s
wrappings I knew you after these many years.”
So the Lily fell upon my neck and sobbed there, and I remember that I
also wept.
Now when she had sobbed her fill of joy, Umslopogaas brought Nada the
Lily _maas_ to eat and mealie porridge. She ate the curdled milk, but
the porridge she would not eat, saying that she was too weary.
Then she told us all the tale of her wanderings since she had fled away
from the side of Umslopogaas at the stronghold of the Halakazi, and it
was long, so long that I will not repeat it, for it is a story by
itself. This I will say only: that Nada was captured by robbers, and
for awhile passed herself off among them as a youth. But, in the end,
they found her out and would have given her as a wife to their chief,
only she persuaded them to kill the chief and make her their ruler.
They did this because of that medicine of the eyes which Nada had only
among women, for as she ruled the Halakazi so she ruled the robbers.
But, at the last, they all loved her, and she gave it out that she
would wed the strongest. Then some of them fell to fighting, and while
they killed each other—for it came about that Nada brought death upon
the robbers as on all others—she escaped, for she said that she did not
wish to look upon their struggle but would await the upshot in a place
apart.
After that she had many further adventures, but at length she met an
old woman who guided her on her way to the Ghost Mountain. And who this
old woman was none could discover, but Galazi swore afterwards that she
was the Stone Witch of the mountain, who put on the shape of an aged
woman to guide Nada to Umslopogaas, to be the sorrow and the joy of the
People of the Axe. I do not know, my father, yet it seems to me that
the old witch would scarcely have put off her stone for so small a
matter.
Now, when Nada had made an end of her tale, Umslopogaas told his, of
how things had gone with Dingaan. When he told her how he had given the
body of the girl to the king, saying that it was the Lily’s stalk, she
said it had been well done; and when he spoke of the slaying of the
traitor she clapped her hands, though Nada, whose heart was gentle, did
not love to hear of deeds of death. At last he finished, and she was
somewhat sad, and said it seemed that her fate followed her, and that
now the People of the Axe were in danger at the hands of Dingaan
because of her.
“Ah! my brother,” she cried, taking Umslopogaas by the hand, “it were
better I should die than that I should bring evil upon you also.”
“That would not mend matters, Nada,” he answered. “For whether you be
dead or alive, the hate of Dingaan is already earned. Also, Nada, know
this: _I am not your brother_.”
When the Lily heard these words she uttered a little cry, and, letting
fall the hand of Umslopogaas, clasped mine, shrinking up against me.
“What is this tale, father?” she asked. “He who was my twin, he with
whom I have been bred up, says that he has deceived me these many
years, that he is not my brother; who, then, is he, father?”
“He is your cousin, Nada.”
“Ah,” she answered, “I am glad. It would have grieved me had he whom I
loved been shown to be but a stranger in whom I have no part,” and she
smiled a little in the eyes and at the corners of her mouth. “But tell
me this tale also.”
So I told her the tale of the birth of Umslopogaas, for I trusted her.
“Ah,” she said, when I had finished, “ah! you come of a bad stock,
Umslopogaas, though it is a kingly one. I shall love you little
henceforth, child of the hyena man.”
“Then that is bad news,” said Umslopogaas, “for know, Nada, I desire
now that you should love me more than ever—that you should be my wife
and love me as your husband!”
Now the Lily’s face grew sad and sweet, and all the hidden mockery went
out of her talk—for Nada loved to mock.
“Did you not speak to me on that night in the Halakazi caves,
Umslopogaas, of one Zinita, who is your wife, and _Inkosikaas_ of the
People of the Axe?”
Then the brow of Umslopogaas darkened: “What of Zinita?” he said. “It
is true she is my chieftainess; is it not allowed a man to take more
than one wife?”
“So I trust,” answered Nada, smiling, “else men would go unwed for
long, for few maids would marry them who then must labour alone all
their days. But, Umslopogaas, if there are twenty wives, yet one must
be first. Now this has come about hitherto: that wherever I have been
it has been thrust upon me to be first, and perhaps it might be thus
once more—what then, Umslopogaas?”
“Let the fruit ripen before you pluck it, Nada,” he answered. “If you
love me and will wed me, it is enough.”
“I pray that it may not be more than enough,” she said, stretching out
her hand to him. “Listen, Umslopogaas: ask my father here what were the
words I spoke to him many years ago, before I was a woman, when, with
my mother, Macropha, I left him to go among the Swazi people. It was
after you had been borne away by the lion, Umslopogaas, I told my
father that I would marry no man all my life, because I loved only you,
who were dead. My father reproached me, saying that I must not speak
thus of my brother, but it was my heart which spoke, and it spoke
truly; for see, Umslopogaas, you are no brother to me! I have kept that
vow. How many men have sought me in wedlock since I became a woman,
Umslopogaas? I tell you that they are as the leaves upon a tree. Yet I
have given myself to none, and this has been my fortune: that none have
sought to constrain me to marriage. Now I have my reward, for he whom I
lost is found again, and to him alone I give my love. Yet, Umslopogaas,
beware! Little luck has come to those who have loved me in the past;
no, not even to those who have but sought to look on me.”
“I will bear the risk, Nada,” the Slaughterer answered, and gathering
her to his great breast he kissed her.
Presently she slipped from his arms and bade him begone, for she was
weary and would rest.
So he went.