Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
By Veldt and Kopje
By William Charles Scully
Published by T. Fisher Unwin, London.
This edition dated 1907.
By Veldt and Kopje, by William Charles Scully.
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BY VELDT AND KOPJE, BY WILLIAM CHARLES SCULLY.
DEDICATION.
To
Lieutenant-General
SIR WILLIAM FRANCIS BUTLER
This Book is Inscribed
(Ecclesiastes, VII. 5)
PROLOGUE.
VOICES OF AFRICA
AFRICA
Sphinx among continents,--the Nations strive
To guess my ancient riddle; Greece essayed--
She drooped to death; upon me Rome set gyve--
She sank in her own bonds. The Persian laid
His life down 'mid my deserts. For a day
I smiled on each, then tore them for my play.
THE SAHARA
The ghosts of buried cities scale the air
When Day wakes my mirage. The lion keeps
My iron hills. The bones of men lie bare
Where my thirst-sickle its rich harvest reaps.
Time, like a little child, amid my sands
Builds and unbuilds with feeble, listless hands.
EGYPT
The gods who dwell 'mid equatorial snows
Bade Nilus cleave the waste, and I awoke.
A giant, robed in mystery, I arose;
The young world listened, breathless, when I spoke.
My Sphinx Time's sister is; her brood lies hid
Where dream the dead 'neath rock and pyramid.
CARTHAGE
Sidon sent forth her sons, her sons sent Tyre;
The Desert's daughters bore a mighty race.
The God whose brazen hands sloped to the fire
Reared o'er me the red terror of his face.
Rome, vengeful, trod me to the dust, and strowed
With salt the site where once my powers abode.
ALEXANDRIA
The godlike Alexander wav'd his sword;
Beneath its spell rose palace, mart and school,
No gold so precious as my lightest word;
My logos still the Faith of Man doth rule.
Greek, Roman and Barbarian, East and West,
Drank lore like milk from my most bounteous breast.
MOUNT ATLAS
Time haled the great Globe from my aching back
And hung it 'mid the stars. Content I rest,
The ocean's murmured music at my feet,
The foldless flocks of cloudland round my crest.
Pan walks with Faunus through my dreaming woods,
And Dryads pace my leafy solitudes.
RUWENZORI
A diadem of changeless snow lies light
Upon my regal head; my locks I shake,
And, straightway, living waters take their flight.
The iron bonds of Ancient Drought to break.
A virgin, new-unveiled, I stand alone;
Aeons will pass, but none unclasp my zone.
THE LAKES
Hand seeking hand, a peerless sisterhood,
We watched for dawn through dark of murd'rous years
Our sky-pure fringes mired with human blood,
Our rain-sweet wavelets salt with human tears.
Our tideless glasses gleam resplendently
High o'er the rockings of the restless sea.
THE CONGO
Through jungles spawned from fever-drunken sod
Where, sleeplessly, the foul man-hunters hide.
The bitter lees from God's dread wine-press trod
By desperate feet, drain down my tepid tide.
Leviathan there wallows in his wrath;
There range the hordes of mighty Behemoth.
THE ZAMBEZI
The spoils the sky had of the world-wide main
I bear, new-gathered from ten thousand rills
To where the thund'rous gates my steps enchain,
Clogged with the wastage of a million hills.
Thence, breaking forth in triumph, full and free,
I render back my booty to the sea.
ZIMBABWE
I housed the brood of Carthage; they the earth
Deep rifled for its treasure. On me fell
The hand of Doom. No rumour speaks my birth,
No legend shrines my death. My citadel
Glares at the cold fane of my obscene god,
O'er which the feet of ancient ruin trod.
THE SOUTHERN DESERTS
The wayward Spring, in dalliance afar,
Forgets us for long seasons, till the sky
Weeps for our burning woe; then, star on star,
Rich blossoms from our glowing dunes arise.
Thirst, with his legioned agonies, still stands
Warding the barren empire of our sands.
THE BLACK PEOPLES
God smote us with an itch to dip our hands
In one another's blood. Our long travail
The ages hearken to. The ocean sands
Than we are not more myriad. Men hale
Us forth in chains o'er every moaning sea
Foul with the trails of Man's iniquity.
KIMBERLEY
I sprang from 'neath the desert sand, and cast
A double-handed shower of living gems
I' the world's astonished visage. In my vast
Black, echoing chasm, whence the bright diadems
Of half Earth's thrones are furnish'd, I can hear
The lost souls wander, wailing, far and near.
JOHANNESBURG
A maenad seated on a golden throne;
My plaything is a nation's destiny;
My feet are clay, my bosom is a stone;
The princes of the Earth are fain of me,
But, stark, before the splendour of my gates,
The grim Boer, leaning on his rifle, waits.
THE WHITE COMMONWEALTHS
To-morrow unregarded, clean effaced
The lesson of unhallowed yesterday,
We rail against each other; interlaced
Albeit are our fortunes. So we stray,
Blind to the lurid writing on the wall,
Deaf to the words Fate's warning lips let fall.
(1899)
CHAPTER ONE.
THE LEPERS.
"All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled;
he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his
habitation be."--Leviticus XIII. 46.
_One_.
The Magistrate sat in his office, deep in thought. Before him, on his
desk, lay a pile of documents of foolscap size--clinical reports as to
some forty odd natives in the district, who had been cursed by God with
the most bitter of all curses--the disease of leprosy. The Magistrate
noted that the documents were livid white in colour--a variation from
the orthodox blue of the ordinary printed form, and even this trivial
circumstance seemed to have an unpleasant significance.
It was a month since the receipt of the circular from the Government,
directing that the long-dormant "Leprosy Repression Act" be put in
force, and the District Surgeon had, in the interval, been busy riding
from kraal to kraal in these locations where the disease existed,
obtaining the voluminous data required in each individual case. This
data had now been transferred to the fateful livid forms, the imposing
pile of which the Magistrate was regarding with troubled eyes.
In response to a touch upon the bell a smart-looking native constable
entered the room, and a message sent through him brought Galada,
sergeant of the native police, and four of his men, who stood before the
desk in an attentive line. After the Magistrate's order had been
explained to them, Galada and his men left the room, went to where their
horses stood, ready saddled, and rode forth respectively in five
different directions. The sun was shining brightly. The season was
early summer, but a light, refreshing breeze was making glad the land.
The previous day had been hot, but a short thunderstorm at sunset had
cleared the atmosphere and lowered the temperature, so the morning was
sweet, as only a South African morning can be when cool, sea-born wind
and gently ardent sunbeams flatter and caress.
Galada, the sergeant, took his course along the footpath which leads
over the bush-covered "Black-water" Ridge. To his right arose, in
precipitous terraces, the noble mass of the Umgano Mountain. The
valleys were full of long lush grass, on which the sleek-limbed kine
were greedily browsing. The long-tailed finches lilted over the reeds
in anxious pursuit of their short-tailed, and therefore more nimble,
mates; the crested lories called hoarsely from the mysterious depths of
the jungle.
As the Sergeant reached the higher slopes of the ridge, the late flowers
of retreating spring became more and more plentiful. The pink shields
clustering around the orchid stems were full of struggling bees
half-smothered in yellow pollen, while over each golden mass of
mountain-broom a small cloud of butterflies hovered. Around the
towering crags wheeled the chanting falcons, whose wild cries seemed to
voice the very spirit of the mountain wilderness.
But Galada had neither eye nor ear for these things; his thoughts were
almost wholly engrossed by the "beer-drink" which he knew was that day
being held at the kraal of Headman Rolobele--an hour's ride away--among
the foothills of the Drakensberg Range. He knew that there he would
find all the headmen to whom he had to convey the Magistrate's message,
as well as other good company, and an excellent brew of beer. Thus
would be afforded a most fortunate opportunity of combining business and
pleasure.
When Galada arrived at his destination he found the "beer-drink" in full
swing. The men were all sitting in a circle before the main entrance to
the cattle kraal, which was half-surrounded by a crescent of
beehive-shaped huts. In the centre stood several immense earthenware
pots full of the pink liquor, while several smaller pots, each with a
cleft-calabash spoon floating in it, were circulating among the guests.
Galada removed the saddle from his horse, let the animal loose to join
the horses of the other visitors--which were being herded by a couple of
boys. Then, after greeting the giver of the feast, he joined the circle
of drinkers.
But the Sergeant was far too sensible a man to allow pleasure to
interfere with duty to his own disadvantage, so after quenching his
immediate thirst by emptying one of the largest of the secondary pots,
he drew Rolobele and the other headmen aside for the purpose of
communicating to them the Magistrate's message, while all were yet in a
state of sobriety.
"This, then, is the word of Government," said he. "The people who have
`the sickness' (the Kaffirs have no name for the disease of leprosy) are
to be gathered together at Izolo. From there they will be sent on in
wagons to Emjanyana, where they will henceforth dwell. The Magistrate
tells me to warn you that this word is a word which must be listened to
and obeyed."
The four headmen looked at each other in silence for awhile. Then
Rolobele spoke--
"Yes, we knew of the coming of the word and we will obey. With the old
men and women there will be no difficulty, but with the young men--the
son of Makanda, for instance--he will be a difficult bull to drive into
the Emjanyana kraal."
"What! Makanda's son, Mangele," exclaimed Galada in a tone of surprise;
"he that I saw among the drinkers; has _he_ got it?"
"Oh, yes," replied Rolobele. "The doctor was here last week and found
`the sickness' in his hand and his knee. But you knew, surely, that his
mother died of it three years ago."
Across the heavy features of the youngest of the headmen--a man named
Xaba--the ghost of a smile seemed to flit. Xaba had quite recently been
appointed to the headmanship in succession to his father. There was
enmity and jealousy between him and Mangele. Both had been paying their
addresses to the same girl, and the suit of Mangele had prospered. He
had, as a matter of fact, already paid more than one instalment of the
"lobola" cattle (Note 1), and the wedding was expected to take place
within a few months.
After giving full instructions as to the collection of the unfortunate
sufferers, Galada, accompanied by the others, returned to the beer-feast
with a clear conscience. After removing his uniform to prevent its
getting soiled, he borrowed a blanket from Rolobele and gave himself up
to enjoyment.
Mangele was the "great son" of his father, who was so old and infirm
that he slept away his days and took no further interest in life. When
the weather was cold he lay all day long on his mat next to the
fireplace in his hut--a little boy being always on duty to prevent the
fire either going out or setting the old man's mat or blanket alight.
In mild weather he lay outside in the open. When the sun stung he
sought the shady side of the hut, and groaned grievously when the
pursuing sunbeams forced him to shift his quarters.
Makanda was a rich man, and, as the greater portion of his riches
belonged to his "great house," such would, consequently, fall to
Mangele. The latter had many half-brothers who were older than himself,
but, his mother having been the "great wife," he took precedence of the
rest of the family.
A few years previously Mangele's mother, who had been afflicted with
leprosy for many years, died miserably. Mangele, when little more than
a boy, had quarrelled with his father and run away from home, meaning to
return no more. He wandered far and near--sometimes working at the
docks at Cape Town or East London--sometimes at the gold or diamond
mines. The love of home is always very deep in the Kaffir, and Mangele
came to find the longing to return to his father's kraal so strong, that
he could no longer withstand it. For some months previously he had
suffered from a feeling of painful weakness in his left hand and wrist,
which had made it difficult for him to use pick or shovel.
Upon his return Mangele found that his mother had died recently, and
that his father had become very feeble in mind and body. But the old
man welcomed him with open arms. Makanda had been badly treated by his
other sons, who, after the fashion in such cases, had begun to despoil
him of his property in the most barefaced manner. Soon after his "great
son's" return old Makanda formally abdicated the headship of the family
in his favour and thenceforth spent most of his days and all his nights
in peaceful, dreamless slumber.
Mangele's hand became weaker and weaker. He found that he could not
exert it in the least degree without suffering dull, gnawing pain for
days afterward. Then the hand began to swell and the knuckles became
distorted. Shortly after this a weakness, followed by a swelling,
appeared in the left knee.
A cloud seemed to settle down upon his face, and his features gradually
took on that strange, pathetic, and by no means repellent, look which
one so often sees in strongly marked cases of tubercular leprosy before
the frightful disfiguring stage has set in. This look distinctly
suggests the face of a lion in repose. In strongly marked cases the
resemblance cannot fail to strike the most careless observer. There is
nothing in it suggestive of ferocity, but rather of a deep, dignified,
and sombre sadness, with a touch of that sublimity which belongs to
everything that appalls.
Mangele knew well that he was smitten with the incurable disease of
which his mother had died. He became solitary in his habits and would
sometimes sit on a stone outside his hut the whole night through. And
the sombre, leonine look deepened upon his face with the passing of the
months.
At first Mangele had, as is usual in such cases among the Kaffirs, put
down his own as well as his mother's illness to the malevolence of an
enemy, and believed that if he could counteract the spell woven against
him, he would recover his health, but he no longer deceived himself on
this score. The Kaffirs are, as a rule, utterly ignorant of Nature's
laws as such affect the human body, but Mangele was intelligent to a
degree far above the average of his race. Moreover, his sojourn among
the Europeans had given him enlightenment. Recently the dire
significance of his situation had struck him to the heart. Now and then
he would appear among his fellows at a "beer-drink" or other function,
but as a rule he remained at home and brooded in solitude over his doom.
A Kaffir "beer-drink" is a very curious and distinctive feature of South
African native life. One peculiarity of the "beer-drink" is that the
drinkers pass through several definite stages corresponding with the
amount of their potations. In the earlier the utmost good-humour
prevails. Soon, however, comes a period of boasting which, if different
clans are represented at the gathering, shortly changes into one
electric with possibilities of strife, for vaunting leads to irritation,
recrimination, and eventual blows.
A fierce quarrel may arise from something utterly trivial; any two men
present who dislike each other never being at a loss for a _casus
belli_. The mere mention of an old garden dispute, or a lawsuit of half
a century back between the respective grandfathers of two men who have
reached the critical point, is quite enough to set the sticks whirling.
Indeed, beer seems to act like a kind of sympathetic ink in bringing
every ancient and half-obliterated grievance to the surface.
After the quarrelsome stage succeeds one of torpor, and from this the
revellers arise with appetites which only meat, and plenty of it, can
assuage. Then, unless the giver of the feast be rich and liberal enough
to kill for his guests, the flocks and herds of the stock-owners in the
vicinity are apt to suffer.
The stage of boasting had been reached when Galada and the headmen
returned to the banquet. On different sides men were declaiming loudly
of the wealth and greatness of their relations, ancestral and
contemporary--several talking at the same time. Galada's eye at once
sought out Mangele, the son of Makanda, who had just been mentioned to
him as being a leper. Mangele was a most splendid specimen of manhood.
As he lay naked on his blanket in the bright sunshine, his splendid
torso and muscular limbs seemed to be the very embodiment of health and
reposeful strength. Looking more closely, however, the Sergeant was
able to notice the signs of the disease which had been mentioned by
Rolobele. Superficially, all that was wrong with the knee was a slight
thickening on the outside--so slight, indeed, that Galada would
certainly never have noticed the thing had his attention not been drawn
to it. Mangele's left hand was, however, distinctly swollen and
distorted. He kept it concealed as much as possible, hiding it under a
fold of the blanket he lay upon.
Mangele's voice was not heard among those of the boasters. He lay
silent and abstracted, slightly apart from the others, drinking deeply
and apparently taking no notice of the Babel around him. For an instant
he looked up as Xaba joined the circle, and the glances of these two
seemed to flash at each other like spears. Then Mangele took another
long draught of beer and bent his head lower than before.
"We of the Radebe," shouted 'Mzondo, a fierce-looking savage, who had a
heavy ivory armlet above his left elbow, "hau--there are none like us;
we are the black cattle of the pastures. My father was a bull with a
strong neck and I am his calf. Look at our sticks in a fight--look how
the strangers come to seek our daughters in marriage. Wau--but we are a
race of chiefs--a great people."
"We of the Amahlubi," shouted one 'Mbulawa, "were never tillers of the
fields of the Amagcaleka, nor were our daughters taken as concubines by
the sons of Hintza. We were bulls when the Radebe were oxen."
At this reference to the captivity of the Radebe, half a century
previously, all present of that clan leaped to their feet and seized
their sticks. Rolobele, however, managed to restore tranquillity. The
majority of those present were Hlubis. The headman rebuked 'Mbulawa for
his rudeness. Then, in the course of a long and eloquent speech, he
adroitly led the thoughts of his guests to an episode in which both
clans had equally covered themselves with glory. Thus was the anger
appeased and the danger of a breach of the peace averted for the moment.
Xaba, who had for some time been drinking heavily in silence, began to
dispute with one Fodo over the merits of some old family quarrel which
had been settled many years previously. The sombre eye of Mangele
followed every gesture of his enemy. Fodo was a small man, and Xaba,
who in spite of his size was rather cowardly, began to address him in
most insulting terms. Suddenly Mangele sprang to his feet, seized his
sticks, and strode across the circle toward the bully. Xaba drew back
before his assailant, while a number of Mangele's friends threw
themselves in his course and prevented him from reaching his enemy.
Under the Territorial Law, the giver of a beer-party is responsible for
any breach of the peace that may occur at it. This circumstance, and
the fact of the Sergeant's presence, impelled Rolobele to strain every
nerve to prevent fighting. After some difficulty the two furious men
were forced away in different directions; they, all the time, shouting
insult and defiance at each other. At length Xaba called out--
"You--bull with the water in your bones--your days are over. To-morrow
you will be tied up with the sick oxen at Emjanyana. If you do not
believe me, ask Galada. Good-bye; I am now going to see Nosembe."
Mangele at once ceased from shouting and struggling, and allowed himself
to be led away without resistance. His head was bent, and his heavy,
leonine features set themselves into a sombre, tragic mask, out of which
his eyes seemed to blaze.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Two_.
On the day after the transmission of the Magistrate's message the
different headmen concerned went round among their respective locations
and warned the lepers to assemble at a certain spot near Izolo in ten
days' time. Mangele received the message in silence. His relations,
who hated him for having prevented their spoliation of old Makanda, were
delighted at the prospect of getting rid of him, but they wisely
refrained from expressing their feelings on the subject in his presence.
Nosembe and Mangele were attached to each other in a manner somewhat
rare among the uncivilised natives. She was the handsomest girl in the
neighbourhood, and several other men besides Xaba had wished to marry
her. She had never suspected for a moment that her lover was suffering
from the dread, nameless disease that filled the bones with water, and
when in the course of the next few days it came to be whispered that
Mangele was one of those who had to go into confinement at Emjanyana,
she laughed at the report. Later, Xaba spoke of it to her and she spat
at him in her fury at the insult. When, however, she heard her father
and brothers discussing the question of the return of the dowry cattle,
she knew that the rumour was true, and her whole soul revolted at the
injustice. Mangele was the strongest and handsomest man in the
neighbourhood--why should he be locked up like a criminal because he
happened to have a sore place upon his hand? She at once made up her
mind that if her lover had to go, she would follow him into captivity.
Three days Nosembe waited in the hope that Mangele would visit her, but
she waited in vain; so, on the fourth night, she arose from her mat
after all the others had gone to sleep, crept out of the hut, and sped
along the pathway which led over the divide beyond which his kraal was
situated.
The night was sultry and the sky was brightly starlit as Nosembe glided
between the patches of scrub which dappled the hillside at the back of
the kraal. She knew the hut which Mangele occupied by himself; all she
feared was that the dogs might give the alarm and some of the people
come out and see her. As she crouched behind a bush the dogs suddenly
set up a chorus of barking and rushed down the hillside on the opposite
side of the kraal in pursuit of a supposed enemy. Here was her chance;
she sprang up and ran swiftly down the slope to Mangele's hut.
Mangele was sitting on a stone in front of the doorway, in an attitude
expressive of the deepest dejection. His head was bowed upon the arms
which rested upon his bent knees, and the corner of his blanket was
drawn over it as though he could not bear even the light of the gentle
stars. He heard Nosembe's footstep, and lifted his sombre face. For a
few seconds the two regarded each other silently; then the girl flung
herself to the ground at the man's feet and broke into a passion of
tears.
Mangele lifted Nosembe from where she lay and clasped her closely to
him. Her sobs ceased, but it was long before either spake a word. The
girl was the first to break the silence.
"It is not true that you have to go to Emjanyana."
"It is true."
"But you are not sick," she rejoined, passionately. "You are stronger
than other men. And you have done no wrong. How, then, can they put
you in prison?"
"I am sick," he replied, in a heart-broken voice; "my bones are filling
with water. It is right that I go away. I am a dead man."
"Then I will go with you."
"No, that cannot be," he replied, in a voice broken by emotion; "no
woman can go to Emjanyana unless she have `the sickness'; and then the
men and women have to dwell apart."
"_Moimamo_," she wailed. "You cannot leave me--your child quickens even
now. You have paid the dowry and I am your wife. I will sit at the
gate at Emjanyana until they let me in."
Day was almost breaking when Mangele led Nosembe back into the scrub to
the footpath by which she had come. They bade each other farewell,
after arranging to meet on the following night in the same way.
Nosembe had not gone very far before she met her father and two of her
brothers, who, when they had discovered her absence, guessed where she
had gone to and started out to seek for her. She met their railing and
reproaches with the utmost composure. However, when night again came
she found herself so carefully guarded that escape was impossible, so
she was unable to keep the appointment with her lover.
Mangele waited the whole night through, hoping against hope that she
would come. He correctly guessed the cause of her absence. When day
broke he took his sticks and went forth to carry out a design he had
formed in the course of his long vigil.
During the next forty-eight hours he personally visited every one of the
lepers belonging to his clan in the district, and arranged with them to
meet a day later in the vicinity of the Residency.
In the morning, just after the Magistrate had reached his office, he
received a message asking him to meet the lepers under a certain tree,
where, by tacit understanding, they had been accustomed to assemble on
the rare occasions when they required to communicate direct with the
authorities. Soon afterward he walked to the spot, which was situated
in a kloof about three hundred yards distant.
There they sat, twenty-four in number. Ten of them were women. All,
with the exception of Mangele, were old. What an awful spectacle they
afforded, these four-and-twenty human creatures; all save one crushed
almost out of human semblance by the wheels of the chariot of pitiless,
unregarding Nature. There, against the lovely background of graceful
fern and fragrant clematis, beneath the twinkling, poplar-like leaves of
the spreading erethryna-tree--through which the blue sky smiled--were
huddled these poor sufferers without hope of relief, guiltless vessels
marred by the mysterious hand of The Great Potter. Twisted limb and
crumbling stump, visages from which the gracious human lines had been
obliterated by a slow, fell process more awful than the snake's fang or
the lightning's stroke.
Over what remained of nearly every countenance seemed to hover a
suggestion of that strange, leonine look which was so strongly marked in
the case of Mangele; and to the Magistrate it seemed as if this were the
only relief from a horror almost too absolute to look upon for long and
keep his senses. It was as though what Schopenhauer called "the genius
of the genus" had arisen from the depths of being to protest mutely
against this piteous desecration of its temple by unregarding Nature and
iron-visaged Fate. It was the very sublimation of tragic pathos, in the
presence of which pity seemed to die of its own intensity.
All but Mangele sat upon the ground and endeavoured to hide, so far as
possible, their worst individual disfigurements, but he stood forth as
though proudly conscious of his almost perfect symmetry, and met the
Magistrate's sympathetic glance with his sombre, lion-like gaze. Then,
after the usual salutations, Mangele began his speech. As is usual with
natives to whom oratory is an inborn art, his delivery was excellent and
full of dignity.
"We, men and women who are dead, though living, come to our Father, the
Government, to ask for a little thing.
"God, whom the White Man has taught us to know, smote us with this
sickness which has filled our bones with water for marrow, and caused
our quick flesh to rot slowly, like dead wood. We acknowledge that it
is only right we should be separated from other men, so that we may not
give the disease to those who are clean, but we cannot dwell apart from
our kindred, our cattle and the fields wherein our fathers saw the corn
growing when they were little children--therefore we wish to die now,
this day. Then will the sickness die with us, and our Father, the
Government, will not be put to any further trouble on our account.
"What we ask of the White Chief, our Magistrate, is this: that he now,
before the sun has begun to fall, send hither his policemen with rifles,
and bid them shoot us skilfully so that we may suffer little pain.
Then turning to his companions, who had heard him in silence, he added--
"My brothers and sisters--children of my Father--tell our Chief if I
have spoken the right word."
An eager murmur of assent followed.
"Yes, our Chief, he has spoken the one word which is in all our hearts:
kill us here, but send us not to dwell apart from our homes and our
kindred."
It was some little time before the Magistrate was able to command his
feelings sufficiently to admit of his speaking. When they saw that he
was about to reply, his miserable hearers leant forward with every
appearance of the keenest interest. In his heart he knew that what the
poor creatures asked for was for them the best. His compassion was so
deep that he could have slain them with his own hand.
"The word you have spoken," he said, "has gone through my heart like the
bullet you have asked for. What can I say for your comfort? Go, my
poor brothers and sisters whom God has afflicted so sorely. In the
place to which your Father, the Government, is sending you, neither
hunger nor cold will afflict you; you will have many friends and your
days will be passed in peace. The thing you ask for I may not give, for
the Law allows it not. My heart will be with you in your exile."
Then a wail of anguished protest went up from the miserable crowd--
"Law--what have we to do with the Law--we who are dead already? We
cannot dwell in a strange place. Kill us and put us under the ground on
which we have lived our lives. Send the policemen with the rifles to us
here at this spot--we will not shrink."
After the Magistrate had withdrawn, the poor creatures continued their
lamentations for some time. Then they seemed to fall into a condition
of apathy. Mangele sat silently apart, with the corner of his blanket
drawn over his head. This, of late, had become his habitual attitude.
Eventually he arose and called for attention--
"Listen, O brothers and sisters of the sickness; the thing which the
Magistrate may not do on account of the Law we may yet do for
ourselves... To-morrow night at sundown let us meet at the Wizard's
Rock. There we may die as painlessly as by a rifle. To-day and
to-morrow let us look our last upon our kindred, our cattle, and the
land our fathers dwelt in. To-morrow night we will go down with the
sun."
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_Three_.
The Wizard's Rock derives its name from the circumstance that in the old
days--before the advent of civilised government--it was the place of
execution of those hapless creatures who were condemned for the supposed
practice of witchcraft.
Before the rule of the European in South Africa there was, among the
natives, a strong recrudescence from time to time of the lamentable
belief that the land was full of malevolent wizards and witches, who
spent most of their time in weaving deadly spells against man and beast.
The consequences were terrible; men and women were put to death upon
the flimsiest suspicion; torture of the most horrible kind was freely
resorted to, and the wildest confession wrung from the agonised lips of
some was taken as absolute confirmation of the most preposterous
apprehensions.
Not more than thirty years ago many a dolorous procession wended its way
up to this jutting peak, from the base of which, hundreds of feet below,
a slope, covered with noble forest, fell away to a deep and rapid river.
The doomed wretch would be blindfolded and placed, standing, at the
edge of the precipice. Then the executioner would deal him a smashing
blow on the side of the head with a heavily knobbed stick, and thus hurl
him into the abyss.
Among the broken rocks below, the curious may, even at this late day,
find fragments of human bones. The place has an evil reputation; no
native boy cares to go near it; no bribe would induce one to visit it
alone. Now and then a few of the bolder spirits, finding themselves in
the forest, make an excursion to the foot of the great rock, but they
steal along breathlessly from tree to tree and from stone to stone,
taking cover at each and listening fearfully lest the restless
"imishologu"--the spirits of the wicked ones who have died violently--
should be unseasonably awake. Then the fall of a dead bough, the rush
of a troop of monkeys through the branches, the slightest unfamiliar
echo from the beetling crag, will send them flying toward the open in
speechless terror, with ashen-grey faces and staring eyes. Afterward
they will boast loudly to their friends of the bravery evinced in the
visit, omitting, of course, all reference to the invariable panic.
The day following the assembling of the lepers at the Magistracy died
splendidly. To seaward the milk-white thunderclouds which marked the
track of the monsoon towered into the deep azure, and when the sun began
to sink behind the great mountain range to westward, every stately
vapour-turret took on a changing glory, while in the inky vaults between
incessant lightnings played.
Since early in the afternoon the poor lepers had been laboriously
ascending the mountain by the different footpaths. Many were hardly
able to hobble, but these were assisted by others whose legs were not so
badly affected. Mangele bore upon his broad back an old man whose feet
had completely crumbled away. Leaving this poor creature at the summit,
he returned and helped the weaker among the others to ascend. The sun
was still some little distance above the horizon when the last of the
self-doomed band sank panting at the edge of the cliff. Of the
four-and-twenty who had come to the Residency to interview the
Magistrate, twenty had assembled at the Rock. The others, three women
and a man, had felt their courage fail them, so had decided to accept
their less violent, though dreaded, fate and go to Emjanyana.
'Mpofu, the oldest of the men, dragged his shapeless frame to a stone,
against which he leant, supporting himself by his stick at the same
time. He trembled violently and made several attempts before he
succeeded in speaking. Then his voice came in a husky quaver. The
others turned toward him with an air of expectancy.
"It is," he said, "a long time since I last stood on this spot. I was
then hardly a man; Hintza was Chief. We came here to look upon the
killing of Gungubele, who was `smelt out' for having bewitched his elder
brother. I leant my head over the edge of the rock and listened for the
thud of his body as it struck the stones, far down. I thought the wind
had borne it away, but at length it struck me like a club. Many seasons
have since passed, but that sound has ever since been in my ears. And
now--when my body falls--"
A shudder passed through the crouching creatures; one or two of the
women began to whimper and a few near the verge drew back with looks of
terror. Mangele sprang to his feet.
"What is this?" he cried in an angry voice; "has `the sickness' filled
your heart as well as your bones with water, O 'Mpofu, my father? Is
yours the voice that calls dogs thirsty for death back from the
fountain? Was it not your word that made me the leader of this army of
dead men who are yet alive--and will you now turn them back on the day
of battle? Shame on you. Listen to me, oh, my brothers, and not to
this old man whose heart shrinks because of a sound he heard on a day
before we were born. I am young, and death is more bitter to the young
than to the old. My kraal is full of cattle; the dowry has been paid
for my bride, yet I stand here to-day and am not afraid to die. Listen
now to a new word in a strange tongue, but a word which you nevertheless
may understand if you will:
"For a long time I have known that my sickness was like your own--the
sickness that no doctor can cure. Through the long nights, when others
slept, I have sat alone under the stars, and the voices of the darkness
have taught me many things. Now, the greatest and strangest of these
things was this: that I loved you who have suffered through your long
lives what I am but beginning to suffer, and it is out of that love that
I have brought you here to-day to put an end to your pain. Out of the
darkness came another strange word--a word which has taught me how to
die, to die with my eyes open; but I could not bear to die and leave you
helpless in the pain you have endured so long. All this is the wisdom
which I have learned from those voices of which the darkness is full."
When Mangele ceased speaking his hearers broke out into loud wailing.
One of the women crept shrinkingly to the verge of the precipice,
glanced over the edge, and drew back with a shriek. Then she covered
her face with her blanket and lay upon the ground, grovelling. The
others, who had silently watched her, broke into renewed and
terror-stricken wails as she drew back. Mangele once more began to
speak, a note of thunder in his voice; all at once shrank into silence.
"This will I do for the sake of the love I bear you, and for that ye
know not your own minds, nor what is good for you; this will I do
because my heart is strong where yours is weak: I will hurl you one by
one over the rock and then follow you myself. Look your last upon the
sun, oh my brothers and sisters whom I love, for you are about to die."
At this the wretched creatures grovelled about Mangele's feet,
beseeching him to spare their lives. They would, they said, go to
Emjanyana and live peacefully like cattle in the kraal of their father,
the Government. Their hearts were full of water; they were old and
weak. They would not have minded death by shooting, at the Residency,
but this was an evil place which bore a bad name from the most ancient
days. The House of Death was cold and the road to it, over the steep
cliff and the sharp stone beneath, painful. Even though they were sick
they still could feel the warmth of the sun. If he loved them, let
Mangele leave them until Death came of his own accord and sought them
out.
Mangele stood with bent head in the middle of the prostrate crowd and
listened to their piteous pleadings. When at length he lifted his face
a change had come over it--a wistful, transfiguring gentleness had taken
the place of the look of stern indignation it had borne when he last
spoke. Silencing the wailing creatures with a gesture, he said:
"Peace, peace; your words have made me weak. Live, then, since you fear
to die."
Mangele stepped from among the crouching throng and took his stand on
the very verge of the cliff. The sun was just about to disappear; its
last level beams swept across the world and seemed to search out and
reveal every noble curve and graceful line in the ebon limbs and trunk
of the splendidly proportioned man who was about to destroy his beauty
to save it from loathsome decay--they lit the noble face and head until
these took on a sublime look of leonine anguish and the sombre eyes
seemed to glare a tremendous indictment against Nature and Fate.
"Farewell, brothers and sisters who have not been taught how to die.
Tell the girl Nosembe that my thoughts were of her as I sped to the
sharp rocks."
As he spoke the last word Mangele sprang backward over the cliff. Old
'Mpofu and a woman shut their eyes and bent their heads sideways toward
the verge. A few seconds afterward a heavy thud from below smote on the
ears of all. A low groan broke from their lips--
A sound of approaching footsteps and laboured breathing was heard, and
just afterward a tall young woman stepped in among the huddled throng.
It was Nosembe, who, having heard a rumour of the impending tragedy,
hastened to join the man she loved and die with him.
"Ho, ye who are here," she said, after her eye had swept around the
circle, "how is it then that your leader has not come? But there is his
blanket and his stick; speak; where is Mangele, my lover?"
No one dared to answer; all sank their faces to the earth.
"Ha!" Nosembe cried, "I see the truth ye dare not speak--he is dead and
ye are not ashamed to be alive... He waits for me... I take him his
unborn child."
Then, with a long, shrill call upon her lover's name, Nosembe leaped
into the abyss.
Shortly after these events, on a day that was a dream of beauty, a
couple of wagons drawn by long teams of oxen crossed the Lunda Divide by
the road to Emjanyana. In the wagons were seated those of the lepers
who were unable to walk. Hobbling after them came the rest, a dreary
band, their heads bent, their whole appearance suggestive of stolid and
hopeless misery. None attempted to turn back. They had attained the
calm of consent.
When the top of the divide was reached the drivers called a halt for the
purpose of breathing the oxen. The poor lepers gazed back long and
lovingly at the valleys wherein they had dwelt all their lives and which
they never more would see.
No tear was shed; not a word was spoken; not a sigh or a groan broke the
silence. The police who formed the escort had dismounted for a space at
the side of the road.
After a few minutes Sergeant Galada signed to the drivers to proceed,
and the wagons rumbled heavily down the slope. The lepers sat on the
ground, still gazing backward, and seemingly unconscious that the wagons
had gone forward.
Then the policemen came up and gently--very gently--urged the exiled and
disinherited creatures to continue their journey.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. The dowry paid by the bridegroom to the bride's father after
the manner of the ancient Spartans.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE WRITING ON THE ROCK.
A few years ago I happened to be detained for several weeks in a
somewhat remote village in the Cape Colony. Having very little to do I
availed myself of an invitation received from a certain Boer named
Jacobus van der Merwe--to visit his farm for the purpose of shooting.
The farm, "Honey Krantz," was about twenty miles away; it lay in the
midst of the grandest mountain scenery. The only road was a very rugged
one along the course of a devious gorge, with frequent crossings of a
brawling stream. Each of the many sharp turns was marked by an immense
rock-buttress, hundreds of feet in height. The mountainous sides of the
gorge were thickly strewn with mighty boulders, whilst here and there
wide moraines extended from summit to base.
I at once became very much interested in the members of the household.
My host was about forty-five years of age and, even for a Boer,
extremely stout. In fact he was obliged to excuse himself, on the score
of his size, from accompanying me to the hunting-grounds, which lay so
high that reaching them involved considerable and steep climbing.
Accordingly, an alert-looking Hottentot was assigned to me as
after-rider and guide. This "boy" knew every corner of the great
mountain mass and was thoroughly familiar with the haunts and habits of
the game.
Mrs van der Merwe was almost as stout as her husband, who was also her
cousin. It was, however, evident that when young she must have
possessed great beauty. The house was full of children; these were of
all ages and they strongly resembled each other in appearance. All were
blue-eyed, flaxen-haired and rosy-cheeked. There was one grown-up
daughter--Gertrude--a girl of eighteen. She only lacked animation to be
a most beautiful woman. Her dead-gold hair lay in a dense mass upon her
shoulders; her calm, deep eyes of a most tender blue were set beneath a
broad, smooth, white brow; her teeth were dazzlingly white and her face
pure oval in shape.
It was just after sundown when I arrived at the homestead. Supper over,
I was invited to visit Sarei van der Merwe--the old, blind grandfather--
who had not left his room for many years. I found him sitting in a very
large home-made chair, with his feet upon a wooden stool containing a
pan of charcoal. His bulk was huge; in fact, he was, probably, the
biggest man I had ever seen. He had a long white beard and a mass of
silvery hair. On a table, within reach of his hand, were several pipes
and a large tobacco-pouch--the latter made out of a portion of the
stomach of a sheep, brayed. Close to his feet a diminutive Hottentot
crouched upon a sheep-skin. The face of this creature was old-looking
and monkey-like. His duties were to attend to the old man's needs; more
especially to hold a burning coal, when required, to the
often-replenished pipe. This he did with a skill evidently born of long
practice--picking up the glowing lumps in his naked fingers with the
utmost unconcern.
The room was comfortably furnished; almost everything in it appeared to
be home-made. There were no blankets on the bed, their place being
taken by karosses made of the skins of the fat-tailed sheep. Unlike the
other rooms, this one had no ceiling, the thatch being visible between
the rafters. Upon the rafters lay a coffin, evidently, from its size,
built to accommodate old Sarei's prospective mortal remnants.
I grasped the old man's outstretched hand. He retained mine for a few
seconds, feeling first the palm, then the back and lastly the fingers
carefully over. I looked the while into his eyes; these were clear and
blue and gave no suggestion of blindness.
"You work your brain too much and your body too little," said he,
dropping my hand. "Your mind travels without rest on an endless road."
I was somewhat startled; it was so unexpected and at the same time so
tersely true.
"It is clear," I replied, "that you do not need eyes to see. My brain
is busy turning out barren thoughts, like a mill grinding sawdust."
"When young, one runs after thoughts; but when you grow old the thoughts
will come and wait, like servants, until you wish to use them."
"My thoughts are less like servants than like dogs hunting me to death,"
I replied.
"A dog will obey if he be trained; if you do not train him he will bite
you."
"Yes, I can see that. But if you have let them grow big without using
the whip--what then?"
"Watch and pray; call the Lord to your help and He will deliver you.
When I was young I rioted in my pride; I called my strength my own and
told God I could do without His help. Then He struck me with blindness,
and I repented. For a season the thoughts I had bred tore at my soul,
but I slew them after bitter combat. Now others of a different kind
have taken their place."
It was amazing to find such philosophy in one of a class usually
supposed to be both ignorant and illiterate. Here was one who had
solved the Great Enigma, who was at peace with himself, who apparently
thought strongly and with originality, and who, although stricken with a
misfortune that might well bring despair, was probably happier than
nineteen-twentieths of his fellow-creatures. There was no trace of
self-righteousness about the man. The unmistakable seal of peace was
upon him.
"If I could feel as you do," I replied, "I should not care whether I
lived or died; I should know no fear. Can you not teach me how to put
the house of my mind in order and to train my dogs?"
"That none can teach but yourself--your own soul--and then only when God
touches you with His finger."
Shortly afterwards the family assembled for worship in the old man's
room. He recited one of the Psalms and then offered up a prayer. His
language was very simple, but it breathed the most fervent Christianity.
The servants of the household were present. Then, after bidding old
Sarei "Good-night," all left the room but his son and the little
Hottentot. These remained to assist him to bed.
It was evidently the practice of the household to retire early, so I
went to my room at once. It was large and lofty. The snowy linen upon
the great feather-bed looked tempting, and I felt a deep sense of
satisfaction in sinking into the downy abyss.
My window looked out upon the valley; through the wide-open casement I
could see the black rampart of mountain crested with twinkling stars.
Here, if anywhere, one could realise--
"The silence that is in the starry sky,
And sleep that is among the lonely hills."