THE VISION OF RALPH AND SUZANNE
“Sihamba,” said the chief Sigwe, “this man who was found wandering upon
the outskirts of the town, declares that he is your servant, and that
he comes to seek you. Is it so?”
“It is so, indeed, chief,” she answered, “though I scarcely expected to
see him again,” and she told how they two and Zinti had parted.
Then Zinti was commanded to tell his tale, and from it it seemed that
after he had rested some hours in the kloof he crept to the mouth of
it, and, hidden behind a stone, saw Swart Piet and his servants pass
quite close to him on their homeward way. A sorry sight they were, for
three of their horses were lame, so that the riders were obliged to
walk and lead them, and the men themselves had been so bruised with the
spear-shafts that they seemed more dead than alive. Swart Piet rode
last of all, and just then he turned, and looking towards the peak
shook his fist as though threatening it, and cursed aloud in Dutch and
Kaffir. Indeed, Zinti said that his head and face were so swollen with
blows that had it not been for his large round eyes he could not have
known him, and Sihamba thought that very good tidings.
Well, when they had gone Zinti took heart, for it was plain that they
had been roughly handled, and had failed to catch his mistress or the
Swallow. So he went back to where he had left his horse eating a little
grass, and since it was too weak to carry him he led it, following Van
Vooren’s spoor backwards till in the evening he came to the ford of the
Red River. Here he halted for the night, knee-haltering the horse, and
leaving it loose to graze, though he himself had nothing to eat. At the
first grey of dawn he awoke, and was astonished to see a second animal
feeding with the horse, which proved to be none other than the mule
that, as these creatures sometimes will, had followed the spoor of his
companion, Sihamba’s horse, till it found it again. After this he
crossed the drift, riding slowly and leading the mule, till shortly
after sunrise he came to the outskirts of the town, where Sigwe’s
watchmen found him and brought him to the chief.
“This man is a servant worth having,” said Sigwe when he had heard the
story. “Let food be given to him and to the beasts.”
When Zinti had gone Sigwe spoke to Suzanne.
“Lady Swallow,” he said, “as you have heard, by the command of the
spirits of my ancestors speaking through the mouth of the diviner,
while you are with us, you and not I are the captain of my army, and
must lead it in this great war which I make against the Endwandwe. Now
the regiments are ready to march, and I ask if it be your pleasure that
we should set out to-morrow at the dawn, for time presses, and the
Endwandwe live very far away?”
“Your will is my will, chief,” she answered, for she could see no way
of escape from this strange journey, “but I desire to learn the cause
of this war which I must lead by the decree of the spirits of your
ancestors.”
Now Sigwe gave an order to some attendants waiting upon him, who went
away to return presently leading with them a woman. This woman was
about fifty years of age, very fat in person, sour-faced,
yellow-toothed, and with one eye only.
“There is the cause,” exclaimed the chief, at the same time turning his
back upon the woman and spitting upon the ground as though in disgust.
“I do not understand,” said Suzanne.
“Then listen, Lady Swallow. Sikonyana, the chief of the Endwandwe, has
a sister named Batwa, whose beauty is famous throughout all the world,
and for her by my envoys I made an offer of marriage, intending that
she should be my head wife, for I desired to be the husband of the most
beautiful woman in the world.”
“I saw Batwa when she was still a child,” broke in Sihamba; “indeed,
she is my cousin, and it is true that she is most beautiful.”
“The chief Sikonyana,” went on Sigwe, “answered me that he was much
honoured by my offer since he knew me to be the greatest man of all
this country, but that at the same time his sister was not to be won
with a small price; yet if I would send a thousand head of cattle, half
of them black and half white, she should be mine. Then with much pain I
collected these cattle, two years did it take me to gather them
together, for here oxen and cows pure white and pure black are not
common, and I sent them with an impi to guard them, for nothing less
would suffice, to the kraal of the chief of the Endwandwe.
“Four moons was that impi gone, while I awaited its return, eating out
my heart with impatience. At length it did return, bringing with it my
bride. At nightfall it marched into the town hungry and tired, for it
had suffered much upon the journey, and twice had been forced to give
battle to the armies of other chiefs, but although I was eager to see
her I did not look upon my new wife that night. No, I sent out
messengers and gathered together all my army and all the people young
and old, yonder in the plain of assembly. Then when they were mustered
from far and near, I commanded that Batwa, the sister of Sikonyana,
should be produced in the face of the people that her loveliness might
shine upon me and upon them as the sun shines equally upon us all.
“Lady Swallow, the moment came, and this old woman was brought out;
yes, she strutted before us proudly, this one-eyed hag, this cat of the
mountains. For her I had sent an impi, for her I had paid a thousand
head of cattle, half of them pure black and half pure white——” and
Sigwe ceased, gasping with rage.
Now at this story Suzanne, who had not smiled for days, laughed aloud,
while even Sihamba the wise looked down studying the earth. But there
was one who did not laugh, and it was the one-eyed woman. No, she
sprang up and screamed aloud:
“Dog of a red Kaffir, who are you that dare to talk thus of a princess
of the blood of the Endwandwe, a princess whom Chaka, the great king,
wished to take to wife? You asked for Batwa in marriage, Batwa, the
sister to Sikonyana, and I am Batwa the sister of Sikonyana.”
“Then, hag, there must be two Batwas,” shouted Sigwe in answer.
“Two Batwas!” she screamed. “Fool and beast, there are _four_! In our
race all the women of the royal blood are named Batwa, and I am the
eldest and the wisest and the best of them, for I am older than my
brother Sikonyana by twenty years, I, who have had three husbands and
outlived them all; whereas the chit of whom you talk, a thing with a
waist like a reed and an eye like a sick buck, is his junior by ten
years, being a child of our father’s last wife.”
“It may be so,” answered Sigwe, “for aught I know, every woman of your
accursed tribe is named Batwa, but this I say, that every soon there
will be few Batwas left to look upon the sun, for to-morrow I march
against them and I will stamp the house of Batwa flat, and you I will
hang to the roof-tree of the hut of the chief your brother; yes, I keep
you alive that I may hang you there, so until then you have nothing to
fear from me.”
“Is it so, is it so, indeed?” shrieked the virago; “then I am safe,
for, little red Kaffir, I shall live to see you and your cowards beaten
out of the country of the Endwandwe with whips of hide.”
“Take her away,” groaned Sigwe, “before I break my word and hang her at
once, which I do not wish to do,” and Batwa the eldest was led off
still screaming curses.
When she had gone, after consulting apart for a while with Sihamba,
Suzanne spoke.
“Now, chief,” she said, “I understand the cause of this war and in
truth it is a strange one. Still, as I must lead your armies, and as I
do not love to see men killed for such a quarrel, here and before we
start I will lay down the terms of peace if it should please Sikonyana
and the people of the Endwandwe to accept them. Subject to your wisdom
they shall be these: If Sikonyana will give to you that Batwa whom you
desire in the place of the Batwa whom you do not desire, paying back to
you the thousand head of cattle, and by way of fine for his deceit, if
indeed he meant to deceive you, for you do not seem to have told him
which of the many Batwas you sought, two thousand other head of cattle,
then no blood shall be shed and you and your impi shall return in peace
and honour. If he will not do this, then the war must go as it is
fated. Say, do you consent as I counsel you to do? for otherwise,
although I go with you my goodwill will not go, since I am the Swallow
of peace and not the Hawk of war.”
Now there followed a great _indaba_ or debate between Sigwe and his
counsellors and captains, some of them taking one view of the matter,
and some of them the other, but the end of it was that the party of
peace prevailed, it being agreed between them that if the Endwandwe
would grant these terms and in addition an ox for every man who might
die or be killed upon the journey, the impi should return without
putting the matter to the chance of war, and this the chief and his
counsellors swore solemnly to Suzanne. Indeed Sigwe was glad to swear
it, for he sought that Batwa for whom he longed rather than the dangers
of battle and the risk of defeat in a far land, while those who were
for fighting at all costs thought that the oath meant little, since
they did not believe that the great Sikonyana would make peace upon
such terms.
When this matter was settled Suzanne prayed the chief that he would
allow her to send Zinti as a messenger to her husband and father to
tell them that she lived and was well. But on this matter, and this
only, Sigwe would not listen to her, and though he gave many reasons
for his refusal, the true one was that he feared lest the white men, on
learning her whereabouts, should gather a commando and send it to take
her from him, as doubtless we should have done had it been in any way
possible.
Indeed, the foolish dream of the diviner as to the leading of his army
by a white swallow, followed as it chanced to be by the arrival at his
town of a woman who was named Swallow, had taken such a hold of
Sigwe—who, like all savages, was very superstitious—that for nothing
which could have been offered to him would he have consented to let
Suzanne go until the war with the Endwandwe was finished. Rather than
do so he would have fought till the last, and he issued an order that
if any man, woman, or child spoke of Suzanne’s presence in his town to
strangers they should be put to death without mercy. Moreover, in his
terror lest she should escape, he set a guard over her and Sihamba day
and night and other guards over the horses and the lad Zinti, so that
they soon learned that all hopes of flight must be abandoned and that
it was not possible even to send a messenger or a letter.
As may be guessed this was a sore grief to Suzanne, so great a grief
that when they were back in the guest-hut she wept long and bitterly,
for her heart ached with her own sorrow, and she knew well how deep
would be the torment of mind of Ralph if he still lived, and of us, her
father and mother, when we learned that she had vanished quite away,
and that none could tell what her fate had been. At first she thought
of bidding Zinti slip away under cover of the night, but Sihamba showed
her that even if he could do so, which was not likely, the end of it
must be that he would be followed and put to death, and that then his
blood would be upon their hands and no good done. Afterwards she tried
to bribe and to command several men of her guard to take the message,
but in this matter alone the people of Sigwe would not obey her, for
they knew the doom which awaited them if they listened to her pleading.
So, when she spoke, they looked into the air over her head, and did not
seem to hear, although afterwards they reported her words to Sigwe,
whereupon that chief doubled the guard, setting a second to watch the
first.
And now I have to tell you one of the strangest things in the strange
story of the love of Ralph Kenzie and my daughter Suzanne. It will be
remembered that it was by means of a dream—or so the child
declared—that Suzanne was led to where the boy Ralph lay alone and
starving in the kloof. So now in this second great crisis of their
lives, it was by means of a dream that comfort was brought to the
hearts of both of them, enabling them, as I believe, to bear the
terrors of those long years of tidingless terror and separation, that
otherwise would have broken down their minds and perhaps have killed
them.
It seems, as Suzanne told me in after days, that before she slept that
night, there in the guest-hut of Sigwe, she prayed long and earnestly
as those who have faith do pray when they lie under the shadow of an
overwhelming grief. She prayed that God would bring about what she was
unable to bring about, namely, that her husband should learn that she
was unharmed and well, and that she might learn how it went with him,
seeing that for aught she knew, by now he might be dead of his wounds.
Well, that prayer was heard, for I myself can testify to it, as the
prayer of faith is so often heard; yes, that which seemed to be
impossible was done, for in the watches of the night these two who lay
a hundred miles apart, one of them a prisoner in the town of a savage,
and the other helpless upon a bed of pain, had sight and speech of each
other.
Still praying, Suzanne fell asleep. Then of a sudden it seemed as
though space had no bars for her, for she awoke, or thought that she
awoke, in the guest-hut of Sigwe, since she could hear the breathing of
Sihamba at her side, and stretching out her hand she touched her face.
But in the twinkling of an eye there came a change, for, still wide
awake, now she was standing in the stead at home just within the door
of her own sleeping-room. There upon the bed lay her husband, fevered
and unconscious, but muttering to himself, while bending over him were
I, her mother, and a strange man whom she did not know, but who, as she
guessed, must have been roused from his sleep, for his hair was
dishevelled and he was half-clothed.
To this man she heard me—her mother—talking. “The fever runs so high,
doctor,” I said, “that I made bold to wake you from your rest, for I
fear lest it should burn his life away.” Thereupon she saw the man look
at Ralph, feeling his pulse, and heard him answer as he examined the
bandages of the wound, “His hurt does well, and I do not think that the
fever comes from it. It comes from his mind, and it is there that the
danger lies, for who can doctor a broken heart?”
“Heaven only,” I replied.
“Yes,” he said. “Heaven only. And now, Vrouw Botmar, go and rest
awhile, hoping for the best, for you will hear him if he wakes up, but
he will not wake, since the sleep-draught that I gave him holds him
fast.”
Then she saw us both go—the doctor back to his bed and me to a settle
with mattress on it, which was placed just outside his door.
Here I would stop my tale to say that _this thing happened_, and that
those words which Suzanne heard while her body lay in Sigwe’s
guest-hut, passed between the doctor, who was sleeping at the stead,
and myself at one o’clock of the morning on the third night after the
night of the taking of Suzanne, and moreover, that I never spoke of
them to any living creature until Suzanne repeated them to me in later
years. Nor could the doctor have told them to her, for he went away to
the province of Graff Reinet, where shortly afterwards he was killed by
a fall from his horse.
Then it seemed to Suzanne that she moved to the bedside of her husband,
and bending down, kissed him upon the forehead, which was hot to her
lips, saying, “Awake, dear love.” Instantly, in her vision, he awoke
with a cry of joy, and said, “Suzanne, how came you here?” to which she
answered, “I am not here. I have escaped unharmed from Swart Piet, but
I am a prisoner in the hands of red Kaffirs, and to-morrow I lead their
army to the north. Yet it has been permitted me to visit you, husband,
and to tell you to be of good comfort and to fear no evil tidings, for
you will recover and we shall meet again, unharmed in any way, though
not till many days are passed.”
“Where shall we meet?” he asked. “I do not know,” she answered. “Yes, I
see now. Look before you.”
Then they looked, both of them, and there painted in the air they saw
the picture of a great mountain, standing by itself upon a plain, but
with other mountains visible to the north and south of it. This
mountain was flat-topped, with precipices of red rock, and down its
eastern slope ran five ridges shaped like the thumb and fingers of a
mighty hand, while between the thumb and the first finger, as it were,
a stream gushed out, upon the banks of which grew flat-topped trees
with thick green leaves and white bloom.
“You have seen and you will remember, fearing nothing,” she said in her
vision.
“I have seen and I shall remember, fearing nothing,” Ralph answered,
and with the sound of his voice still echoing in her ears, Suzanne
awoke in the guest-hut of Sigwe, and once more heard Sihamba breathing
at her side, and felt the hand which she had outstretched to find her,
pressed against her cheek. But now there was a new sense of comfort in
her heart, for she believed that without any doubt she had seen her
husband, and that although they were separated, still the day would
come when they should meet again, not in the spirit but in the flesh.
Now I, Suzanne Botmar, who tell this tale, had scarcely left Ralph’s
room upon that very night and laid myself down upon the settle when he
called to me. I ran back to the bed to find him sitting up in it wide
awake and calm-eyed.
“Mother,” he said, for so he still named me, “did you see Suzanne?”
“Hush, Ralph,” I answered, “you are talking foolishly; wherever Suzanne
may be, alas! she is not here.”
“She was here just now,” he said, smiling, “for we have been talking
together. She has escaped from Swart Piet and is unharmed, but a
prisoner among the Kaffirs. And, mother, she and I will meet again upon
a great mountain like a fortress, which has ridges on its eastern side
resembling the thumb and fingers of a man, and a stream of water
gushing out between the thumb and first finger.”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” I said, for I saw that he was wandering in his
mind.
“Ah!” Ralph answered, “you do not believe me, but it is true. I tell
you that I saw Suzanne just now wearing a fine kaross of tiger skins
upon her shoulders, and that she kissed me on the forehead,” and even
as he spoke he sank into a deep and quiet sleep, and when he awoke in
the morning we found that the fever had left him and that he was out of
danger of his life.