SIHAMBA’S FAREWELL
Then they began the work, for much must be done before the daylight
came. First Sihamba took a sharp knife, and with it cut off Suzanne’s
beautiful hair close to the head, over which what was left of it curled
naturally. To disguise it further, for though it was dark it was too
fine for the hair of a native, she put grease upon it and powdered it
with the blue dust that Kaffir women use. This done, the poor girl
stripped herself, and with the help of Sihamba smeared all her body,
every inch of it down to the soles of her feet, with the ink-like juice
mixed with the black earth and grease, which when it was dry made her
the colour of a Kaffir. Next Sihamba dressed her in a native woman’s
moocha made of skin and beads, and gave her an old skin blanket to wear
upon her shoulders and hide sandals for her feet, together with anklets
of beads and copper wire. Then having examined her all over to see that
no sign of her white skin could be seen through the pigments, and
burned the long tresses of her hair, Sihamba went to the door of the
hut.
“Where are you going?” asked Suzanne.
“To find Zinti,” she answered, “for now we must have his help.”
“No, no,” cried Suzanne, “I am ashamed to be seen thus by any man.”
“Wherefore, Swallow, seeing that for some days you are but a Kaffir
woman, and this is their dress, of which none think harm? Nay, you
must, for remember that if you show doubt or shame, you will betray
yourself.”
Then with a groan Suzanne yielded, and crouching upon the floor like a
native, awaited the return of Sihamba. Presently she came, followed by
Zinti, who was in good case, though somewhat thin, for Zinti was clever
and provident, and, foreseeing what would come, he had hidden water for
himself among the rocks.
“Zinti,” said Sihamba, “I would speak with you of secret matters.”
“Speak on, lady,” he answered—here his eyes fell upon Suzanne crouched
on the ground in the full light of the lamp—“but there is a stranger
present.”
“This is no stranger, Zinti,” said Sihamba, “but one whom you know
well.”
“Indeed, lady, I know her not. Should I forget one so beautiful? And
yet—and yet—” and he rubbed his eyes and stared, gasping, “it cannot
be.”
“Yes, it is, Zinti. There sits the lady Swallow and none other.”
Now although there was little mirth left in him, Zinti burst out
laughing till the tears ran from his eyes, and Sihamba struck him with
her hands, calling him “Fool,” and commanding him to be silent.
“Wow!” he said, “this is wonderful. This is magic indeed. She who was
white as snow has become black as coal, and yes, she looks best black.
Oh! this is magic indeed.”
At his words Suzanne sprang up looking as though she were about to
weep, and Sihamba stopped his lips with fierce words and blows, though
he took small heed of either, but stood staring.
“Zinti,” Sihamba said, “you have done me many services, but to-day you
must do me the greatest of all. This morning at the daylight the lady
Swallow will pass with the multitude down the cleft yonder and none
will know her in that disguise. You must go with her, but not too near
her, and cross the plain, meeting her by the saw-edged rock which
stands yonder at the mouth of the gorge in the Quathlamba mountains.
Then you must lead her as fast as you can travel to that camp of the
Boers which is near the Tugela River, where she will be safe. Do you
understand?”
“I understand, lady. But what of yourself?”
“It is my plan to hide on the mountain,” Sihamba answered quickly, “in
a secret place I know of, seeing that it is impossible that I should
escape because my stature would betray me. I will join you at the Boer
camp later; or, failing that, you can return in a while—say on the
first night of the new moon—to search for me. But talk no more, for we
have still much to do. Yes, we who have made a white woman black, must
make a black woman white. Follow me, both of you,” and giving Zinti a
jar of pigment and the long goat-skin cloak, which Suzanne wore for an
outer garment, she left the hut, carrying in her hand strips of ox-hide
tanned white.
Avoiding the groups of thirst-tormented people who sat or wandered
about in the coolness of the night, they passed through the gates of
the kraal unheeded, and walking quickly across the wide stretch of
tableland reached the eastern edge of the cliff. Now upon the very
verge of this cliff rose a sharp pinnacle of rock fifty feet or more
into the air, and upon the top of this pinnacle was that stone shaped
like a great chair, in which Suzanne sat day by day, poised like an
eagle over the dizzy gulf of space, for the slopes of the mountain
swelled five hundred feet beneath, watching for the help that never
came. Not far from the base of this point Sihamba began to search in
the starlight till she found what she wanted, the body of a young woman
who had crept here to die of thirst, and whose death and the place of
it had been reported to her.
Now she took the jar of white clay, and, aided by Zinti, set about her
ghastly task, daubing the stuff thickly upon the cold features and the
neck and arms and feet. Soon it was done, for such work needed little
care, but then began their true toil since the corpse must be carried
up the sharp point of rock, and that by no easy path. Had not Zinti
been so strong it could never have been done; still, with the aid of
Suzanne and Sihamba herself, at last it was finished.
Up that steep place they toiled, the three of them, dragging the dead
body from knob to knob of rock, well knowing that one false step in the
gloom would send them to be broken to pieces hundreds of feet beneath.
At length they reached the little platform where there was scarcely
room for all of them to stand with their burden, and climbing on to the
stone which was called the Chair, Zinti drew the dead woman into the
seat of it.
Then as Sihamba bade him he wrapped her in Suzanne’s long white cape of
goat-skin, putting the hood of it upon her head, after which he made
the corpse fast in a sitting posture, lashing it round the neck and
middle to the back of the stone with the white tanned rimpis in such
fashion that it could not fall or even slip.
“So,” said Sihamba grimly, “there sits the bridge upon whom Swart Piet
can feast his eyes while you seek safety across the mountains. Now back
to the town, for from this height I can already see light glimmering in
the east.”
Accordingly they returned to the hut and entered it, leaving Zinti
without, none noting them since by now the multitudes were thronging
the narrow way. Here Sihamba lit the lamp, and by its light once more
examined Suzanne carefully, retouching the dye in this place and in
that, till she was sure that no gleam of white showed through it.
“It is good,” she said at length; “unless you betray yourself, your
skin will not betray you. And now, lady Swallow, the hour has come for
us to part, and I rejoice to think that some of the debt I owe you I
have repaid. Long ago I told you that very far away I should live to
save you as you saved me, and I am sure that I have saved you; there is
no doubt of it in my heart. Yes, yes, Swallow, I see you most happy in
the love of husband and of children, thinking of all these things as a
far-off evil dream, as of a dream that never will return. What more do
I desire? What more have I to ask?
“I say that I have repaid to you part of the debt I owe, but all of it
I can never repay, for, Swallow, you have given me love which elsewhere
has been denied to me. Others have parents and brothers and sisters and
husbands to love them; I have none of these. I have only you who are to
me father and mother and sister and lover.
“How then can I repay you who have taught this cold heart of mine to
love, and have deigned to love me in return? Oh! and the love will not
die; no, no, it will live on when all else is dead, for although I am
but a Kaffir doctoress, at times light shines upon my heart, and in
that light I see many new things. Yes, yes, I see that this life of
ours is but a road, a weary road across the winter veldt, and this
death but the black gate of a garden of flowers——”
“Oh! why do you speak thus?” broke in Suzanne. “Is this then our last
farewell, and does your wisdom tell you that we part to meet no more?”
“I know not, Swallow,” answered Sihamba hastily, “but if it should be
so I care nothing, for I am sure that through all your days you will
not forget me, and that when your days are done I shall meet you at the
foot of the death-bed. Nay, you must not weep. Now go swiftly, for it
is time, and even in your husband’s love be mindful always that a woman
can love also; yes, though she be but a dwarfed Kaffir doctoress.
Swallow—Sister Swallow, fare you well,” and, throwing herself upon her
breast, Sihamba kissed her again and again. Then, with a strange
strength, she thrust her from the hut, calling to Zinti to take charge
of her and do as she had bidden him, adding that if he failed in this
task she would blast his body and haunt his spirit.
Thus parted Sihamba, the Kaffir witch-doctoress, and my daughter
Suzanne, whom she kept safe for nearly three years, and saved at last
at the cost of her own life. Yes, thus they parted, and for always in
the flesh, since it was not fated that they should meet again in this
world, and whether it has been permitted to Sihamba—being a Kaffir, and
no Christian—to enter a better one is more than I can say. In her case,
however, I hope that she has found some hole to creep through, for
although she was a black witch-doctoress, according to her knowledge
she was a good woman and a brave one, as the reader will say also
before he comes to the end of this story.
Outside the hut Zinti took Suzanne by the arm and led her through the
mazes of the town to the open ground that lay between it and the mouth
of the steep cleft which ran down to the slopes of the mountain.
All this space was crowded with people, for as yet they could not enter
the cleft, which nowhere was more than ten feet wide, because it was
filled with cattle, some alive and some dead, that, drawn by the smell
of water beneath, had gathered as near to it as the stone walls which
blocked the pass would allow.
Suzanne and Zinti mingled with this crowd of fugitives, taking a
position almost in the midst of it, for they did not wish to pass out
either among the first or the last. There they waited a while, none
noting them, for in their great agony of thirst all thought of
themselves and not of their neighbours. Indeed, husbands deserted their
sick wives and mothers their children, which were too heavy to carry;
yes, they deserted them to be trampled by the feet of men and the hoofs
of cattle.
Now, the eastern sky grew grey, and though the sun had not yet risen
the light was such that a man could see the veins upon the back of his
hand and the white moons on his finger-nails. Presently, as though
moved by one impulse, thousands of voices uttered a hoarse cry of “It
is dawn! Open, open!”
But it would seem that the wall still stood, for the cattle remained
packed in so dense a mass that a man could have walked upon their
backs, as, indeed, some tried to do.
At last the sun rose, or rather its rays shot upwards across the
eastern skies like a fan of fire. Suzanne turned her head and watched
till presently the arrows of light struck upon the tall chair rock
which was the highest point of all the mountain. Yes, there in the
chair sat the white figure and by its side stood what seemed to be a
black child. It was Sihamba. Far below other eyes were watching also,
the eyes of Swart Piet, for he would not let the people go until he
knew that Suzanne and Sihamba stayed behind. But now he saw them,
Suzanne in her accustomed place, and at her side Sihamba.
“Pull down the walls,” he shouted to his men, for he was eager to clear
the pass of cattle and Kaffirs that he might go up it, and they obeyed
him. Before they were more than half down the oxen, pushing and leaping
forward madly, cleared what was left of them and, open-mouthed, their
lolling tongues hanging from their dry jaws, rushed downward to the
water, goring or trampling to death some of those who worked at the
wall.
“The schanzes are down,” screamed the people, seeing the long line of
cattle move, and immediately they began to press forward also.
At Suzanne’s side was a young woman so weak with thirst that she could
scarcely walk, and on her back a year-old boy, insensible but living,
for a red froth bubbled from his lips. A man thrust this woman to one
side and she fell; it was that aged councillor who on the yesterday had
brought news of the surrender to Sihamba. She tried to struggle to her
feet but others trampled upon her.
“Sister, sister!” she cried, catching Suzanne by the hide blanket which
she wore, “I am dead, but oh! save my child.”
“Let it be,” whispered Zinti, but Suzanne could not deny those piteous
eyes, and as she passed she snatched up the boy and the sling in which
he was carried by the dying woman, setting the band of it beneath her
own breast. So she went forward, bearing him upon her hip, nor did that
act of mercy lack its reward, for as shall be seen it was her
salvation. Also the child lived, and to this day is a faithful servant
in our house, though now his beard is white.
Down the narrow way surged the crowd, scrambling over rocks and dead
cattle and crushed women and children, till at the last Suzanne drew
near its opening, where stood Swart Piet and some twenty of his
followers, watching the multitude pass out.
“Lady,” whispered Zinti into her ear, “now I fall behind, for Bull-Head
may know me. If I win through I will rejoin you on the plain, or by the
saw-edged rock; if I do not, throw away that child, and follow the road
of which I have told you, you can scarcely mistake it. Go on, showing
no fear, and—stay, let that blanket hang open in front, it is not the
custom of these women to wear their garments wrapped so closely.”
Suzanne groaned, but she obeyed.