Hastening across to the suite of apartments I had thus far occupied, I
discarded the splendid garments which had been presented to me by the
queen, and in which I had been wont to appear in public, and resumed the
somewhat worn and faded suit in which I had arrived at Masakisale; after
which I turned my back upon the rooms, as I thought for ever, and
descended to where 'Mfuni awaited me, walking my horse to and fro before
the main entrance to the palace. The Mashona seemed somewhat startled
to behold me once more clad in my shabby travelling garments; but
without wasting any time in explaining matters I simply bade him hasten
to the wagon, ascertain how things were in that quarter, and report to
me at Anuti's house, which I pointed out to him. Then, urging Prince
into a gallop, I made the best of my way to Anuti's abode, anxious to
communicate to him what had passed at my final interview with Bimbane,
and to take counsel with him as to what was best to be done under the
circumstances.
He was at home when I arrived, and might indeed have been watching for
me, for he came forth to me as I dismounted.
"Aha, Chia'gnosi," he exclaimed, "welcome to my house, for I perceive
that something of import has happened at the palace, and that you have
indeed left it, as you resolved to do!"
"Yes," said I. "I have left the palace, never to return to it; for I
have quarrelled with Bimbane beyond all possibility of reconciliation.
And now, if you are not afraid to give me lodgment for a short time, I
will very gladly avail myself of your offered hospitality; for I want to
tell you exactly what has happened, and to obtain your advice."
"Pray, enter, and again welcome," he replied. "No, I am not at all
afraid to receive you as my guest; for you will be perfectly safe here,
and--But what is that I see on your finger?--surely not the magic ring
of Bimbane!"
He seized my right hand, stared incredulously at the ring on my little
finger, and then, murmuring: "It is, it is!" sank upon one knee before
me, pressed the ring to his forehead, and exclaimed:
"Salutations and homage, O high and mighty King! I know not how it has
come to pass, but this is a great and happy day for Bandokolo; for at
last the dominion has passed out of the hands of that cruel and wicked
woman, under whose galling yoke the country has groaned for unnumbered
generations, and has passed into yours, who will rule us mercifully,
wisely, and justly. Great is my pride and joy, O Chia'gnosi, that mine
is the privilege to be the first to hail you king. Deign to honour my
poor house with your gracious presence for a few hours, Your Majesty,
while I go forth and proclaim the glad tidings to the nobles and chiefs
here in Masakisale, and make arrangements for the news to be transmitted
to the uttermost parts of the kingdom--"
"Stop, stop, for mercy's sake stop your wild talk, and tell me what is
the matter, and what you mean by all this rubbish about my being king!"
I exclaimed, as soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my amazement
to speak, at the same time dragging Anuti to his feet.
"Ah, yes, I had forgotten!" replied Anuti. "Naturally Your Majesty does
not understand. How should you, since no one has explained? In a few
words, then, the matter stands thus. The possession of that ring
carries with it the sovereignty of Bandokolo, and since you now possess
it, you are, in virtue thereof, the monarch of the country; and right
glad will all be that such is the case. But, if I may be permitted to
ask, how passed the ring into your possession? For the tradition runs
that it may only pass as a free gift from the reigning monarch to his--
or her--chosen successor when the former is at the point of death; to
attempt to steal it, or to take it by force, brings upon the would-be
robber the doom of a mysterious, terrible death, otherwise Bimbane the
Cruel would not have been permitted to reign so long. Yet I find it
difficult to imagine that--that--"
"She surrendered it to me of her own free will?" I interrupted. "You
are right, Anuti, she did not. We quarrelled; she threatened to set you
and me, among others, to fight the man-monkeys, and declared that by
virtue of this ring she would destroy--has indeed destroyed--the
remainder of my team of oxen. This made me angry; and in my anger I
flung myself upon her, snatched the ring from her thumb, and placed it
upon my own finger. And--and--there it is, as you see," I finished
lamely.
"Yes. And you still live!" said Anuti thoughtfully. "It is wonderful;
and it is proof conclusive that you are destined to be our king."
"Nonsense, man," I retorted; "it is proof of nothing of the kind. I
have no desire to be your king. All that I want is to find the daughter
of my friend, rescue her from captivity, and return to my own country,
taking with me, by your goodwill, as many of the shining stones as will
enable me to retrieve my ruined fortunes. Therefore, permit me--" and
before Anuti knew what I was about I withdrew the fateful ring from my
own finger and slipped it on his.
"There!" I continued, "now you are the king, which is as it should be.
The Bandokolo will rejoice to have you as their sovereign, while, as for
me, if you require any help or advice that I can give, it shall be
freely yours; and when once you are firmly established upon the throne I
will bid you farewell and go my way. But what about Bimbane; what will
you do with her?"
"There will be neither trouble nor difficulty in disposing of her, for
she has not a friend in all Bandokolo," answered Anuti. "It will but be
necessary for me to display this ring and even her bodyguards will
gladly transfer their allegiance to me. And perhaps you are right,
Chia'gnosi, in the matter of the kingship; it is better that the
Bandokolo should be governed by one of themselves than by a stranger.
But you have this day done a service to the Bandokolo which we shall not
forget, for by your action in wresting this ring from the queen, and,
with it, all her power and authority, you have saved the country from
civil war, with all its attendant horrors and slaughter. And now it
will be well that the nobles and chiefs should be instantly informed of
what has happened; therefore, if you will excuse me for a short time, I
will dispatch the necessary messengers."
Anuti had been absent about three-quarters of an hour when a servant
announced that two of my natives desired speech with me; and when they
were introduced they proved to be 'Mfuni and Piet, who had encountered
each other on the main road and now returned together, bringing with
them the astounding news that the whole of my oxen had suddenly dropped
dead while feeding, at the precise moment--so far as I was able to fix
it--when Bimbane had pronounced their death warrant! It was a very
extraordinary thing, much too extraordinary, I thought, to be a mere
coincidence; yet I was not so much astonished as I might otherwise have
been, for I had by this time been long enough in Bandokolo to have
realised that many surprising and startling things happened there which
would have been regarded as impossible in more civilised countries.
But this was not the only, or even the most startling, occurrence of
that eventful day; for Anuti had scarcely returned to the house,
accompanied by half a dozen of the most powerful nobles, whom he had
been lucky enough to encounter, when a wild-eyed messenger arrived from
the palace with the astounding news that the queen was dead, having
taken poison! This news, if true, would of course simplify matters
immensely, since, the queen being childless, her husband would,
according to the laws of Bandokolo, succeed her; and accordingly we all
hastened to the palace to investigate the statement.
Arrived at the royal residence, we found the place in a state of wild
commotion--although the excitement was not so intense as to make the
squadron of bodyguards then on duty forget to accord the royal salute to
Anuti upon his entrance. We were informed that the body of the queen
was in her sleeping chamber, and thither we hastened, to find the
apartment in possession of about a dozen physicians, who had hurried to
the palace upon the summons of the chief lady-in-waiting, and who had
just completed their examination of the body. They all agreed that
death was the result of poison, self-administered; and indeed there
seemed to be no room for any other conclusion, for when the corpse was
discovered a tiny flask was found tightly grasped in the right hand, the
odour clinging to which, and to the lips of the dead woman, proclaimed
beyond all question that it had contained bicari, a decoction prepared
from the root of the combuti plant, and one of the most deadly toxics
known to the Africans of the interior.
The fact of the queen's death being fully established, Anuti gave orders
that the body should be prepared in the usual way for public cremation
on the following day, after which the chamber was to be closed and
sealed, and a guard of honour mounted before it. In the meantime, while
these orders were being carried out, we all adjourned to the council
chamber, where we were soon afterward joined by several other nobles and
chiefs, who had been hastily summoned; and a council was held at which
it was decided that, for expediency's sake, Anuti should at once take up
his abode at the palace, and that he should be proclaimed king that same
evening. Mounted messengers were accordingly sent forth into the city,
summoning the people to assemble before the palace at an hour
corresponding to ten o'clock; and at that hour the ceremony of
proclamation was duly performed.
The scene was one of considerable barbaric splendour, chiefly by reason
of the magnificent dresses worn by the various personages who took part
in it. It happened that all the nobles and chiefs who were really of
paramount importance were dwellers in the city. It was consequently
possible for every one of them to be present; and as they all held high
rank either in the army or what may be called the civil service, and
wore the full-dress uniform of their rank upon this occasion, the
display of golden armour and weapons, richly embroidered robes and
banners, and jewelled and feathered head-dresses glittering in the
somewhat smoky light of thousands of blazing torches presented a
spectacle which I shall never forget.
The act of proclamation was performed from the steps leading up to the
main entrance to the palace, upon the top landing of which stood Anuti,
clad in the resplendent uniform of a general, supported by the nobles
and chiefs--and also by myself, in my uniform, which I had resumed at
the urgent request of the king and his supporters; while the herald and
trumpeters also stood upon the steps, but halfway down. The actual
ceremony was of very brief duration, and simply consisted of seven
blasts upon the golden trumpets, followed by the formal statement by the
herald that, it having pleased the spirits who presided over the
destinies of the Bandokolo nation to summon Bimbane to her long-deferred
rest, her husband, the noble and illustrious Anuti, would take up the
reins of government and henceforth rule the people. Might the king live
for ever! Upon which the trumpets again sounded seven blasts, the
assembled multitude expressed their approval by loud and prolonged
applause, the nobles and chiefs present came forward in the order of
their rank and did homage to the new king, the royal bodyguard, paraded
in full strength for the occasion, deployed in front of the steps and
gave the royal salute, and the ceremony was at an end. At Anuti's
urgent request I resumed occupation of the apartments which I had lived
in during my stay in Masakisale; and as I did not wish to be further
mixed up in the political situation, and was moreover somewhat fatigued,
I at once retired to them and was soon sound asleep.
The following day was scarcely less strenuous than that which had
preceded it, though in a different way; for it had been arranged that
the obsequies of the dead queen should take place at sunset, and all day
long the several Court officials concerned were busily engaged in making
the necessary preparations.
The funeral pyre was erected in the centre of a spacious basin among the
hills at the head of the valley, some six miles from the palace, and
early in the afternoon the inhabitants began to gather in front of the
palace, to witness and take part in the spectacle. Then, about four
o'clock, the royal bodyguard, with their regimental banners twisted into
a knot and bound to the staves with broad white ribbons in token of
mourning, paraded before the palace, and the trumpeters sounded seven
blasts; whereupon the funeral cortege made its appearance, issuing from
the main entrance to the palace. First stalked the royal
standard-bearer, carrying the royal standard, knotted and bound to its
staff with white ribbon; then came the royal bier, which consisted of a
platform borne by twelve men attired wholly in white--the mourning
colour--and draped with white silk, heavily fringed with gold bullion,
which swept the ground. Upon this platform was placed the royal throne
of ivory heavily mounted in gold; and upon the throne, and securely
fastened to it, was seated the body of Bimbane, fully attired in her
robes of state, and crowned with a gold coronet set with uncut diamonds
and ornamented with the crimson wings of the orilu, which only a monarch
might wear. Then came Anuti, alone, in his full uniform, closely
followed by the nobles and chiefs of the nation--among whom the new king
had insisted that I should take my place. Slowly and with solemn step
we descended the broad flight of stone steps until we reached the
spacious quadrangle at their foot, and here our attendants led forward
our steeds and we mounted, Prince, with his glossy black coat, being
conspicuous among the array of zebras which constituted the mounts of
the rest.
As the bier reached the quadrangle, a trumpet blast rang out, and the
royal bodyguard arranged itself into three sides of a hollow square,
into which the bier passed, when, with the royal standard-bearer riding
in front, the banners of the guard immediately following him, and the
trumpeters between them and the mounted troops blowing long, wailing
blasts at regular intervals, the cortege proceeded slowly and solemnly
along the road, the bier, surrounded by the bodyguard, being followed by
Anuti and the rest of us, while the inhabitants in general brought up
the rear.
In this fashion the funeral cortege passed along the main road through
the city to the scene of the cremation, the march occupying just two
hours. We reached the funeral pyre as the last rays of the sun were
gilding the tops of the trees which hemmed in the valley, when the
bodyguard formed a hollow square round the pyre, with Anuti and the
nobles inside it, while the inhabitants ranged themselves upon the
adjacent hillside to witness, for the first time in their lives, the
spectacle of a royal cremation. About a hundred priests, arrayed in
long white robes, were gathered about the pyre when we reached it; and
as soon as the bier, with its dead occupant, had been deposited upon the
summit of the pyre, the arch-priest began the funeral service, which
lasted about a quarter of an hour. By the time that this was over it
was quite dark, the surrounding tree tops standing out black against the
star-studded sky; and only an occasional faint, evanescent gleam here
and there of starlight upon golden armour told of the presence of all
that multitude.
Then, the religious service being at an end, a lighted torch was
mysteriously produced from somewhere and handed to Anuti, who,
approaching the pyre, thrust the burning brand into the heart of it and
retired again to his former place. For a second or two the darkness
continued; then here and there about the pyre small wreaths of smoke
floated out, quickly followed by little tongues of flame, rapidly
increasing in intensity until within a few minutes the whole of the
upper part of the pyre was ablaze, and the basin, with its crowds of
splendidly attired and mounted officials, was brilliantly illuminated by
the ruddy glare. I think the bier, and possibly the body also, must
have been treated with some highly combustible preparation, for I
noticed that the moment the flames reached them they seized upon them
with avidity, so that within ten minutes of the first kindling the bier
and the body were both enwrapped in a roaring volume of vivid flame, in
which the corpse seemed to shrink and shrivel so rapidly that when at
length the top of the pyre collapsed and fell in, scarcely a vestige of
bier or body was to be seen. The fire blazed so furiously--throwing out
an almost unendurable heat--that within half an hour the pyre had become
reduced to a heap of ruddy, dull-glowing ashes; whereupon Anuti gave a
signal, the trumpeters blew seven blasts by way of final salute to the
dead, the white ribbons were torn from the banners and cast upon the
flickering flames, the banners were unknotted, and, forming up in
military array, the mounted contingent wheeled and departed, making
their way back to the palace, and leaving the pedestrians to return home
at their leisure.
On the following day a golden urn, containing ashes asserted to be those
of the dead queen, was deposited by the priests in the funeral chamber
beneath the palace, and Bimbane, with all her faults and crimes, finally
disappeared for ever from among the Bandokolo.
The accession of Anuti to the throne was the cause of general rejoicing
throughout the country; and in accordance with custom the new king
proclaimed a grand festival in celebration of the event. But as the
festival--also in accordance with custom--necessarily consisted to a
great extent of fights between condemned criminals and wild animals,
especially man-monkeys, I declined to remain and be present; and Anuti,
knowing my views with regard to such barbarous spectacles, did not press
the point. On the contrary, he fully sympathised with me, and would
very gladly have abolished the custom, but public opinion was too strong
even for him; the sports were so highly appreciated that to have
suppressed them would have very seriously impaired his popularity, and
this he dared not risk just then, at the very beginning of his reign.
Therefore he did everything he could to expedite my departure,
presenting me with a beautiful team of twenty-four thoroughly broken
zebras to take the place of my slain oxen, lending me a driver to
instruct mine in the handling of them; also he insisted upon my
retaining every one of the gifts bestowed upon me by the late queen, and
added to them a second goatskin sackful of magnificent diamonds; and
finally he instructed my old friend Pousa to escort me with his squadron
to the frontier, more as a guard of honour than by way of protection,
for by that time my fame had spread to the uttermost parts of the
kingdom, and no Bandokolo would have dreamed of attempting to molest me.
And, thus magnificently rewarded for services that, after all, I at
least regarded as utterly insignificant, I took my departure from
Masakisale on my homeward journey, exactly a week after the celebration
of the funeral obsequies of Queen Bimbane, much to the regret, I was
assured, of all whose acquaintance I had made.
My departure from Masakisale was a very different affair from that of my
entrance into it. For, although I was not permitted to suspect it at
the time, there can be no doubt that I entered the capital of Bandokolo
virtually as a prisoner, and was an object of curiosity and suspicion to
everybody who set eyes upon me; while now I went forth accompanied by
expressions of regard and regret from the entire inhabitants of the
city, who seemed to have turned out _en masse_ to witness my departure
and to bid me farewell. Also, excluding what remained of my ammunition
and provisions, my wagon was loaded to its utmost capacity with gold and
precious stones; and it no longer crawled over the ground at a bare
three miles an hour, but proceeded at quite double that speed behind the
sturdy, sprightly, high-spirited team of twenty-four zebras, which would
have travelled half as fast again had I not determined to work them very
lightly, in view of the long, toilsome journey that lay before me.
And here, for the gratification of the curious, I may as well describe
the manner in which these animals were attached to the wagon. I suppose
everybody by this time knows, either from pictures or from having seen
the thing itself, what a South African wagon is like; and also knows
that it is drawn by a team of from twelve to eighteen oxen yoked
together in pairs, the cleverest pair being yoked next the wagon to the
disselboom--which answers to the ordinary carriage pole where a pair of
horses are driven abreast--while the remainder of the team are yoked,
also in pairs, to the trek chain, which is attached to the extremity of
the disselboom. Now, oxen pull upon a yoke which rests upon their necks
and is attached thereto by a strip of rein passing under their throats,
and this constitutes the whole of their very primitive harness. But it
was obvious that such an arrangement would be quite unsuited to my new
team of zebras: consequently harness had to be especially made for them,
consisting of a breast and shoulder strap, the former being made long
enough to form a pair of traces attachable to a splinter bar; there was
also added a headstall with a single rein, which was fastened to the
trek chain. This arrangement served for all but the leading pair of
zebras, the off animal of which was fitted with a saddle upon which the
driver sat postilion fashion, guiding the leaders and regulating the
pace of the whole team.
During the first two days a Bandokolo drove the team, while 'Ngulubi, my
Bantu voorlouper, rode beside him on one of my horses, watching the
process and receiving instruction; but after that 'Ngulubi himself
undertook the driving, while the Bandokolo rode alongside and continued
his instruction. Thus, by the time that we reached the frontier,
'Ngulubi was quite qualified to act as driver, while he, Jan, and Piet
had also learned to look after the zebras when they were outspanned.
With such a spanking team to draw the wagon, we took only eight and a
half days to cover the distance between Masakisale and the frontier,
instead of seventeen days, as on the outward journey; and here Pousa and
his squadron regretfully bade me farewell, the captain's regrets at
parting from me being mitigated to a great extent by the gift of a
shaving mirror and a burning-glass, the latter being esteemed by him at
about the value that I attached to my two sacks of diamonds.
Our farewells were spoken at the precise spot where we had met on my
outward journey, but I did not pause there, pushing some twenty miles
into the defile where we had seen the man-monkeys before we outspanned
for the night. Two days later we passed the grave of the unhappy
Siluce, and I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing that, thus far,
it had not been disturbed by wild animals. And on the following day we
arrived at the spot where, according to the vision in which Bimbane had
revealed to me the route I must follow in order to find Nell Lestrange,
it became necessary for us to forsake our former trail and enter upon
the new one. I took up this new trail without hesitation, the
conviction being strong upon me that I should be right in so doing; and
the event justified me, for on the evening of the sixty-second day after
my departure from Masakisale I arrived upon the north bank of the
Pongola River, and was informed by an astonished Kafir whom I
encountered that Zululand, the country of the redoubtable Dingaan, lay
upon the opposite shore of the stream. Of course I did not accomplish
this journey of two months' duration through a savage country without
meeting with a few adventures, yet they were surprisingly few, all
things considered, for I hunted now only for food for myself and my
followers; moreover, they were of a very similar character to those of
my outward journey, with a few unimportant variations in details. They
may, therefore, be passed over with merely this brief reference to them,
since to record them in detail would only render my story of altogether
too unwieldy dimensions, without adding very greatly to its interest.
Arrived upon the Zululand border, I lost no time in dispatching a
message to the formidable and somewhat unscrupulous king of the country,
requesting his permission to pass through his territory on my way to
Cape Colony from the north; and four days later 'Mfuni, who was my
messenger for the occasion, returned with a reply to the effect that
Dingaan granted my request, with the proviso that I did not linger
unduly upon my journey, and that I should call upon him at his Place,
Umgungundhlovu, on my way, to pay my respects--and also, as I fully
understood, tribute, in the shape of a handsome present, for the
privilege. This, of course, suited me admirably, as I intended to call
upon the king in any case; and on the morning following the return of
'Mfuni we forded the river and entered upon the somewhat risky journey
across Zululand, taking things fairly easy, as I wished to keep my team
of zebras in good condition, in case it should be necessary to hurry,
later on, after my interview with the king.
Two days later, about mid-afternoon, we arrived at Umgungundhlovu (or
the Multitude of Houses), and before we reached it the leading features
of the landscape began to assume an appearance of familiarity, until
finally I beheld with my bodily eyes the entire scene, complete down to
the smallest detail, which Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga, had revealed to me
in a vision some six months before. There was the great "town"--
containing, I suppose, quite two thousand huts--built upon the crest of
a gently rising hill, and completely surrounded by a stout, high
palisade with an open gateway in it through which passed a number of
people going about their business, and merely pausing for a minute or
two to gaze in wonder at my handsome team of zebras; and there, too,
close at hand, was the singular-looking hog-backed kopje, with its
straggling bushes and its tumbled masses of dark rock, upon which were
perched some fifty or sixty vultures that seemed to be quite at home
there. Little did I dream of the ghastly tragedy of which that weird
kopje had been the scene a few months earlier, when, on the preceding
sixth of February, the treacherous and ruthless king had caused the
massacre upon it of the ill-fated Boer general, Pieter Retief, and some
sixty of his followers; otherwise I should have been a good deal more
uneasy in my mind than I actually was when I gave the order to outspan.
Yet, although I had no knowledge of it, the memory of that tragedy, and
the fear lest the whites should eventually determine to avenge it,
proved of the utmost service to me in my negotiations with the savage
monarch; for when, adopting my usual tactics of "bluffing" boldly in my
dealings with savages, I informed Dingaan bluntly that my object in
visiting him was to demand the surrender of the white 'ntombozaan whom
he held in captivity, I saw at once that, for some reason which I could
not then guess, he was very greatly perturbed. But, like the savage he
was, he also attempted to "bluff", so that the matter soon resolved
itself into a "bluffing match" between us, in which, although I did not
know it, I held the advantage. First the king indignantly denied all
knowledge of the girl for whom I was then seeking; then, when I not only
insisted that she was in his power, but also minutely described her and
her two girl companions, just as I had seen them in my vision, he
retorted by declaring that it was in his mind to kill me and my
followers, destroy my wagon, and turn my zebras loose, so that no trace
should be left of any of us. Upon this I countered by asking him
whether he really believed me such a fool as to venture into his country
without sending a messenger to my countrymen by another way, informing
them where I had gone, and asking them to investigate my fate if I did
not arrive at home in due course. This retort proved to be my winning
card, for he gave in at once, acknowledging Nell's presence in the
place; but insinuating that, since he had kept her alive and treated her
well ever since the Tembu had sent her to him as a present, I ought to
buy her of him. Of course, after this, the remainder of our negotiation
was merely a matter of bargaining, and as I was not at all disposed to
prolong the agony by being over particular in the matter of price,
another half-hour saw the dear child sobbing happily in my arms, in
exchange for practically the whole of the "truck" that still remained to
me.
Nell sat up quite late that night talking with me and telling her
adventures, beginning with that awful time when she awoke to find her
room full of armed Tembu warriors, who forced her to rise from her bed,
dress, and go with them; but although her tale was interesting enough to
me, I have no space in which to record it here.
One incident, however, struck me as being sufficiently peculiar to be
worthy of mention, and it was this. She told me how, when she had been
at Dingaan's Place nearly a year, she left the town one morning,
accompanied by two young Zulu girls, to go down to a favourite haunt of
hers near the river; "and," said she, "when we were passing just about
here, where this wagon is outspanned, a very strange thing happened.
For, although I was not thinking of you at all just then, I suddenly
believed for an instant that I saw you standing two or three yards away,
with your hands outstretched and your lips moving as though you wanted
to speak to me. I seemed to see you so distinctly that for a moment I
was quite startled--indeed I believe I actually stopped under the
impression that you were really there; but, as I did so, you vanished,
and although I remember looking back I did not see you again." Now, the
most remarkable thing about this occurrence is that, by carefully
questioning the child, I was at length forced to the conclusion that it
had happened at the precise moment when I was beholding the vision
conjured up for me by Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga.
We inspanned with the arrival of the dawn on the following morning, and,
pushing the zebras to their utmost capacity, swept down through Zululand
into Natal, and thence more leisurely through Kaffraria to Cape Colony,
arriving in Somerset East on the seventeenth day after our departure
from Umgungundhlovu, to the amazement and delight of Henderson and a
host of other friends who had long given me up as "wiped out". I told
them as much of my story as I deemed fit, though not all of it by any
means; neither did I ask anybody's advice, for my wanderings in the
wilds had given me so much self-reliance that I felt quite able to
depend upon my own judgment. In the first place I negotiated with the
manager of the local bank for the exchange of five hundred pounds' worth
of gold for coin, and then, learning that there were ships loading for
England at Algoa Bay, I installed 'Mfuni, Piet, Jan, and 'Ngulubi on my
estate, leaving the horses and zebras with them to be looked after
during my absence, packed up my belongings, and transferred Nell and
myself to Port Elizabeth, where I engaged passages for us both on a ship
which was on the point of sailing for home, leaving us just time to
procure our outfit prior to our departure.
A pleasant voyage of a little under three months ended in our finding
ourselves in London in the early part of February, 1839, and although we
found the climate of England exceedingly cold and unpleasant after the
brilliant sunshine and warmth of South Africa, we managed to enjoy
ourselves thoroughly during the ensuing two months. Then, with Nell's
cordial approval, I put her to a first-rate school at Bath, where she
remained until her eighteenth birthday, emerging therefrom a very
beautiful, accomplished, and lovable young woman.
Meanwhile, having disposed of Nell for the time being, I next turned my
attention to the disposal of my treasure. The Bank of England took all
my gold from me at its current value, thus placing me in immediate
possession of abundant funds; and eventually, before returning to South
Africa, I succeeded in finding a firm of jewellers who were prepared,
for a consideration, to undertake the task of disposing of my diamonds,
a small parcel at a time, so as not to flood the market. The reader may
gather some idea of the number of those diamonds when I say that now, at
the time of writing, this process is still going on, yet I have nearly
half of the original number left. The arrangement, although no doubt
exceedingly profitable to the firm of jewellers in question, has
provided me with a princely annual income, much of which has been spent
in restoring and extending Bella Vista, which is now one of the finest
and best-stocked estates in the whole of South Africa.
Need I add that she who was once known as Nell Lestrange has been for
many years the beloved and cherished mistress of the beautiful house
that replaced the one in which the tragedy of more than fifty years ago
occurred?