MR. DOVE VISITS ISHMAEL
When Rachel and Noie reached the house, which they did not do for some
time, as they waited to make sure that Ishmael had really gone, it was
to see the man himself riding away from its gate.
“Be prepared,” said Noie; “I think that he has been here before us to
pour poison into your father’s ears.”
So it proved to be, indeed, for on the stoep or verandah they found Mr.
Dove walking up and down evidently much disturbed in mind.
“What is all this trouble, Rachel?” he asked. “What have you done to
Mr. Smith”—for Mr. Dove in pursuance of the suggestion made by the man,
had adopted that name for him which he considered less peculiar than
Ishmael. “He has been here much upset, declaring that you have used him
cruelly, and that Nonha threatened him with terrible things in the
future, of which, of course, she can know nothing.”
“Well, father, if you wish to hear,” answered Rachel, “Mr. Ishmael, or
Mr. Smith as you call him, has been asking me to marry him, and when I
refused, as of course I did, behaved very unpleasantly.”
“Indeed, Rachel. I gathered from him that something of the sort had
happened, only his story is that it was you who behaved unpleasantly,
speaking to him as though he were dirt. Now, Rachel, of course I do not
want you to marry this person, in fact, I should dislike it, although I
have seen a great change for the better in him lately—I mean
spiritually, of course—and an earnest repentance for the errors of his
past life. All I mean is that the proffered affection of an honest man
should not be met with scorn and sharp words.”
Up to this point Rachel endured the lecture in silence, but now she
could bear no more.
“Honest man!” she exclaimed. “Father, are you deaf and blind, or only
so good yourself that you cannot see evil in others? Do you know that
it was this ‘honest man’ who brought about the murder of all Noie’s
people in order that he might curry favour with the Zulus?”
Mr. Dove started, and turning, asked:
“Is that so, Nonha?”
“It is so, Teacher,” answered Noie, “although I have never spoken of it
to you. Afterwards I will tell you the story, if you wish.”
“And do you know,” went on Rachel, “why he will never let you visit his
kraal among the hills yonder? Well, I will tell you. It is because this
‘honest man,’ who wishes me to marry him, keeps his Kaffir wives and
children there!”
“Rachel!” replied her father, in much distress, “I will never believe
it; you are only repeating native scandal. Why, he has often spoken to
me with horror of such things.”
“I daresay he has, father. Well, now, I ask you to judge for yourself.
Take a guide and start two hours before daybreak to-morrow morning to
visit that kraal, and see if what I say is not true.”
“I will, indeed,” exclaimed Mr. Dove, who was now thoroughly aroused,
for it was conduct of this sort that had caused his bitter quarrel with
the first settlers in Natal. “I cannot believe the story, Rachel, I
really cannot; but I promise you that if I should find cause to do so,
the man shall never put foot in my house again.”
“Then I think that I am rid of him,” said Rachel, with a sigh of
relief, “only be careful, dear, that he does not do you a mischief, for
such men do not like to be found out.” Then she left the stoep, and
went to tell her mother all that had happened.
When she had heard the story, Mrs. Dove, who detested Ishmael as much
as her daughter did, tried to persuade her husband not to visit his
kraal, saying that it would only breed a feud, and that under the
circumstances, it would be easy to forbid him the house upon other
grounds. But Mr. Dove, obstinate as usual, refused to listen to her,
saying that he would not judge the man without evidence, and that of
the natives could not be relied on. Also, if the tale were true, it was
his duty as his spiritual adviser to remonstrate with him.
So his poor wife gave up arguing, as she always did, and long before
dawn on the following morning, Mr. Dove, accompanied by two guides,
departed upon his errand.
After he had ridden some twelve miles across the plain which lay behind
Ramah, just at daybreak, he reached a pass or nek between two swelling
hills, beyond which the guides said lay the kraal that was called
Mafooti. Presently he saw it, a place situated in a cup-like valley,
chosen evidently because the approaches to it were easy to defend. On a
knoll in the centre of this rich valley stood the kraal, a small native
town surrounded by walls, and stone enclosures full of cattle. As they
approached the kraal, from its main entrance issued four or five
good-looking native women, one of them accompanied by a boy, and all
carrying hoes in their hands, for they were going out at sunrise to
work in the mealie fields. When they saw Mr. Dove they stood still,
staring at him, till he called to them not to be afraid, and riding up,
asked them who they were.
“We are of the number of the wives of Ibubesi, the Lion,” answered
their spokeswoman, who held the little boy by the hand.
“Do you mean the _Umlungu_ (that is, the white man), Ishmael?” he asked
again.
“Whom else should we mean?” she answered. “I am his head wife, now that
he has put away old Mami, and this is his son. If the light were
stronger you would see that he is almost white,” she added, with pride.
Mr. Dove knew not what to answer; this intelligence overwhelmed him,
and he sat silent on his horse. The wives of Ishmael prepared to pass
on to the mealie fields, then stopped, and began to whisper together.
At length the mother of the boy turned and addressed him, while the
others crowded behind her to listen.
“We desire to ask you a question, Teacher,” she said, somewhat shyly,
for evidently they knew well enough who he was. “Is it true that we are
to have a new sister?”
“A new sister! What do you mean?” asked Mr. Dove.
“We mean, Teacher,” she replied smiling, “that we have heard that
Ibubesi is courting the beautiful Zoola, the daughter of your head
wife, and we thought that perhaps you had come to arrange about the
cattle that he must pay for her. Doubtless if she is so fair, it will
be a whole herd.”
This was too much, even for Mr. Dove.
“How dare you talk so, you heathen hussies?” he gasped. “Where is the
white man?”
“Teacher,” she replied with indignation, and drawing herself up, “why
do you call us bad names? We are respectable women, the wives of one
husband, as respectable as your own, although not so numerous, or so we
hear from Ibubesi. If you desire to see him, he is in the big hut,
yonder, with our youngest sister, she whom he married last month. We
wish you good day, as we go to hoe our lord’s fields, and we hope that
when she comes, the Inkosazana, your daughter, will not be as rude as
you are, for if so, how shall we love her as we wish to do?” Then
wrapping her blanket round her with a dignified air, the offended lady
stalked off, followed by her various “sisters.”
As for Mr. Dove, who for once in his life was in a towering rage, he
cut his horse viciously with the sjambok, or hippopotamus-hide whip,
which he carried, and followed by his guides, galloped forward to a big
hut in the centre of the kraal.
Apparently Ishmael heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs, for as the
missionary was dismounting he crawled out of the bee-hole of the hut
upon his hands and knees, as a Kaffir does, followed by a young woman
in the lightest of attire, who was yawning as though she had just been
aroused from sleep. What is more, except for the colour of his skin, he
_was_ a Kaffir and nothing else, for his costume consisted of a skin
moocha such as the natives wear, and a fur kaross thrown over his
shoulders. Straightening himself, Ishmael saw for the first time who
was his visitor. His jaw dropped, and he uttered an ejaculation that
need not be recorded, then stood silent. Mr. Dove was silent also; for
his wrath would not allow him to speak.
“How do you do, sir?” Ishmael jerked out at last. “You are an early
visitor, and find me somewhat unprepared. If I had known that you were
coming I would”—then suddenly he remembered his attire, or the lack of
it, also his companion who was leaning on his shoulder, and peeping at
the white man over it. Drawing the kaross tightly about him, he gave
the poor girl a backward kick, and with a Kaffir oath bade her begone,
then went on hurriedly: “I am afraid my dress is not quite what you are
accustomed to, but among these poor heathens I find it necessary to
conform more or less to their ways in order to gain their confidence
and—um—affection. Will you come into the hut? My servant there will get
you some _tywala_ (Kaffir beer)—I mean some _amasi_ (curdled milk) at
once, and I will have a calf killed for breakfast.”
Mr. Dove could bear it no longer.
“Ishmael, or Smith, or Ibubesi—whichever name you may prefer,” he broke
out, “do not lie to me about your servant, for now I know all the
truth, which I refused to believe when my daughter and Nonha told it
me. You are a black-hearted villain. But yesterday you dared to come
and ask Rachel to marry you, and now I find that you are living—oh! I
cannot say it, it makes me ashamed of my race. Listen to me, sir. If
ever you dare to set foot in Ramah again, or to speak to my wife and
daughter, the Kaffirs shall whip you off the place. Indeed,” he added,
shaking his sjambok in Ishmael’s face, “although I am an older man than
you are, were it not for my office I would give you the thrashing you
deserve.”
At first Ishmael had shrunk beneath this torrent of invective, but the
threat of violence roused his fierce nature. His face grew evil, and
his long black hair and beard bristled with wrath.
“You had best get out of this, you prayer-snuffling old humbug,” he
said savagely, “for if you stop much longer I will make you sing
another tune. We have sea-cow whips here, too, and you shall learn what
a hiding means, such a hiding that your own family won’t know you, if
you live to get back to them. Look here, I offered to marry your
daughter on the square, and I meant what I said. I’d have got rid of
all this black baggage, and she should have been the only one. Well,
I’ll marry her yet, only now she’ll just take her place with the
others. We are all one flesh and blood, black and white, ain’t we? I
have often heard you preach it. So what will she have to complain of?”
he sneered. “She can go and hoe mealies like the rest.”
As this brutal talk fell upon his ears Mr. Dove’s reason departed from
him entirely. After all, he was an English gentleman first, and a
clergyman afterwards; also he loved his daughter, and to hear her
spoken of like this was intolerable to him, as it would have been to
any father. Lifting the sjambok he cut Ishmael across the mouth so
sharply that the blood came from his lips, then suddenly remembering
that this deed would probably mean his death, stood still awaiting the
issue. As it chanced it did not, for the man, like most brutes and
bullies, was a coward, as Rachel had already found out. Obeying his
first impulse he sprang at the clergyman with an oath, then seeing that
his two guides, who carried assegais, had ranged themselves beside him,
checked himself, for he feared lest those spears should pierce his
heart.
“You are in my house,” he said, wiping the blood from his beard, “and
an old man, so I can’t kill you as I would anyone else. But you have
made me your enemy now, you fool, and others can. I have protected you
so far for your daughter’s sake, but I won’t do it any longer. You
think of that when your time comes.”
“My time, like yours, will come when God wills,” answered Mr. Dove
unflinchingly, “not when you or anyone else wills. I do not fear you in
the least. Still, I am sorry that I struck you, it was a sin of which I
repent as I pray that you may repent.”
Then he mounted his horse and rode away from the kraal Mafooti.
When Mr. Dove reached Ramah he only said to Rachel that what she had
heard was quite true, and that he had forbidden Ishmael the house. Of
course, however, Noie soon learnt the whole story from the Kaffir
guides, and repeated it to her mistress. To his wife, on the other
hand, he told everything, with the result that she was very much
disturbed. She pointed out to him that this white outcast was a most
dangerous man, who would certainly be revenged upon them in one way or
another. Again she implored him, as she had often done before, to leave
these savage countries wherein he had laboured for all the best years
of his life, saying that it was not right that he should expose their
daughter to the risks of them.
“But,” answered her husband, “you have often told me that you were sure
no harm would come to Rachel, and I think that, too.”
“Yes, dear, I am sure; still, for many reasons it does not seem right
to keep her here.” She did not add, poor, unselfish woman, that there
was another who should be considered as well as Rachel.
“How can I go away,” he went on excitedly, “just when all the seed that
I have sown is ripening to harvest? If I did so, my work would be
utterly lost, and my people relapse into barbarism again. I am not
afraid of this man, or of anything that he can do to my body, but if I
ran away from him it would be injuring my soul, and what account should
I give of my cowardice when my time comes? Do you go, my love, and take
Rachel with you if you wish, leaving me to finish my work alone.”
But now, as before, Mrs. Dove would not go, and Rachel, when she was
asked, shrugged her shoulders and answered laughing that she was not
afraid of anybody or anything, and, except for her mother’s sake, did
not care whether she went or stayed. Certainly she would not leave her,
nor, she added, did she wish to say goodbye to Africa.
When she was asked why, she replied vaguely that she had grown up
there, and it was her home. But her mother, watching her, knew well
enough that she had another reason, although no word of it ever passed
her lips. In Africa she had met Richard Darrien as a child, and in
Africa and nowhere else she believed she would meet him again as a
woman.
The weeks and months went by, bringing to the Ramah household no sight
or tidings of the white man, Ishmael. They heard through the Kaffirs,
indeed, that although he still kept his kraal at Mafooti, he himself
had gone away on some trading journey far to the north, and did not
expect to return for a year, news at which everyone rejoiced, except
Noie, who shook her wise little head and said nothing.
So all fear of the man gradually died away, and things were very
peaceful and prosperous at Ramah.
In fact this quiet proved to be but the lull before the storm.
One day, about eight months after Mr. Dove had visited the kraal
Mafooti, another embassy came to Rachel from the Zulu king, Dingaan,
bringing with it a present of more white cattle. She received them as
she had done before, at night and alone, for they refused to speak to
her in the presence of other people.
In substance their petition was the same that it had been before,
namely, that she would visit Zululand, as the king and his indunas
desired her counsel upon an important matter. When asked what this
matter was they either were, or pretended to be, ignorant, saying that
it had not been confided to them. Thereon she said that if Dingaan
chose to submit the question to her by messenger, she would give him
her opinion on it, but that she could not come to his kraal. They asked
why, seeing that the whole nation would guard her, and no hair of her
head be harmed.
“Because I am a child in the house of my people, and they will not
allow me to leave even for a day,” she answered, thinking that this
reply would appeal to a race who believe absolutely in obedience to
parents and every established authority.
“Is it so?” remarked the old induna who spoke as Dingaan’s Mouth—not
Mopo, but another. “Now, how can the Inkosazana-y-Zoola, before whom a
whole nation will bow, be in bonds to a white _Umfundusi_, a mere
sky-doctor? Shall the wide heavens obey a cloud?”
“If they are bred of that cloud,” retorted Rachel.
“The heavens breed the cloud, not the cloud the heavens,” answered the
induna aptly.
Now it occurred to Rachel that this thing was going further than it
should. To be set up as a kind of guardian spirit to the Zulus had
seemed a very good joke, and naturally appealed to the love of power
which is common to women. But when it involved, at any rate in the eyes
of that people, dominion over her own parents, the joke was, she felt,
becoming serious. So she determined suddenly to bring it to an end.
“What mean you, Messenger of the King?” she asked. “I am but the child
of my parents, and the parents are greater than the child, and must be
obeyed of her.”
“Inkosazana,” answered the old man with a deprecatory smile, “if it
pleases you to tell us such tales, our ears must listen, as if it
pleased you to order us to be killed, we must be killed. But learn that
we know the truth. We know how as a child you came down from above in
the lightning, and how these white people with whom you dwell found you
lying in the mist on the mountain top, and took you to their home in
place of a babe whom they had buried.”
“Who told you that story?” asked Rachel amazed.
“It was revealed to the council of the doctors, Lady.”
“Then that was revealed which is not true. I was born as other women
are, and my name of ‘Lady of the Heavens’ came to me by chance, as by
chance I resemble the Spirit of your people.”
“We hear you,” answered the “Mouth” politely. “You were born as other
women are, by chance you had your high name, by chance you are tall and
fair and golden-haired like the Spirit of our people. We hear you.”
Then Rachel gave it up.
“Bear my words to the King,” she said, and they rose, saluted her with
a Bayète, that royal salute which never before had been given to woman,
and departed.
When they had gone Rachel went in to supper and told her parents all
the story. Mr. Dove, now that she seemed to take a serious view of the
matter, affected to treat it as absurd, although when she had laughed,
his attitude, it may be remembered, was different. He talked of the
silly Zulu superstitions, showed how they had twisted up the story of
the death of her baby brother, and her escape from the flood in the
Umtavuna river, into that which they had narrated to her. He even
suggested that the whole thing was nonsense, part of some political
move to enable the King, or a party in the state, to declare that they
had with them the word of their traditional spirit and oracle.
Mrs. Dove, however, who that night was strangely depressed and uneasy,
thought far otherwise. She pointed out that they were playing with vast
and cruel forces, and that whatever these people exactly believed about
Rachel, it was a dreadful thing for a girl to be put in a position in
which the lives of hundreds might hang upon her nod.
“Yes, and,” she added hysterically, “perhaps our own lives also—perhaps
our own lives also!”
To change the conversation, which was growing painful, Rachel asked if
anyone had seen Noie. Her father answered that two hours ago, just
before the embassy arrived, he had met her going down to the banks of
the stream, as he supposed, to gather flowers for the table. Then he
began to talk about the girl, saying what a sweet creature she was, and
how strange it seemed to him that although she appeared to accept all
the doctrines of the Christian faith, as yet she had never consented to
be baptised.
It was while he was speaking thus that Rachel suddenly observed her
mother fall forward, so that her body rested on the table, as though a
kind of fit had seized her. Rachel sprang towards her, but before she
reached her she appeared to have quite recovered, only her face looked
very white.
“What on earth is the matter, mother?”
“Oh! don’t ask me,” she answered, “a terrible thing, a sort of fancy
that came to me from talking about those Zulus. I thought I saw this
place all red with blood and tongues of fire licking it up. It went as
quickly as it came, and of course I know that it is nonsense.”