Malemba, the assegai-maker, sat plying his trade busily. Around him,
interestedly watching the process, squatted several young Zulus.
Malemba was an old man, and grizzled. He wore the ring, as well he
might, for his trade was a profitable one, and he had wives and cattle
galore. He had made assegais for the fighting men of Dingana and Mpande
and Cetywayo, and as a skilled craftsman his repute was great. In those
days his remuneration had been rendered in cattle or other kind, now it
was in hard English money, and nothing else would satisfy him.
Such blades he turned out, such splendid blades, keen as razors, the
fluting in perfect symmetry--broad blades for close quarter, stabbing
purposes; long, tapering ones, which would bring down a buck at forty
yards if well thrown, or an enemy at the same distance. Why, Dingana
had commanded them more than once, indeed when a more powerful but less
skilful rival had sought his destruction that king had ordered the death
of that rival instead. Cetywayo had even more keenly appreciated his
skilful craftsmanship, so that Malemba might safely have put up a notice
over his primitive forge: "Assegai-forger to the Royal Family."
His son, Umjozo, did the stick-making; and the binding of the blades,
and the plaiting of the raw hide which should secure these within their
hafts to last for all time, was a work of art in itself. By and by
Birmingham-forged blades were imported, surreptitiously, by the traders;
but the assegai turned out by old Malemba and his son never fell in
reputation. It was to the imported article as the production of a crack
firm of gun-makers would be to the cheap gun purchasable at six or seven
pounds in an ironmonger's shop. And yet it was forged mostly out of old
scrap iron--cask-hoops, nuts, bolts, anything thrown away by the
roadside, but carefully collected.
For years Malemba's trade had been in abeyance, if not practically
extinct. There had been occasional rumours which threatened to call it
forth again, but nothing had come of them. Well, it didn't matter. He
was a rich man, in short, a successful manufacturer who had made his
pile and could afford to retire. And yet--and yet--the hard English
money flowed into the country, and it represented everything that should
render a man's declining years comfortable and pleasant; and further,
Malemba loved his craft, and took an artist's pride in it; wherefore
even his prosperity left something further to wish for.
Then sporadic rumours began to creep about, and the atmosphere became
charged. In the midst of which Malemba was sent for by a powerful
chief, and offered such tempting inducements that he decided to open his
forge again. And that chief was Sapazani.
For Sapazani had wielded weapons of Malemba's manufacture with his own
hand, had wielded them to considerable purpose, too. He desired nothing
so much as to wield them again.
Sapazani, the ultra-conservative, had no use for assegais fabricated
across the seas. He knew the balance and the temper of the home-made
article to a nicety, especially that made by Mklemba. Wherefore he sent
his invitation to the latter, and lo! under the noses of the civil
officials and the half-dozen police who represented or carried out law
and order in the district, Malemba's forge was set up, and turned out
its score of assegais _per diem_. But the Lumisana district was a very
wide, wild and, in parts, inaccessible tract, and in one of its most
remote and inaccessible ranges was Malemba's forge set up.
"Ah, my sons," said the old man, as he paused in his work to take snuff,
while his assistants were arranging their primitive bellows. "Ah, my
sons, I fear me that what I do is useless. What are these poor weapons
beside the thunder and lightning wherewith the Amangisi and the Amabuna
poured death upon each other from distances further than a man can see?
How then will ye get near enough to use these?"
"But, my father," answered one of the spectators, "what if the _izanusi_
put _muti_ upon us which render the white man's bullets of no avail?"
The old man chuckled, and his face crinkled up.
"Will the _izanusi_ doctor themselves and then stand up and let
themselves be shot at?" he answered. "Will they do this? _Ou_!"
This was a puzzler. His hearers were pretty sure they would do no such
thing, yet so ingrained is this stale and flimsy superstition, that
notwithstanding the numbers of times its utter fallacy had been proved,
there is no getting it out of the native system.
"I made blades for that Elephant who fell by `the stroke of Sopuza,'
when your fathers were children," went on the old man, "Dingana, who
scourged the Amabuna as a whip-lash scourges an ox, until he had to take
flight when our nation was divided. But then the guns of the Amabuna
shot but feebly and there was opportunity to run in and make an end.
But now, when the white man's bullets fall thick as the stones in the
fiercest hail storm, what chance have ye with these?" pointing to a row
of blades which awaited the binding. Whereby it will be seen that
Malemba was progressive.
Even this argument did not impress the group. They were inclined to
make very light of it.
"We will not allow them time to fire their bullets at all, my father,"
laughed another of them. "We shall eat them up while they sleep."
"But will they sleep?" said the old man, his head on one side.
"Will they not? They are asleep even now," came the answer. "We need
not even wait until night. They are scattered. We can take them at any
time--when `the word' is given."
"When `the word' is given! Ah! ah! When the word is given." And the
old man chuckled darkly.
"What means our father?"
"What I mean? What if `the word' is given too late? Or worse still--
too soon? _Ou_!"
"That will not be, my father. The chain is now forged, even as these
blades. And the whites are scattered--scattered. They lie in our
hands."
"Let them not lie there too long, or perchance they may spring out,"
returned Malemba quizzically. "Well, I have nought to do with it, I who
am old. I can but make you the weapons, it is for yourselves to wield
them. And most of you have never learned the art. You were born too
late."
A laugh went up at this. The old assegai-maker was looked upon with the
greatest veneration. His wisdom was recognised and appreciated. But to
these young bloods, fed up of late on conspiracy, and yearning to prove
themselves worthy of their warrior ancestors, mere wisdom was at a slump
just then.
"I can but make you assegais," repeated the old man. "I am too old to
wield them."
And he resumed his work, crooning, to the strokes of the hammer, a
snatch from an old war-song--
"Nantsi 'ndaba--
Indaba yemkonto!
Ji-jji! Ji-jji!"
["That is the talk. The talk of the assegais." "Ji-jji" is the
stabbing hiss.]
"These whites, they are not so powerful as we are told," said one of the
group. "I have been among them--have worked for them, where they dig
the gold, the gold that is turned into round money that makes them
rich--and us. _Whau_! They will do anything for money! Ha!"
An evil laugh went round among his listeners.
"Their women," echoed another. "When `the word' goes forth we shall
take their women, when the rest are dead. It will make a pleasant
change."
But the old assegai-maker went on crooning his old and appropriate
war-song--
"Nantsi 'ndaba--
Indaba yemkonto."
"That is not much change, except for the worse," said another. "Their
women. A set of hut poles!" Whereat a great laugh went up from the
gathering. "Sons of my father, I would not pay half a calf in _lobola_
for one white woman I have ever seen."
"Half a calf! _Au_! What of Izibu?" This, it will be remembered, was
Verna Halse's name.
"Izibu?" returned the first speaker. "She is for one greater than we."
A gurgle of bass laughter ran through the group.
"There are others at Ezulwini," went on the one who had worked at the
Rand. "Also at Malimati and Nongoma. It will be great to obtain wives
we have paid no _lobola_ for. White wives! Ha! That will be a change
indeed."
"You have got to get them first, my sons," said the old assegai-maker.
"I remember in the days of Dingana, when I was young, wives were
plentiful even without paying _lobola_. That king had an open hand, and
after an impi had returned from raiding the Amaswazi, or the Basutu, he
would distribute the captive women with a free hand. _Whau_! I not
only made assegais in those days, I wielded them."
"_Baba_!" [Father.]
"_Ye-bo_! Twice did Dingana send me a wife, for he said that a man who
could make assegais like mine deserved a share of what those assegais
could procure. But that is now all a thing of bygone years. It is
dead, dead and buried. We are the white man's dogs to-day, and always
shall be."
"And always shall be, _Hau_!" echoed his listeners. "And always shall
be. My father, I think not."
"I am old, my sons, and I shall end my life peacefully," answered the
assegai-maker--"shall end my life as the white man's dog. There are
those among you who will end your lives in blood."
"Ha! And what then?" cried the man who had worked at the Rand. "We
fight for our father and chief, and for--" and here he suddenly stopped.
He would name no names, but all knew what was in his mind, and the same
thought was in theirs. "I would I had lived in the time when we were a
nation indeed, when our assegais bit deep and drank blood. My father
lost his life in blood at Nodwengu, but he had washed his spear in the
blood of the whites twice before that. And I, his son, I have to turn
out and work at mending the white man's roads. _Hau_!"
"You will get all your chances of a death in blood--a glorious death in
blood--presently, my sons," said the old assegai-maker, his face
puckered up quizzically. "The whites will take care of that."
"_Au_! I like not this talk," growled one of the group, a much older
man. "It is as if our father were putting bad _muti_ upon the weapons
he is making."
"No _muti_, good or bad, put I on them, Sekun-ya," returned the old man
tranquilly. "The _muti_ is for those who use them."
There was a laugh at this, and then the group fell to talking, and their
topic was the former one--the capture of the white women in the coming
rising. It was not a pleasant conversation. The man who had worked at
the Rand was giving voluble impressions and even experiences of the
great gold town, and his hearers listened delightedly. Such
experiences, however, were not calculated to deepen their respect for
the white man, or for his womenkind. The while the old assegai-maker
worked on. At last he deposited the last blade to cool.
"There, my sons. You will have as many as you can carry--when darkness
falls," he said. "Sapazani has an open hand, yet I would like to have
what comes out of it before these are used, for thereafter nothing may
there be to have. Say that unto the chief."
This they promised to do, amid much merriment. But the old sceptic did
not controvert them; he merely reiterated--
"Say it."
Suddenly a change came over the attitude of the group. They were
suddenly silent, and sat tense and listening.
"_O' Nongqai_!" exclaimed more than one simultaneously.
For to their keen ears was borne the far-away sound of horse-hoofs, and
it was that of several horses. The inference was clear. A police
patrol.
The assegai-maker's kraal was situated in a hollow on a densely bushed
and rugged hillside. Even the smoke of his fire would hardly show above
the tree-tops, yet it was just possible that the secret of its existence
and of its whereabouts might have leaked out. But such a contingency
had been provided against, and Malemba would have had ample time to
conceal all traces of his craft by the time horses could make their way
up that rugged hillside. Quickly the group had melted away and were
speeding for a point whence they could overlook the country beneath.
Three horsemen were advancing along the rough track down on the level,
over two miles distant. The ordinary civilised gaze would have required
glasses to make out their identity, but to the telescopic eyes of these
savages that was plain enough. So plain that they could even
distinguish the sergeant from the two troopers.
One man was dispatched to warn Malemba, and the rest crouched there, and
watched--watched with some anxiety. Were they coming up the hill? No,
they held straight on, heading away in the direction of Ben Halse's
store. And the watchers laughed and chuckled among themselves.
"_O' Nongqai_! Three out of five here. Four there; ten elsewhere.
_Whau_! We shall eat them up easily."
Nevertheless they continued to watch, even after the patrol was out of
sight.