[Illustration]
Child of Storm
by H. Rider Haggard
Contents
DEDICATION
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER I. ALLAN QUATERMAIN HEARS OF MAMEENA
CHAPTER II. THE MOONSHINE OF ZIKALI
CHAPTER III. THE BUFFALO WITH THE CLEFT HORN
CHAPTER IV. MAMEENA
CHAPTER V. TWO BUCKS AND THE DOE
CHAPTER VI. THE AMBUSH
CHAPTER VII. SADUKO BRINGS THE MARRIAGE GIFT
CHAPTER VIII. THE KING’S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER IX. ALLAN RETURNS TO ZULULAND
CHAPTER X. THE SMELLING-OUT
CHAPTER XI. THE SIN OF UMBELAZI
CHAPTER XII. PANDA’S PRAYER
CHAPTER XIII. UMBELAZI THE FALLEN
CHAPTER XIV. UMBEZI AND THE BLOOD ROYAL
CHAPTER XV. MAMEENA CLAIMS THE KISS
CHAPTER XVI. MAMEENA—MAMEENA—MAMEENA!
DEDICATION
Dear Mr. Stuart,
For twenty years, I believe I am right in saying, you, as Assistant
Secretary for Native Affairs in Natal, and in other offices, have been
intimately acquainted with the Zulu people. Moreover, you are one of
the few living men who have made a deep and scientific study of their
language, their customs and their history. So I confess that I was the
more pleased after you were so good as to read this tale—the second
book of the epic of the vengeance of Zikali, “the
Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born,” and of the fall of the House
of Senzangakona[1]—when you wrote to me that it was animated by the
true Zulu spirit.
[1] “Marie” was the first. The third and final act in the drama is yet
to come.
I must admit that my acquaintance with this people dates from a period
which closed almost before your day. What I know of them I gathered at
the time when Cetewayo, of whom my volume tells, was in his glory,
previous to the evil hour in which he found himself driven by the
clamour of his regiments, cut off, as they were, through the annexation
of the Transvaal, from their hereditary trade of war, to match himself
against the British strength. I learned it all by personal observation
in the ‘seventies, or from the lips of the great Shepstone, my chief
and friend, and from my colleagues Osborn, Fynney, Clarke and others,
every one of them long since “gone down.”
Perhaps it may be as well that this is so, at any rate in the case of
one who desires to write of the Zulus as a reigning nation, which now
they have ceased to be, and to try to show them as they were, in all
their superstitious madness and bloodstained grandeur.
Yet then they had virtues as well as vices. To serve their Country in
arms, to die for it and for the King; such was their primitive ideal.
If they were fierce they were loyal, and feared neither wounds nor
doom; if they listened to the dark redes of the witch-doctor, the
trumpet-call of duty sounded still louder in their ears; if, chanting
their terrible “Ingoma,” at the King’s bidding they went forth to slay
unsparingly, at least they were not mean or vulgar. From those who
continually must face the last great issues of life or death meanness
and vulgarity are far removed. These qualities belong to the safe and
crowded haunts of civilised men, not to the kraals of Bantu savages,
where, at any rate of old, they might be sought in vain.
Now everything is changed, or so I hear, and doubtless in the balance
this is best. Still we may wonder what are the thoughts that pass
through the mind of some ancient warrior of Chaka’s or Dingaan’s time,
as he suns himself crouched on the ground, for example, where once
stood the royal kraal, Duguza, and watches men and women of the Zulu
blood passing homeward from the cities or the mines, bemused, some of
them, with the white man’s smuggled liquor, grotesque with the white
man’s cast-off garments, hiding, perhaps, in their blankets examples of
the white man’s doubtful photographs—and then shuts his sunken eyes and
remembers the plumed and kilted regiments making that same ground shake
as, with a thunder of salute, line upon line, company upon company,
they rushed out to battle.
Well, because the latter does not attract me, it is of this former time
that I have tried to write—the time of the Impis and the witch-finders
and the rival princes of the royal House—as I am glad to learn from
you, not quite in vain. Therefore, since you, so great an expert,
approve of my labours in the seldom-travelled field of Zulu story, I
ask you to allow me to set your name upon this page and subscribe
myself,
Gratefully and sincerely yours,
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
Ditchingham, 12_th October_, 1912.
To James Stuart, Esq.,
_Late Assistant Secretary for Native Affairs, Natal._
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Mr. Allan Quatermain’s story of the wicked and fascinating Mameena, a
kind of Zulu Helen, has, it should be stated, a broad foundation in
historical fact. Leaving Mameena and her wiles on one side, the tale of
the struggle between the Princes Cetewayo and Umbelazi for succession
to the throne of Zululand is true.
When the differences between these sons of his became intolerable,
because of the tumult which they were causing in his country, King
Panda, their father, the son of Senzangakona, and the brother of the
great Chaka and of Dingaan, who had ruled before him, did say that
“when two young bulls quarrel they had better fight it out.” So, at
least, I was told by the late Mr. F. B. Fynney, my colleague at the
time of the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, who, as Zulu Border
Agent, with the exceptions of the late Sir Theophilus Shepstone and the
late Sir Melmoth Osborn, perhaps knew more of that land and people than
anyone else of his period.
As a result of this hint given by a maddened king, the great battle of
the Tugela was fought at Endondakusuka in December, 1856, between the
_Usutu_ party, commanded by Cetewayo, and the adherents of Umbelazi the
Handsome, his brother, who was known among the Zulus as
“_Indhlovu-ene-Sihlonti_,” or the “Elephant with the tuft of hair,”
from a little lock of hair which grew low down upon his back.
My friend, Sir Melmoth Osborn, who died in or about the year 1897, was
present at this battle, although not as a combatant. Well do I remember
his thrilling story, told to me over thirty years ago, of the events of
that awful day.
Early in the morning, or during the previous night, I forget which, he
swam his horse across the Tugela and hid with it in a bush-clad kopje,
blindfolding the animal with his coat lest it should betray him. As it
chanced, the great fight of the day, that of the regiment of veterans,
which Sir Melmoth informed me Panda had sent down at the last moment to
the assistance of Umbelazi, his favourite son, took place almost at the
foot of this kopje. Mr. Quatermain, in his narrative, calls this
regiment the Amawombe, but my recollection is that the name Sir Melmoth
Osborn gave them was “The Greys” or _Upunga_.
Whatever their exact title may have been, however, they made a great
stand. At least, he told me that when Umbelazi’s impi, or army, began
to give before the _Usutu_ onslaught, these “Greys” moved forward above
3,000 strong, drawn up in a triple line, and were charged by one of
Cetewayo’s regiments.
The opposing forces met, and the noise of their clashing shields, said
Sir Melmoth, was like the roll of heavy thunder. Then, while he
watched, the veteran “Greys” passed over the opposing regiment “as a
wave passes over a rock”—these were his exact words—and, leaving about
a third of their number dead or wounded among the bodies of the
annihilated foe, charged on to meet a second regiment sent against them
by Cetewayo. With these the struggle was repeated, but again the
“Greys” conquered. Only now there were not more than five or six
hundred of them left upon their feet.
These survivors ran to a mound, round which they formed a ring, and
here for a long while withstood the attack of a third regiment, until
at length they perished almost to a man, buried beneath heaps of their
slain assailants, the _Usutu_.
Truly they made a noble end fighting thus against tremendous odds!
As for the number who fell at this battle of Endondakusuka, Mr. Fynney,
in a pamphlet which he wrote, says that six of Umbelazi’s brothers
died, “whilst it is estimated that upwards of 100,000 of the
people—men, women and children—were slain”—a high and indeed an
impossible estimate.
That curious personage named John Dunn, an Englishman who became a Zulu
chief, and who actually fought in this battle, as narrated by Mr.
Quatermain, however, puts the number much lower. What the true total
was will never be known; but Sir Melmoth Osborn told me that when he
swam his horse back across the Tugela that night it was black with
bodies; and Sir Theophilus Shepstone also told me that when he visited
the scene a day or two later the banks of the river were strewn with
multitudes of them, male and female.
It was from Mr. Fynney that I heard the story of the execution by
Cetewayo of the man who appeared before him with the ornaments of
Umbelazi, announcing that he had killed the prince with his own hand.
Of course, this tale, as Mr. Quatermain points out, bears a striking
resemblance to that recorded in the Old Testament in connection with
the death of King Saul.
It by no means follows, however, that it is therefore apocryphal;
indeed, Mr. Fynney assured me that it was quite true, although, if he
gave me his authorities, I cannot remember them after a lapse of more
than thirty years.
The exact circumstances of Umbelazi’s death are unknown, but the
general report was that he died, not by the assegais of the _Usutu_,
but of a broken heart. Another story declares that he was drowned. His
body was never found, and it is therefore probable that it sank in the
Tugela, as is suggested in the following pages.
I have only to add that it is quite in accordance with Zulu beliefs
that a man should be haunted by the ghost of one whom he has murdered
or betrayed, or, to be more accurate, that the spirit (_umoya_) should
enter into the slayer and drive him mad. Or, in such a case, that
spirit might bring misfortune upon him, his family, or his tribe.
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
Chapter I.
ALLAN QUATERMAIN HEARS OF MAMEENA
We white people think that we know everything. For instance, we think
that we understand human nature. And so we do, as human nature appears
to us, with all its trappings and accessories seen dimly through the
glass of our conventions, leaving out those aspects of it which we have
forgotten or do not think it polite to mention. But I, Allan
Quatermain, reflecting upon these matters in my ignorant and uneducated
fashion, have always held that no one really understands human nature
who has not studied it in the rough. Well, that is the aspect of it
with which I have been best acquainted.
For most of the years of my life I have handled the raw material, the
virgin ore, not the finished ornament that is smelted out of it—if,
indeed, it is finished yet, which I greatly doubt. I dare say that a
time may come when the perfected generations—if Civilisation, as we
understand it, really has a future and any such should be allowed to
enjoy their hour on the World—will look back to us as crude,
half-developed creatures whose only merit was that we handed on the
flame of life.
Maybe, maybe, for everything goes by comparison; and at one end of the
ladder is the ape-man, and at the other, as we hope, the angel. No, not
the angel; he belongs to a different sphere, but that last expression
of humanity upon which I will not speculate. While man is man—that is,
before he suffers the magical death-change into spirit, if such should
be his destiny—well, he will remain man. I mean that the same passions
will sway him; he will aim at the same ambitions; he will know the same
joys and be oppressed by the same fears, whether he lives in a Kafir
hut or in a golden palace; whether he walks upon his two feet or, as
for aught I know he may do one day, flies through the air. This is
certain: that in the flesh he can never escape from our atmosphere, and
while he breathes it, in the main with some variations prescribed by
climate, local law and religion, he will do much as his forefathers did
for countless ages.
That is why I have always found the savage so interesting, for in him,
nakedly and forcibly expressed, we see those eternal principles which
direct our human destiny.
To descend from these generalities, that is why also I, who hate
writing, have thought it worth while, at the cost of some labour to
myself, to occupy my leisure in what to me is a strange land—for
although I was born in England, it is not my country—in setting down
various experiences of my life that do, in my opinion, interpret this
our universal nature. I dare say that no one will ever read them;
still, perhaps they are worthy of record, and who knows? In days to
come they may fall into the hands of others and prove of value. At any
rate, they are true stories of interesting peoples, who, if they should
survive in the savage competition of the nations, probably are doomed
to undergo great changes. Therefore I tell of them before they began to
change.
Now, although I take it out of its strict chronological order, the
first of these histories that I wish to preserve is in the main that of
an extremely beautiful woman—with the exception of a certain Nada,
called “the Lily,” of whom I hope to speak some day, I think the most
beautiful that ever lived among the Zulus. Also she was, I think, the
most able, the most wicked, and the most ambitious. Her attractive
name—for it was very attractive as the Zulus said it, especially those
of them who were in love with her—was Mameena, daughter of Umbezi. Her
other name was Child of Storm (_Ingane-ye-Sipepo_, or, more freely and
shortly, _O-we-Zulu_), but the word “Ma-mee-na” had its origin in the
sound of the wind that wailed about the hut when she was born.[1]
[1] The Zulu word _Meena_—or more correctly _Mina_—means “Come here,”
and would therefore be a name not unsuitable to one of the heroine’s
proclivities; but Mr. Quatermain does not seem to accept this
interpretation.—EDITOR.
Since I have been settled in England I have read—of course in a
translation—the story of Helen of Troy, as told by the Greek poet,
Homer. Well, Mameena reminds me very much of Helen, or, rather, Helen
reminds me of Mameena. At any rate, there was this in common between
them, although one of them was black, or, rather, copper-coloured, and
the other white—they both were lovely; moreover, they both were
faithless, and brought men by hundreds to their deaths. There, perhaps,
the resemblance ends, since Mameena had much more fire and grit than
Helen could boast, who, unless Homer misrepresents her, must have been
but a poor thing after all. Beauty Itself, which those old rascals of
Greek gods made use of to bait their snares set for the lives and
honour of men, such was Helen, no more; that is, as I understand her,
who have not had the advantage of a classical education. Now, Mameena,
although she was superstitious—a common weakness of great
minds—acknowledging no gods in particular, as we understand them, set
her own snares, with varying success but a very definite object,
namely, that of becoming the first woman in the world as she knew
it—the stormy, bloodstained world of the Zulus.
But the reader shall judge for himself, if ever such a person should
chance to cast his eye upon this history.
It was in the year 1854 that I first met Mameena, and my acquaintance
with her continued off and on until 1856, when it came to an end in a
fashion that shall be told after the fearful battle of the Tugela in
which Umbelazi, Panda’s son and Cetewayo’s brother—who, to his sorrow,
had also met Mameena—lost his life. I was still a youngish man in those
days, although I had already buried my second wife, as I have told
elsewhere, after our brief but happy time of marriage.
Leaving my boy in charge of some kind people in Durban, I started into
“the Zulu”—a land with which I had already become well acquainted as a
youth, there to carry on my wild life of trading and hunting.
For the trading I never cared much, as may be guessed from the little
that ever I made out of it, the art of traffic being in truth repugnant
to me. But hunting was always the breath of my nostrils—not that I am
fond of killing creatures, for any humane man soon wearies of
slaughter. No, it is the excitement of sport, which, before
breechloaders came in, was acute enough, I can assure you; the lonely
existence in wild places, often with only the sun and the stars for
companions; the continual adventures; the strange tribes with whom I
came in contact; in short, the change, the danger, the hope always of
finding something great and new, that attracted and still attracts me,
even now when I _have_ found the great and the new. There, I must not
go on writing like this, or I shall throw down my pen and book a
passage for Africa, and incidentally to the next world, no doubt—that
world of the great and new!
It was, I think, in the month of May in the year 1854 that I went
hunting in rough country between the White and Black Umvolosi Rivers,
by permission of Panda—whom the Boers had made king of Zululand after
the defeat and death of Dingaan his brother. The district was very
feverish, and for this reason I had entered it in the winter months.
There was so much bush that, in the total absence of roads, I thought
it wise not to attempt to bring my wagons down, and as no horses would
live in that veld I went on foot. My principal companions were a Kafir
of mixed origin, called Sikauli, commonly abbreviated into Scowl, the
Zulu chief Saduko, and a headman of the Undwandwe blood named Umbezi,
at whose kraal on the high land about thirty miles away I left my wagon
and certain of my men in charge of the goods and some ivory that I had
traded.
This Umbezi was a stout and genial-mannered man of about sixty years of
age, and, what is rare among these people, one who loved sport for its
own sake. Being aware of his tastes, also that he knew the country and
was skilled in finding game, I had promised him a gun if he would
accompany me and bring a few hunters. It was a particularly bad gun
that had seen much service, and one which had an unpleasing habit of
going off at half-cock; but even after he had seen it, and I in my
honesty had explained its weaknesses, he jumped at the offer.
“O Macumazana” (that is my native name, often abbreviated into
Macumazahn, which means “One who stands out,” or as many interpret it,
I don’t know how, “Watcher-by-Night”)—“a gun that goes off sometimes
when you do not expect it is much better than no gun at all, and you
are a chief with a great heart to promise it to me, for when I own the
White Man’s weapon I shall be looked up to and feared by everyone
between the two rivers.”
Now, while he was speaking he handled the gun, that was loaded,
observing which I moved behind him. Off it went in due course, its
recoil knocking him backwards—for that gun was a devil to kick—and its
bullet cutting the top off the ear of one of his wives. The lady fled
screaming, leaving a little bit of her ear upon the ground.
“What does it matter?” said Umbezi, as he picked himself up, rubbing
his shoulder with a rueful look. “Would that the evil spirit in the gun
had cut off her tongue and not her ear! It is the Worn-out-Old-Cow’s
own fault; she is always peeping into everything like a monkey. Now she
will have something to chatter about and leave my things alone for
awhile. I thank my ancestral Spirit it was not Mameena, for then her
looks would have been spoiled.”
“Who is Mameena?” I asked. “Your last wife?”
“No, no, Macumazahn; I wish she were, for then I should have the most
beautiful wife in the land. She is my daughter, though not that of the
Worn-out-Old-Cow; her mother died when she was born, on the night of
the Great Storm. You should ask Saduko there who Mameena is,” he added
with a broad grin, lifting his head from the gun, which he was
examining gingerly, as though he thought it might go off again while
unloaded, and nodding towards someone who stood behind him.
I turned, and for the first time saw Saduko, whom I recognised at once
as a person quite out of the ordinary run of natives.
He was a tall and magnificently formed young man, who, although his
breast was scarred with assegai wounds, showing that he was a warrior,
had not yet attained to the honour of the “ring” of polished wax laid
over strips of rush bound round with sinew and sewn to the hair, the
_isicoco_ which at a certain age or dignity, determined by the king,
Zulus are allowed to assume. But his face struck me more even than his
grace, strength and stature. Undoubtedly it was a very fine face, with
little or nothing of the negroid type about it; indeed, he might have
been a rather dark-coloured Arab, to which stock he probably threw
back. The eyes, too, were large and rather melancholy, and in his
reserved, dignified air there was something that showed him to be no
common fellow, but one of breeding and intellect.
“_Siyakubona_ (that is, “we see you,” _anglice_ “good morrow”)
“Saduko,” I said, eyeing him curiously. “Tell me, who is Mameena?”
“_Inkoosi_,” he answered in his deep voice, lifting his delicately
shaped hand in salutation, a courtesy that pleased me who, after all,
was nothing but a white hunter, “_Inkoosi_, has not her father said
that she is his daughter?”
“Aye,” answered the jolly old Umbezi, “but what her father has not said
is that Saduko is her lover, or, rather, would like to be. _Wow!_
Saduko,” he went on, shaking his fat finger at him, “are you mad, man,
that you think a girl like that is for you? Give me a hundred cattle,
not one less, and I will begin to think of it. Why, you have not ten,
and Mameena is my eldest daughter, and must marry a rich man.”
“She loves me, O Umbezi,” answered Saduko, looking down, “and that is
more than cattle.”
“For you, perhaps, Saduko, but not for me who am poor and want cows.
Also,” he added, glancing at him shrewdly, “are you so sure that
Mameena loves you though you be such a fine man? Now, I should have
thought that whatever her eyes may say, her heart loves no one but
herself, and that in the end she will follow her heart and not her
eyes. Mameena the beautiful does not seek to be a poor man’s wife and
do all the hoeing. But bring me the hundred cattle and we will see,
for, speaking truth from my heart, if you were a big chief there is no
one I should like better as a son-in-law, unless it were Macumazahn
here,” he said, digging me in the ribs with his elbow, “who would lift
up my House on his white back.”
Now, at this speech Saduko shifted his feet uneasily; it seemed to me
as though he felt there was truth in Umbezi’s estimate of his
daughter’s character. But he only said:
“Cattle can be acquired.”
“Or stolen,” suggested Umbezi.
“Or taken in war,” corrected Saduko. “When I have a hundred head I will
hold you to your word, O father of Mameena.”
“And then what would you live on, fool, if you gave all your beasts to
me? There, there, cease talking wind. Before you have a hundred head of
cattle Mameena will have six children who will not call _you_ father.
Ah, don’t you like that? Are you going away?”
“Yes, I am going,” he answered, with a flash of his quiet eyes; “only
then let the man whom they do call father beware of Saduko.”
“Beware of how you talk, young man,” said Umbezi in a grave voice.
“Would you travel your father’s road? I hope not, for I like you well;
but such words are apt to be remembered.”
Saduko walked away as though he did not hear.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“One of high blood,” answered Umbezi shortly. “He might be a chief
to-day had not his father been a plotter and a wizard. Dingaan smelt
him out”—and he made a sideways motion with his hand that among the
Zulus means much. “Yes, they were killed, almost every one; the chief,
his wives, his children and his headmen—every one except Chosa his
brother and his son Saduko, whom Zikali the dwarf, the
Smeller-out-of-evil-doers, the Ancient, who was old before Senzangakona
became a father of kings, hid him. There, that is an evil tale to talk
of,” and he shivered. “Come, White Man, and doctor that old Cow of
mine, or she will give me no peace for months.”
So I went to see the Worn-out-Old-Cow—not because I had any particular
interest in her, for, to tell the truth, she was a very disagreeable
and antique person, the cast-off wife of some chief whom at an unknown
date in the past the astute Umbezi had married from motives of
policy—but because I hoped to hear more of Miss Mameena, in whom I had
become interested.
Entering a large hut, I found the lady so impolitely named “the Old
Cow” in a parlous state. There she lay upon the floor, an unpleasant
object because of the blood that had escaped from her wound, surrounded
by a crowd of other women and of children. At regular intervals she
announced that she was dying, and emitted a fearful yell, whereupon all
the audience yelled also; in short, the place was a perfect
pandemonium.
Telling Umbezi to get the hut cleared, I said that I would go to fetch
my medicines. Meanwhile I ordered my servant, Scowl, a humorous-looking
fellow, light yellow in hue, for he had a strong dash of Hottentot in
his composition, to cleanse the wound. When I returned from the wagon
ten minutes later the screams were more terrible than before, although
the chorus now stood without the hut. Nor was this altogether
wonderful, for on entering the place I found Scowl trimming up “the Old
Cow’s” ear with a pair of blunt nail-scissors.
“O Macumazana,” said Umbezi in a hoarse whisper, “might it not perhaps
be as well to leave her alone? If she bled to death, at any rate she
would be quieter.”
“Are you a man or a hyena?” I answered sternly, and set about the job,
Scowl holding the poor woman’s head between his knees.
It was over at length; a simple operation in which I exhibited—I
believe that is the medical term—a strong solution of caustic applied
with a feather.
“There, Mother,” I said, for now we were alone in the hut, whence Scowl
had fled, badly bitten in the calf, “you won’t die now.”
“No, you vile White Man,” she sobbed. “I shan’t die, but how about my
beauty?”
“It will be greater than ever,” I answered; “no one else will have an
ear with such a curve in it. But, talking of beauty, where is Mameena?”
“I don’t know where she is,” she replied with fury, “but I very well
know where she would be if I had my way. That peeled willow-wand of a
girl”—here she added certain descriptive epithets I will not
repeat—“has brought this misfortune upon me. We had a slight quarrel
yesterday, White Man, and, being a witch as she is, she prophesied
evil. Yes, when by accident I scratched her ear, she said that before
long mine should burn, and surely burn it does.” (This, no doubt, was
true, for the caustic had begun to bite.)
“O devil of a White Man,” she went on, “you have bewitched me; you have
filled my head with fire.”
Then she seized an earthenware pot and hurled it at me, saying, “Take
that for your doctor-fee. Go, crawl after Mameena like the others and
get her to doctor you.”
By this time I was half through the bee-hole of the hut, my movements
being hastened by a vessel of hot water which landed on me behind.
“What is the matter, Macumazahn?” asked old Umbezi, who was waiting
outside.
“Nothing at all, friend,” I answered with a sweet smile, “except that
your wife wants to see you at once. She is in pain, and wishes you to
soothe her. Go in; do not hesitate.”
After a moment’s pause he went in—that is, half of him went in. Then
came a fearful crash, and he emerged again with the rim of a pot about
his neck and his countenance veiled in a coating of what I took to be
honey.
“Where is Mameena?” I asked him as he sat up spluttering.
“Where I wish I was,” he answered in a thick voice; “at a kraal five
hours’ journey away.”
Well, that was the first I heard of Mameena.
That night as I sat smoking my pipe under the flap lean-to attached to
the wagon, laughing to myself over the adventure of “the Old Cow,”
falsely described as “worn out,” and wondering whether Umbezi had got
the honey out of his hair, the canvas was lifted, and a Kafir wrapped
in a kaross crept in and squatted before me.
“Who are you?” I asked, for it was too dark to see the man’s face.
“_Inkoosi_,” answered a deep voice, “I am Saduko.”
“You are welcome,” I answered, handing him a little gourd of snuff in
token of hospitality. Then I waited while he poured some of the snuff
into the palm of his hand and took it in the usual fashion.
“_Inkoosi_,” he said, when he had scraped away the tears produced by
the snuff, “I have come to ask you a favour. You heard Umbezi say
to-day that he will not give me his daughter, Mameena, unless I give
him a hundred head of cows. Now, I have not got the cattle, and I
cannot earn them by work in many years. Therefore I must take them from
a certain tribe I know which is at war with the Zulus. But this I
cannot do unless I have a gun. If I had a good gun, _Inkoosi_—one that
only goes off when it is asked, and not of its own fancy, I who have
some name could persuade a number of men whom I know, who once were
servants of my father, or their sons, to be my companions in this
venture.”
“Do I understand that you wish me to give you one of my good guns with
two mouths to it (i.e. double-barrelled), a gun worth at least twelve
oxen, for nothing, O Saduko?” I asked in a cold and scandalised voice.
“Not so, O Watcher-by-Night,” he answered; “not so, O
He-who-sleeps-with-one-eye-open” (another free and difficult rendering
of my native name, Macumazahn, or more correctly, Macumazana)—“I should
never dream of offering such an insult to your high-born intelligence.”
He paused and took another pinch of snuff, then went on in a meditative
voice: “Where I propose to get those hundred cattle there are many
more; I am told not less than a thousand head in all. Now, _Inkoosi_,”
he added, looking at me sideways, “suppose you gave me the gun I ask
for, and suppose you accompanied me with your own gun and your armed
hunters, it would be fair that you should have half the cattle, would
it not?”
“That’s cool,” I said. “So, young man, you want to turn me into a
cow-thief and get my throat cut by Panda for breaking the peace of his
country?”
“Neither, Macumazahn, for these are my own cattle. Listen, now, and I
will tell you a story. You have heard of Matiwane, the chief of the
Amangwane?”
“Yes,” I answered. “His tribe lived near the head of the Umzinyati, did
they not? Then they were beaten by the Boers or the English, and
Matiwane came under the Zulus. But afterwards Dingaan wiped him out,
with his House, and now his people are killed or scattered.”
“Yes, his people are killed and scattered, but his House still lives.
Macumazahn, I am his House, I, the only son of his chief wife, for
Zikali the Wise Little One, the Ancient, who is of the Amangwane blood,
and who hated Chaka and Dingaan—yes, and Senzangakona their father
before them, but whom none of them could kill because he is so great
and has such mighty spirits for his servants, saved and sheltered me.”
“If he is so great, why, then, did he not save your father also,
Saduko?” I asked, as though I knew nothing of this Zikali.
“I cannot say, Macumazahn. Perhaps the spirits plant a tree for
themselves, and to do so cut down many other trees. At least, so it
happened. It happened thus: Bangu, chief of the Amakoba, whispered into
Dingaan’s ear that Matiwane, my father, was a wizard; also that he was
very rich. Dingaan listened because he thought a sickness that he had
came from Matiwane’s witchcraft. He said: ‘Go, Bangu, and take a
company with you and pay Matiwane a visit of honour, and in the night,
O in the night! Afterwards, Bangu, we will divide the cattle, for
Matiwane is strong and clever, and you shall not risk your life for
nothing.’”
Saduko paused and looked down at the ground, brooding heavily.
“Macumazahn, it was done,” he said presently. “They ate my father’s
meat, they drank his beer; they gave him a present from the king, they
praised him with high names; yes, Bangu took snuff with him and called
him brother. Then in the night, O in the night—!
“My father was in the hut with my mother, and I, so big only”—and he
held his hand at the height of a boy of ten—“was with them. The cry
arose, the flames began to eat; my father looked out and saw. ‘Break
through the fence and away, woman,’ he said; ‘away with Saduko, that he
may live to avenge me. Begone while I hold the gate! Begone to Zikali,
for whose witchcrafts I pay with my blood.’
“Then he kissed me on the brow, saying but one word, ‘Remember,’ and
thrust us from the hut.
“My mother broke a way through the fence; yes, she tore at it with her
nails and teeth like a hyena. I looked back out of the shadow of the
hut and saw Matiwane my father fighting like a buffalo. Men went down
before him, one, two, three, although he had no shield: only his spear.
Then Bangu crept behind him and stabbed him in the back and he threw up
his arms and fell. I saw no more, for by now we were through the fence.
We ran, but they perceived us. They hunted us as wild dogs hunt a buck.
They killed my mother with a throwing assegai; it entered at her back
and came out at her heart. I went mad, I drew it from her body, I ran
at them. I dived beneath the shield of the first, a very tall man, and
held the spear, so, in both my little hands. His weight came upon its
point and it went through him as though he were but a bowl of
buttermilk. Yes, he rolled over, quite dead, and the handle of the
spear broke upon the ground. Now the others stopped astonished, for
never had they seen such a thing. That a child should kill a tall
warrior, oh! that tale had not been told. Some of them would have let
me go, but just then Bangu came up and saw the dead man, who was his
brother.
“‘_Wow!_’ he said when he knew how the man had died. ‘This lion’s cub
is a wizard also, for how else could he have killed a soldier who has
known war? Hold out his arms that I may finish him slowly.’
“So two of them held out my arms, and Bangu came up with his spear.”
Saduko ceased speaking, not that his tale was done, but because his
voice choked in his throat. Indeed, seldom have I seen a man so moved.
He breathed in great gasps, the sweat poured from him, and his muscles
worked convulsively. I gave him a pannikin of water and he drank, then
he went on:
“Already the spear had begun to prick—look, here is the mark of it”—and
opening his kaross he pointed to a little white line just below the
breast-bone—“when a strange shadow thrown by the fire of the burning
huts came between Bangu and me, a shadow as that of a toad standing on
its hind legs. I looked round and saw that it was the shadow of Zikali,
whom I had seen once or twice. There he stood, though whence he came I
know not, wagging his great white head that sits on the top of his body
like a pumpkin on an ant-heap, rolling his big eyes and laughing
loudly.
“‘A merry sight,’ he cried in his deep voice that sounded like water in
a hollow cave. ‘A merry sight, O Bangu, Chief of the Amakoba! Blood,
blood, plenty of blood! Fire, fire, plenty of fire! Wizards dead here,
there, and everywhere! Oh, a merry sight! I have seen many such; one at
the kraal of your grandmother, for instance—your grandmother the great
_Inkosikazi_, when myself I escaped with my life because I was so old;
but never do I remember a merrier than that which this moon shines on,’
and he pointed to the White Lady who just then broke through the
clouds. ‘But, great Chief Bangu, lord loved by the son of Senzangakona,
brother of the Black One (Chaka) who has ridden hence on the assegai,
what is the meaning of _this_ play?’ and he pointed to me and to the
two soldiers who held out my little arms.
“‘I kill the wizard’s cub, Zikali, that is all,’ answered Bangu.
“‘I see, I see,’ laughed Zikali. ‘A gallant deed! You have butchered
the father and the mother, and now you would butcher the child who has
slain one of your grown warriors in fair fight. A very gallant deed,
well worthy of the chief of the Amakoba! Well, loose his spirit—only—’
He stopped and took a pinch of snuff from a box which he drew from a
slit in the lobe of his great ear.
“‘Only what?’ asked Bangu, hesitating.
“‘Only I wonder, Bangu, what you will think of the world in which you
will find yourself before to-morrow’s moon arises. Come back thence and
tell me, Bangu, for there are so many worlds beyond the sun, and I
would learn for certain which of them such a one as you inhabits: a man
who for hatred and for gain murders the father and the mother and then
butchers the child—the child that could slay a warrior who has seen
war—with the spear hot from his mother’s heart.’
“‘Do you mean that I shall die if I kill this lad?’ shouted Bangu in a
great voice.
“‘What else?’ answered Zikali, taking another pinch of snuff.
“‘This, Wizard; that we will go together.’
“‘Good, good!’ laughed the dwarf. ‘Let us go together. Long have I
wished to die, and what better companion could I find than Bangu, Chief
of the Amakoba, Slayer of Children, to guard me on a dark and terrible
road. Come, brave Bangu, come; kill me if you can,’ and again he
laughed at him.
“Now, Macumazahn, the people of Bangu fell back muttering, for they
found this business horrible. Yes, even those who held my arms let go
of them.
“‘What will happen to me, Wizard, if I spare the boy?’ asked Bangu.
“Zikali stretched out his hand and touched the scratch that the assegai
had made in me here. Then he held up his finger red with my blood, and
looked at it in the light of the moon; yes, and tasted it with his
tongue.
“‘I think this will happen to you, Bangu,’ he said. ‘If you spare this
boy he will grow into a man who will kill you and many others one day.
But if you do not spare him I think that his spirit, working as spirits
can do, will kill you to-morrow. Therefore the question is, will you
live a while or will you die at once, taking me with you as your
companion? For you must not leave me behind, brother Bangu.’
“Now Bangu turned and walked away, stepping over the body of my mother,
and all his people walked away after him, so that presently Zikali the
Wise and Little and I were left alone.
“‘What! have they gone?’ said Zikali, lifting up his eyes from the
ground. ‘Then we had better be going also, Son of Matiwane, lest he
should change his mind and come back. Live on, Son of Matiwane, that
you may avenge Matiwane.’”
“A nice tale,” I said. “But what happened afterwards?”
“Zikali took me away and nurtured me at his kraal in the Black Kloof,
where he lived alone save for his servants, for in that kraal he would
suffer no woman to set foot, Macumazahn. He taught me much wisdom and
many secret things, and would have made a great doctor of me had I so
willed. But I willed it not who find spirits ill company, and there are
many of them about the Black Kloof, Macumazahn. So in the end he said:
‘Go where your heart calls, and be a warrior, Saduko. But know this:
You have opened a door that can never be shut again, and across the
threshold of that door spirits will pass in and out for all your life,
whether you seek them or seek them not.’
“‘It was you who opened the door, Zikali,’ I answered angrily.
“‘Mayhap,’ said Zikali, laughing after his fashion, ‘for I open when I
must and shut when I must. Indeed, in my youth, before the Zulus were a
people, they named me Opener of Doors; and now, looking through one of
those doors, I see something about you, O Son of Matiwane.’
“‘What do you see, my father?’ I asked.
“‘I see two roads, Saduko: the Road of Medicine, that is the spirit
road, and the Road of Spears, that is the blood road. I see you
travelling on the Road of Medicine, that is my own road, Saduko, and
growing wise and great, till at last, far, far away, you vanish over
the precipice to which it leads, full of years and honour and wealth,
feared yet beloved by all men, white and black. Only that road you must
travel alone, since such wisdom may have no friends, and, above all, no
woman to share its secrets. Then I look at the Road of Spears and see
you, Saduko, travelling on that road, and your feet are red with blood,
and women wind their arms about your neck, and one by one your enemies
go down before you. You love much, and sin much for the sake of the
love, and she for whom you sin comes and goes and comes again. And the
road is short, Saduko, and near the end of it are many spirits; and
though you shut your eyes you see them, and though you fill your ears
with clay you hear them, for they are the ghosts of your slain. But the
end of your journeying I see not. Now choose which road you will, Son
of Matiwane, and choose swiftly, for I speak no more of this matter.’
“Then, Macumazahn, I thought a while of the safe and lonely path of
wisdom, also of the blood-red path of spears where I should find love
and war, and my youth rose up in me and—I chose the path of spears and
the love and the sin and the unknown death.”
“A foolish choice, Saduko, supposing that there is any truth in this
tale of roads, which there is not.”
“Nay, a wise one, Macumazahn, for since then I have seen Mameena and
know why I chose that path.”
“Ah!” I said. “Mameena—I forgot her. Well, after all, perhaps there is
some truth in your tale of roads. When _I_ have seen Mameena I will
tell you what I think.”
“When you have seen Mameena, Macumazahn, you will say that the choice
was very wise. Well, Zikali, Opener of Doors, laughed loudly when he
heard it. ‘The ox seeks the fat pasture, but the young bull the rough
mountainside where the heifers graze,’ he said; ‘and after all, a bull
is better than an ox. Now begin to travel your own road, Son of
Matiwane, and from time to time return to the Black Kloof and tell me
how it fares with you. I will promise you not to die before I know the
end of it.’
“Now, Macumazahn, I have told you things that hitherto have lived in my
own heart only. And, Macumazahn, Bangu is in ill favour with Panda,
whom he defies in his mountain, and I have a promise—never mind
how—that he who kills him will be called to no account and may keep his
cattle. Will you come with me and share those cattle, O
Watcher-by-Night?”
“Get thee behind me, Satan,” I said in English, then added in Zulu: “I
don’t know. If your story is true I should have no objection to helping
to kill Bangu; but I must learn lots more about this business first.
Meanwhile I am going on a shooting trip to-morrow with Umbezi the Fat,
and I like you, O Chooser of the Road of Spears and Blood. Will you be
my companion and earn the gun with two mouths in payment?”
“_Inkoosi_,” he said, lifting his hand in salute with a flash of his
dark eyes, “you are generous, you honour me. What is there that I
should love better? Yet,” he added, and his face fell, “first I must
ask Zikali the Little, Zikali my foster-father.”
“Oh!” I said, “so you are still tied to the Wizard’s girdle, are you?”
“Not so, Macumazahn; but I promised him not long ago that I would
undertake no enterprise, save that you know of, until I had spoken with
him.”
“How far off does Zikali live?” I asked Saduko.
“One day’s journeying. Starting at sunrise I can be there by sunset.”
“Good! Then I will put off the shooting for three days and come with
you if you think that this wonderful old dwarf will receive me.”
“I believe that he will, Macumazahn, for this reason—he told me that I
should meet you and love you, and that you would be mixed up in my
fortunes.”
“Then he poured moonshine into your gourd instead of beer,” I answered.
“Would you keep me here till midnight listening to such foolishness
when we must start at dawn? Begone now and let me sleep.”
“I go,” he answered with a little smile. “But if this is so, O
Macumazana, why do you also wish to drink of the moonshine of Zikali?”
and he went.
Yet I did not sleep very well that night, for Saduko and his strange
and terrible story had taken a hold of my imagination. Also, for
reasons of my own, I greatly wished to see this Zikali, of whom I had
heard a great deal in past years. I wished further to find out if he
was a common humbug, like so many witch-doctors, this dwarf who
announced that my fortunes were mixed up with those of his foster-son,
and who at least could tell me something true or false about the
history and position of Bangu, a person for whom I had conceived a
strong dislike, possibly quite unjustified by the facts. But more than
all did I wish to see Mameena, whose beauty or talents produced so much
impression upon the native mind. Perhaps if I went to see Zikali she
would be back at her father’s kraal before we started on our shooting
trip.
Thus it was then that fate wove me and my doings into the web of some
very strange events; terrible, tragic and complete indeed as those of a
Greek play, as it has often done both before and since those days.