NOMBÉ
The Swazis, shivering, for all these people hate cold, and shaking
themselves like a dog when he comes to shore, gathered round, examining
me.
“Why!” said one of them, an elderly man who seemed to be their leader,
“this is none other than Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, the old friend
of all us black people. Surely the spirits of our fathers have been
with us who might have risked our lives to save a Boer or a
half-breed.” (The Swazis, I may explain, did not like the Boers for
reasons they considered sound.)
“Yes,” I said, sitting up, “it is I, Macumazahn.”
“Then why,” asked the man, “did you, whom all know to be wise, show
yourself to have suddenly become a fool?” and he pointed to the raging
river.
“And why,” I asked, “do you show yourself a fool by supposing that I,
whom you know to be none, am a fool? Look across the water for your
answer.”
He looked and saw the Basutos, fifty or more of them, arriving, just
too late.
“Who are these?” he asked.
“They are the people of Sekukuni whom you should know well enough. They
have hunted us all night, yes, and before, seeking to murder us; also
they have stolen our oxen, thirty-two fine oxen which I give to your
king if he can take them back. Now perhaps you understand why we dared
the Crocodile River in its rage.”
At the name of Sekukuni the man, who it seemed was the captain of some
border guards, stiffened all over like a terrier which perceives a rat.
“What!” he exclaimed, “do these dirty Basuto dogs dare to carry spears
so near our country? Have they not yet learned their lesson?”
Then he rushed into the water, shaking an assegai he had snatched up,
and shouted,
“Bide a while, you fleas from the kaross of Sekukuni, till I can come
across and crack you between my thumb and finger. Or at the least wait
until Macumazahn has time to get his rifle. No, put down those guns of
yours; for every shot you fire I swear that I will cut ten Basuto
throats when we come to storm your koppies, as we shall do ere long.”
“Be silent,” I said, “and let me speak.”
Then I, too, called across the river, asking where was that fat captain
of theirs, as I would talk with him. One of the men shouted back that
he had stopped behind, very sick, because of a ghost that he had seen.
“Ah!” I answered, “a ghost who pricked him in the throat. Well, I was
that ghost, and such are the things that happen to those who would harm
Macumazahn and his friends. Did you not say last night that he is a
leopard who leaps out in the dark, bites and is gone again?”
“Yes,” the man shouted back, “and it is true, though had we known, O
Macumazahn, that you were the ghost hiding in those stones, you should
never have leapt again. Oh! that white medicine-man who is dead has
sent us on a mad errand.”
“So you will think when I come to visit you among your koppies. Go home
and take a message from Macumazahn to Sekukuni, who believes that the
English have run away from him. Tell him that they will return again
and these Swazis with them, and that then he will cease to live and his
town will be burnt and his tribe will no more be a tribe. Away now,
more swiftly than you came, since the water by which you thought to
trap us is falling, and a Swazi impi gathers to make an end of every
one of you.”
The man attempted no answer, nor did his people so much as fire on us.
They turned tail and crept off like a pack of frightened
jackals—pursued by the mocking of the Swazis.
Still in a way they had the laugh of us, seeing that they gave us a
terrible fright and stole our wagon and thirty-two oxen. Well, a year
or two later I helped to pay them back for that fright and even
recovered some of the oxen.
When they had gone the Swazis led us to a kraal about two miles from
the river, sending on a runner with orders to make huts and food ready
for us. It was just as much as we could do to reach it, for we were all
utterly worn out, as were the horses. Still we did get there at last,
the hot sun warming us as we went. Arrived at the kraal I helped Heda
and Kaatje from the cart—the former could scarcely walk, poor dear—and
into the guest hut which seemed clean, where food of a sort and fur
karosses were brought to them in which to wrap themselves while their
clothes dried.
Leaving them in charge of two old women, I went to see to Anscombe, who
as yet could not do much for himself, also to the outspanning of the
horses which were put into a cattle kraal, where they lay down at once
without attempting to eat the green forage which was given to them.
After this I gave our goods into the charge of the kraal-head, a nice
old fellow whom I had never met before, and he led Anscombe to another
hut close to that where the women were. Here we drank some maas, that
is curdled milk, ate a little mutton, though we were too fatigued to be
very hungry, and stripping off our wet clothes, threw them out into the
sun to dry.
“That was a close shave,” said Anscombe as he wrapped up in the kaross.
“Very,” I answered. “So close that I think you must have been started
in life with an extra strong guardian angel well accustomed to native
ways.”
“Yes,” he replied, “and, old fellow, I believe that on earth he goes by
the name of Allan Quatermain.”
After this I remember no more, for I went to sleep, and so remained for
about twenty-four hours. This was not wonderful, seeing that for two
days and nights practically I had not rested, during which time I went
through much fatigue and many emotions.
When at length I did wake up, the first thing I saw was Anscombe
already dressed, engaged in cleaning my clothes with a brush from his
toilet case. I remember thinking how smart and incongruous that
dressing-bag, made appropriately enough of crocodile hide, looked in
this Kaffir hut with its silver-topped bottles and its ivory-handled
razors.
“Time to get up, Sir. Bath ready, Sir,” he said in his jolly, drawling
voice, pointing to a calabash full of hot water. “Hope you slept as
well as I did, Sir.”
“You appear to have recovered your spirits,” I remarked as I rose and
began to wash myself.
“Yes, Sir, and why not? Heda is quite well, for I have seen her. These
Swazis are very good people, and as Kaatje understands their language,
bring us all we want. Our troubles seem to be done with. Old Marnham is
dead, and doubtless cremated; Rodd is dead and, let us hope, in heaven;
the Basutos have melted away, the morning is fine and warm and a whole
kid is cooking for breakfast.”
“I wish there were two, for I am ravenous,” I remarked.
“The horses are getting rested and feeding well, though some of their
legs have filled, and the trap is little the worse, for I have walked
to look at them, or rather hopped, leaning on the shoulder of a very
sniffy Swazi boy. Do you know, old fellow, I believe there never were
any Basutos; also that the venerable Marnham and the lurid Rodd had no
real existence, that they were but illusions, a prolonged nightmare—no
more. Here is your shirt. I am sorry that I have not had time to wash
it, but it has cooked well in the sun, which, being flannel, is almost
as good.”
“At any rate Heda remains,” I remarked, cutting his nonsense short,
“and I suppose she is not a nightmare or a delusion.”
“Yes, thank God! she remains,” he replied with earnestness. “Oh! Allan,
I thought she must drown in that river, and if I had lost her, I think
I should have gone mad. Indeed, at the moment I felt myself going mad
while I dragged and flogged at those horses.”
“Well, you didn’t lose her, and if she had drowned, you would have
drowned also. So don’t talk any more about it. She is safe, and now we
have got to keep her so, for you are not married yet, my boy, and there
are generally more trees in a wood than one can see. Still we are alive
and well, which is more than we had any right to expect, and, as you
say, let us thank God for that.”
Then I put on my coat and my boots which Anscombe had greased as he had
no blacking, and crept from the hut.
There, only a few yards away, engaged in setting the breakfast in the
shadow of another hut on a tanned hide that served for a tablecloth
while Kaatje saw to the cooking close by, I found Heda, still a little
pale and sorrowful but otherwise quite well and rested. Moreover, she
had managed to dress herself very nicely, I suppose by help of spare
clothes in the cart, and therefore looked as charming as she always
did. I think that her perfect manners were one of her greatest
attractions. Thus on this morning her first thought was to thank me
very sweetly for all she was good enough to say I had done for her and
Anscombe, thereby, as she put it, saving their lives several times
over.
“My dear young lady,” I answered as roughly as I could, “don’t flatter
yourself on that point; it was my own life of which I was thinking.”
But she only smiled and, shaking her head in a fascinating way that was
peculiar to her, remarked that I could not deceive her as I did the
Kaffirs. After this the solid Kaatje brought the food and we
breakfasted very heartily, or at least I did.
Now I am not going to set out all the details of our journey through
Swazi-Land, for though in some ways it was interesting enough, also as
comfortable as a stay among savages can be, for everywhere we were
kindly received, to do so would be too long, and I must get on with my
story. At the king’s kraal, which we did not reach for some days as the
absence of roads and the flooded state of the rivers, also the need of
sparing our horses, caused us to travel very slowly, I met a Boer who I
think was concession hunting.
He told me that things were really serious in Zululand, so serious that
he thought there was a probability of immediate war between the English
and the Zulus. He said also that Cetewayo, the Zulu king, had sent
messengers to stir up the Basutos and other tribes against the white
men, with the result that Sekukuni had already made a raid towards
Pilgrim’s Rest and Lydenburg.
I expressed surprise and asked innocently if he had done any harm. The
Boer replied he understood that they had stolen some cattle, killed two
white men, if not more, and burnt their house. He added, however, that
he was not sure whether the white men had been killed by the Kaffirs or
by other white men with whom they had quarrelled. There was a rumour to
this effect, and he understood that the magistrate of Barberton had
gone with some mounted police and armed natives to investigate the
matter.
Then we parted, as, having got his concession to which the king
Umbandine had put his mark when he was drunk on brandy that the Boer
himself had brought with him as a present, he was anxious to be gone
before he grew sober and revoked it. Indeed, he was in so great a hurry
that he never stopped to inquire what I was doing in Swazi-Land, nor do
I think he realized that I was not alone. Certainly he was quite
unaware that I had been mixed up in these Basuto troubles. Still his
story as to the investigation concerning the deaths of Marnham and Rodd
made me uneasy, since I feared lest he should hear something on his
journey and put two and two together, though as a matter of fact I
don’t think he ever did either of these things.
The Swazis told me much the same story as to the brewing Zulu storm. In
fact an old Induna or councillor, whom I knew, informed me that
Cetewayo had sent messengers to them, asking for their help if it
should come to fighting with the white men, but that the king and
councillors answered that they had always been the Queen’s children
(which was not strictly true, as they were never under English rule)
and did not wish to “bite her feet if she should have to fight with her
hands.” I replied that I hoped they would always act up to these fine
words, and changed the subject.
Now once more the question arose as to whether we should make for Natal
or press on to Zululand. The rumour of coming war suggested that the
first would be our better course, while the Boer’s story as to the
investigation of Rodd’s death pointed the other way. Really I did not
know which to do, and as usual Anscombe and Heda seemed inclined to
leave the decision to me. I think that after all Natal would have
gained the day had it not been for a singular circumstance, not a flash
of lightning this time. Indeed, I had almost made up my mind to risk
trouble and inquiry as to Rodd’s death, remembering that in Natal these
two young people could get married, which, being in loco parentis, I
thought it desirable they should do as soon as possible, if only to
ease me of my responsibilities. Also thence I could attend to the
matter of Heda’s inheritance and rid myself of her father’s will that
already had been somewhat damaged in the Crocodile River, though not as
much as it might have been since I had taken the precaution to enclose
it in Anscombe’s sponge bag before we left the house.
The circumstance was this: On emerging from the cart one morning, where
I slept to keep an eye upon the valuables, for it will be remembered
that we had a considerable sum in gold with us, also Heda’s jewels, a
Swazi informed me that a messenger wished to see me. I asked what
messenger and whence did he come. He replied that the messenger was a
witch-doctoress named Nombé, and that she came from Zululand and said
that I knew her father.
I bade the man bring her to me, wondering who on earth she could be,
for it is not usual for the Zulus to send women as messengers, and from
whom she came. However, I knew exactly what she would be like, some
hideous old hag smelling horribly of grease and other abominations,
with a worn snake skin and some human bones tied about her.
Presently she came, escorted by the Swazi who was grinning, for I think
he guessed what I expected to see. I stared and rubbed my eyes,
thinking that I must still be asleep, for instead of a fat old Isanusi
there appeared a tall and graceful young woman, rather light-coloured,
with deep and quiet eyes and a by no means ill-favoured face,
remarkable for a fixed and somewhat mysterious smile. She was a
witch-doctoress sure enough, for she wore in her hair the regulation
bladders and about her neck the circlet of baboon’s teeth, also round
her middle a girdle from which hung little bags of medicines.
She contemplated me gravely and I contemplated her, waiting till she
should choose to speak. At length, having examined me inch by inch, she
saluted by raising her rounded arm and tapering hand, and remarked in a
soft, full voice—
“All is as the picture told. I perceive before me the lord Macumazahn.”
I thought this a strange saying, seeing that I could not recollect
having given my photograph to any one in Zululand.
“You need no magic to tell you that, doctoress,” I remarked, “but where
did you see my picture?”
“In the dust far away,” she replied.
“And who showed it to you?”
“One who knew you, O Macumazahn, in the years before I came out of the
Darkness, one named Opener of Roads, and with him another who also knew
you in those years, one who has gone down to the Darkness.”
Now for some occult reason I shrank from asking the name of this “one
who had gone down to the Darkness,” although I was sure that she was
waiting for the question. So I merely remarked, without showing
surprise—
“So Zikali still lives, does he? He should have been dead long ago.”
“You know well that he lives, Macumazahn, for how could he die till his
work was accomplished? Moreover, you will remember that he spoke to you
when last moon was but just past her full—in a dream, Macumazahn. I
brought that dream, although you did not see me.”
“Pish!” I exclaimed. “Have done with your talk of dreams. Who thinks
anything of dreams?”
“You do,” she replied even more placidly than before, “you whom that
dream has brought hither—with others.”
“You lie,” I said rudely. “The Basutos brought me here.”
“The Watcher-by-Night is pleased to say that I lie, so doubtless I do
lie,” she answered, her fixed smile deepening a little. Then she folded
her arms across her breast and remained silent.
“You are a messenger, O seer of pictures in the dust and bearer of the
cup of dreams,” I said with sarcasm. “Who sends a message by your lips
for me, and what are the words of the message?”
“My Lords the Spirits spoke the message by the mouth of the master
Zikali. He sends it on to you by the lips of your servant, the
doctoress Nombé.”
“Are you indeed a doctoress, being so young?” I asked, for somehow I
wished to postpone the hearing of that message.
“O Macumazahn, I have heard the call, I have felt the pain in my back,
I have drunk of the black medicine and of the white medicine, yes, for
a whole year. I have been visited by the multitude of Spirits and seen
the shades of those who live and of those who are dead. I have dived
into the river and drawn my snake from its mud; see, its skin is about
me now,” and opening the mantle she wore she showed what looked like
the skin of a black mamba, fastened round her slender body. “I have
dwelt in the wilderness alone and listened to its voices. I have sat at
the feet of my master, the Opener of Roads, and looked down the road
and drunk of his wisdom. Yes, I am in truth a doctoress.”
“Well, after all this, you should be as wise as you are pretty.”
“Once before, Macumazahn, you told a maid of my people that she was
pretty and she came to no good end; though to one that was great.
Therefore do not say to me that I am pretty, though I am glad that you
should think so who can compare me with so many whom you have known,”
and she dropped her eyes, looking a little shy.
It was the first human touch I had seen about her, and I was glad to
have found a weak spot in her armour. Moreover, from that moment she
was always my friend.
“As you will, Nombé. Now for your message.”
“My Lords the Spirits, speaking through Zikali as one who makes music
speak through a pipe of reeds, say—”
“Never mind what the spirits say. Tell me what Zikali says,” I
interrupted.
“So be it, Macumazahn. These are the words of Zikali: ‘O
Watcher-by-Night, the time draws on when the
Thing-who-should-never-have-been-born will be as though he never had
been born, whereat he rejoices. But first there is much for him to do,
and as he told you nearly three hundred moons ago, in what must be done
you will have your part. Of that he will speak to you afterwards.
Macumazahn, you dreamed a dream, did you not, lying asleep in the house
that was built of white stone which now is black with fire? I, Zikali,
sent you that dream through the arts of a child of mine who is named
Nombé, she to whom I have given a Spirit to guide her feet. You did
well to follow it, Macumazahn, for had you tried the other path, which
would have led you back to the towns of the white men, you and those
with you must have been killed, how it does not matter. Now by the
mouth of Nombé I say to you, do not follow the thought that is in your
mind as she speaks to you and go to Natal, since if you do so, you and
those with you will come to much shame and trouble that to you would be
worse than death, over the matter of the killing of a certain white
doctor in a swamp where grow yellow-wood trees. For there in Natal you
will be taken, all of you, and sent back to the Transvaal to be tried
before a man who wears upon his head horse’s hair stained white. But if
you come to Zululand this shadow shall pass away from you, since great
things are about to happen which will cause so small a matter to be
forgot. Moreover, I Zikali, who do not lie, promise this: That however
great may be their dangers here in Zululand, those half-fledged ones
whom you, the old night-hawk, cover with your wings, shall in the end
suffer no harm; those of whom I spoke to you in your dream, the white
lord, Mauriti, and the white lady, Heddana, who stretch out their arms
one to another. I wait to welcome you, here at the Black Kloof, whither
my daughter Nombé will guide you. Cetewayo, the king, also will welcome
you, and so will another whose name I do not utter. Now choose. I have
spoken.’”
Having delivered her message Nombé stood quite still, smiling as
before, and apparently indifferent as to its effect.
“How do I know that you come from Zikali?” I asked. “You may be but the
bait set upon a trap.”
From somewhere within her robe she produced a knife and handed it to
me, remarking—
“The Master says you will remember this, and by it know that the
message comes from him. He bade me add that with it was carved a
certain image that once he gave to you at Panda’s kraal, wrapped round
with a woman’s hair, which image you still have.”
I looked at the knife and did remember it, for it was one of those of
Swedish make with a wooden handle, the first that I had ever seen in
Africa. I had made a present of it to Zikali when I returned to
Zululand before the war between the Princes. The image, too, I still
possessed. It was that of the woman called Mameena who brought about
the war, and the wrapping which covered it was of the hair that once
grew upon her head.
“The words are Zikali’s,” I said, returning her the knife, “but why do
you call yourself the child of one who is too old to be a father?”
“The Master says that my great-grandmother was his daughter and that
therefore I am his child. Now, Macumazahn, I go to eat with my people,
for I have servants with me. Then I must speak with the Swazi king, for
whom I also have a message, which I cannot do at present because he is
still drunk with the white man’s liquor. After that I shall be ready to
return with you to Zululand.”
“I never said that I was going to Zululand, Nombé.”
“Yet your heart has gone there already, Macumazahn, and you must follow
your heart. Does not the image which was carved with the knife you
gave, hold a white heart in its hand, and although it seems to be but a
bit of Umzimbeete wood, is it not alive and bewitched, which perhaps is
why you could never make up your mind to burn it, Macumazahn?”
“I wish I had,” I replied angrily; but having thrown this last spear,
with a flash of her unholy eyes Nombé had turned and gone.
A clever woman and thoroughly coached, thought I. Well, Zikali was
never one to suffer fools, and doubtless she is another of the pawns
whom he uses on his board of policy. Oh! she, or rather he was right;
my heart was in Zululand, though not in the way he thought, and I
longed to see the end of that great game played by a wizard against a
despot and his hosts.
So we went to Zululand because after talking it over we all came to the
conclusion that this was the best thing to do, especially as there we
seemed to be sure of a welcome. For later in the day Nombé repeated to
Anscombe and Heda the invitation which she had delivered to me,
assuring them also that in Zululand they would come to no harm.
It was curious to watch the meeting between Heda and Nombé. The
doctoress appeared just as we had risen from breakfast, and Heda,
turning round, came face to face with her.
“Is this your witch, Mr. Quatermain?” she asked me in her vivacious
way. “Why, she is different from what I expected, quite good-looking
and, yes, impressive. I am not sure that she does not frighten me a
little.”
“What does the Inkosikaasi (i.e., the chieftainess) say concerning me,
Macumazahn?” asked Nombé.
“Only what I said, that you are young who she thought would be old, and
pretty who she thought would be ugly.”
“To grow old we must first be young, Macumazahn, and in due season all
of us will become ugly, even the Inkosikaasi. But I thought she said
also that she feared me.”
“Do you know English, Nombé?”
“Nay, but I know how to read eyes, and the Inkosikaasi has eyes that
talk. Tell her that she has no reason to fear me who would be her
friend, though I think that she will bring me little luck.”
It was scarcely necessary, so far as Heda was concerned, but I
translated, leaving out the last sentence.
“Say to her that I am grateful who have few friends, and that I will
fear her no more,” said Heda.
Again I translated, whereon Nombé stretched out her hand, saying—
“Let her not scorn to take it, it is clean. It has brought no man to
his death—” Here she looked at Heda meaningly. “Moreover, though she is
white and I am black, I like herself am of high blood and come of a
race of warriors who did nothing small, and lastly, we are of an age,
and if she is beautiful, I am wise and have gifts great as her own.”
Once more I interpreted for the benefit of Anscombe, for Heda
understood Zulu well enough, although she had pretended not to do so,
after which the two shook hands, to Anscombe’s amusement and my wonder.
For I felt this scene to be strained and one that hid, or presaged,
something I did not comprehend.
“This is the Chief she loves?” said Nombé to me, studying Anscombe with
her steady eyes after Heda had gone. “Well, he is no common man and
brave, if idle; one, too, who may grow tall in the world, should he
live, when he has learned to think. But, Macumazahn, if she met you
both at the same time why did she not choose you?”
“Just now you said you were wise, Nombé,” I replied laughing, “but now
I see that, like most of your trade, you are but a vain boaster. Is
there a hat upon my head that you cannot see the colour of my hair, and
is it natural that youth should turn to age?”
“Sometimes if the mind is old, Macumazahn, which is why I love the
Spirits only who are more ancient than the mountains, and with them
Zikali their servant, who was young before the Zulus were a people, or
so he says, and still year by year gathers wisdom as the bee gathers
honey. Inspan your horses, Macumazahn, for I have done my business and
am ready to start.”