CETEWAYO
It was dark when at last we reached the Ulundi kraal, for the growing
moon was obscured by clouds. Therefore I could see nothing and was only
aware, by the sound of voices and the continual challenging, that we
were passing through great numbers of men. At length we were admitted
at the eastern gate and I was taken to a hut where I at once flung
myself down to sleep, being so weary that I could not attempt to eat.
Next morning as I was finishing my breakfast in the little fenced
courtyard of this guest-hut, Goza appeared and said that the king
commanded me to be brought to him at once, adding that I must “speak
softly” to him, as he was “very angry.”
So off we went across the great cattle kraal where a regiment of young
men, two thousand strong or so, were drilling with a fierce intensity
which showed they knew that they were out for more than exercise. About
the sides of the kraal also stood hundreds of soldiers, all of them
talking and, it seemed to me, excited, for they stamped upon the ground
and even jumped into the air to give point to their arguments. Suddenly
some of them caught sight of me, whereon a tall, truculent fellow
called out—
“What does a white man at Ulundi at such a time, when even John Dunn
dare not come? Let us kill him and send his head as a present to the
English general across the Tugela. That will settle this long talk
about peace or war.”
Others of a like mind echoed this kind proposal, with the result that
presently a score or so of them made a rush at me, brandishing their
sticks, since they might not carry arms in the royal kraal. Goza did
his best to keep them off, but was swept aside like a feather, or
rather knocked over, for I saw him on his back with his thin legs in
the air.
“You must climb out of this pit by yourself,” he began, addressing me
in his pompous and figurative way. Then somebody stamped on his face,
and fixing his teeth in his assailant’s heel, he grew silent for a
while.
The truculent blackguard, who was about six feet three high and had a
mouth like a wolf’s throat, arrived in front of me and, bending down,
roared out—
“We are going to kill you, White Man.”
I had a pistol in my pocket and could perfectly well have killed him,
as I was much tempted to do. A second’s reflection showed me, however,
that this would be useless, and in a sense put me in the wrong, though
when the matter came on for argument it would interest me no more. So I
just folded my arms and, looking up at him, said—
“Why, Black Man?”
“Because your face is white,” he roared.
“No,” I answered, “because your heart is black and your eyes are so
full of blood that you do not know Macumazahn when you see him.”
“Wow!” said one, “it is Watcher-by-Night whom our fathers knew before
us. Leave him alone.”
“No,” shouted the great fellow, “I will send him to watch where it is
always night, I who keep a club for white rats,” and he brandished his
stick over me.
Now my temper rose. Watching my opportunity, I stretched out my right
foot and hooked him round the ankle, at the same time striking up with
all my force. My fist caught him beneath the chin and over he went
backwards sprawling on the ground.
“Son of a dog!” I said, “if a single stick touches me, at least you
shall go first,” and whipping out my revolver, I pointed it at him.
He lay quiet enough, but how the matter would have ended I do not know,
for passion was running high, had not Goza at this moment risen with a
bleeding nose and called out—
“O Fools, would you kill the king’s guest to whom the king himself has
given safe-conduct. Surely you are pots full of beer, not men.”
“Why not?” answered one. “This is the Place of Soldiers. The king’s
house is yonder. Give the old jackal a start of a length of ten
assegais. If he reaches it first, he can shake hands with his friend,
the king. If not we will make him into medicine.”
“Yes, yes, run for it, Jackal,” clamoured the others, knocking their
shields with their sticks, as men do who would frighten a buck, and
opening out to make a road for me.
Now while all this was going on, with some kind of sixth sense I had
noted a big man whose face was shrouded by a blanket thrown over his
head, who very quietly had joined these drunken rioters, and vaguely
wondered who he might be.
“I will not run,” I said slowly, “that I may be saved by the king. Nay,
I will die here, though some of you shall die first. Go to the king,
Goza, and tell him how his servants have served his guest,” and I
lifted my pistol, waiting till the first stick touched me to put a
bullet through the bully on the ground.
“There is no need,” said a deep voice that proceeded from the draped
man of whom I have spoken, “for the king has come to see for himself.”
Then the blanket was thrown back, revealing Cetewayo grown fat and much
aged since last I saw him, but undoubtedly Cetewayo.
“Bayete!” roared the mob in salute, while some of those who had been
most active in the tumult tried to slip away.
“Let no man stir,” said Cetewayo, and they stood as though they were
rooted to the ground, while I slipped my pistol back into my pocket.
“Who are you, White Man?” he asked, looking at me, “and what do you
here?”
“The King should know Macumazahn,” I answered, lifting my hat, “whom
Dingaan knew, whom Panda knew well, and whom the King knew before he
was a king.”
“Yes, I know you,” he answered, “although since we spoke together you
have shrunk like an oxhide in the sun, and time has stained your beard
white.”
“And the King has grown fat like the ox on summer grass. As for what I
do here, did not the King send for me by Goza, and was I not brought
like a baby in a blanket.”
“The last time we met,” he went on, taking no heed of my words, “was
yonder at Nodwengu when the witch Mameena was tried for sorcery, she
who made my brother mad and brought about the great battle, in which
you fought for him with the Amawombe regiment. Do you not remember how
she kissed you, Macumazahn, and took poison between the kisses, and how
before she grew silent she spoke evil words to me, saying that I was
doomed to pull down my own House and to die as she died, words that
have haunted me ever since and now haunt me most of all? I wish to
speak to you concerning them, Macumazahn, for it is said in the land
that this beautiful witch loved you alone and that you only knew her
mind.”
I made no reply, who was heartily tired of this subject of Mameena whom
no one seemed able to forget.
“Well,” he went on, “we will talk of that matter alone, since it is not
natural that you should wish to speak of your dead darlings before the
world,” and with a wave of the hand he put the matter aside. Then
suddenly his attitude changed. His face, that had been thoughtful and
almost soft, became fierce, his form seemed to swell and he grew
terrible.
“What was that dog doing?” he asked of Goza, pointing to the brute whom
I had knocked down and who still lay prostrate on his back, afraid to
stir.
“O King,” answered Goza, “he was trying to kill Macumazahn because he
is a white man, although I told him that he was your guest, being
brought to you by the royal command. He was trying to kill him by
giving him a start of ten spears’ length and making him run to the
isigodhlo (the king’s house) and beating him to death with the sticks
of these men if they caught him, which, as he is old and they are
young, they must have done. Only the Watcher-by-Night would not run;
no, although he is so small he knocked him to the earth with his fist,
and there he lies. That is all, O King.”
“Rise, dog,” said Cetewayo, and the man rose trembling with fear, and,
being bidden, gave his name, which I forget.
“Listen, dog,” went on the king in the same cold voice. “What Goza says
is true, for I saw and heard it all with my eyes and ears. You would
have made yourself as the king. You dared to try to kill the king’s
guest to whom he had given safe-conduct, and to stain the king’s
doorposts with his blood, thereby defiling his house and showing him to
the white people as a murderer of one of them whom he had promised to
protect. Macumazahn, do _you_ say how he shall die, and I will have it
done.”
“I do not wish him to die,” I answered, “I think that he and those with
him were drunk. Let him go, O King.”
“Aye, Macumazahn, I will let him go. See now, we are in the centre of
the cattle-kraal, and to the eastern gate is as far as to the
isigodhlo. Let this man have a start of ten spears’ length and run to
the eastern gate, as he would have made Macumazahn run to the king’s
house, and let his companions, those who would have hunted Macumazahn,
hunt him.
“If he wins through to the gate he can go on to the Government in Natal
and tell them of the cruelty of the Zulus. Only then, let those who
hunted him be brought before me for trial and perhaps we shall see how
_they_ can run.”
Now the poor wretch caught hold of my hand, begging me to intercede for
him, but soldiers who had come up dragged him away and, having measured
the distance allowed him, set him on a mark made upon the ground.
Presently at a word off he sped like an arrow, and after him went his
friends, ten or more of them. I think they caught him just by the gate
doubling like a hare, or so the shouts of laughter from the watching
regiment told me, for myself I would not look.
“That dog ate his own stomach,” said Cetewayo grimly, thereby
indicating in native fashion that the biter had been bit or the
engineer hoist with his petard. “It is long since there has been a war
in the land, and some of these young soldiers who have never used an
assegai save to skin an ox or cut the head from a chicken, shout too
loud and leap too high. Now they will be quieter, and while you stay
here you may walk where you will in safety, Macumazahn,” he added
thoughtfully.
Then dismissing the matter from his mind, as we white people dismiss
any trivial incident in a morning stroll, he talked for a few minutes
to the commanding officer of the regiment that was drilling, who ran up
to make some report to him, and walked back towards the isigodhlo,
beckoning me to follow with Goza.
After waiting for a little while outside the gate in the surrounding
fence, a body-servant ordered us to enter, which we did to find the
king seated on the shady side of his big hut quite alone. At a sign I
also sat myself down upon a stool that had been set for me, while Goza,
whose nose was still bleeding, squatted at my side.
“Your manners are not so good as they were once, Macumazahn,” said
Cetewayo presently, “or perhaps you have been so long away from the
royal kraal that you have forgotten its customs.”
I stared at him, wondering what he could mean, whereon he added with a
laugh—
“What is that in your pocket? Is it not a loaded pistol, and do you not
remember that it is death to appear before the king armed? Now I might
kill you and have no blame, although you are my guest, for who knows
that you are not sent by the English Queen to shoot me?”
“I ask the King’s pardon,” I said humbly enough. “I did not think about
the pistol. Let your servants take it away.”
“Perhaps it is safer in your pocket, where I saw you place it in the
cattle-kraal, Macumazahn, than in their hands, which do not know how to
hold such things. Moreover, I know that you are not one who stabs in
the dark, even when our peoples growl round each other like two dogs
about to fight, and if you were, in this place your life would have to
pay for mine. There is beer by your side; drink and fear nothing. Did
you see the Opener of Roads, Goza, and if so, what is his answer to my
message?”
“O King, I saw him,” answered Goza. “The Father of the doctors, the
friend and master of the Spirits, says he has heard the King’s word,
yes, that he heard it as it passed the King’s lips, and that although
he is very old, he will travel to Ulundi and be present at the Great
Council of the nation which is to be summoned on the eighth day from
this, that of the full moon. Yet he makes a prayer of the King. It is
that a place may be prepared for him, for his people and for his
servants who carry him, away from this town of Ulundi, where he may
sojourn quite alone, a decree of death being pronounced against any who
attempt to break in upon his privacy, either where he dwells or upon
his journey. These are his very words, O King:
“‘I, who am the most ancient man in Zululand, dwell with the spirits of
my fathers, who will not suffer strangers to come nigh them and who, if
they are offended, will bring great woes upon the land. Moreover, I
have sworn that while there is a king in Zululand and I draw the breath
of life, never again will I set foot in a royal kraal, because when
last I did so at the slaying of the witch, Mameena, the king who is
dead thought it well to utter threats against me, and never more will
I, the Opener of Roads, be threatened by a mortal. Therefore if the
King and his Council seek to drink of the water of my wisdom, it must
be in the place and hour of my own choosing. If this cannot be, let me
abide here in my house and let the King seek light from other doctors,
since mine shall remain as a lamp to my own heart.’”
Now I saw that these words greatly disturbed Cetewayo who feared
Zikali, as indeed did all the land.
“What does the old wizard mean?” he asked angrily. “He lives alone like
a bat in a cave and for years has been seen of none. Yet as a bat flies
forth at night, ranging far and wide in search of prey, so does his
spirit seem to fly through Zululand. Everywhere I hear the same word.
It is—‘What says the Opener of Roads?’ It is—‘How can aught be done
unless the Opener of Roads has declared that it shall be done, he who
was here before the Black One (Chaka) was born, he who it is said was
the friend of Inkosi Umkulu, the father of the Zulus who died before
our great-grandfathers could remember; he who has all knowledge and is
almost a spirit, if indeed he be not a spirit?’ I ask you, Macumazahn,
who are his friend, what does he mean, and why should I not kill him
and be done?”
“O King,” I answered, “in the days of your uncle Dingaan, when Dingaan
slew the Boers who were his guests, and thus began the war between the
White and the Black, I, who was a lad, heard the laughter of Zikali for
the first time yonder at the kraal Ungungundhlovu, I who rode with
Retief and escaped the slaughter, but his face I did not see. Many
years later, in the days of Panda your father, I saw his face and
therefore you name me his friend. Yet this friend who drew me to visit
him, perhaps by your will, O King, has now caused me to be brought here
to Ulundi doubtless by your will, O King, but against my own, for who
wishes to come to a town where he is well-nigh slain by the first
brawler he meets in the cattle kraal?”
“Yet you were not slain, Macumazahn, and perhaps you do not know all
the story of that brawler,” replied Cetewayo almost humbly, like one
who begs pardon, though the rest of what I had said he ignored. “But
still you are Zikali’s friend, for between you and him there is a rope
which enabled him to draw you to Zululand, which rope I have heard
called by a woman’s name. Therefore by the spirit of that woman, which
still can draw you like a rope, I charge you, tell me—what does this
old wizard mean, and why should I not kill him and be rid of one who
haunts my heart like an evil vision of the night and, as I sometimes
think, is an _umtakati_, an evil-doer, who would work ill to me and all
my House, yes, and to all my people?”
“How should I know what he means, O King?” I answered with indignation,
though in fact I could guess well enough. “As for killing him, cannot
the King kill whom he will? Yet I remember that once I heard your
father ask much the same question and of Zikali himself, saying that he
was minded to find out whether or no he were mortal like other men. I
remember also Zikali answered that there was a saying that when the
Opener of Roads came to the end of his road, there would be no more a
king of Zululand, as there was none when first he set foot upon his
road. Now I have spoken, who am a white man and do not understand your
sayings.”
“I remember it also, Macumazahn, who was present at the time,” he
replied heavily. “My father feared this Zikali and his father feared
him, and I have heard that the Black One himself, who feared nothing,
feared him also. And I, too, fear him, so much that I dare not make up
my mind upon a great matter without his counsel, lest he should bewitch
me and the nation and bring us to nothing.”
He paused, then turning to Goza, asked, “Did the Opener of Roads tell
you where he wished to dwell when he comes to visit me here at Ulundi?”
“O King,” answered Goza, “yonder in the hills, not further away than an
aged man can walk in the half of an hour, is a place called the Valley
of Bones, because there in the days of those who went before the King,
and even in the King’s day, many evildoers have been led to die. Zikali
would dwell in this Valley of Bones, and there and nowhere else would
meet the King and the Great Council, not in the daylight but after
sunset when the moon has risen.”
“Why,” said Cetewayo, starting, “the place is ill-omened and, they say,
haunted, one that no man dares to approach after the fall of darkness
for fear lest the ghosts of the dead should leap upon him gibbering.”
“Such were the words of the Opener of Roads, O King,” replied Goza.
“There and nowhere else will he meet the King, and there he demands
that three huts should be built to shelter him and his folk and stored
with all things needful. If this be not granted to him, then he refuses
to visit the King or to give counsel to the nation.”
“So be it then,” said Cetewayo. “Send messengers to the Opener of
Roads, Goza, saying that what he desires shall be done. Let my command
go out that under pain of death none spy upon him while he journeys
hither or returns. Let the huts be built forthwith, and when it is
known that he is coming, let food in plenty be placed in them and
afterwards morning by morning taken to the mouth of the valley. Bid him
announce his arrival and the hour he chooses for our meeting by
messenger. Begone.”
Goza leapt up, gave the royal salute, and retreated backwards from the
presence of the king, leaving us alone. I also rose to depart, but
Cetewayo motioned to me to be seated.
“Macumazahn,” he said, “the Great Queen’s man who has come to Natal
(Sir Bartle Frere) threatens me with war because two evil-doing women
were taken on the Natal side of the Tugela and brought back to Zululand
and killed by Mehlokazulu, being the wives of his father, Sirayo, which
was done without my knowledge. Also two white men were driven away from
an island in the Tugela River by some of my soldiers.”
“Is that all, O King?” I asked.
“No. The Queen’s man says I kill my people without trial, which is a
lie told him by the missionaries, and that girls have been killed also
who refused to marry those to whom they were given and ran away with
other men. Also that wizards are smelt out and slain, which happens but
rarely now; all of this contrary to the promises I made to Sompseu when
he came to recognize me as king upon my father’s death, and some other
such small matters.”
“What is demanded if you would avoid war, O King?”
“Nothing less than this, Macumazahn: That the Zulu army should be
abolished and the soldiers allowed to marry whom and when they please,
because, says the Queen’s man, he fears lest it should be used to
attack the English, as though I who love the English, as those have
done who went before me, desire to lay a finger on them. Also that
another Queen’s man should be sent to dwell here in my country, to be
the eyes and ears of the English Government and have power with me in
the land; yes, and more demands which would destroy the Zulus as a
people and make me, their king, but a petty kraal-head.”
“And what will the King answer?” I asked.
“I know not what to answer. The fine of two thousand cattle I will pay
for the killing of the women. If it may be, I wish no quarrel with the
English, though gladly I would have fought the Dutch had not Sompseu
stretched out his arm over their land. But how can I disband the army
and make an end of the regiments that have conquered in so many wars?
Macumazahn, I tell you that if I did this, in a moon I should be dead.
Oh! you white people think there is but one will in Zululand, that of
the king. But it is not so, for he is but a single man among ten
thousand thousand, who lives to work the people’s wish. If he beats
them with too thick a stick, or if he brings them to shame or does what
the most of them do not wish, then where is the king? Then, I say, he
goes a road that was trodden by Chaka and Dingaan who were before me,
yes, the red road of the assegai. Therefore today, I stand like a man
between two falling cliffs. If I run towards the English the Zulu cliff
falls upon me. If I run towards my own people, the English cliff falls
upon me, and in either case I am crushed and no more seen. Tell me
then, Macumazahn, you whose heart is honest, what must I do?”
So he spoke, wringing his hands, with tears starting to his eyes, and
upon my word, although I never liked Cetewayo as I had liked his
father, Panda, perhaps because I loved his brother, Umbelazi, whom he
killed, and had known him do many cruel deeds, my heart bled for him.
“I cannot tell you, King,” I answered, thinking that I must say
something, “but I pray you do not make war against the queen, for she
is the most mighty One in the whole earth, and though her foot, of
which you see but the little toe here in Africa, seems small to you,
yet if she is angered, it will stamp the Zulus flat, so that they cease
to be.”
“Many have told me this, Macumazahn. Yes, even Uhamu, the son of my
uncle Unzibe, or, as some say, the son of his spirit, to which his
mother was married after Unzibe was dead, and others throughout the
land, and in truth I think it myself. But who can hold the army which
shouts for war? _Ow!_ the Council must decide, which means perhaps that
Zikali will decide, for now all hang upon his lips.”
“Then I am sorry,” I exclaimed.
He looked at me shrewdly.
“Are you? So am I. Yet his counsel must be asked, and better that it
should be here in my presence than yonder secretly at the Black Kloof.
I would kill him if I dared, but I dare not, who am sure—why I may not
say—that the same sun will see his death and mine.”
He waved his hand to show that the talk on this matter was ended, then
added—
“Macumazahn, you are my prisoner for a while, but give me your word
that you will not try to escape and you may go where you will within an
hour’s ride of Ulundi. I would pay you well to stop here with me, but
this I know you would never do should there be trouble between us and
your people. Therefore I promise you that if war breaks out I will send
you safely to Natal, or perhaps sooner, as my messenger, whence
doubtless you will return to fight against me. Know that I have given
orders that every other white man or woman who is found in Zululand
shall be killed as a spy. Even John Dunn has fled or is flying, or so I
hear, John Dunn who has fed out of my hand and grown rich on my gifts.
You yourself would have been killed as you came from Swazi-Land in your
cart, had not command been sent to those chiefs through whose lands you
passed that neither they nor their people were so much as to look at
you.”
Now for one intense moment I thought, as hard as ever I had done in my
life. It was evident—unless he were dealing very cunningly with me,
which I did not believe—that Cetewayo knew nothing of Anscombe and
Heda, but thought that I had come into Zululand alone. Should I or
should I not tell him and beg his protection for them? If I did so he
might refuse or be unable to give it to them far away in the midst of a
savage population aflame with the lust of war. As the incident of the
morning showed, it was as much as he could do to protect myself,
although the Zulus knew me for their friend. On the other hand no one
who dwelt under Zikali’s blanket, to use the Kaffir idiom, would be
touched, because he was looked on as half divine and therefore
everything under it down to the rat in his thatch was sacred. Now
Zikali by implication and Nombé with emphasis, had promised to
safeguard these two. Surely, therefore, they would run less risk in the
Black Kloof than here at Ulundi, if ever they got so far.
All this went through my brain in an instant, with the result that I
made up my mind to say nothing. As the issue proved, this was a
terrible mistake, but who can always judge rightly? Had I spoken out it
seems to me probable that Cetewayo would have granted my prayer and
ordered that these two should be escorted out of Zululand before
hostilities began, although of course they might have been murdered on
the way. Also, for a reason that will become evident later, it is
possible that there would never have been any hostilities. All I can
plead is, that I acted for the best and Fate would have it so. Another
moment and the chance was gone.
The gate opened and a body-servant appeared announcing that one of the
great captains with some of his officers waited to see the king.
Cetewayo made a sign, whereon the servant called out something, and
they entered, three or four of them, saluting loudly. Seeing me they
stopped and stared, whereon Cetewayo shortly, but with much clearness,
repeated to them and to an induna who accompanied them, what he had
already said to me, namely that I was his guest, sent for by him that
he might use me as a messenger if he thought fit. He added that the man
who dared to speak a word against me, or even to look at me askance,
should pay the price with his life, however high his station, and he
commanded that the heralds should proclaim this his decree throughout
Ulundi and the neighbouring kraals. Then he held out his hand to me in
token of friendship, bidding me to “go softly” and come to see him
whenever I wished, and dismissed me in charge of the induna, one of the
captains and some soldiers.
Within five minutes of reaching my hut I heard a loud-voiced crier
proclaiming the order of the king and knew that I had no more to fear.