A quick but gentle sound of unshod feet patted past the window, there
was silence again in the outer air, and the three Englishmen resumed
their attitude; Brennard in the centre with the Bible--it had the names
of brothers and sisters beneath his own in the fly-leaf--he had kept it
by him in the wilderness--and the two others with their palms spread
open on the cover. They went through the formula again, the oath was
sealed by a kiss upon the sacred record, sad it was restored to its
resting-place, whence it never emerged but on extreme occasions like the
present. The fire was extinguished, and once more refreshing themselves
with a sip from the flask, the light was extinguished, and all three
passed out from the hut, the door was drawn to, as well as its
dilapidated condition would allow, and passing through the garden and
advancing a few yards to the right, they turned the profile of a hill,
descended a steep pathway leading to a dense bush, and in a few minutes
distinguished the hurried tread of naked feet upon the crisp leaves and
underwood; a group of women pattered through a narrow glade, and,
passing our adventurers in silence, led the way into the kloof.
Lee recognised the locality as he advanced, step by step, down a
declivity intersected with blocks of granite and tufts of scrub, or low
bush; the murmur of a rivulet making its way over the stones was
audible, and the distant cry of the jackal hailed the coming of the
night. Here Lee remembered well to have rested on shooting excursions
in former days; here he had listened to many a tale of Tanner's, and he
could guess the exact spot for which they were bound--the three men in
advance, the Kafir girls in Indian file following. So they proceeded,
till the darkness of the glen deepened, and putting aside a large alder,
they bent their heads, and found themselves beneath a magnificent
oak-tree, to a branch of which was fastened a large ox, black as Erebus.
Motionless and patient he stood with his heavy load upon his broad back,
for Brennard had intended returning to the spot sooner than
circumstances eventually permitted him, and he bent his head in loving
recognition of Amayeka, whose sweet voice welcomed her favourite. The
unusual roughness of the weather had detained Brennard longer on his
expedition than usual, and Amayeka and her companions had kept their
watch day by day in the hills.
I know not a more perfect model of obedience and endurance than a Kafir
woman. With the white man, she is never thoroughly tamed. You may take
her under your care in childhood--you may accustom her to English
habits, dress, and religion; but once let her taste of freedom, and she
is like a bird on the wing again. True, however, to the instincts of
her nature, she bows to the thraldom of her race, wields the pickaxe and
the hoe, submits cheerfully to her occupation of "hewer of wood and
drawer of water," yields obedience to her task-masters, abjures her
European costume, albeit she delights in a broidery of many-coloured
beads, and sits meekly silent when bartered for by a lover, who, as a
husband, makes her one of many slaves.
Such was Amayeka, who had been reared from the age of six years at a
missionary station, near the Caledon river; but from this she had been
withdrawn by her father Doda when she was fourteen, and during the
year--for she was now but fifteen, the prime of a Kafir maiden's life--
she had thrown off her European habits in every sense, retaining only
the language, which she spoke with the grace so peculiar to her nation
when educated.
I specify her age from general calculation; her father could only count
her years by connecting her birth with a period of great drought.
She and her companions, all older than herself, had been sent by Umlala,
a petty chief, to convoy the treasonable stores brought from the colony
in Brennard's wagon, and transferred to Zwartz's back, at a secret
station on the banks of Somerset River. This done, a sagacious old
Kafir had led Zwartz through an intricate defile to Witches' Krantz, and
fastening him to the "trysting tree," returned as herdsman to the
trading wagon, with its span of draught-oxen, on the banks of Somerset
River. For days these poor girls of Kafirland had sat watching the
changes of the atmosphere from the mountain slopes. Their food was
parched corn and strips of _biltongue_ (meat dried in the sun), supplied
by a cleft in the rock, where they had long ago established a simple
larder. Apples, from the banks of the Kei and the Gonube rivers, varied
their repast occasionally, and a large light basket of sour milk,
brought to them from a distant kraal, was a delicious addition. They
were very merry; they laughed, they sang, sometimes hymns, taught them
by Amayeka; they danced, ate their frugal meals, and slept soundly,
pillowed on flowery turf, with heaven's own canopy of blue and gold
above them. If the clouds rose, they withdrew to the caves in the
mountain-side, and these recesses were their shelter, when a scout come
to tell them that Jocqueenis' Fingoes were on a march into Dushani's
country, to "eat up" the son of Ixexa. For, however quiet and unpeopled
the hills of Kafirland may appear, there are always scouts on the
look-out. These tribes carry out the prophecy against the sons of
Ishmael, "their hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand
against them," hence they are ever on the watch. But all this time our
adventurous group are waiting together in the glen. Here Brennard
unslung his haversack from Zwartz's yoke, taking out of it such articles
of raiment as he chose to retain for his own use, bestowed it, with some
acceptable gear, on the convicts. The flask of Cape brandy was added to
the stores, and to each was given a small double-barrelled pistol. Thus
partially provided for, the three bade each other farewell, for it was
necessary to make as much way as they could before morning, and the
defile being threaded, some hours of repose might be obtained in a place
of security, to which their female guides would direct them.
Brennard, having watched the party as far as the rays of the moon
flickering through the tracery of the trees permitted, returned to his
domicile, there to accomplish such repairs as he could single-handed;
and this done, to return to Somerset River for his wagon, and forward
information to the authorities of the delinquency of the Fingo
marauders; but long before the trader had noted the outrage on paper,
the warriors had stalked through the enemy's kraal, and possessed
themselves of the cattle they called theirs, and crossing a stream about
nine miles to the north, soon chanted their song of triumph and defiance
from their own territory.
As the reader will readily infer, the compact to which I have alluded
involved a treaty of partnership between Brennard, Lee, and Gray, in the
secret traffic of arms and ammunition with the tribes to the north-east
of the Cape colony. The deputies left by Brennard near the coast held a
situation of little danger, since there was no legal restriction on the
sale of arms; nevertheless, a certain caution was necessarily observed
in the transmission of such stores from Cape Town, lest the eyes of the
authorities should be opened to a fact, at present only suspected by the
non-commercial settlers. The powder traffic, demanding greater care and
secrecy, was not so easily carried on, and it had long been obvious to
Brennard that it would be highly advantageous to establish an
intermediate agent between the Gonube and the Witches' Krantz, for the
disposal of the gunpowder, and the surer interchange of Kafir goods in
return.
This offer Lee readily accepted, with a reservation that, if it suited
his purpose hereafter, he should proceed to the locations lately
established to the eastward by the disaffected Dutch. As to Gray, a
spell seemed to bind him to such measures as Lee chose to propose.
I have shown that Lee had given Brennard only such details of his early
acquaintance with Tanner as he thought necessary, and the trader, as he
climbed the hill again, wondered, within himself, at the mysterious
influence which had thus suddenly been imposed upon him. Who Lee was,
or what his position had been in Southern Africa in former days, he
could not tell. All he knew was, that he was a runaway convict, that he
had been acquainted with Tanner, and that he had a thorough knowledge of
that part of the country, and of all the secret nooks for keeping
contraband stores.
Brennard also felt quite certain that Lee would not have admitted his
real condition as a runaway convict of the wreck of the _Trafalgar_, had
it not been an event of publicity which would elicit close inquiries;
and as there would, probably, be some survivors who had witnessed Lee's
escape in the boat, it would at least be conjectured that he had reached
_terra firma_ and made his way into the interior, where he might become
a dangerous assistant to the Dutch, who were known to welcome such
desperadoes to their gloomy councils. In a word, Lee knew himself to be
a marked man, and, in such an exigency, there was nothing like binding a
useful coadjutor, like Brennard, by ties which, if broken by one, must
be the ruin of both.
When in the cave, after his preservation from shipwreck, Lee had shaped
out a somewhat crude plan for the future; he certainly entertained a
vision of self-aggrandisement, of leadership among the malcontent Boers,
of founding a settlement, and opening a career of rule; but a new
incentive to be "up and doing" presented itself unexpectedly before him,
and a fresh impetus was at once given to his desires of organising a
party among a people ripe for rebellion, by the perusal of a paragraph
in an English newspaper, of a comparatively late date, which Brennard
had brought with him from the interior, and given to Lee to beguile him
on the stealthy march, in company with the unwilling and melancholy
Gray, and the dusky maiden guides of Kafirland.
It was on the evening of the first day's march that the instincts of
ambition within the convict's breast assumed a new direction.
Through what deep and tangled footpaths did those patient maidens lead
the party! A curious sight it was to Gray, a stranger in that far
country, as, lingering behind the rest, he watched the group wending its
slow way, now under the shadow of the great krantzes, now waiting for
him, beside some tiny stream, that shone like steel under the "Green
willows with the hanging boughs."
He could not run, and had he been able to do so, he knew not his way.
He could only guess by certain constellations, known in both
hemispheres, that he was journeying eastward, and he wandered on like a
man dreaming that a fiend has fixed an evil eye upon him, and beckons
him to a doom he cannot resist. Gray felt that Lee never lost sight of
him.
It was at night that their longest marches were made; but when the sun
came fairly up, the girls were generally able to point out the
established resting-places, where a commissariat of biltongue and Kafir
corn lay hid in some rocky storehouse.
In these halting-places all slept through the golden hours of noon, the
women at a prescribed distance. There had been five at first starting,
and the party had been increased by three more joining them in a kloof,
almost impassable from the density of the bush. Zwartz lay like a
guardian in the centre of his female friends; they petted and talked to
him at times, calling him all manner of endearing names, but Amayeka was
his best friend; and Gray, sorrowful and restless, reclined always
within arm's length of the wary Lee.
The latter was the first stirring. It was a sultry afternoon on the
first day's march, and Lee took from the haversack the paper Brennard
had slipped into it at the Witches' Krantz. The paragraph I have
alluded to was as follows:
"We regret to learn that the indisposition of our governor, Sir
Marmaduke Faulkner, still detains him in England, and that General Sir
John Manvers has been requested to take command of the frontier forces
at this critical period, when it is pretty well understood, by such as
choose to open their eyes to the fact, that the Kafirs are rife for war,
and that the Boers to the eastward are only waiting a favourable
opportunity to proclaim their disaffection. Sir John may be daily
expected from Cape Town."
"So," said Lee, his chest heaving, his eye dilating, "_he_ is here!
Well, there will come a day when we shall stand face to face, openly, as
foes; I may fail of success, I may be beaten for want of a regular
force, but I _may_ be revenged--revenged;" and the tone in which he
uttered this aroused the sleeping deserter.
Lee held a parley with Gray, but did not enlighten him fully on the
subject of his enmity to the man who would soon be first in authority
over the wide territory through which they were roaming. He gave him to
understand, however, that his final object was not to join a tribe of
savages in a fight against his countrymen; once well on the
north-eastward, there would be no difficulty in proceeding by degrees to
those settlements where many Dutch farmers lay bivouacked, with all
their poor household and farm property about them.
The character Lee had assumed for himself and friend was one which quite
suited his disposition, and would greatly facilitate his movements; the
Kafirs would welcome him as a trader, and pass him safely on as such;
while the Dutch would receive him as a confederate, and hail with
satisfaction so able an assistant as Gray, a deserter from the Royal
Artillery.
Night fell. The Kafir girls re-adjusted Zwartz's burden; they
frequently lightened it by carrying skins of gunpowder on their heads,
which they did with perfect ease and grace, and Amayeka, uttering the
simple warning, "It is time," passed on, lingered on the hill-side to
point out the smoothest cattle-tracks to Gray, who, as his limbs
recovered their elasticity, tried to reconcile himself to his fate by
admitting the pleasant influence which the glittering eyes and brilliant
smile of Amayeka shed on his moody moments.
Having passed through many intricate defiles and glens of indescribable
beauty, they emerged, in about a fortnight from the first night march,
upon a more open country. These plains were dotted with kraals, from
each of which some "Great man" came forth; Amayeka acted as interpreter.
A day was fixed for meeting in a secret spot, where a due exchange of
goods was to be made. The wagons sent by the agent from the Gonube were
already, with hides and horns, waiting there, and these were to be
despatched by trusty convoy to the Witches' Krantz; Doda, the great
councillor or the principal chief, firmly believing that unless the
tribes kept to their agreement with Brennard, the latter would withhold
the supplies and betray the storehouses, or rather storehuts, which held
the arms and ammunition of Kafirland.
A stronger would not have distinguished these huts from others of the
hamlet, but day and night three dusky guards kept watch and ward around
than, for fear of treachery or fire. These guards wove baskets, or
shaped out bullet-moulds, or bound the assegai blades to the slender
shafts; they did anything apparently but keep sentry over the domicile
they so cautiously protected.
On the twelfth day of the journey, having headed the Imkwali river and
traversed a plain, our travellers suddenly dipped between two hills, and
on ascending the last, found themselves in front of an amphitheatre,
over which Umlala's kraal and pasture-lands were spread. It was the
chief residence of Umlala and his _hemraaden_, or councillors.
Behind this green space rose a range of purple heights; nearer to it,
and sheltering the village from the north, was a chain of low hills, and
the sides of these were dotted with thousands of beautiful cattle. The
whole population of this territory was astir. Over one slope a
hunting-party wound its way, below were children riding races on the
backs of oxen, far too sleek for such an exertion; girls were laughing
and talking together under the noble groups of trees, but the great mass
of Kafirs had gathered in a crowd in an angle of the kraal. Amayeka, on
perceiving this, bid the convoy await till her father should be sent
for.
Doda came, he having, as I have shown, already held communication with
Lee on the road, and he now invited him to the front of his hut until
Umlala should be ready to receive him. Ere long, a summons arrived, and
Lee proceeded to a conference with Umlala.
The chief was seated on the ground, surrounded by several of his
hemraaden. The subject of conversation had for many days touched upon
the preparations for war, which, for months had been secretly
progressing in Kafirland; and the intelligence which Amayeka brought,
and which Lee confirmed, was soon conveyed by Doda: he told Umlala that
the white men were making ready for battle. Even now, it was said, the
white chiefs were beginning to count their red men by tens, for they
were many.
No immediate or noisy demonstration followed this announcement. Umlala
sat, to all appearance, in deep thought, Doda waiting at his right hand
till it should please his chief to address him.
At last, having matured his thought, Umlala said, in a low and distinct
voice,
"Amakosa noburoti bona"--"The Amakosa are brave."
The crowd testified their satisfaction by a murmur of assent that rolled
through the assembly like the swell of an ocean wave.
"Our chief is wise," said Doda; "without him we are as the land in
drought--as a bundle of sticks scattered for want of a cord--as people
journeying on vast plains without a purpose, without landmarks. It is
he who leads us from dark places, and sets our feet on open ground--we
are his children--hear him."
"Umlala," answered Amani, "is my mouth, let him speak."
"Our ears are open," said Doda, and sat down with an uneasy glance at
Amani.
For Doda was peacefully inclined--that is to say, though war was in his
heart, he had tasted of the blessings of civilisation. He had seen his
daughter, "sitting in the sun and eating honey," living under virtuous
influences, in peace and plenty, at the mission station, and it was with
inward reluctance that he had obeyed his chief in withdrawing her from
thence. It would have been useless, as well as impolitic, to oppose his
sentiments openly to Umlala's inclinations, especially as of late the
malcontent Dutch had been tampering with the chiefs, and some mercenary
and unprincipled traders had profited by the aspect of affairs to
increase their traffic.
Amani rose. He was the rain-maker, or witch doctor, of the tribe--one
of those wicked magicians of the country, who, taking advantage of the
Kafir belief in evil agency, manage, with extraordinary tact, to turn
the very changes of the elements to bad account. By his cunning and
audacity, he had made such predictions and revelations as had obtained
for him paramount ascendancy over his chief, and consequently the whole
tribe. Doda both despised and dreaded him. He had missed him lately
for several days. Amani was supposed to be in the retirement of the
hills, preparing charms and incantations for the ceremony they had
assembled to witness, the induction of the young warriors into their
calling. But Doda, who had his scouts ever on the watch, felt sure that
the wizard had made a hurried march to some secret place of meeting with
Brennard, who would have given him the last colonial news; and, armed
with this, he could easily forestall Amayeka and her white confederates,
since Amani could travel faster and by nearer paths than they could
traverse in a body, and with Zwartz, encumbered with their contraband
stores.
It was soon clear that such was the case.
Amani began his address by saying, that Umlala's eyes were open. Amani
himself had predicted mischief. He had told his chief that the great
white captains were coming to speak to them with guns; but as for the
red men they had now on the borders of the colony, _they_ could be
counted in a day, they were _not_ many. He called on the sons of Congo
to sound the war-cry from the highest mountain-top.
"Swear," said he, "by the bones of Congo's forefathers, to drive the
Amglezi to the sea which spits them up. Behold, we will turn the
hail-storm of their fire to water--it shall be as water poured through a
broken calabash. What right has the white man to put his foot before us
on our war-paths, when we choose to quarrel with the Gaikas about grass?
The bad people of Gaika steal from us--he shares the plunder--then we
take up arms against him--the white man comes, and tramples down our
corn; he begins the war, and will not let us rest in our huts, though
our fight with Gaika is no business of his. Gaika calls himself the
white man's friend; he is a liar--he hates the white man--but likes to
sit where he will in the colony with his eyes open. He stretches out
his hand, and the Amglezi fill it. The Amglezi are fools, and believe
him. He does not steal their cattle himself, but sits still upon the
hills, and sees it go by to the kloofs in the Amatolas; and quarrels
with us when he finds us there waiting to share the plunder that belongs
to all the land--our land--a land that will soon be dead to us, for
shall we reap the corn we have planted? Gaika is a woman--he will not
fight us himself, but lifts up his voice, and cries aloud to the white
men, who come among us like locusts, and eat us up, and then pay Gaika
in beads and buttons for his treachery to his brothers. Let the Amglezi
come--let them kill the last man of us--but let not Umlala's children
put their necks under the foot of Gaika. Better to be dead lions in our
own kraals, than live dogs in the Amglezi's territory. The white man
calls himself the protector of the Kafir tribes dwelling on the borders
of the country he has made his own; but we are oppressed by his
protection, and we will not have it; and we know, too, that some of the
Amglezi are with us in heart; for they tell us we are wronged, and bring
us arms and powder wherewith to regain our rights."
Doda thought within himself, "we pay for such stores;" but the thought
rested in his breast, for he dared not express it.
Amani proceeded, waving aloft an assegai, which quivered in the grasp of
his muscular palm:
"Awake, sons of Congo! shout from the mountain-tops! the valleys are
waiting to reply--we have sat still long enough. Behold the children of
the foam will multiply, and come and drive us like monkeys into the
rocks. Shall we consent to sit there in darkness? Shall our young
warriors be mown down like early grass, or be driven into the sea like
ashes before the wind? Shall our cattle be taken from us, to languish
in new pastures? Shout, young warriors of Kafirland! shout, for the
elders of the tribe are women--their hearts grow white. Our old women
would laugh at the old men, whose eyes are unclosed, but that their
hearts tremble as they think of the strong hand of the Umburghi. Hark!
the young women of Kafirland, the daughters of Congo, call to us in our
sleep. Answer them, and let the war-cry be echoed back from the Kei to
the Amatolas. Let Gaika know that we are men. Then shall he be
ashamed--then shall he uncover his face, and turn it towards us, and we
shall have light."
The Kafir girls, armed with assegais, and ranged in a double semicircle
behind the councillors, responded to this appeal with a shrill chorus,
their weapons rattling like the leaves of a forest in a gale of wind.
Amani ceased speaking, but they took up the strain.
"Busa Abantu u ba hlanganise"--"Sound the alarm! gather the people
together,"--they chanted over and over again in a tone of triumph and
defiance. "Uya biswa go yithlo"--"You are called by your father."
"You are called, you are called," was repeated many times, till the
young hunters paused on the hill paths, and, looking down, waved their
muskets, for most of them were thus armed. Some threw their assegais
and knob-kierries into the air, and cried, "Izapa, izapa"--"Come on!"
Six or seven women, the mothers of the kraal, stood round a skin
stretched on sticks to the tightness of a drum; this they began to beat,
now loud, now low, now in slow time, and now in quick, accompanying the
measure with their feet, and repeating the cry, "Sound the
alarm"--"Silathtekile"--"we are lost!"--the strange chorus rising,
swelling, dying away into a cry of wailing and despair, and again
filling the amphitheatre as it was taken up by the whole population of
the valley.
Suddenly some of the newly-elected young warriors, twenty in number,
stalked from a hut set a little apart from the others of the kraal, and
Lee was thoroughly startled by their appearance. Whitened from head to
foot with a preparation of ashes and chalk, their ghastly hue contrasted
in a most extraordinary manner with the dusky colour of the rest of the
tribe, some of whom drew as near as custom permitted, and united in a
shout of welcome.
The faces of the youths were almost concealed by a thatched head-dress
of reeds, surmounted by two tall and slender leaves of the palmeet
plant; round their waists, and depending to their knees, were kilts of
the same texture as the head-gear; brass bangles shone upon their arms
and ankles, marking the exquisite contour of their limbs; and, shaking a
reed in his hand, for as yet they were not permitted to wield the
assegai, a youth advanced in pantomimic fashion. At one moment he would
spring forward with a bound like a tiger's, the next he would glide
onward as a bird skims the surface of the earth; then rising suddenly,
he would execute a pirouette in a style that would establish the fame of
an opera dancer. Anon he would balance himself on tiptoe like a
Mercury, then wheeling round, and again springing into the air, would
come down with an _aplomb_ that stirred the spectators to loud applause,
the men crying "It is good," the old women drumming loud and sharp in
the back-ground, the younger ones advancing, retreating, and chanting
shrilly to their accompaniment of rattling assegais; the spectators in
the distance adding their meed of admiration, their cries of applause
and encouragement echoing along the hills, and dying on the air, till
taken up and repeated by the herdsmen in the valleys.
Umlala had been too much excited to hold a parley even on the important
question of gunpowder traffic.
The chief and his councillors ceased to speak. Doda led the white men
away, Amayeka following at a distance. A hut was set apart for their
accommodation, and a huge steak, cut from an ox slaughtered in honour of
the young warriors' installation, was sent to them by Umlala, together
with some baskets of sour milk, and a good store of Indian corn. The
bearer closed his message with the usual demand of _baseila_, which Lee
answered with an English oath, and Gray responded to by sending the
chief some tobacco.
As the night fell, the dark but shapely arm of Amayeka pushed aside the
wicker door of the hut, and set within it a small English saucepan
containing some fresh eggs, a little pipkin of clear water, a few grains
of salt--a great prize--and a cake made of coarsely-ground flour. Gray
would have followed her to offer her thanks, but Lee restrained him at
the doorway.
Ere closing it for the night, they looked out. The hills were silent,
but, between the summits and the sky, a scout at times appeared, moving
here and there in communication with others. The watch-fires began to
glimmer, the cattle were settling in the kraals for the night, but the
hamlet was still astir, and the dull beating of the great primitive drum
went on. The stars came out, the Southern Cross shed its light upon the
wild scene, and the young warriors still kept up their ghost-like dance
upon the dewy turf, one party relieving the other, as did the
singing-girls and elder women.
Long after the fire in the centre of the convicts' hut had been
extinguished, did both the inmates, stretched on karosses, try to
collect their somewhat scattered senses together. Still the weary drum
beat on--still the shrill chorus rose and fell upon the clear night
wind, and at times the shout of some excited dancer pierced the air.
Lee, in wish, sent them to the infernal regions--whence, indeed, a
stranger might infer they came--and tried to frame plans connected with
the insurgent operations of the Dutch. Gray strove to pray, but knew
not how--poor wretch!
"Ah," thought he, with a heavy sigh, "would I were once more a soldier,
and an honest man!"
And with this vain wish he fell asleep, and dreamed he was a little
child again, kneeling on the hearth beside his mother, and repeating to
her the simple prayer she used to teach him at eventide.