"_No_ more!" replied Doda; "he has ceased to be."
"Then," asked Lulu, "how will he know his murderer has been killed or
eaten up?--he is not there to see him."
"What need," asked Zoonah, "for him to know he is no more?"
"It would compensate his heart for the loss of his body," replied Lulu.
"But," said Doda, "we have nothing more to do with his heart--his body
is gone--he is no longer a man."
There was a long pause.
Doda was the first to break silence. "When," said he, "I inquire of my
own heart, one view of the case makes me on the side of the English
lawgivers. We know the two principals in a murder are the murderer and
the murdered. The last has left this world, so we cannot call for his
evidence. The murderer denies all about it. The English say, God made
man; to destroy what God made is _ukwapula umsila_, to break His
representative. It is clearly a case beyond the jurisdiction of man.
It can only be understood and disposed of by the maker of the _dead
thing_; and on these grounds it seems reasonable that the murderer
should be sent the same path that he caused the other to go, in order
that _they may meet and he judged before God_."
"I see what you say," answered Lulu, after due deliberation; "it is too
strong for me. Do the English do this from such views? They can talk:
they do talk--but one cannot always believe them. His argument is good.
My heart is satisfied; I have heard. My heart is satisfied with your
words. Nevertheless, I do not comprehend--"
And Lulu withdrew to ponder in silence on this argument.
After this, Lyle bid Doda question Zoonah on all that he had seen in his
late perambulations "to and fro" upon the earth.
Zoonah complied partially, but omitted the episode of his being
discovered by May, and outwitted also by the bushman.
He described the two sportsmen, and the cavalcade with which they were
attended; and added, that they had retraced their steps, and had joined
the bivouac at Annerley, which was known by all the Kafir scouts to be
the rendezvous for the women and children of the district farmers. The
scouts, of course, were in constant communication with some of the
Annerley herdsmen, who, as was shown in the last chapter, were spies,
ready to desert at the right moment. One of these had, some weeks
previously to the open demonstrations of enmity in the frontier
districts, on overhearing Mr Daveney announce to a farmer that England
was sending troops, quitted the settlement, travelled 160 miles without
sleep, and, after delivering his message, dropped dead at the feet of
his chief. All Kafirland now was ripe for war, the tribes were
gathering in the hill, and the watch-fires beginning to smoke.
Zoonah, in his turn, put manifold queries to Doda. The former said his
path was uncertain; his "feet were towards Umlala's Kraal, but his face
turned away sometimes." He asked, also, about Amani's proceedings.
Amani was his bitter foe. Lulu was bound for the settlements in the
Annerley district, to look for plunder. Was Amayeka at Umlala's Kraal?
He must get cattle to offer Doda, for his daughter. He thought he
should go with Lulu; he must come to Doda with full hands, to ask for
Amayeka. How many bullocks would Doda want for her--the girl with the
shining hair?
And then there was the usual subtle bartering argument between the two
Kafirs.
Meanwhile, a thought had struck Lyle. Taking one of Zoonah's assegais
from the bundle, he scratched with his clasp-knife his name and a
certain date on the blade of the weapon. Zoonah, who could elicit no
decided answers from Doda, leaned over the convict's shoulder.
He had seen books; indeed, as a boy, in a former war, he had, with
others, cut them up as wadding for muskets, but could not read.
Nevertheless, he knew that letters were, as he called them, "silent
words."
Lulu came too, and sat down beside Lyle--"Was he bewitching Zoonah's
assegai?"
Zoonah grasped the weapon, and would have drawn it away.
Lyle explained to him, in a mingled jargon, that the words _were_
mystical, but not intended to injure _him_. "Take it," he said, "to
Daveney's Great Place, Annerley. Be like the asphogels. Watch them,
but let them not see you till the time comes to cast the weapon before
them. You know that Daveney is your enemy. Doda knows that I am the
friend of the Amakosas. I have brought you guns and powder. I have
made a path between you and the Dutch. The Dutch hate the English more
than you do now. There are people in my country, beyond the great
waters, who know that the English colonists are great liars. Can the
white chiefs sent hither ever carry their threats as far they declare
they will? No. You know that when they have laid schemes to drive you
from your lands, a word comes to them across the foaming vley, and they
are forced to eat their own words.--Your chiefs have many to speak for
them in my country. I have been one of your mouths there. I was here
long ago, when the son of Umlala's great wife was no taller than that
mimosa: when I went back to my land, I spoke in council. I said you
were under the feet of the English here; that you were not permitted to
sit still in green places in your own territory; that you only wanted
grazing-ground and patches of land to grow corn in; but that instead of
rewarding you for refusing to help the Boers against the English, we
have suffered your cattle and your land to be taken from you. You see,
too, that the Boers are angry. They have cause. You and they were as
two gnoos fighting for plunder. One gnoo comes first, and possesses
himself of the prey; another follows, and would seize it. Up stalks the
lion, he parts the combatants, seizes the plunder, and takes it to
himself. What should the gnoos do? They should unite, go to war with
the lion, take the plunder from him and share it. The land is large
enough for all; but when you would have justice, the lion puts his paw
beyond his own boundary, shakes his mane, his eyeballs burn and roll
like flames, he roars, and the very trees of the forest tremble at the
sound. Up, then, Amakosas, and at this roaring, ravaging lion. Quarrel
not among yourselves; the musket and the flint, and the powder and the
bullet, are all good when used together; apart, what are they?
"Drive these greedy white men to the sea. The Boers are already treking
towards those great solitudes where the sun rises; divide this glorious
country among you, and make a place along the shore for white men to
come and traffic, bringing you beads, and blankets, and knives, and
brandy, and all those good things which white men love best, but which
they tell you, when they preach, that God has no delight in, and
forbids."
Lyle went on much further in this strain, standing up, and declaiming in
a strange dialect with increasing spirit. The these Kafirs seated
themselves at his feet, and listened attentively to his specious
reasoning. He informed them that he was going among the Boers: that
they too would make a stand for their rights; that there were more men
like himself in the land intent on seeing justice done to all; and that
if the Kafirs were overcame by numbers in the forthcoming onset, they
had but to fall back to the sources of the white Kei, and mingle their
war-cry with the thunder of the Storm mountains. There the Boers would
answer them, and, ere long, the Zooluhs would echo it back, and bring
their hosts to join them in the onslaught. The Zooluhs and the
Amatembus, the Amapondas and the Amakosas, should be brothers; they came
from the same father originally, they were brandies of the same tree.
The Zooluhs were worthy to be the brothers of the Amakosas, for they
were brave. What a day it would be for Kafirland when they should chant
the same war-song, when, the Fingoes should be their dogs again. The
Fingoes, who, like the Zooluhs and Amakosas, had once been a great
nation, but who had lost their name, had no longer a place to sit, and
were fain to do the white man's bidding now, and work! Lyle laughed
scornfully, and there was a low chuckle among the three Kafirs.
He pursued the theme skilfully, and if he did not persuade the three men
to believe him implicitly, he succeeded in stirring up their hearts to
join hopefully in the coming strife. In proof of his allegations
against his countrymen, he reminded them of what a Kafir chief, who had
visited England, had told them--how he had been brought before a council
[the Committee of the House of Commons], and questioned, and how even
women had stood up and pleaded that their land should be restored.
They were fully aware, too, of the difficulties which many a "cruel
white Governor" had met with in trying to oppress those whom he was sent
to protect--how strong had been the words of those who spoke in their
favour. They, the Kafirs, had heard of and seen English papers. They
could not read them, but they knew that, like the Kafir watch-fires,
they were silent messengers. They had heard the teachers read from
books. Who asked the teachers to come? What good did they do? They
drew the people away from their chiefs: they would break up
chieftainship in Kafirland.
The shades of evening were beginning to gather over the glen, and the
sky above was like a spangled banner of deep blue. Lyle was determined
to proceed that evening, and brought his speech to a close by bidding
Zoonah take the mystic assegai to Annerley, and having, when opportunity
offered, cast it where it could not fail to be observed, warned him to
note carefully, by means of household spies, the effect that would be
produced on the whole family at the sight of the inscription on the
blade. Lyle had already been in communication with Brennard regarding
the present position and circumstances of the Daveney family, and
Zoonah's information, gathered from various sources, confirmed him in
the idea that the two young officers, now domesticated at Annerley,
were, whether in earnest or not, on most agreeable terms with the whole
family, especially with the younger ladies.
He knew every inch of ground about that settlement,--he could realise
the whole scene;--he learned that the place had been made very
defensible, and that a block-house was in progress. It was clear that
the magistrate intended to hold out vigorously against all attacks; but
there was much cattle, said Zoonah, most of which had been seized on
commandoes, and the chiefs were outrageous at being deprived of their
property, for Zoonah did not call it plunder.
Lyle knew his ground in thus sowing the seed of evil in a small way. A
white man standing up, and venturing opinions among a tribe of Kafirs,
would meet with argument from some, contradiction from others dissent
from most, distrust from all; but these three men would soon be on
different routes. Two were accredited scouts in Kafirland; wherever
they went they were asked, "What news?" then they sat down, and
"talked;" thus what he had said would spread gradually, but surely, and
doubtless gain in importance.
He had already become popular at Umlala's Kraal; the trade in muskets,
gunpowder, tobacco, and Cape brandy had been brisker under his guidance
than it had ever been. He was an athletic man, a rider, a swimmer, a
perfect marksman, and had once beat a Kafir in hurling the assegai.
He was wont to respond cheerfully to the cry of "Baseila;" would join in
the games even of the boy warriors--this was the very class to
conciliate; and with his fearless air, his reckless laugh, and withal a
certain deferential manner to the chief, Lyle had contrived, to make
himself much at home with the tribe: while poor Gray was looked upon
with some distrust and much contempt; his step was slow, his whole air
cast down and melancholy, and the women and the youths, had some
suspicion of his passion for Amayeka; but Lyle was his friend,
outwardly, that was clear; and as the whole population must suffer by
quarrelling with the traders, Gray's presence was endured. The children
liked him, for however abstracted or dejected he might be, he had always
a smile for them, and the mothers thanked him for this. The Kafir women
love their children as long as the latter are helpless, but cast them
aside when, they become adults, and able to live by their own exertions.
Lyle's authoritative manner had due weight with the three Kafirs; the ox
was divided into portions, and each man took a goodly piece with him.
Lyle and Doda started ere the Southern Cross began to bend and tell the
midnight hour had passed. Zoonah and Lulu bent their course westward,
and idling as they went, resting here and talking there, lurking about
the settlements, and helping the Kafir women whom they met in their
commissariat arrangements for the ensuing periods of strife; they
separated in the Buffalo Mountains, Lulu to join the warriors in the
Amatolas, Zoonah to keep watch in the Devil's Kloof.
You have seen the result of Lyle's plan. The herdsmen at Annerley, who
fled into the wilderness at the sound of the war-cry, caught sight of
Zoonah at sunrise next morning, when he was skimming along a distant
ridge, and recognising him, by the feather at his ankle, to be a special
messenger, waved their karosses. He waited for them; they had not
deserted empty-handed. Two fine heifers were driven before them, and
dropping into a neighbouring kloof on the shady side of a mountain, they
all met together to hold a parley, and fare sumptuously on one of the
slaughtered animals.
The detention in the "Sunless Kloof" was so far fortunate, that it
prevented Lyle and Doda from encountering the young Dutch burghers
bearing off. Amayeka, and, by a strange coincidence, Gray, in his
uncertain route, passed during the day within two miles of them; his
course, however, lay more to the westward, for he no longer cared to
conceal himself: but, as his ill-luck would have it, he was overtaken by
his fellow-convict two days after, on the northern bank of the Kabousie
River.
Weak from hunger, he had been obliged to keep to the more fruitful
spots, and had subsisted on roots, Kei apples, and a little Kafir corn,
gathered from deserted gardens. Utterly disheartened, he again yielded
passively to his fate, and told the tale of the events which had driven
him forth as a wanderer again.
After this, the three pushed forward night after night, and in the
course of a few days, the heavy clouds that had veiled the horizon
cleared off, and they found themselves within a few hours' journey of
the Stormberg Mountains.
Gray's narration of the events which had been the cause of his leaving
Umlala's Kraal did not particularly move Lyle or Doda; if the latter had
any suspicion of the deserter's regard for his daughter, he did not
betray it. Until a Kafir is excited by incidents passing before him, he
never displays any decided emotion; hating Amani, he was more inclined
to be enraged with him for his condemnation of Amayeka, than anxious for
his daughter's fate. In the hands of white men, he felt certain enough
of her safety to take the matter coolly, suggesting that he was now
among the Boers in the Stormberg; and, under this impression, he tramped
steadily on, staff in hand, and, with a loose assegai, ready to bring
down any game that might cross the path.
Lyle, on learning the destruction of the ammunition, congratulated
himself on having settled all monetary transactions ere he started. The
articles of barter exchanged by the Kafirs for the gunpowder were all
well on their way to the Witches' Krantz, and the only point now on
which he was ill at ease, was Gray's faint-heartedness, as he termed it.
"What would you do?" said Lyle, as, side by side, the two Englishmen
followed Doda through the tangled pathways intersecting the small
plains, covered with fine pasturage, and watered by numerous streams
proceeding from the Stormberg,--"what would you do? declare yourself a
runaway convict, a deserter from the Royal Artillery? My good fellow,
you are the man the Boers want--they have got guns, as you know, but few
to handle them--you will meet some old comrades, though, I have no
doubt, up in those hills."
Then Gray spoke the first resolute words he had uttered for a long time.
"If," said he, "you think I will work a gun against my own countrymen,
you are mistaken. You may call me fool, coward, if you will--I may be
branded, shot as a deserter but I will not die a traitor!"
Lyle gave a long, low, contemptuous whistle, and then burst into a
laugh. "What do you call a traitor?" he asked: "to my mind, he is a man
who enlists in a good cause, and then, without rhyme or reason, or for
some vicious purpose, turns against it. Why, they condemned me to
transportation as a traitor, because I took the side of justice and the
oppressed. It is more manly to fight for the weak than for the strong.
Talk of might against right in this country--I should like to know who
are the rightful owners of it--why, those little nations, the bushmen.
As for justice, she may well be painted blind, for the strongest arm
turns for scale, and she can't see to help herself. It is the same
everywhere. We left the Government in England riding rough-shod over
the poor starving devils, and when the worms began to turn, the law, as
they call it, crushed them with its iron heel. The lion of England is a
mighty fine fellow to boast of, but wherever he stalks, he leaves the
traces of his bloody paws. They are beginning to find this out at home.
Home!--it is no home to us." Gray heaved a deep sigh. "They are
getting sick of being taxed for those hired assassins, the soldiers. I
was one of those to show the people what they were taxed for--to pay men
for shooting them like dogs, if they complained of wrong. I did not
conceal from them that I had been a soldier myself and I pointed out the
slavery of such a condition. I was licenced to talk of what I had been.
I might have been pulled up and shown up, for I had got into a few
scrapes from want of money; but this would have dragged forward some
respectable names, so justice was deaf, as well as blind, on this
question, and Jasper Lee was only talked of as a Chartist leader. The
real traitors to the cause were those who sat safely at their desks in
dusty offices, and made promises which gained them popularity at the
time, but which they never intended to perform. One wrote, `If Jasper
Lee leaves the B--D--dock in a felon's van, it shall be over a hurdle of
Chartists' bodies.' Another, that if I `did not walk a free man from my
gaol--free by the verdict of a British jury--thousands of armed citizens
were ready to fling back the defiance I should hurl from the felon's
dock.' One party `resolved,' that the vessel carrying off Jasper Lee,
as a convict, should have to cleave its way through an ocean of Chartist
blood,--`and,' shouted another from a platform at a hill-side meeting in
one of the manufacturing districts, `so long as I live, the manacle will
not be forged that will encircle the heel, or the scissors that will cut
a hair from the head of Jasper Lee, the felon.'
"I did not take all the epistles I received for gospel, but I did reckon
on a rescue. The miserable mob, however, terrified at the sight of the
soldiers, quailed before an unloaded gun; but at last they began to show
fight with brickbats. There was barely time to read the Riot Act--ha,
ha! how the old mayor's hand trembled that held it, when a charge of
cavalry came down the street and drove the poor devils right and left.
We were the victims of treachery. Some of our pretended friends had
been bribed, turned informers, and went over to the enemy. These were
the traitors and deserters; they have pocketed the price of blood, and
are at work again, no doubt, like spiders in their dark, gloomy offices,
making false promises, deluding the people into the assemblies they
convoke, only to bring the troops upon them, and then reap their reward
for betraying their victims."
In this strain Lyle proceeded; Gray paid but little heed to his
sophistry--his mind was intent on casting aside the thraldom under which
he writhed; but fate seemed against him.
And Amayeka, what was to become of her? Lyle next pointed out the
advantages of the prospect before them. It was by no means certain, he
said, that the Boers must necessarily fight against the English
government; it was well-known that Vander Roey had gone to the
Commander-in-Chief to hold a conference; it was not improbable that
terms would be made, and that a territory would be given to the Dutch
settlers, where they might exercise their own laws.
"Here," said Lyle, "we may find a place of rest, for, unless something
is to be gained by it, I am not inclined for war for fighting's sake."
This was, as the reader may divine, untrue; but he adapted his expressed
opinions to the tone of Gray's mind at the moment.
"So, for the present, my lad, make your mind easy; you cannot get away
from this if you would, and you would not if you could, for your dusky
lady-love is, without doubt, yonder in the hills, and no bad refuge
neither. By Jove, this is a fine country--ha! Doda told me it was a
noble pasture-land for horses, and see, the mountain-sides are dotted
with them; and here is a troop of jolly young Boers. Now remember, once
for all, my lad," continued Lyle, clutching Gray suddenly by the
arm--"let me tell you to put a good face on the matter. As to getting
these people just now to listen to your history, and give you a guide or
an escort to take you back--you young fool!--to fight against them, it
is of no use. All your reasoning would be as useless as whistling jigs
to milestones--all your wrath like the grimaces, and the sputtering, and
the swearing of the bushmen at a storm of thunder and lightning. So now
say `good morrow' to these young fellows with the best face you can."
A party of youths rode up as Lyle spoke; the latter informed them, in
tolerable Dutch, that he was the trader whom Brennard had located at
Umlala's Kraal, and, as he had no intention of at once avowing himself
willing to be enrolled as a rebel, he affected to have started from the
Kraal with mere prospects of traffic. He then related what had occurred
since his departure, and Gray listened with a beating heart to the reply
made to Lyle on his inquiring whether a Kafir girl had been brought to
the mountains by the young men of the foraging party.
"Yes; but they had earned her over the hills to the Boers' large
encampment, where she would be taken care of by some of the women."
With this information Gray and Doda were obliged to be content. The
young Dutchmen informed Lyle that the ammunition was on the
south-western side of the mountains, where it was carefully stored in
some of the bushmen's caves, long abandoned by their first tenants,
until Vander Roey sent intelligence of the result of his conference with
the Commander-in-Chief, Vander Roey's wife was in charge of it, and,
under her directions, instalments of gunpowder were daily forwarded on
pack-oxen and horses, the passes of the mountains being impracticable
for wagons.
The young Boers having turned their horses' heads in the direction of
the mountains, the convicts and Doda accompanied them to the temporary
bivouac, where Vander Roey's wife held sway in the absence of her
husband. The three were left among the scattered tents and wagon-tilts
of the few families congregated together in the sequestered spot, while
the riders hastened to Mrs Vander Roey to inform her of the new
arrivals in the camp. Lyle and Gray were soon summoned by the lady, who
advanced to the door of the cave to receive them, and ask their
business.
She was a woman apparently five or six and twenty years of age, though
probably she was much less. She was not what might be termed a true
specimen of the Boeress in Southern Africa, but was, in colonial
parlance, an Africander, of French extraction, her father belonging to
the race who established themselves at the Cape after the revocation of
the edict of Nantes; and her mother, although the wife of a Boer, had a
alight touch of dark blood in her veins. To these circumstances, which,
in the eyes of the community to which she belonged, were objectionable,
she owed her raven hair, drawn back from the temples, and bound round
her head in classic fashion. The forehead was low, but well formed; the
eyes long, dark, and fringed with black lashes, that softened their
fiery expression; the nose aquiline, with the delicate nostril
indicative of Indian blood; the mouth scarlet-lipped, and radiant with
pearly teeth; her figure, above the middle height, and gracefully, if
not perfectly, shaped, was set off by the dress, which, albeit coarse
and rough, was picturesque; a petticoat of bright-coloured _voerchitz_,
a bodice of the same material, but of different pattern, over which was
thrown a rich silk handkerchief of orange hue--a gift from Cape Town;
loose sleeves, reaching a little below the elbow of a beautiful arm;
cotton stockings, passing fine, and _veldt scoons_, of better make than
was common among her people, fitted to a tolerable foot and slender
ankle. Such was the attire of Mrs, or, as she chose to call herself,
Madame Vander Roey; and, as she came forward, the rays of the setting
sun illuminated her figure, and set off the manifold hues of her costume
in a very striking manner. Even the attention of the listless deserter
was arrested by the vision of this showy dame, who, with a pistol in her
belt, her arms folded across the orange handkerchief her head thrown
back, and her flashing eyes bent eagerly on Lyle, awaited their approach
in front of her rude but picturesque domicile. She opened the
conversation by the direct inquiry addressed to Lyle in Dutch, of "Where
do you come from, and what is your business?"
Lyle replied, with equal decision of tone,
"I am the trader from Umlala's Kraal; I have been, in communication with
Vander Roey for more than six weeks."
"Vander Roey has been absent nearly a month, but I did not wish Umlala's
people to know this; the scouts were told he was ill, and have received
the ammunition; some of it I have stored, some has been sent over the
mountains. Are you here only as traders, and who is this boy?"
She scanned the dejected-looking Gray with something like glances of
contempt.
"Doda, good morrow; you are to be trusted, because you would gain
nothing by betraying us. Go, you will find meat cooking at those fires
in the hollow. Who, I say, is this boy?"
"A deserter from the service of my king," answered Gray, "and a
miserable creature."
Lyle would have spoken; Madame Vander Roey forestalled him, by asking in
English, "And what is your business here? Do you come as friend or
enemy?"
"As neither," replied Gray; "but I am a most unfortunate young man."
"Neither friend nor enemy!" said Madame Vander Roey, elevating her
dark-pencilled eyebrows; "then why come you here at all?"
Lyle, seeing that Gray had resolved on making a true statement of past
occurrences, suddenly exclaimed, "At least accept me as your friend; I
am one of those who have been banished by my country for taking part
with the ill-used, the poor, and the weak--in a word, we are convicts,
who escaped lately from the wreck of the _Trafalgar_, and from the
moment that I set foot on shore, I resolved to seek Vander Roey, whose
fame has spread to England--aye, and to the land of his forefathers, to
Holland; but of this we can speak hereafter. We have been travelling
for some days on foot, are weary and hungry, and long for the rest and
refreshment which we believe you will give us. This lad will come to
his senses by-and-by; if he does not," added the elder convict, with a
bitter laugh--one of those laughs which Eleanor could not distinguish
between jest and earnest--"we most teach him the use of his wits."
Gray knew it was vain to remonstrate with his evil genius. Madame
Vander Roey invited both the travellers into her retreat, and Gray
passively followed Lyle and the lady into the bushmen's cave, her
present dwelling-place.