Kitabı oku: «The Induna's Wife»

Prologue

Twilight was fast closing in upon the desolate site of the old Kambúla Camp, and the short, sharp thunderstorm which at the moment of outspanning had effectually drenched the scant supply of fuel, rendering that evening’s repast, of necessity, cold commons, had left in its wake a thin but steady downpour. Already the line of low hills hard by was indistinct in the growing gloom, and a far-reaching expanse of cold and treeless plains made up a surrounding as mournful and depressing as could be.

The waggon stood outspanned in the tall grass, which, waist high, was about as pleasant to stand in as the drift of a river. Just above, the conical ridge, once crested with fort and waggon laagers, and swarming with busy life, and the stir and hum of troops on hard active service, now desolate and abandoned – the site, indeed, still discernible if only by ancient tins, and much fragmentary residue of the ubiquitous British bottle. Below, several dark patches in the grass marked the resting-place of hundreds of Zulu dead – fiery, intrepid warriors – mown down in foil and sweeping rush, with lips still framing the war cry of their king, fierce resolute hands still gripping the deadly charging spear. Now a silent and spectral peace rested upon this erewhile scene of fierce and furious war, a peace that in the gathering gloom had in it something that was weird, boding, oppressive. Even my natives, usually prone to laughter and cheery spirits, seemed subdued, as though loth to pass the night upon this actual site of vast and tolerably recent bloodshed; and the waggon leader, a smart but unimaginative lad, showed a suspicious alacrity in driving back the span from drinking at the adjacent water-hole. Yes! It is going to be a detestable night.

Hard biscuit and canned jam are but a poor substitute for fizzling rashers and wheaten cakes, white as snow within and hot from the gridiron; yet there is a worse one, and that is no biscuit at all. Moreover, there is plenty of whisky, and with that and a pipe I proceed to make myself as snug as may be within the waggon, which is not saying much, for the tent leaks abominably. But life in the Veldt accustoms one to such little inconveniences, and soon, although the night is yet young – has hardly begun, in fact – I find myself nodding, and becoming rapidly and blissfully oblivious to cold splashes dropping incontinently from new and unexpected quarters.

The oxen are not yet made fast to the disselboom for the night, and one of my natives is away to collect them. The others, rolled in their blankets beneath the waggon, are becoming more and more drowsy in the hum of their conversation. Suddenly this becomes wide-awake and alert. They are sitting up, and are, I gather from their remarks, listening to the approach of something or somebody. Who – what is it? There are no wild animals to reckon with in that part of the country, save for a stray leopard or so, and Zulus have a wholesome shrinking from moving abroad at night, let alone on such a night as this. Yet on peering forth, a few seconds reveal the approach of somebody. A tall form starts out of the darkness and the long wet grass, and from it the deep bass tones of the familiar Zulu greeting: “Nkose!”

Stay! Can it be? I ought indeed to know that voice; yet what does its owner here thus and at such an hour? This last, however, is its said owner’s business exclusively.

“Greeting, Untúswa! Welcome, old friend,” I answered. “Here is no fire to sit by, but the inside of the waggon is fairly dry; at any rate not so wet as outside. And there is a dry blanket or two and a measure of strong tywala to restore warmth, likewise snuff in abundance. So climb up here, winner of the King’s Assegai, holder of the White Shield, and make thyself snug, for the night is vile.”

Now, as this fine old warrior was in the act of climbing up into the waggon, there came a sound of trampling and the clash of horns, causing him to turn his head. The waggon leader, having collected the span, was bringing it in to attach to the yokes for the night, for it promised soon to be pitch dark, and now the heads of the oxen looked spectral in the mist. One especially, a great black one, with wide branching horns rising above the fast gathering sea of vapour, seemed to float upon the latter – a vast head without a trunk. The sight drew from Untúswa a shake of the head and a few quick muttered words of wonderment. That was all then, but when snug out of the drizzling rain, warmed by a measure of whisky, and squatting happy and comfortable in a dry blanket, snuff-box in hand, he began a story, and I – well, I thought I was in luck’s way, for a wet and cheerless and lonely evening stood to lose all its depression and discomfort if spent in listening to one of old Untúswa’s stories.

Chapter One.
The Tale of the Red Death

There was that about the look of your oxen just now, Nkose– shadowed like black ghosts against the mist – that brought back to my old mind a strange and wonderful time. And the night is yet young. Nor will that tale take very long in telling, unless – ah, that tale is but the door opening into a still greater one; but of that we shall see – yes, we shall see.

I have already unfolded to you, Nkose, all that befell at the Place of the Three Rifts, and how at that place we met in fierce battle and rolled back the might of Dingane and thus saved the Amandebeli as a nation. Also have I told the tale of how I gained the White Shield by saving the life of a king, and how it in turn saved the life of a nation. Further have I told how I took for principal wife Lalusini, the sorceress, in whose veins ran the full blood of the House of Senzangakona, the royal House of Zululand, and whom I had first found making strange and powerful múti among the Bakoni, that disobedient people whom we stamped flat.

For long after these events there was peace in our land. The arm of Dingane was stretched out against us no more, and Umzilikazi, our king, who had meditated moving farther northward, had decided to sit still in the great kraal, Kwa’zingwenya, yet a little longer. But though we had peace from our more powerful enemies, the King would not suffer the might of our nation to grow soft and weak for lack of practice in the arts of war – oh, no. The enrolling of warriors was kept up with unabated vigour, and the young men thus armed were despatched at once to try their strength upon tribes within striking distance, and even far beyond the limits of the same. Many of these were mountain tribes, small in numbers, but brave and fierce, and gave our fiery youths just as much fighting as they could manage ere wetting their victorious spears in blood.

Now, although we had peace from our more formidable foes, yet the mind of the King seemed not much easier on that account, for all fears as to disturbance from without being removed, it seemed that Umzilikazi was not wholly free from dread of conspiracy within. And, indeed, I have observed that it is ever so, Nkose. When the greater troubles which beset a man, and which he did not create, beset him no longer, does he not at once look around to see what troubles he can create for himself? Whau! I am old. I have seen.

So it was with Umzilikazi. The fear of Dingane removed, the recollection of the conspiracy of Tyuyumane and the others returned – that conspiracy to hand over our new nation to the invading Amabuna – that conspiracy which so nearly succeeded, and, indeed, would have completely, but for the watchfulness and craft of the old Mosutu witch doctor. Wherefore, with this suspicion ever in the King’s mind we, izinduna, seemed to have fallen upon uneasy times. Yet the principal object of dislike and distrust to the Great Great One was not, in the first place, one of ourselves. No councillor or fighting man was it, but a woman – and that woman Lalusini, my principal wife.

“Ha, Untúswa!” would the King say, talking dark, but his tone full of gloomy meaning. “Ha, Untúswa, but thine amahlose (Tutelary spirits) watch over thee well. Tell me, now, where is there a man the might of whose spear and the terror of whose name sweeps the world – whose slumbers are lulled by the magic of the mighty, and who is greater even than kings? Tell me, Untúswa, where is such a man?”

“I think such is to be found not far hence, Great Great One. Even in this house,” I answered easily, yet with a sinking fear of evil at heart, for his words were plain in their meaning; my successes in war surpassed by none; my beautiful wife, the great sorceress of the Bakoni, the wandering daughter of Tshaka the Terrible. And his tone – ah, that, too, spoke.

“Even in this house! Yeh bo! Untúswa – thou sayest well,” went on the King softly, his head on one side, and peering at me with an expression that boded no good. “Even in this house! Ha! Name him, Untúswa. Name him.”

“Who am I that I should sport with the majesty of the King’s name?” I answered. “Is not the son of Matyobane – the Founder of Mighty Nations – the Elephant of the Amandebeli – such a man? Doth not his spear rule the world, and the terror of his name —au! – who would hear it and laugh? And is not the bearer of that name greater than other kings – greater even than the mighty one of the root of Senzangakona – whose might has fled before the brightness of the great king’s head-ring? And again, who sleeps within the shadow of powerful and propitious magic but the Father and Founder of this great nation?”

“Very good, Untúswa. Very good. Yet it may be that the man of whom I was speaking is no king at all – great, but no king.”

“No king at all! Hau! I know not such a man, Father of the World,” I answered readily. “There is but one who is great, and that is the King. All others are small – small indeed.”

I know not how much further this talk would have gone, Nkose; and indeed of it I, for my part, was beginning to have more than enough. For, ever now, when Umzilikazi summoned me to talk over matters of state, would he soon lead the conversation into such channels; and, indeed, I saw traps and pitfalls beneath every word. But now the voice of an inceku– or household attendant – was heard without singing the words of sibonga, and by the way in which he praised we knew he desired to announce news of importance. At a sign from the King I admitted the man.

“There are men without, O Divider of the Sun,” he began – when he had made prostration – “men from the kraals of Maqandi-ka-Mahlu, who beg the protection of the King’s wise ones. The Red Magic has been among them again.”

“Ha! The Red Magic!” said Umzilikazi, with a frown. “It seems I have heard enough of such childish tales. Yet, let the dogs enter and whine out their own story.”

Through the door of the royal dwelling, creeping on hands and knees, came two men. They were not of our blood, but of a number whom the King had spared, with their wives and children, and had located in a region some three days to the northward as far as a swift walker could travel. It was a wild and mountainous land – a land of black cliffs and thunderous waterfalls – cold, and sunless, and frowning – a meet abode of ghosts and all evil things. Here they had been located, and, being skilled in ironwork, were employed in forging spear-heads and axes for our nation. They were in charge of Maqandi-ka-Mahlu – a man of our race, and a chief – and who, having been “smelt out” by our witch doctors, the King had spared – yet had banished in disgrace to rule over these iron-workers in the region of ghosts and of gloom.

Their tale now was this: The stuff which they dug from the bowels of the earth to make the metal for our spears and axes was mostly procured in a long, deep, gloomy valley, running right up into the heart of the mountains. Here they bored holes and caves for digging the stuff. But, for some time past, they had not been able to go there – for the place had become a haunt of tagati. A terrible ghost had taken up its abode in the caves, and did a man wander but the shortest space of time from his fellows, that man was never again seen.

He was seen, though, but not alive. His body was found weltering in blood, and ripped, not as with a spear, but as though by the horn of a fierce and furious bull. This had befallen several times, and had duly been reported to the King – who would know everything – but Umzilikazi only laughed, saying that he cared nothing that the spirits of evil chose to devour, from time to time, such miserable prey as these slaves. There were plenty more of them, and if the wizard animals, who dwelt in the mountains, wanted to slay such, why, let them.

But now, the tale which these men told was serious. They could no more go to that place for the terror which haunted it. They had tried keeping together, so that none might fall a prey to the evil monster – and, for some while, none had. But there came a day when travelling thus, in a body close together, through the gloom of the forest, a sudden and frightful roaring, as of the advance of a herd of savage bulls, burst upon them. Some fell, half dead with fear; others, crying out that they could see fearful shapes, with gigantic horns and flaming eyes, moving among the trees, rushed blindly in all directions. Of thirty men who had entered that dreadful valley, ten only came forth, nor of these could any be persuaded to return and see what had happened to the remaining score. But the seer, Gasitye, who knew no terror of things of the other world, had ventured in. Twenty bodies had he seen – lying scattered – no two together – no, not anywhere two together – and all had died the Red Death.

“And was this by day or by night?” said the King, who had been listening with great attention to this tale.

“By day, O Ruler of the World. While yet the sun was straight overhead,” replied the men.

“Well, I care not,” said Umzilikazi, with a sneer. “Go back now and cause your seer, Gasitye, to charm away that tagati, and that soon, lest I visit him and you with the fate of those who make witchcraft. Shall we keep a dog who cannot guard our house? For to what other use can we turn such a dog? Begone.”

There was despair upon the faces of the two messengers as the meaning of these words became plain to them – and in truth were they between two perils, even as one who travels, and, being beset by a great fire, fleeth before it, only to find himself stopped by a mighty and raging river, whose flood he cannot hope to cross. Yet the man who had spoken, instead of immediate obedience, ventured further to urge his prayer with the intrepidity and hopeless courage of such despair.

“Who are we that we should weary the ears of the Father of the Great?” he went on. “Yet, even a dog cannot entirely guard a house if he is but a small dog, and they who would enter are many and strong. He can but give warning of their approach – and this is what we have done. But the King’s magicians are many and powerful, and ours are weak. Besides, O Black Elephant, how shall metal be procured for the spears of the Great Great One’s warriors, when the place where it is procured is guarded by the horns of the ghost-bulls, who slay all who go in?”

Now, I thought those slaves must indeed have touched the lowest depth of despair and terror, that they dared to use such speech to the King. And upon the countenance of Umzilikazi came that look which was wont to mean that somebody would never behold another sun to rise.

“Enough!” he said, pointing at the two messengers with his short-handled spear. “Return ye hence. For the rest of you – hearken now, Untúswa. Send one half of thy regiment of ‘Scorpions’ under an experienced captain, that they may drive the whole of the people of Maqandi within this Ghost-Valley. Then let them draw a line across the month thereof, and slay every one who shall attempt to escape. So shall the people of Maqandi either slay this ghost or be slain by it. I care not which. Go?”

I rose to carry out the King’s orders, and upon the faces of the grovelling messengers was an awful expression of set, hopeless despair. But, before I could creep through the low doorway, a sign from Umzilikazi caused me to halt. At the same time, a frightful hubbub arose from without – the hubbub of a volume of deep, excited voices – mingled with a wild bellowing, which was enough to make a man deaf.

“I think these ghost-bulls are upon us, too,” said the King, with an angry sneer. “Look forth, Untúswa, and see whether all the world has gone mad.”

Quickly I gained the gate in the woven fence which surrounded the isigodhlo. From far and near people were flocking, while the great open space within the kraal was becoming more and more densely packed; and, making their way through the blackness of the crowd, which parted eagerly to give them passage, came a weird and hideous throng, decked with horrid devices of teeth and claws and the skulls of beasts, their bodies hung with clusters of bleeding entrails and all the fooleries which our izanusi hang about themselves to strike terror into the fearful. These, leaping and bounding in the air, rushed forward till it seemed they were about to bear me down and pour into the isigodhlo itself. But they halted – halted almost in the very gate – and redoubled their bellowings, howling about the Valley of the Red Death and the woe which should come upon our nation. And all the people, their faces turned earthward, howled in response. Looking upon this, I bethought me that there seemed truth in the King’s words, and that all the world had indeed gone mad. Making a sign to the izanusi to desist their howlings – a sign, however, which they did not obey – I returned to the royal presence to report what I had seen.

“Send my guard, Untúswa, to beat back this mob,” said the King. “This must be looked into. As for these” – pointing to the messengers – “custody them forth, for it may be I have further use for them.”

Quickly I went out to issue my orders, and hardly had I done so, than the King himself came forward, and making a sign to myself and two or three other izinduna to attend him, sat himself down at the head of the open space. The while the roars of bonga which greeted his appearance mingled with the howling of the gang of witch doctors and the shouting and blows of the royal guard, beating back the excited crowd with their sticks and shields. In very truth, Nkose, it seemed as though the whole nation were gathered there.

Suddenly a silence fell upon the multitude, and even the bellowing of the izanusi was stayed, as there came through the throng, creeping upon their hands and knees, nearly a score of men. Their leader was a fine and well-built warrior of middle age, whom I knew as a fierce and fearless fighter, and they had returned from “eating up” the kraal of one of the subject tribes in accordance with the King’s mandate. Now the leader reported having carried out his orders fully. The evil-doers were destroyed, their houses burnt, and their cattle swept off as forfeit to the King.

“It is well,” said Umzilikazi. “Yet not for that ye have obeyed your orders has the whole nation gone mad.”

“There is more to tell, Great Great One,” answered the warrior, upon whose countenance, and upon the countenances of his band, I could descry signs of dread. “In returning we had to pass through the land of Maqandi. Two of us fell to the Red Death.”

“To the Red Death?” repeated the King, speaking softly and pleasantly. “Ha! How and where was that, Hlatusa?”

Then the leader explained how he had allowed two of his followers to wander into the Ghost Valley in pursuit of a buck they had wounded. They had not returned, and when sought for had been found lying some little distance apart, each terribly ripped and covered with blood, as though they had been rolled in it.

“So?” said the King, who had been listening attentively with his head on one side. “So, Hlatusa? And what did you do next, Hlatusa?”

“This, Black Elephant,” answered the man. “Every corner of that tagati place did we search, but found in it no living thing that could have done this – ghost or other. In every cave and hole we penetrated, but nothing could we find, Father of the Wise.”

“In this instance, Father of the Fools,” sneered Umzilikazi, a black and terrible look taking the place of the pleasant and smiling expression his face had hitherto worn. “Yet, stay. What else did you find there? No sign, perchance?”

“There was a sign, Divider of the Sun,” replied Hlatusa, who now considered himself, and they that were with him, already dead. “There was a sign. The hoof-mark as of a huge bull was imprinted in the ground beside the bodies.”

“And wherefore did ye not rout out that bull and return hither with his head, O useless ones?” said the King.

“No bull was it, but a ghost, Great Great One,” replied the leader. And they who had been with him murmured strongly in support of his words.

“Now have I heard enough,” said Umzilikazi. “You, Hlatusa, you I send forth at the head of twenty men, and you return, having lost two – not on the spears of a fighting enemy, but in strange fashion. And no one do ye hold accountable for this, but return with a child-tale about ghosts and the hoof-mark of a ghost-bull. Hamba gahle, Hlatusa. The alligators are hungry. Take him hence!”

With these fatal words the throng of slayers sprang forward to seize him. But Hlatusa waited not to be seized. Rising, he saluted the King; then turning, he stalked solemnly and with dignity to his doom – down through the serried ranks of the people, down through the further gate of the kraal, away over the plain, keeping but two paces in front of his guards. A dead silence fell upon all, and every face was turned his way. We saw him stand for a moment on the brow of the cliff which overhung the Pool of the Alligators, wherein evil-doers were cast. Then we saw him leap; and in the dead silence it seemed we could hear the splash – the snapping of jaws and the rush through the water of those horrible monsters, now ever ravening for the flesh of men.