Kitabı oku: «The White Shield», sayfa 12

Chapter Twenty.
Dreams – New and Great

Now, time went by, and of Lalusini I saw nothing, nor could I find opportunity of speaking with her alone. I was greatly troubled in mind, too; for I thought the King desired her – he who cared not usually about women – and my days were heavy and my dreams dark.

We were seated alone, the King and I. We had been talking over many things, as our way was; for Umzilikazi seemed to trust me more and more, till it was whispered that I had become the most powerful man in the nation, young as I was – more powerful than Mcumbete, the chief induna, or even than Kalipe, the commander of the army. As we sat thus, the King said —

“It seems to me, son of Ntelani, that we have sorcerers enough and to spare. Now this one which came last among us is one too many. Wherefore, as she is young and well-favoured, I will take her to wife, so shall she practise sorcery no more.”

Here was a dark curtain for my eyes – I, who loved Lalusini. But I only answered that it was good – that the small wishes of the King were the great ones of his children.

“That is well said, Untúswa! Go now, and bring hither this sorceress, that she may learn to what great end she was born.”

I saluted, and, going forth, proceeded straight to Lalusini’s hut, sending in women to tell her the Great Great One desired speech with her. Then I returned to the King, fearing to be alone with Lalusini, lest I should by word or look betray myself – betray us both. And as I went I remembered her words, spoken first in the hiding-place up yonder, on the mountain of death: “There is that by which even Umzilikazi dare not wed me.” What was behind this saying? For a matter which should come between the King and his will must indeed be weighty – nothing less than one of life or death.

Lalusini stood before the King, royal in the stately splendour of her beauty; her large eyes smiling down upon him as she uttered the Bayéte in a voice like the murmuring of trees, yet not bending over much.

“Whau! It shall be so!” I heard him mutter, after gazing at her for a short space in silence and admiration.

“Hearken, my sister!” he said aloud. “Among this people there are sorcerers and diviners enough already. And now thou art another of them – yet thy múti is great.”

“Would the King sit here to-day, but for that múti?” she answered. “Here or on a darker seat? Yet it matters not that I should wander again if I am to find no resting-place among this people. Still, there are others.”

“That is not my mind, thou who art from nowhere,” said Umzilikazi. “Thou art indeed fair and goodly enough for a queen – and a queen thou shalt be. Thou shalt be at the head of the isigodhlo, and the delight of a King.”

Now my eyes were fixed upon the face of Lalusini; but over it came no change.

“That cannot be, Great Great One!” she answered.

“Cannot be? Ha!” cried Umzilikazi, gazing at her in displeasure and amazement. “Are, then, the wishes of a King to be uttered twice?”

“Thou art all-powerful, O Black Elephant,” she said. “The elephant may rend down forest-trees and loosen rocks with his might. Yet even he cannot walk against a broad river in flood. There is a law which is greater than even the wishes of the mightiest of kings.”

“What meanest thou, my sister?” said Umzilikazi, in a low but terrible voice.

“Thou doest well to call me thus, son of Matyobane; for within me runs the blood of Matyobane.”

“Ha!”

So great was his astonishment that for a space, save that one amazed gasp, no word could the King utter. Now stood revealed the meaning of that saying of hers; for, Nkose, so strict is this custom among us Amazulu, that no man may take to wife any girl within whose veins runs a drop of his own blood, or, indeed, as to whom exists the barest suspicion that such may be the case. Wherefore, in declaring herself to be of the blood of Umzilikazi’s father, Lalusini knew that even the King himself dare not take her to wife; nor, indeed, would he desire to, once convinced of the truth of her words.

“Is this indeed so?” he said at last, frowning suspiciously, for a king likes not to be balked in the desire of his heart, be the reason never so good.

“Say, then, who was thy father?”

“First look at me; Great Great One. Are we not of a royal tree, we in whom runs the same blood?”

Now the King started slightly, and I, too, marking that royal stamp which rested upon Lalusini, saw for the first time a certain degree of likeness between them.

“Of my father I cannot speak,” she went on. “My mother was Laliwa, sister of Matyobane.”

“Au!”

“A wonder!” broke from myself and the King at once. For she had named one of the inferior wives of Tshaka the Terrible. Well might we cry out in amazement. This strange beautiful woman, this sorceress of the Bakoni, whose witcheries had inspired both of us with love for her, was of the royal house of Senzangakona, was the daughter of that mighty king, the terror of whose name spread as far as it was known – and even among ourselves – the great Tshaka, from whom we had revolted and fled. Truly indeed had she spoken when saying that she came of a stock greater than that of Umzilikazi.

“Wonderful things have we heard to-day,” said the King. Then jestingly: “Say, daughter of the Lion whose roar is now silent! Here is a valiant fighter, my war-captain and councillor, Untúswa. Wouldst thou not wed with such, the gates of the isigodhlo being now closed?”

Lalusini turned her eyes full upon me for the first time, and the glance expressed amusement, yet beneath it I could discern something more.

“Did I mate with any, it would indeed be with such a warrior,” she said. “But this is not the day for thoughts of such things, O son of Matyobane, for great events are maturing.”

“And these events – are they for good or for ill?” said Umzilikazi.

“For good or for ill? Ha! There is a darkness over the earth, yet not the darkness of night. Lo, I see the world beneath the glow of the full moon, and it is bright as noonday, though softer. And now it is dark, and the face of the moon is wrapped in blackness until it shines forth once more. Then beware, King and founder of a new nation; for the scream of the vultures is borne upon the winds from afar, crying that a banquet awaits – yes, a banquet awaits!”

Now, Lalusini had sunk back into the state of one who dreams, and when she awakened, returning as it were to earth once more, she seemed not to know what words she had uttered, or, indeed, if she had uttered any. But the King and I forgot them not, and often afterwards did we talk them over together.

Now Lalusini began to sing in a strange, far-distant tone, and low, but the words were in the Bakoni tongue, and were mysterious enough even to me. And the song was of a shield, and seemed to tell of battle and of blood.

“See, Great Great One,” she cried, ceasing, and pointing to the white shield which the King had given me. “He who bears yonder shield must not part from it, even for a space, until after the blackness of the moon. Then it may be that he will part with it forever – yet not.”

Her words were dark now, yet, in the fulness of time, were they to be made plain enough. But the King, dissatisfied, pressed for an explanation.

“Seek not to look into the mysteries of my magic, son of Matyobane,” she replied, utterly fearless, “for to do so is to render them evil.”

“And I fear not such. No dread do I stand in of the sorcery of any. Ask now, my sister – where is Isilwane, once head of the izanusi? Where Notalwa – and others?” said Umzilikazi, frowning.

“Yet, let will be. Say, Calf of a Black Bull – was my múti for good or for ill, that guided the shield now borne by Untúswa? The magic of the Bakoni is as superior to that of the Amazulu as the might in battle of these last is to that of the peoples they have made an end of.”

“What now is thy story, my sister?” said the King, leaving that question. And some of her story Lalusini gave us then and there – how that she alone of all his children would Tshakathe Mighty recognise, even if there were any others who were not slain, for that King desired not children, lest, growing up, they should plot against him and depose him. Lalusini, however, he destined to some great though hidden end, and caused the land far and wide to be searched for those who could teach her the deeper and most hidden mysteries of their magic. Then it befell that the two brothers of Tshaka – Dingane and Mhlangana – rose up against the Great One and slew him, and Lalusini with her mother, Laliwa, and some others, fled afar to escape the death of the spear, and after many wanderings and perils reached the land of the Bakoni, which they deemed remote enough from Dingane. Here Tauane, the chief of that people, would have wedded her, but she would have none of him or his plans.

“Au! that dog who is burnt!” cried Umzilikazi. “I would he were here again, that I might make him once more taste fire. Au! A dog, to think to blend the branches of the royal stem of Senzangakona with the rank weeds of his jackal tribe.”

“Not to no purpose had I learned the magic of the wise,” went on Lalusini. “I divined your coming, Great Great One; yes, long before Untúswa’s first embassy appeared in the land, and I welcomed it. Nothing of it did I say in warning to Tauane and the People of the Blue Coloured Cattle, save darkly, and, as it were, in jest. And they mocked.”

“If you welcomed our coming, my sister, why didst thou disappear into air for a space thereafter?” said Umzilikazi cunningly.

“Ha! no evil lay behind that, son of Matyobane. Can two bulls of equal size dwell in one kraal? Yet Zululand is now just such a kraal, having two kings, Dingane and Mhlangana. Yet it should have but one.”

“Hau!” cried the King. “Should that one be Dingane?”

“Not Dingane should it be, Elephant of the Amandebeli,” she replied.

“Mhlangana, then?”

“Not Mhlangana, Great Great One in whom flows the blood of my mother.”

“Ha! Who, then, Queen of the Bakoni múti?”

“Umzilikazi, the son of Matyobane.”

“Ha!” broke from us both at the surpassing boldness of this declaration; and for some moments we sat staring in silence at this wonderful woman. Then the King took snuff, and, as he did so, I well knew what was passing in his mind. For, had but another regiment or two cleaved to us, what time the Amandebeli and we of the Umtetwa tribe, and others, fled from Zululand, no flight need we have made at all. We would have marched to Dukuza, and eaten up the whole usurping House of Senzangakona. Ofttimes had the King thus talked to me since; sorrowing even now, when it was too late, that the opportunity should have been allowed to pass. And now this woman – this sorceress of a strange tribe, yet claiming mighty descent – came thus to hold before Umzilikazi’s gaze a vision of such power as, even in the fulness of his might, the great Tshaka had never wielded. To combine the warrior strength of our nation with that of the parent stock of Zululand! Whau! there was a destiny! We should rule the world itself with such a power behind us. No wonder a strange light gleamed in the eyes of the King as they beheld such a vision.

“And how shall this be brought about, Lalusini?” he said; more to say something than because uncertain as to what her reply would be.

“What nation can konza to two kings?” she answered. “Sooner or later its choice must be made. One or both must fall. Then is the time for him who was born to be great.”

“And if but one fall?”

“Then let the other follow, and speedily. Ha! who would be great and run no risks! There are many in Zululand yet – many who are still young, as well as others – who remember how the son of Matyobane led them in battle. Many who, sitting in their huts at night, whisper, with their hands to their mouths, the name of Umzilikazi. For the foot of those of the House of Senzangakona treads heavily.”

“And how know you all this, my sister?” said the King, looking sharply at her.

“Wherefore did I disappear into air for a space?” was her reply, with just a shade of meaning, quoting Umzilikazi’s words.

“Ha! And when the House of Senzangakona is overthrown, what wilt thou, Lalusini, thou who art of that house thyself?”

“Revenge!”

“Revenge? For the death of the Black One who begat thee?” said Umzilikazi.

“Revenge! – and one other thing, and this the King will not refuse?”

“And that is – ?”

“The time to declare it is not yet, Great Great One.”

Chapter Twenty One.
“The Place of the Three Rifts.”

Now, in the days which followed upon the revelation of Lalusini’s birth and parentage, and the prospects and possibilities at which she more than hinted, the mind of the King seemed to contain but one thought, and that was the greatness which might be his by boldly risking all to seize it, by judgment in choosing the right time. To this end he would converse with her for a whole day at a time, and, in some wise at least, every day. Indeed, the predictions and influence of the beautiful sorceress seemed to thrust those of old Masuka quite into the background, and seldom now were his divinations required. Yet, Nkose, that astonishing old bag of bones seemed in nowise to resent this waning of the royal favour. His bright, keen eyes would flash forth a laugh when he met or passed Lalusini, but in his greetings of her there was no tone of envy or of ill-will. Even the white priest the King seldom conversed with in those days; nor was this strange, for with such an immense undertaking before our eyes, involving war, and bloodshed, such as, perhaps, the Zulu nation – and certainly our own – had never seen, Umzilikazi had little desire for the conversation of one whose preaching was all of peace. Whau! What had we to do with peace, we who sought the overthrow of mighty Kings? But the white man cared little for this neglect. As long as he was allowed to go about the country striving to win men to his teaching, he was happy.

Now, in these conversations I also took part, I alone being in the secret, for Umzilikazi ordered that no word as to Lalusini’s birth or his own schemes should leak out. Moreover, now I found opportunities of talking alone with her, such as I had dared not before seek.

“Well, Untúswa?” she said, mockingly, one day, when we two talked alone. “So, when the eagle’s nest was empty and the she-eagle had gone, your first thought was that the lion you had then slain had robbed the nest?”

“Who says I slew a lion that day, Lalusini, for I searched the whole mountain, yet upon it was none, save only myself?”

“Ah, ah! son of Ntelani,” she laughed. “Thou who, with one other, didst fight against the whole Bakoni nation, art a child before the Bakoni múti. Be patient. Great things will happen soon.”

“Patient —Hau! It seems to me that we draw no nearer one to another, Lalusini. And I like it not.”

“Yet I have managed to keep outside the isigodhlo, Untúswa,” and again she laughed. “Did I speak truly in that matter?”

“Truly, indeed,” I answered.

“That is well said, valiant fighter, whose greatness is gained by means of women.”

“By means of women?” I repeated, thinking she was again mocking me. “Now, how can that be, Lalusini, seeing that I lead the King’s army, and am ever in the front of the battle?”

“And how earnest thou to win the King’s Assegai, and with it the place of a commander in the King’s armies? Was it not through a woman? Tell me that, Untúswa.”

“It was, indeed,” I answered, remembering Nangeza, and how my foolishness in stealing her from the isigodhlo had won me life and great honour, instead of the death which I had expected and deserved.

“And how earnest thou to win the white shield – the múti shield? See thou part not from it, Untúswa. Was it not through two women: she who would have dealt the death which it turned away, and she whose wisdom entered thy brain at the right moment? Tell me that, son of Ntelani.”

“That, too, is the truth, daughter of Kings,” I answered. “But I would ask this: If Umzilikazi sits in the seat of Dingane, in whose seat am I to sit?”

She laughed softly, musically.

“Ah! ah! Untúswa. Remember my offer to you in the cave of the eagle’s nest. Was it not to rule over a great nation?”

“Hau!” I cried in amazement, seeing the whole truth. Yet could it be real? I, Untúswa, who, though now an induna of weight, was but yesterday a boy. I, Untúswa, had been chosen by this daughter of a royal house – a powerful sorceress, and withal beautiful beyond any woman I had ever seen – to aid her in recovering the throne of Tshaka the Mighty, and to rule over the great Zulu nation as King. And this greatness I had thrust away from me!

“Thou art young yet, Untúswa, though thy deeds have been many and thy name is feared,” she answered, smiling up at me in a kind of pity, and yet I thought with much love in her eyes. “Yet what thou hast done is only a beginning, and what the white shield has done is only a beginning. See thou part not from it.”

“Never will I part from it,” I declared. “And so, Lalusini, this greatness which was held out to me in the cave like the eagle’s nest is now held out to Umzilikazi?”

“Young still – impatient ever – yet an induna,” she said, looking at me as she had done in the old days, when I kept her hidden away, and my visits were stealthy, and made at the risk of my life. “This greatness is for him who may seize it – thou who wouldst love the daughter of a race of kings.”

“That will I do, and seize upon the greatness also,” I said. “Give me but the chance, Lalusini.”

“The chance shall come, but by a way of fear and blood, induna of the King, who hast but begun to live. It may be that we shall be great together – or – shall sit down in darkness forever⁸ – yet not even that, for the vultures and jackals will grow fat.”

Now, towards the full of the moon I was sent by the King upon military business – which was to levy drafts of young men upon certain outlying kraals to the southward. This occupied many days, for the distances to be traversed were great, yet so eager were all to bear arms in those days that even the very children would beg to be enrolled, and parties of them, flourishing sticks and singing war-songs, would march for some distance beside the new warriors on their journey to the military kraals whither these were consigned. Upon this service I was accompanied by my brother, Mgwali, and four men of my own kraal. Our journeyings brought us to a high jagged mountain range, called Inkume, beyond which lay a wild waste country, where none of us dwelt, for it was swampy at the time of the rains and not over-healthy, though some of us would now and again visit it to hunt, for game abounded there.

Now, Nkose, I know not how it was unless that, having so much to do with magic and sorcery, I was becoming half isanusi myself, but something moved me to penetrate beyond this range. I told myself it was to hunt; yet it was not to hunt. I told myself the lions on that side must be strong and large, and I would kill one or two and make for myself some famous war adornments with the mane and tail; yet I knew that I cared little if I found lions or not. Something within myself seemed to urge me onward. Each jagged and fantastic point of overhanging rock seemed to beckon me forward. In the voices of the male baboons crying hoarsely from the crags, in the scream of the black tufted eagle wheeling lazily in the blue heights, I seemed to hear words – tones – calling me ever onward. It was fearsome, it was as a thing of tagati as I plunged deeper and deeper into the great pass which wound through the heart of the mountain range. The lofty cliff walls overhanging my way seemed to stoop, as though to overwhelm me in the mournful blackness which now brooded from the gloomy mountain-shadows; for the sun was already beginning to sink.

I had sent back Mgwali and the others, for something moved me to undertake this expedition alone. I was armed with the great and splendid spear – the King’s Assegai – two or three light casting ones, and a heavy short-handled knobstick; also I carried the great white shield which had saved the King’s life, for, although, when not on a war expedition, it is our custom only to carry small ornamental shields, yet, remembering Lalusini’s oft-repeated warning, I never parted with this one, even when I slept.

The land here was rolling and grassy, dotted with little clusters of trees and bush, and over the plain herds of game were frisking. Far off, waving above the tree-tops, I could make out the snake-like necks of tall giraffes, browsing on the tender shoots; and yet the desire to kill game seemed to have left me, as I walked on and on, thinking of Lalusini and the strange things she had presaged as about to befall our nation – also the great destiny which she had darkly hinted might await myself.

When I turned to retrace my steps, lo! the sun had set below the rim of the world. But upon the tall, smooth-faced cliffs, which sheered upward to the sharp ridge of Inkume, lay an afterglow of surpassing brilliancy – a strange, weird, boding light, as though they had been plunged in a sea of blood. Blood-red, too, were the spurs of the great range. Hau! It was wonderful, it was terrifying, it was tagati! Never did I behold anything like it before.

And now, as I gazed in marvel and awe, the redness grew deeper, then faded; and the great rocks took on a colour as of the livid blue-blackness of a mighty thunder-cloud. And as the shadows were thrown out thus clearly, and every line stood forth, while every hollow receded into gloom, I noticed that the mountains here swept round into almost a half-circle. In front opened the mouth of the pass through which I had come, while on the one hand and on the other a deep, gloomy rift – bush-grown, overhung – ran up far into the heart of the range. Hau! It was as if a cold thing were creeping up my back; for now, as plainly as though they were shouted in my ears, came old Masuka’s words, “The Place of the Three Rifts!”

So I stood and gazed, my hand to my mouth, in amazement, in awe. This, then, was “The Place of the Three Rifts,” Here it was that strange things were to come upon me – so had predicted the old Mosutu.

Now day had faded into night, and already the shadows of forest and plain were blended together. Already the voices of the darkness were raised – the howl of ravening hyenas; the shrill cry of jackals; the wild, yelling bay of wild dogs, ordering the plan of their hunt! and, withal, the croaking of innumerable frogs in the adjoining reed-bed, the screech of the tree-crickets, and the whirr of the night-hawk. And beneath the misty loom of the tall cliffs it seemed to me that the voices of dark ghosts were calling one to another. “The Place of the Three Rifts!” Whau! I would rather engage the wagon-fort of the Amabuna again single-handed than face what might be before me ere morning should break upon that fearsome wizard glen.

While I stood thus, with a strange tagati spell upon me, as firmly rooted as one of the trees growing around, a glow burned in the sky afar, and the land grew light again, as a broad, full moon rose beyond the rim of the world, soaring slowly aloft, a great golden ball. And now the fear began to leave me, for I could see again. Moreover, it is only in the darkness that evil ghosts love to move; or, at any rate, are at their worst. Yet ever, in the tones of the wild creatures of the plain – in the cavernous echo of the sentinel baboon’s resounding bark, high up among the crags – it seemed that wizard voices were calling – grim, threatening, unceasing.

Now I moved forward, as though to root up the dread that was upon me. Moreover, I feared to face that dreadful pass – full of tagati and all evil things – in the darkness. And even then there broke from its portals such a wild, wailing, ghost-like howl, which rose in innumerable clamours, surging in a hundred voices around the caves and corners of the rocks – now roaring, now in strange and whistling scream. Hau! All the terrors of this spell of wizardry returned. Right in the moon-path, between each jutting elbow of the cliff portals, was a huge beast – ghost-like unto a hyena, yet four times larger, and more evil-looking than the largest of those foul and loathsome creatures in mortal life. Squatted on its haunches, its horrible head thrown back, and fangs, now glistening white, now concealed, it bayed hideously to the moon; and I, who feared not death in blood, in any shape or form, felt this ghost-voice go through me, turning my blood to water. This was no real animal, but a terrible ghost. Not to sit in the seat of Dingane would I again thread that pass until the fair and beauteous sun-rays should once more make glad the face of the world, dispersing such to their own abodes of horror and of gloom.

Silently I drew back among the shadows, for I feared to be seen by this ghost-like animal. Then spying a place where the rocks above me seemed to offer a secure hiding-place, which could only be approached from one side, I seized a branch of a tree which was rooted in a cleft, and swung myself up as noiselessly as possible.

I was right in the selection of my hiding-place so far. There was but one way up to it – that by which I had come. Yet behind anything, anybody, might drop down upon me from above. And now that I was here the spell of dread which had been upon me seemed to fade. I thought I could hear the wild, sweet singing of Lalusini, soothing me to sleep. The next thing —au! I was asleep. At first, strange visions chased each other across my dreams. Then I dreamed no more, but slept heavily, for I was weary.

Au, Nkose! How shall I say what next befell? For I saw before me Kwelanga, the little white child whom I had saved from the red spear-blades of our warriors in the wagon-fort of the Amabuna. There she stood, the golden sunlight of her hair dispelling the night; her great blue eyes wide open, and fixed upon mine in terrible fear and anxiety. Then my sleep became dreamless once more.

“Untúswa, my father! Wake, Untúswa, for thy life’s sake!”

Clear – clear through the night – sounded her voice, the voice of the little one whom we had lost. It sounded in warning.

“Waken, waken, Untúswa, my father! Waken for thy life’s sake; lest a nation be a nation no more!”

Now I leaped up; noiselessly, cautiously, as is our habit when alarmed. So strangely clear, so distinct the voice, that I gazed eagerly around, expecting to behold the little one standing before me in the moonlight. And her last words! “Lest a nation be a nation no more.” Whau! Even such had been the words of Lalusini, in her divining vision, when she declared that again should that voice be heard in warning, and charging that its utterances should not be neglected. But the apparition of my dream had faded. I was alone in the silence of the night.

Then, Nkose, I could have wept, for I had loved the little one; and now, deceived by my dream, had hoped to have, by some wonderful means, discovered her, alive and well. For the moment, I forgot all wizardry and presages, as I peered around, calling her softly by name. And then came a sound which put all other thoughts to flight, and stirred my blood until it tingled again – the sound which is as no other – the quivering rattle of assegai-hafts held bunched together in the hands of warriors.

Who were these, moving thus abroad at midnight? Surely, none of our people would find themselves away here in this wizard spot at such an hour. Ha! Could it be some of our own people who had come in search of me, seeing I did not return? Yet, somehow, this did not seem the explanation of it.

While I listened, the sounds were drawing nearer, and they were above me; and now, with the rattle of the supple wood, came the deep smothered tone of a voice or two. Then, before I could move to carry out the plan of concealment which my instinct prompted, there dropped down into the little hollow wherein I stood ten or a dozen men.