falsely described as "worn out," and wondering whether Umbezi had got the honey out of his hair, the canvas was lifted, and a Kafir wrapped in a kaross crept in and squatted before me.
"Who are you?" I asked, for it was too dark to see the man"s face.
"Inkoosi," answered a deep voice, "I am Saduko."
"You are welcome," I answered, handing him a little gourd of snuff in token of hospitality. Then I waited while he poured some of the snuff into the palm of his hand and took it in the usual fashion.
"Inkoosi," he said, when he had sc.r.a.ped away the tears produced by the snuff, "I have come to ask you a favour. You heard Umbezi say to-day that he will not give me his daughter, Mameena, unless I give him a hundred head of cows. Now, I have not got the cattle, and I cannot earn them by work in many years. Therefore I must take them from a certain tribe I know which is at war with the Zulus. But this I cannot do unless I have a gun. If I had a good gun, Inkoosi--one that only goes off when it is asked, and not of its own fancy, I who have some name could persuade a number of men whom I know, who once were servants of my father, or their sons, to be my companions in this venture."
"Do I understand that you wish me to give you one of my good guns with two mouths to it (i.e. double-barrelled), a gun worth at least twelve oxen, for nothing, O Saduko?" I asked in a cold and scandalised voice.
"Not so, O Watcher-by-Night," he answered; "not so, O He-who-sleeps-with-one-eye-open" (another free and difficult rendering of my native name, Mac.u.mazahn, or more correctly, Mac.u.mazana)--"I should never dream of offering such an insult to your high-born intelligence."
He paused and took another pinch of snuff, then went on in a meditative voice: "Where I propose to get those hundred cattle there are many more; I am told not less than a thousand head in all. Now, Inkoosi," he added, looking at me sideways, "suppose you gave me the gun I ask for, and suppose you accompanied me with your own gun and your armed hunters, it would be fair that you should have half the cattle, would it not?"
"That"s cool," I said. "So, young man, you want to turn me into a cow-thief and get my throat cut by Panda for breaking the peace of his country?"
"Neither, Mac.u.mazahn, for these are my own cattle. Listen, now, and I will tell you a story. You have heard of Matiwane, the chief of the Amangwane?"
"Yes," I answered. "His tribe lived near the head of the Umzinyati, did they not? Then they were beaten by the Boers or the English, and Matiwane came under the Zulus. But afterwards Dingaan wiped him out, with his House, and now his people are killed or scattered."
"Yes, his people are killed and scattered, but his House still lives.
Mac.u.mazahn, I am his House, I, the only son of his chief wife, for Zikali the Wise Little One, the Ancient, who is of the Amangwane blood, and who hated Chaka and Dingaan--yes, and Senzangakona their father before them, but whom none of them could kill because he is so great and has such mighty spirits for his servants, saved and sheltered me."
"If he is so great, why, then, did he not save your father also, Saduko?" I asked, as though I knew nothing of this Zikali.
"I cannot say, Mac.u.mazahn. Perhaps the spirits plant a tree for themselves, and to do so cut down many other trees. At least, so it happened. It happened thus: Bangu, chief of the Amakoba, whispered into Dingaan"s ear that Matiwane, my father, was a wizard; also that he was very rich. Dingaan listened because he thought a sickness that he had came from Matiwane"s witchcraft. He said: "Go, Bangu, and take a company with you and pay Matiwane a visit of honour, and in the night, O in the night! Afterwards, Bangu, we will divide the cattle, for Matiwane is strong and clever, and you shall not risk your life for nothing.""
Saduko paused and looked down at the ground, brooding heavily.
"Mac.u.mazahn, it was done," he said presently. "They ate my father"s meat, they drank his beer; they gave him a present from the king, they praised him with high names; yes, Bangu took snuff with him and called him brother. Then in the night, O in the night--!
"My father was in the hut with my mother, and I, so big only"--and he held his hand at the height of a boy of ten--"was with them. The cry arose, the flames began to eat; my father looked out and saw. "Break through the fence and away, woman," he said; "away with Saduko, that he may live to avenge me. Begone while I hold the gate! Begone to Zikali, for whose witchcrafts I pay with my blood."
"Then he kissed me on the brow, saying but one word, "Remember," and thrust us from the hut.
"My mother broke a way through the fence; yes, she tore at it with her nails and teeth like a hyena. I looked back out of the shadow of the hut and saw Matiwane my father fighting like a buffalo. Men went down before him, one, two, three, although he had no shield: only his spear. Then Bangu crept behind him and stabbed him in the back and he threw up his arms and fell. I saw no more, for by now we were through the fence. We ran, but they perceived us. They hunted us as wild dogs hunt a buck.
They killed my mother with a throwing a.s.segai; it entered at her back and came out at her heart. I went mad, I drew it from her body, I ran at them. I dived beneath the shield of the first, a very tall man, and held the spear, so, in both my little hands. His weight came upon its point and it went through him as though he were but a bowl of b.u.t.termilk. Yes, he rolled over, quite dead, and the handle of the spear broke upon the ground. Now the others stopped astonished, for never had they seen such a thing. That a child should kill a tall warrior, oh! that tale had not been told. Some of them would have let me go, but just then Bangu came up and saw the dead man, who was his brother.
""Wow!" he said when he knew how the man had died. "This lion"s cub is a wizard also, for how else could he have killed a soldier who has known war? Hold out his arms that I may finish him slowly."
"So two of them held out my arms, and Bangu came up with his spear."
Saduko ceased speaking, not that his tale was done, but because his voice choked in his throat. Indeed, seldom have I seen a man so moved.
He breathed in great gasps, the sweat poured from him, and his muscles worked convulsively. I gave him a pannikin of water and he drank, then he went on:
"Already the spear had begun to p.r.i.c.k--look, here is the mark of it"--and opening his kaross he pointed to a little white line just below the breast-bone--"when a strange shadow thrown by the fire of the burning huts came between Bangu and me, a shadow as that of a toad standing on its hind legs. I looked round and saw that it was the shadow of Zikali, whom I had seen once or twice. There he stood, though whence he came I know not, wagging his great white head that sits on the top of his body like a pumpkin on an ant-heap, rolling his big eyes and laughing loudly.
""A merry sight," he cried in his deep voice that sounded like water in a hollow cave. "A merry sight, O Bangu, Chief of the Amakoba! Blood, blood, plenty of blood! Fire, fire, plenty of fire! Wizards dead here, there, and everywhere! Oh, a merry sight! I have seen many such; one at the kraal of your grandmother, for instance--your grandmother the great Inkosikazi, when myself I escaped with my life because I was so old; but never do I remember a merrier than that which this moon shines on," and he pointed to the White Lady who just then broke through the clouds.
"But, great Chief Bangu, lord loved by the son of Senzangakona, brother of the Black One (Chaka) who has ridden hence on the a.s.segai, what is the meaning of _this_ play?" and he pointed to me and to the two soldiers who held out my little arms.
""I kill the wizard"s cub, Zikali, that is all," answered Bangu.
""I see, I see," laughed Zikali. "A gallant deed! You have butchered the father and the mother, and now you would butcher the child who has slain one of your grown warriors in fair fight. A very gallant deed, well worthy of the chief of the Amakoba! Well, loose his spirit--only--" He stopped and took a pinch of snuff from a box which he drew from a slit in the lobe of his great ear.
""Only what?" asked Bangu, hesitating.
""Only I wonder, Bangu, what you will think of the world in which you will find yourself before to-morrow"s moon arises. Come back thence and tell me, Bangu, for there are so many worlds beyond the sun, and I would learn for certain which of them such a one as you inhabits: a man who for hatred and for gain murders the father and the mother and then butchers the child--the child that could slay a warrior who has seen war--with the spear hot from his mother"s heart."
""Do you mean that I shall die if I kill this lad?" shouted Bangu in a great voice.
""What else?" answered Zikali, taking another pinch of snuff.
""This, Wizard; that we will go together."
""Good, good!" laughed the dwarf. "Let us go together. Long have I wished to die, and what better companion could I find than Bangu, Chief of the Amakoba, Slayer of Children, to guard me on a dark and terrible road. Come, brave Bangu, come; kill me if you can," and again he laughed at him.
"Now, Mac.u.mazahn, the people of Bangu fell back muttering, for they found this business horrible. Yes, even those who held my arms let go of them.
""What will happen to me, Wizard, if I spare the boy?" asked Bangu.
"Zikali stretched out his hand and touched the scratch that the a.s.segai had made in me here. Then he held up his finger red with my blood, and looked at it in the light of the moon; yes, and tasted it with his tongue.
""I think this will happen to you, Bangu," he said. "If you spare this boy he will grow into a man who will kill you and many others one day.
But if you do not spare him I think that his spirit, working as spirits can do, will kill you to-morrow. Therefore the question is, will you live a while or will you die at once, taking me with you as your companion? For you must not leave me behind, brother Bangu."
"Now Bangu turned and walked away, stepping over the body of my mother, and all his people walked away after him, so that presently Zikali the Wise and Little and I were left alone.
""What! have they gone?" said Zikali, lifting up his eyes from the ground. "Then we had better be going also, Son of Matiwane, lest he should change his mind and come back. Live on, Son of Matiwane, that you may avenge Matiwane.""
"A nice tale," I said. "But what happened afterwards?"
"Zikali took me away and nurtured me at his kraal in the Black Kloof, where he lived alone save for his servants, for in that kraal he would suffer no woman to set foot, Mac.u.mazahn. He taught me much wisdom and many secret things, and would have made a great doctor of me had I so willed. But I willed it not who find spirits ill company, and there are many of them about the Black Kloof, Mac.u.mazahn. So in the end he said: "Go where your heart calls, and be a warrior, Saduko. But know this: You have opened a door that can never be shut again, and across the threshold of that door spirits will pa.s.s in and out for all your life, whether you seek them or seek them not."
""It was you who opened the door, Zikali," I answered angrily.
""Mayhap," said Zikali, laughing after his fashion, "for I open when I must and shut when I must. Indeed, in my youth, before the Zulus were a people, they named me Opener of Doors; and now, looking through one of those doors, I see something about you, O Son of Matiwane."
""What do you see, my father?" I asked.
""I see two roads, Saduko: the Road of Medicine, that is the spirit road, and the Road of Spears, that is the blood road. I see you travelling on the Road of Medicine, that is my own road, Saduko, and growing wise and great, till at last, far, far away, you vanish over the precipice to which it leads, full of years and honour and wealth, feared yet beloved by all men, white and black. Only that road you must travel alone, since such wisdom may have no friends, and, above all, no woman to share its secrets. Then I look at the Road of Spears and see you, Saduko, travelling on that road, and your feet are red with blood, and women wind their arms about your neck, and one by one your enemies go down before you. You love much, and sin much for the sake of the love, and she for whom you sin comes and goes and comes again. And the road is short, Saduko, and near the end of it are many spirits; and though you shut your eyes you see them, and though you fill your ears with clay you hear them, for they are the ghosts of your slain. But the end of your journeying I see not. Now choose which road you will, Son of Matiwane, and choose swiftly, for I speak no more of this matter."
"Then, Mac.u.mazahn, I thought a while of the safe and lonely path of wisdom, also of the blood-red path of spears where I should find love and war, and my youth rose up in me and--I chose the path of spears and the love and the sin and the unknown death."
"A foolish choice, Saduko, supposing that there is any truth in this tale of roads, which there is not."
"Nay, a wise one, Mac.u.mazahn, for since then I have seen Mameena and know why I chose that path."
"Ah!" I said. "Mameena--I forgot her. Well, after all, perhaps there is some truth in your tale of roads. When _I_ have seen Mameena I will tell you what I think."