"To-morrow thou shalt have five oxen for this deed; thou shalt choose them from the royal herd."
"The king is good; he sees that my belt is drawn tight; he satisfies my hunger. Will the king suffer that I go? My wife is in labour and I would visit her."
"Nay, stay awhile; say how it is with Baleka, my sister and thine?"
"It is well."
"Did she weep when you took the babe from her?"
"Nay, she wept not. She said, "My lord"s will is my will.""
"Good! Had she wept she had been slain also. Who was with her?"
"The Mother of the Heavens."
The brow of Chaka darkened. "Unandi, my mother, what did she there? By myself I swear, though she is my mother--if I thought"--and he ceased.
There was a silence, then he spoke again. "Say, what is in that mat?" and he pointed with his little a.s.segai at the bundle on my shoulders.
"Medicine, king."
"Thou dost carry enough to doctor an impi. Undo the mat and let me look at it."
"Now, my father, I tell you that the marrow melted in my bones with terror, for if I undid the mat I feared he must see the child and then--"
"It is tagati, it is bewitched, O king. It is not wise to look on medicine."
"Open!" he answered angrily. "What? may I not look at that which I am forced to swallow--I, who am the first of doctors?"
"Death is the king"s medicine," I answered, lifting the bundle, and laying it as far from him in the shadow of the fence as I dared. Then I bent over it, slowly undoing the rimpis with which it was tied, while the sweat of terror ran down by face blinding me like tears. What would I do if he saw the child? What if the child awoke and cried? I would s.n.a.t.c.h the a.s.segai from his hand and stab him! Yes, I would kill the king and then kill myself! Now the mat was unrolled. Inside were the brown leaves and roots of medicine; beneath them was the senseless bade wrapped in dead moss.
"Ugly stuff," said the king, taking snuff. "Now see, Mopo, what a good aim I have! This for thy medicine!" And he lifted his a.s.segai to throw it through the bundle. But as he threw, my snake put it into the king"s heart to sneeze, and thus it came to pa.s.s that the a.s.segai only pierced the outer leaves of the medicine, and did not touch the child.
"May the heavens bless the king!" I said, according to custom.
"Thanks to thee, Mopo, it is a good omen," he answered. "And now, begone! Take my advice: kill thy children, as I kill mine, lest they live to worry thee. The whelps of lions are best drowned."
I did up the bundle fast--fast, though my hands trembled. Oh! what if the child should wake and cry. It was done; I rose and saluted the king.
Then I doubled myself up and pa.s.sed from before him. Scarcely was I outside the gates of the Intunkulu when the infant began to squeak in the bundle. If it had been one minute before!
"What," said a soldier, as I pa.s.sed, "have you got a puppy hidden under your moocha, (1) Mopo?"
(1) Girdle composed of skin and tails of oxen.-ED.
I made no answer, but hurried on till I came to my huts. I entered; there were my two wives alone.
"I have recovered the child, women," I said, as I undid the bundle.
Anadi took him and looked at him.
"The boy seems bigger than he was," she said.
"The breath of life has come into him and puffed him out," I answered.
"His eyes are not as his eyes were," she said again. "Now they are big and black, like the eyes of the king."
"My spirit looked upon his eyes and made them beautiful," I answered.
"This child has a birth-mark on his thigh," she said a third time. "That which I gave you had no mark."
"I laid my medicine there," I answered.
"It is not the same child," she said sullenly. "It is a changeling who will lay ill-luck at our doors."
Then I rose up in my rage and cursed her heavily, for I saw that if she was not stopped this woman"s tongue would bring us all to ruin.
"Peace, witch!" I cried. "How dare you to speak thus from a lying heart?
Do you wish to draw down a curse upon our roof? Would you make us all food for the king"s spear? Say such words again, and you shall sit within the circle--the Ingomboco shall know you for a witch!"
So I stormed on, threatening to bring her to death, till at length she grew fearful, and fell at my feet praying for mercy and forgiveness.
But I was much afraid because of this woman"s tongue, and not without reason.
CHAPTER VII. UMSLOPOGAAS ANSWERS THE KING
Now the years went on, and this matter slept. Nothing more was heard of it, but still it only slept; and, my father, I feared greatly for the hour when it should awake. For the secret was known by two women--Unandi, Mother of the Heavens, and Baleka, my sister, wife of the king; and by two more--Macropha and Anadi, my wives--it was guessed at.
How, then, should it remain a secret forever? Moreover, it came about that Unandi and Baleka could not restrain their fondness for this child who was called my son and named Umslopogaas, but who was the son of Chaka, the king, and of Baleka, and the grandson of Unandi. So it happened that very often one or the other of them would come into my hut, making pretence to visit my wives, and take the boy upon her lap and fondle it. In vain did I pray them to forbear. Love pulled at their heart-strings more heavily than my words, and still they came. This was the end of it--that Chaka saw the child sitting on the knee of Unandi, his mother.
"What does my mother with that brat of thine, Mopo?" he asked of me.
"Cannot she kiss me, if she will find a child to kiss?" And he laughed like a wolf.
I said that I did not know, and the matter pa.s.sed over for awhile.
But after that Chaka caused his mother to be watched. Now the boy Umslopogaas grew great and strong; there was no such lad of his years for a day"s journey round. But from a babe he was somewhat surly, of few words, and like his father, Chaka, afraid of nothing. In all the world there were but two people whom he loved--these were I, Mopo, who was called his father, and Nada, she who was said to be his twin sister.
Now it must be told of Nada that as the boy Umslopogaas was the strongest and bravest of children, so the girl Nada was the gentlest and most fair. Of a truth, my father, I believe that her blood was not all Zulu, though this I cannot say for certain. At the least, her eyes were softer and larger than those of our people, her hair longer and less tightly curled, and her skin was lighter--more of the colour of pure copper. These things she had from her mother, Macropha; though she was fairer than Macropha--fairer, indeed, than any woman of my people whom I have seen. Her mother, Macropha, my wife, was of Swazi blood, and was brought to the king"s kraal with other captives after a raid, and given to me as a wife by the king. It was said that she was the daughter of a Swazi headman of the tribe of the Halakazi, and that she was born of his wife is true, but whether he was her father I do not know; for I have heard from the lips of Macropha herself, that before she was born there was a white man staying at her father"s kraal. He was a Portuguese from the coast, a handsome man, and skilled in the working of iron. This white man loved the mother of my wife, Macropha, and some held that Macropha was his daughter, and not that of the Swazi headman. At least I know this, that before my wife"s birth the Swazi killed the white man.
But none can tell the truth of these matters, and I only speak of them because the beauty of Nada was rather as is the beauty of the white people than of ours, and this might well happen if her grandfather chanced to be a white man.
Now Umslopogaas and Nada were always together. Together they ate, together they slept and wandered; they thought one thought and spoke with one tongue. Ou! it was pretty to see them! Twice while they were still children did Umslopogaas save the life of Nada.
The first time it came about thus. The two children had wandered far from the kraal, seeking certain berries that little ones love. On they wandered and on, singing as they went, till at length they found the berries, and ate heartily. Then it was near sundown, and when they had eaten they fell asleep. In the night they woke to find a great wind blowing and a cold rain falling on them, for it was the beginning of winter, when fruits are ripe.
"Up, Nada!" said Umslopogaas, "we must seek the kraal or the cold will kill us."
So Nada rose, frightened, and hand in hand they stumbled through the darkness. But in the wind and the night they lost their path, and when at length the dawn came they were in a forest that was strange to them.
They rested awhile, and finding berries ate them, then walked again.
All that day they wandered, till at last the night came down, and they plucked branches of trees and piled the branches over them for warmth, and they were so weary that they fell asleep in each other"s arms. At dawn they rose, but now they were very tired and berries were few, so that by midday they were spent. Then they lay down on the side of a steep hill, and Nada laid her head upon the breast of Umslopogaas.
"Here let us die, my brother," she said.