Marie: An Episode in the Life of the Late Allan Quatermain, H. Rider Haggard [world of reading .txt] 📗

bear evidence; at the time I did not know whom, as I was not near enough to Thomas Halstead to make inquiries. Presently this someone appeared, and turned out to be none other than Hernan Pereira.

He advanced towards us attended by Zulus, as though he were a chief, looking fat and well and handsomer than ever. Seeing Retief, he lifted his hat with a flourish and held out his hand, which, I noted, the commandant did not take.

“So you are still here, Mynheer Pereira!” he said coldly. “Now be good enough to tell me, what is this matter about the abandoning of our arms?”

“The king charges me to say—” began Hernan.

“Charges you to say, Mynheer Pereira! Are you then this black man’s servant? But continue.”

“That none must come into his private enclosure armed.”

“Well, then, mynheer, be pleased to go tell this king that we do not wish to come to his private enclosure. I have brought the cattle that he desired me to fetch, and I am willing to deliver them to him wherever he wishes, but we will not unarm in order to do so.”

Now there was talk, and messengers were despatched, who returned at full speed presently to say that Dingaan would receive the Boers in the great dancing place in the midst of the kraal, and that they might bring their guns, as he wished to see how they fired them.

So we rode in, making as fine a show as we could, to find that the dancing place, which measured a good many acres in extent, was lined round with thousands of plumed but unarmed warriors arranged in regiments.

“You see,” I heard Pereira say to Retief, “these have no spears.”

“No,” answered the commandant, “but they have sticks, which when they are a hundred to one would serve as well.”

Meanwhile the vast mob of cattle were being driven in a double stream past a knot of men at the head of the space, and then away through gates behind. When the beasts had all gone we approached these men, among whom I recognised the fat form of Dingaan draped in a bead mantle. We ranged ourselves in a semicircle before him, and stood while he searched us with his sharp eyes. Presently he saw me, and sent a councillor to say that I must come and interpret for him.

So, dismounting, I went with Retief, Thomas Halstead, and a few of the leading Boers.

“Sakubona [Good day], Macumazahn,” said Dingaan. “I am glad that you have come, as I know that you will speak my words truly, being one of the People of George whom I love, for Tho-maas here I do not trust, although he is also a Son of George.”

I told Retief what he said.

“Oh!” he exclaimed with a grunt, “it seems that you English are a step in front of us Boers, even here.”

Then he went forward and shook hands with the king, whom, it will be remembered, he had visited before.

After that the indaba or talk began, which I do not propose to set out at length, for it is a matter of history. It is enough to say that Dingaan, after thanking Retief for recovering the cattle, asked where was Sikonyela, the chief who had stolen them, as he wished to kill him. When he learned that Sikonyela remained in his own country, he became, or affected to become, angry. Then he asked where were the sixty horses which he heard we had captured from Sikonyela, as they must be given up to him.

Retief, by way of reply, touched his grey hairs, and inquired whether Dingaan thought that he was a child that he, Dingaan, should demand horses which did not belong to him. He added that these horses had been restored to the Boers, from whom Sikonyela had stolen them.

When Dingaan had expressed himself satisfied with this answer, Retief opened the question of the treaty. The king replied however, that the white men had but just arrived, and he wished to see them dance after their own fashion. As for the business, it might “sit still” till another day.

So in the end the Boers “danced” for his amusement. That is, they divided into two parties, and charged each other at full gallop, firing their guns into the air, an exhibition which seemed to fill all present with admiration and awe. When they paused, the king wished them to go on firing “a hundred shots apiece,” but the commandant declined, saying he had no more powder to waste.

“What do you want powder for in a peaceful country?” asked Dingaan suspiciously.

Retief answered through me:

“To kill food for ourselves, or to protect ourselves if any evil-minded men should attack us.”

“Then it will not be wanted here,” said Dingaan, “since I will give you food, and as I, the king, am your friend, no man in Zululand dare be your enemy.”

Retief said he was glad to hear it, and asked leave to retire with the Boers to his camp outside the gate, as they were all tired with riding. This Dingaan granted, and we said good-bye and went away. Before I reached the gate, however, a messenger, I remember it was my old friend Kambula, overtook me, and said that the king wished to speak with me alone. I answered him that I could not speak with the king alone without the permission of the commandant. Thereon Kambula said:

“Come with me, I pray you, O Macumazahn, since otherwise you will be taken by force.”

Now, I told Hans to gallop on to Retief, and tell him of my predicament, for already I saw that at some sign from Kambula I was being surrounded by Zulus. He did so, and presently Retief came back himself accompanied only by one man, and asked me what was the matter now. I informed him, translating Kambula’s words, which he repeated in his presence.

“Does the fellow mean that you will be seized if you do not go, or I refuse to allow you to do so?”

To this question Kambula’s answer was:

“That is so, Inkoos, since the king has private words for the ear of Macumazahn. Therefore we must obey orders, and take him before the king, living or dead.”

“Allemachte!” exclaimed Retief, “this is serious,” and, as though to summon them to my help, he looked behind him towards the main body of the Boers, who by this time were nearly all of them through the gate, which was guarded by a great number of Zulus. “Allan,” he went on, “if you are not afraid, I think that you must go. Perhaps it is only that Dingaan has some message about the treaty to send to me through you.”

“I am not afraid,” I answered. “What is the use of being afraid in a place like this?”

“Ask that Kaffir if the king gives you safe conduct,” said Retief.

I did so, and Kambula answered:

“Yes, for this visit. Who am I that I can speak the king’s unspoken words?” [which meant, guarantee his will in the future.]

“A dark saying,” commented Retief. “But go, Allan, since you must, and God bring you back safe again. It is clear that Dingaan did not ask that you should come with me for nothing. Now I wish I had left you at home with that pretty wife of yours.”

So we parted, I going to the king’s private enclosure on foot and without my rifle, since I was not allowed to appear before him armed, and the commandant towards the gate of the kraal accompanied by Hans, who led my horse. Ten minutes later I stood before Dingaan, who greeted me kindly enough, and began to ask a number of questions about the Boers, especially if they were not people who had rebelled against their own king and run away from him.

I answered, Yes, they had run away, as they wanted more room to live; but I had told him all about that when I saw him before. He said he knew I had, but he wished to hear “whether the same words came out of the same mouth, or different words,” so that he might know if I were a true man or not. Then, after pausing a while, he looked at me in his piercing fashion and asked:

“Have you brought me a present of that tall white girl with eyes like two stars, Macumazahn? I mean the girl whom you refused to me, and whom I could not take because you had won your bet, which gave all the white people to you; she for whose sake you make brothers of these Boers, who are traitors to their king?”

“No, O Dingaan,” I answered; “there are no women among us. Moreover, this maid is now my wife.”

“Your wife!” he exclaimed angrily. “By the Head of the Black One, have you dared to make a wife of her whom I desired? Now say, boy, you clever Watcher by Night; you little white ant, who work in the dark and only peep out at the end of your tunnel when it is finished; you wizard, who by your magic can snatch his prey out of the hand of the greatest king in all the world—for it was magic that killed those vultures on Hloma Amabutu, not your bullets, Macumazahn—say, why should I not make an end of you at once for this trick?”

I folded my arms and looked at him. A strange contrast we must have made, this huge, black tyrant with the royal air, for to do him justice he had that, at whose nod hundreds went the way of death, and I, a mere insignificant white boy, for in appearance, at any rate, I was nothing more.

“O Dingaan,” I said coolly, knowing that coolness was my only chance, “I answer you in the words of the Commandant Retief, the great chief. Do you take me for a child that I should give up my own wife to you who already have so many? Moreover, you cannot kill me because I have the word of your captain, Kambula, that I am safe with you.”

This reply seemed to amuse him. At any rate, with one of those almost infantile changes of mood which are common to savages of every degree, he passed from wrath to laughter.

“You are quick as a lizard,” he said. “Why should I, who have so many wives, want one more, who would certainly hate me? Just because she is white, and would make the others, who are black, jealous, I suppose. Indeed, they would poison her, or pinch her to death in a month, and then come to tell me she had died of fretting. Also, you are right; you have my safe conduct, and must go hence unharmed this time. But look you, little lizard, although you escape me between the stones, I will pull off your tail. I have said that I want to pluck this tall white flower of yours, and I will pluck her. I know where she dwells. Yes, just where the wagon she sleeps in stands in the line, for my spies have told me, and I will give orders that whoever is killed, she is to be spared and brought to me living. So perhaps you will meet this wife of yours here, Macumazahn.”

Now, at these ominous words, that might mean so much or so little, the sweat started to my brow, and a shiver went down my back.

“Perhaps I shall and perhaps I shall not, O king,” I answered. “The world is as full of chances to-day as it was not long ago when I shot at the sacred vultures on Hloma Amabutu. Still, I think that my wife will never be yours, O king.”

“Ow!” said Dingaan; “this little white ant is making another tunnel, thinking that he will come up at my back. But what if I put down my heel and crush you, little white ant? Do you know,” he added confidentially, “that the Boer who mends my guns and whom here we call ‘Two-faces,’ because he looks towards you Whites with one eye and towards us Blacks with the other, is still very anxious that I should kill you? Indeed, when I told him that my spies said that you were to ride with the Boers, as I had requested that you should be their Tongue, he answered that unless I promised to give you to the vultures, he would warn them against coming. So, since I wanted them to come as I had arranged with him, I promised.”

“Is it so, O king?” I asked. “And pray why does this Two-faces, whom we name Pereira, desire that I should be killed?”

“Ow!” chuckled the obese old ruffian; “cannot you with all your cleverness guess that, O Macumazahn? Perhaps it is he