She and Allan, H. Rider Haggard [best summer reads .txt] 📗

to visit me, Umhlopekazi, and not to go north to find the great white Queen of whom he had told you, but to return to Natal. Is that so?”

I said it was.

“Then the rain fell and the winds blew and the rivers rose in wrath so that you could not return to Natal, and after all by chance, or by fate, or by the will of Zikali, the wizard of wizards, you drifted here to the kraal of me, Umhlopekazi, and told me this story.”

“Just so,” I answered.

“Well, White Man, how am I to know that all this is not but a trap for my feet which already seem to feel cords between the toes of both of them? What token do you bring, O Watcher-by-Night? How am I to know that the Opener-of-Roads really sent me this message which has been delivered so strangely by one who wished to travel on another path? The wandering witch-doctor told me that he who came would bear some sign.”

“I can’t say,” I answered, “at least in words. But,” I added after reflection, “as you ask for a token, perhaps I might be able to show you something that would bring proof to your heart, if there were any secret place——”

Umslopogaas walked to the gateway of the fence and saw that the sentry was at his post. Then he walked round the hut casting an eye upon its roof, and muttered to me as he returned.

“Once I was caught thus. There lived a certain wife of mine who set her ear to the smoke-hole and so brought about the death of many, and among them of herself and of our children. Enter. All is safe. Yet if you talk, speak low.”

So we went into the hut taking the stools with us, and seated ourselves by the fire that burned there on to which Umslopogaas threw chips of resinous wood.

“Now,” he said.

I opened my shirt and by the clear light of the flame showed him the image of Zikali which hung about my neck. He stared at it, though touch it he would not. Then he stood up and lifting his great axe, he saluted the image with the word “Makosi!” the salute that is given to great wizards because they are supposed to be the home of many spirits.

“It is the big Medicine, the Medicine itself,” he said, “that which has been known in the land since the time of Senzangacona, the father of the Zulu Royal House, and as it is said, before him.”

“How can that be?” I asked, “seeing that this image represents Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, as an old man, and Senzangacona died many years ago?”

“I do not know,” he answered, “but it is so. Listen. There was a certain Mopo, or as some called him, Umbopo, who was Chaka’s body-servant and my foster-father, and he told me that twice this Medicine,” and he pointed to the image, “was sent to Chaka, and that each time the Lion obeyed the message that came with it. A third time it was sent, but he did not obey the message and then—where was Chaka?”

Here Umslopogaas passed his hand across his mouth, a significant gesture amongst the Zulus.

“Mopo,” I said, “yes, I have heard the story of Mopo, also that Chaka’s body became his servant in the end, since Mopo killed him with the help of the princes Dingaan and Umhlangana. Also I have heard that this Mopo still lives, though not in Zululand.”

“Does he, Macumazahn?” said Umslopogaas, taking snuff from a spoon and looking at me keenly over the spoon. “You seem to know a great deal, Macumazahn; too much as some might think.”

“Yes,” I answered, “perhaps I do know too much, or at any rate more than I want to know. For instance, O fosterling of Mopo and son of—was the lady named Baleka?—I know a good deal about you.”

Umslopogaas stared at me and laying his hand upon the great axe, half rose. Then he sat down again.

“I think that this,” and I touched the image of Zikali upon my breast, “would turn even the blade of the axe named Groan-maker,” I said and paused. As nothing happened, I went on, “For instance, again I think I know—or have I dreamed it?—that a certain chief, whose mother’s name I believe was Baleka—by the way, was she not one of Chaka’s ‘sisters’?—has been plotting against that son of Panda who sits upon the throne, and that his plots have been betrayed, so that he is in some danger of his life.”

“Macumazahn,” said Umslopogaas hoarsely, “I tell you that did you not wear the Great Medicine on your breast, I would kill you where you sit and bury you beneath the floor of the hut, as one who knows—too much.”

“It would be a mistake, Umslopogaas, one of the many that you have made. But as I do wear the Medicine, the question does not arise, does it?”

Again he made no answer and I went on, “And now, what about this journey to the north? If indeed I must make it, would you wish to accompany me?”

Umslopogaas rose from the stool and crawled out of the hut, apparently to make some inspection. Presently he returned and remarked that the night was clear although there were heavy storm clouds on the horizon, by which I understood him to convey in Zulu metaphor that it was safe for us to talk, but that danger threatened from afar.

“Macumazahn,” he said, “we speak under the blanket of the Opener-of-Roads who sits upon your heart, and whose sign you bring to me, as he sent me word that you would, do we not?”

“I suppose so,” I answered. “At any rate we speak as man to man, and hitherto the honour of Macumazahn has not been doubted in Zululand. So if you have anything to say, Chief Bulalio, say it at once, for I am tired and should like to eat and rest.”

“Good, Macumazahn. I have this to say. I who am the son of one who was greater than he, have plotted to seize the throne of Zululand from him who sits upon that throne. It is true, for I grew weary of my idleness as a petty chief. Moreover, I should have succeeded with the help of Zikali, who hates the House of Senzangacona, though me, who am of its blood, he does not hate, because ever I have striven against that House. But it seems from his message and those words spoken by an angry woman, that I have been betrayed, and that to-night or to-morrow night, or by the next moon, the slayers will be upon me, smiting me before I can smite, at which I cannot grumble.”

“By whom have you been betrayed, Umslopogaas?”

“By that wife of mine, as I think, Macumazahn. Also by Lousta, my blood-brother, over whom she has cast her net and made false to me, so that he hopes to win her whom he has always loved and with her the Chieftainship of the Axe. Now what shall I do?—Tell me, you whose eyes can see in the dark.”

I thought a moment and answered, “I think that if I were you, I would leave this Lousta to sit in my place for a while as Chief of the People of the Axe, and take a journey north, Umslopogaas. Then if trouble comes from the Great House where a king sits, it will come to Lousta who can show that the People of the Axe are innocent and that you are far away.”

“That is cunning, Macumazahn. There speaks the Great Medicine. If I go north, who can say that I have plotted, and if I leave my betrayer in my place, who can say that I was a traitor, who have set him where I used to sit and left the land upon a private matter? And now tell me of this journey of yours.”

So I told him everything, although until that moment I had not made up my mind to go upon this journey, I who had come here to his kraal by accident, or so it seemed, and by accident had delivered to him a certain message.

“You wish to consult a white witch-doctoress, Macumazahn, who according to Zikali lives far to the north, as to the dead. Now I too, though perchance you will not think it of a black man, desire to learn of the dead; yes, of a certain wife of my youth who was sister and friend as well as wife, whom too I loved better than all the world. Also I desire to learn of a brother of mine whose name I never speak, who ruled the wolves with me and who died at my side on yonder Witch-Mountain, having made him a mat of men to lie on in a great and glorious fight. For of him as of the woman I think all day and dream all night, and I would know if they still live anywhere and I may look to see them again when I have died as a warrior should and as I hope to do. Do you understand, Watcher-by-Night?”

I answered that I understood very well, as his case seemed to be like my own.

“It may happen,” went on Umslopogaas, “that all this talk of the dead who are supposed to live after they are dead, is but as the sound of wind whispering in the reeds at night, that comes from nowhere and goes nowhere and means nothing. But at least ours will be a great journey in which we shall find adventure and fighting, since it is well known in the land that wherever Macumazahn goes there is plenty of both. Also it seems well for reasons that have been spoken of between us, as Zikali says, that I should leave the country of the Zulus for a while, who desire to die a man’s death at the last and not to be trapped like a jackal in a pit. Lastly I think that we shall agree well together though my temper is rough at times, and that neither of us will desert the other in trouble, though of that little yellow dog of yours I am not so sure.”

“I answer for him,” I replied. “Hans is a true man, cunning also when once he is away from drink.”

Then we spoke of plans for our journey, and of when and where we should meet to make it, talking till it was late, after which I went to sleep in the guest-hut.