The White Shield

So, with heart heavy and sore, I dragged myself away from the place, and returning to where I had left the dead lion, cut off the head and forepaws and the tail-tuft of the mighty beast, and, thus laden, took my way back to Kwa’zingwenya, sorrowing exceedingly for the loss of her who had thus bewitched me.

Note. That this travelling priest was of French nationality was somewhat confirmed, for on hearing that language spoken, although unable to recognise any specific word, Untúswa declared that it seemed to bring back to his mind something of the stranger’s speech.

Chapter Sixteen.

A Life for Ten Lives

I returned to Kwa’zingwenya with the head and paws of the great lion I had slain, and those who beheld it envied, crying, “What a hunter is Untúswa! In the chase, as in war, his is the weapon beneath which falls the mightiest!” The King, too, was pleased when he beheld those trophies. But Nangeza, seeing them, said: —

“Ah, ah, Untúswa. Thy skill is in truth wonderful, who went forth to find a young heifer and found an old lion.”

This she said jeering, and with her eyes upon my face. But I, while affecting not to notice, found food for much thought in the words. Had Nangeza indeed discovered my secret? Was she concerned in the disappearance of Lalusini? Ha! I resolved to watch her narrowly, and were my suspicions verified, why then, indeed, there would be room in my house for a new inkosikazi.

Now at this time, things being quiet and our nation settling down in its new land, I gained the King’s leave to build myself a kraal some little distance from Kwa’zingwenya, and thither I removed with all my possessions – my cattle and my wives – and my brother Mgwali also came with me with his wives, and two other sons of my father, and soon I was the head of a large kraal of a score and a half of huts. But as time went on, and my duties in the way of seeing to the strength and efficiency of my own half of the army became greater, so far from beginning to think less of Lalusini I thought of her more. In the sunshine, darting in gold through the forest trees, it seemed that I could see her eyes, in the soft whispers of the wind at evening I could hear her voice. In my dreams I beheld her, was with her. Au! I was bewitched indeed. But although I made more than one journey again to the mountain of death, never did I discover any sign which should show she had revisited her hiding-place. All there had fallen more and more into decay, as though she had gone never to return.

“Of a truth, Untúswa, thou shouldst be an isanusi thyself,” said the King one day when we were sitting alone together in debate. “Thou hast a gift for finding izanusi and bringing them hither – first Masuka, now this white stranger; concerning which last my mind is in darkness, for I know not what to do with him.”

“Is he not content, Black Elephant? Does he not fare well among us, teaching those who care to listen – ah, ah! those who care to listen?” I added with meaning.

“For a time yes,” said Umzilikazi. “But the day will come when he will desire to travel again.”

“Let him travel back by the way he came, Calf of a Black Cow,” I answered, still with meaning. “For him the way of the South is not safe. There indeed are peoples that would do him harm.”

The Great Great One shook his head in discontent.

“Verily, Untúswa, I know not how this will end,” he said.

“Let be for the present, my father,” I answered. “The stranger is happy now, teaching the slaves. It may be that things will right themselves in this matter.”

I spoke darkly, Nkose, not seeing light. But both I and the Great Great One little guessed in what manner things would right themselves, and that at no great distance of time – ah, no! little could we we foresee that.

Now this was the meaning which underlay my words relating to the white isanusi and his teaching of the slaves. The last thing the King desired was that this white man should journey South, to bear, mayhap, the word to the Amabuna or to Dingane: “Yonder, to the North, in a fair and well-watered land, dwells Umzilikazi, and his warriors number so many, of whom a large proportion are of no account – being dogs and slaves.” The white stranger and the Gaza, Ngubazana, were but two men: what easier than to kill them secretly and thus end all trouble? There were not wanting some among the izinduna who spoke darkly to this end. But to such counsels Umzilikazi’s ears were shut. The white stranger was his friend. He was not of the race of the greedy, lying Amabuna; moreover, for himself it was easy to see he desired nothing, neither lands nor possessions; and though his teachings were not such as to be accepted by a warrior nation, there was no harm in them, no subversion of the greatness of the King. Not upon any considerations should he be harmed – neither the Gaza, his follower.

But he must be kept among us; and in furtherance of this end the King gave secret orders that a few of the lowest of the slaves should listen to his teaching, and slowly and by degrees bring themselves to accept it, or pretend to. Then a few more were added to these; but ever with caution, lest the white isanusi should suspect. But he did not suspect; on the contrary, his heart was filled with joy at the readiness wherewith, these received his teaching, and at length – for this took time – he put them under the same rites as those which he had performed over the little white girl. So he was content to dwell with us; and while we laughed among ourselves over the trick we had played upon him, yet we were glad that this other road lay open to him besides that to the South, which would have caused us trouble, and that into the Dark Unknown, which might have caused it to him.

I had left Kwa’zingwenya after this indaba with the King, and was returning to my own kraal along the river bank, sad at heart, and pondering ever upon the disappearance of the Bakoni sorceress, when I came upon an old man, stumbling along, bent double, nosing and peering on the ground. It was old Masuka.

“Greeting, my father!” I cried. “Are you seeking múti herbs?”

“Perhaps I am seeking for that which shall give sleep, son of Ntelani,” he replied, laughing at me out of his eyes. “Ha! my dreams were strange last night – strange, and they were about thee, Untúswa, about thee!”

“About me, my father?” I cried.

“E – hé! But, first give me gwai, thou holder of the King’s Assegai, for I have none left.”

I took out the long horn snuff-box which was stuck through the lobe of my ear, and, squatting down, we both took snuff in silence. Then the old man burst into a chuckle.

“My dreams took me to the summit of the mountain of death, son of Ntelani. The ghost of Tauane was there – searching for something.”

“For what was it searching, my father?”

“For a strange thing. For an outward chamber in the cliff, like unto the place of an eagle’s nest.”

“Ha!” I cried, staring at him wildly, my snuff-spoon in mid-air.

How his old eyes laughed; for my confusion was great. And well it might be, for these were the very words wherewith I had taunted the chief of the Blue Cattle on his flaming bed of death. Yet old Masuka had been nowhere near at that time, nor had any who understood that tongue.

“And why could not the ghost of Tauane find that place, my father?” I said. “Being a ghost, he could fly through the air until he found the chamber in the cliff like an eagle’s nest.”

“Not thus would he find it, destroyer of the Bakoni,” was the answer. “‘Through the darkness of the earth’ – such were his words.”

“Ha! Was it for good or for ill he spoke thus? Were those all the words of Tauane’s ghost my father?”

“Not so, Untúswa. Soon the ghost went winging through the air, crying and wailing that the place like an eagle’s nest was there, but that the she-eagle had flown away. Why art thou sad of late, son of Ntelani?”

“Thy múti is wonderful, father,” I replied. “Will the she-eagle return? Tell me. Will it return?”

“It will return. Ha! yonder alligators are hungry. They shall be fed. Oh, yes, they shall be fed. The she-eagle will return.”

I liked not his tones, Nkose, and my blood ran chill. For his speech, though dark, could have but one meaning. Lalusini I should behold again; but one or both of us should find death in the alligators’ pool. Well, what matter? One could but die once; and so great was the spell cast over me by the Bakoni sorceress that it seemed, once more to behold her, once more to have speech with her, I would gladly pay the price of death.

“I have a black cow, well in milk, which is one too many in my herd, father,” I said. “It shall be driven forth to-morrow to the place where thy cattle graze.”

But he paid scant heed, which was strange, for he loved cattle, and always welcomed such gifts. With his head on one side, as though listening intently, he repeated softly to himself:

“Yonder alligators are hungry. They shall be fed; oh, yes, they shall be fed!”

You will remember, Nkose, a certain pool in the river, which the King and I had lighted upon one evening soon after arriving at our new resting-place, and into which he had caused some calves to be driven that the alligators might seize them. Now this pool had been turned into a place of execution. No longer were those adjudged to doom led forth to die beneath the knobsticks of the slayers, as formerly, but were forced to leap, or were thrown into the pool, and from it none emerged alive. As I sat and talked with Masuka, I remembered that the Pool of the Alligators lay at no great distance from us, and between ourselves and the great kraal. Upon it the old Mosutu seemed to be concentrating his attention; and, as I listened, sounds were wafted thence.

“Evil-doers are about to meet death!” he said, at last. “Come, we will witness it.”

We rose and took our way along the river-bank. As we crested the rise, which brought us near the brow of the cliff from which the victims were thrown, we saw a multitude streaming down from the great kraal, and in the forefront of the crowd were men armed with sticks, and driving before them two other men, who were bound.

These were already half-dead with fear, and could scarcely walk, but the blows of the slayers urged them onward until they stood right upon the spot whence they should leap into the jaws of the hungry alligators. We could see at a glance that they were slaves, and sadly, indeed, they looked. From the people we learned that these two, being in charge of a flock of the King’s goats, had suffered wild dogs to break into the fold at night, whereby upwards of a score were slain. So Umzilikazi, declaring that if his goats were only fit to feed wild dogs with, assuredly to base Bakoni were only fit two feed alligators with; and they had been led forth.

Now, this scene did not move us in any way, Nkose, for the death of a slave more or less was nothing. But we just lingered to see these leap in.

Yet they would not. When driven to the edge they hung back, then cast themselves on the ground weeping and groaning for mercy. Already the surface of the pool below was alive with slimy, stealthy life. Widening lines upon the water told that the alligators well understood the cause of the tumult overhead. They moved silently to and fro, awaiting the plunge which should bring them the prey they had learned to love best – the flesh of men.

Now the slayers had grasped the screaming wretches, and were about to fling them out, when between the cliff brow and the victims a figure suddenly sprang forth, arising, as it were, by magic. All gave a shout of wonder, and the executioners paused in their work. The black robe, the long, flowing beard, the countenance stamped with a great horror and pain, were known to all. It was the white isanusi.

“Hold! my children!” he cried. “Hold! I beg of you!”

The slayers hesitated, and growled to each other. With arms outstretched, there the white man stood on the cliff brow between the hideous, hungry reptiles and their weeping, shivering victims. To fling these in was impossible without flinging him in too.

“It is the King’s will, father,” growled the chief of the slayers. “Know you not that did we hesitate we should be even as these? Stand aside.”

“Not yet, not yet,” he pleaded; and there was weeping in his voice. “Not yet. Wait – only until I hasten to the King! He will hear me, for he has given me the lives of such as these!”

“It may not be, father,” was the answer, made now with more alarm. “Whau! it is on us the izingwenya will feed, if not on these. Stand now aside.”

“Ah! have pity! Untúswa will take my side,” he cried in a glad voice, catching sight of my face. “Stay their hands, Untúswa, if only for a while, till I bring back the King’s pardon.”

“It may not be, father,” I, too, replied. “The King’s sentence has been given. It is even as the men say. Their lives are as the lives of these if they hesitate. Would you doom to death many men where two will suffice? Let them do their work.”

Now, I know not, Nkose, how this thing would have ended; for the white isanusi still continued to stand and plead, and none dare remove him by force, remembering in what high honour he was held by the Great Great One. But just then loud shouting made itself heard upon the outskirts of the crowd, which bent low suddenly, like a forest struck by a gale. And there advancing, with his head thrown back and a light in his eyes such as none of us cared to behold, came the Great Great One himself.

He stalked straight up to where stood the white isanusi, to where lay the doomed ones and the executioners, who, having hesitated to perform their work, counted themselves already dead. He was attended by the old induna Mcumbete, to whom he now turned.

“See,” he said, in a voice which made many tremble, “I am no King. I am only the lowest of the Amaholi. For the word of a King is obeyed; yet my word, though long since uttered, is not obeyed. Hau! What sort of a King ami?”

And the terrible frown of anger upon his face took in the white man, even as it did ourselves.

“Mercy! Great Great One! Mercy for these!” cried the stranger, pointing to the doomed slaves.

We who watched trembled for the life of the speaker; those of us who did not tremble for our own – and of these there could be but few – for this was a terrible thing which had happened, such a thing as had never before been known, that any man, white or black, should dare to interfere between the King’s decrees and their execution. But still the white priest stood upon the brink of that grisly pool of death pleading forgiveness, not for himself, but for those two miserable slaves. Ha! That was a sight indeed.

“You do not know us yet, O stranger!” went on Umzilikazi, now in bitter and sneering tones; “else had you not thought to save the lives of these two by any such means. For now have you doomed many to death, even all those whose errand it was to carry out my sentence and have allowed themselves to hesitate in doing so. For they, too, are dead men.”

A gasp of horror, which was almost a sob, ran through the multitude. The izimbonga bellowed aloud in praise of the King’s justice; but even their voices were not without a quaver. But the white priest stood facing the angry countenance of the King; and upon his own was stamped a great and deep sadness, but never a trace of fear.

“Be merciful, thou ruler of a great nation!” he pleaded more earnestly. “Mercy is the quality by which a King may show himself truly great. We have been friends. Oh, slay not these men, when the fault is entirely mine.”

“Not entirely. The fault of the man who hesitates to obey my word is entirely his own, and the penalty thereof he knows,” said Umzilikazi, pitilessly. “We have been friends, white stranger; but of what sort is the friendship which teaches those who are my dogs to laugh at me? Friend as thou art, I know not how thine own life shall be left thee after such an act as this.”

Something in the words seemed to strike the white isanusi. His face lightened up.

“See now, O King!” he replied. “The fault is mine. If I am a traitor in your eyes, who were my friend, take my life instead of the lives of these. Take my life, but spare theirs.”

“Ha!”

The gasp of amazement which softly left the lips of the King was echoed by a shiver from the crouching multitude.

“Think carefully, O stranger,” he said. “Look below. See the upturned glare of the alligators’ eyes. Mark their number – their great size – their hideous shapes. This is no pleasant or easy death.”

“Nor is it for these, Great Great One,” was the reply, with a sweep of the hand over the doomed men, who, victims and executioners alike, crouched motionless in the silence of despair. “And for them such a death may be more terrible than for myself, who humbly trust that it may be the opening of the gate of a new life whose glories are beyond words.”

“I think words enough have been spoken upon this matter,” said Umzilikazi, coldly. “Take thy choice, white isanusi. Thyself to the alligators – or these.”

“My choice is made, Black Elephant.”

“Leap, then!” said the King, with a wave of the hand towards the brink.

“I may not do that,” was the reply, “for it would be to take my own life, which my teaching forbids. The slayers of the King must throw me in – that they themselves may live. But, first, I desire a few moments wherein to pray that the Great Great One above may receive my spirit.”

To this Umzilikazi gave assent, and the white priest knelt down, and, drawing out the cross, with the Figure of a Man upon it, he kissed this. And then, for the first time, some of us noticed that the sign he made upon himself with his hand more than once was in form even as that cross.

Whau, Nkose! that was a strange sight – stranger, I think, I never beheld. The sun was near his rest now, and his fading beams fell upon the surface of the hideous pool beneath, painting it and the numerous snouts of the hungry monsters lurking there as it were blood-red. And above the crouching, awe-stricken multitude – the only movement among which was the rolling of distended eyeballs, the grovelling figures of the doomed ones, grey with fear, and not knowing yet if their lives would indeed be spared – the stern, upright figure of Umzilikazi, terrible in the offended majesty of his disobeyed commands, and the subdued, shrinking countenance of the old induna. And, in the midst of all, the kneeling priest, in his black, flowing robe, the tones of whose voice, rising and falling quickly in prayer, being the only sounds breaking in upon this dead and awesome silence. And to us who gazed it seemed as though a strange light rested upon the face of the white isanusi, imparting to it a look which had nothing in common with the set, motionless expression to be seen upon the face of a brave man doomed to die; but this might have been caused by the long rays of the setting sun darting upon it. At length he arose.

The King made a sign to the slayers. Not this time was any hesitation to be found among them. Leaping eagerly to their feet, they sprang forward and laid hands upon the white priest.

“A moment!” said this one, signing them back. “Bid me now farewell, son of Matyobane! for I wish thee no harm on account of my death, and for it I forgive thee freely. Nay, more, I thank thee for it! since, through it, thou sparest the lives of these, who number more than half a score.”

He stretched forth his open hand. Umzilikazi grasped it, yet let it not go; and thus for a moment they stood, gazing into each other’s faces. And that of the white man expressed the truth of his words; for in it was no evil look, no sign of fear, or of a desire for revenge. Still they stood thus, uttering no sound. The strain was becoming terrible. In crushed, breathless silence the multitude hung upon what was to follow. Was the King bewitched? Could he not relax his grasp? A dull splash was heard beneath, as one of the alligators turned on the water. And now the sun rested on the western heights, like a wheel of red flame. Then Umzilikazi spoke:

“The alligators may go hungry this night, for thou art a brave man, my father; too brave a man that thy life should pay for the miserable lives of such as these. Yet for thy sake I will spare them too, though I know not whether after doing so I am a King or as one of their dogs! —Hau!”

“A greater King than ever, son of Matyobane,” was the reply, uttered solemnly. “The Great One above will bless thee, my friend.”

Now the shouts of bonga which rent the air were deafening, and from one end to the other of that vast multitude rolled the praises of the mercy of the King. And, indeed, it was wonderful, for this was the only occasion upon which I ever knew Umzilikazi spare any man when his “word” had once gone forth that that man should die. And this time he had spared upwards of half a score, owing to the strange madness of a white priest who had offered to give his own life for theirs.

But some there were who murmured darkly that the King was bewitched, and among these were our own izanusi. Yet they dared not so whisper otherwise than darkly – ah, yes, very darkly indeed.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Return of the “She-Eagle.”

Now, Nkose, I am about to tell of the strange and momentous events that next befell; for upon reaching my home that night, which you will remember was at some little distance from the great kraal, I found my family and followers in a state of wild consternation and grief. The little white girl was lost!

She had not been wandering, not even playing outside with the other children. When last seen she was creeping through the door of the hut wherein she usually dwelt – that of Fumana, the youngest of my wives – and this hut she had never been seen to leave. When last seen it was shortly before the setting of the sun.

This was a matter to be turned inside-out, and that speedily, to which end I called up all those concerned, and questioned them one by one; the children who had last been with her, my wives, and the Bakoni slave-girls. But while my two younger wives were half-mad with grief – for they loved the little one – Nangeza only laughed evilly, saying that it could be but a small thing to a mighty chief like myself the loss of a wretched little whelp of the Amabuna: for thus she would often speak to anger me, knowing that I always held Kwelanga to be not of the Amabuna at all, but of a far greater race.

“So, woman!” I replied, pointing my stick at her menacingly, “it may be a small matter to myself, but it will be a weighty one for all here concerned, for did not the King give Kwelanga into our care? Ha! the alligators have been robbed of their food to-night – it may be that to-morrow they will be full.”

I could see fear upon the faces of those who heard my words; but again Nangeza laughed evilly. I was resolved now that the end of such doings had come. The morrow would show.

“Now to the search!” I cried. “The little one may have wandered abroad and have sunk down to sleep in the forest. She may not be far.”

“Perhaps yonder moves her bed,” said Nangeza, with her black laugh, as the wild howling of a hyena sounded very near. “While such are moving about it is little enough will be found of any child who has sunk down to sleep in the forest, and it has long been night.”

A murmur of approval greeted these words, for few among us liked to move about at night. And the voices of the hyenas and other beasts wailing dismally through the forest sounded as the ravenings of ghost animals scenting the blood of those who still lived as men. But for such considerations I cared little then. I gave my orders, and no man there but preferred to face the ghost animals to facing me having disobeyed them. So we set out, by twos and threes, on our search.

There was a half-moon low down in the heavens, and by its light we searched – ah, yes, how we searched! We hunted hither and thither like wild dogs questing a scent, beneath the dark shades of the forest trees, where the beasts would howl dismally across our path, and the rustle of huge serpents fleeing away in the brake would make our hearts leap – not knowing what evil beings of the night were abroad. We searched over the openness of the plain, and among the rugged rocks where we had found the white isanusi. We searched indeed far out beyond any distance such a little child could travel. But we searched in vain.