Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion

“I wonder what sort of a man this Mr Denham is, father?” said Verna, as she stood, in the middle of the morning, watching the cleaning and preparation for preserving the great head, which was being effected by a native under the critical supervision of his master.

“Quite all right,” was the answer. “He pays down on the nail, or rather, by return mail; never haggles or votes the prices too long. It’s all I can do to resist the temptation to put them up.”

“Well, then, go on resisting it, dear. I’m sure it’ll pay in the long run,” said the girl decisively.

“Yes, I’ve always had an instinct that way myself. Denham gives thundering good prices as it is, and, I tell you, we’ve made a pretty good thing out of him.”

“But I wonder what he’s like personally,” went on Verna. “I wish you hadn’t lost that photo he sent you when I was away.”

“Yes, it’s a pity, but for the life of me I can’t think what the devil became of it. He was a good-looking chap, though, and I should think by the look of the portrait, a fine, well-built chap too. Well, we shall probably never meet. It’s certain I shall never go to England again, and he’s not likely to turn up here.”

“I suppose not.”

“Well, long live our trade together, anyhow. He’d give anything, by the way, for a good specimen of the indhlondhlo1, but they’ve become so jolly scarce, which is just as well. Anyhow, that’s a beast that isn’t affected by these cursed silly game laws. But it’s a sort of joker you don’t get a chance of killing except with a charge of buckshot, and that spoils the skin.”

“Well, then, it’s better left alone. I’ve always heard they are the most fiendish brutes to tackle. It isn’t worth throwing away one’s life for the sake of a few pounds more or less.”

“Few pounds more or less!” echoed Ben Halse. “Why where would I – where would we– have been if I had always run on that notion? Little girl, it’s for you that I want to screw out every penny I can, no matter how I do it. For you.”

“Then knock off doing it, dear, especially in some directions. That won’t bring me any good, to put it on that ground. Now that deal with Undhlawafa is off, dead off? Isn’t it?”

The last rather anxiously.

“Well, I don’t know – yes, I suppose it is,” somewhat undecidedly.

The girl shook her head.

“Of course it is,” she returned. “It’s not to be thought of for a moment. We are not in dire need, remember, though even then such a thing would be out of the question. Yes, quite off. My instinct has been right before, remember.”

“So it has. No, I shan’t touch this affair. They’ll have to get somebody else.”

“Nkose! O’ Nongqai!” (The police.)

Both started. The interruption came from the trader’s other boy, who had slipped into the yard in a state of some consternation.

“Where, Panjani?” said his master.

“Down yonder, Nkose,” pointing to the lower country. In a moment both were outside and in front of the dwelling.

Far below, on the plain, which looked humpy from this altitude, two mounted figures were approaching. There was no need to get out a field-glass; the native eyesight, as well as their own, was keen enough. But the two arrivals could not arrive for the best part of an hour. Ben Halse went calmly back to the yard, and further directed the preparation of the great head, with its record horns. Then, rubbing a lot of salt and pepper into it, he covered it with a waggon sail. Verna, watching this proceeding, was struck with a sudden thought.

“Father, what about the koodoo sirloin I’ve got on the roast?” she said.

“Keep it there till it’s done. They won’t know it from beef. Howling joke, eh?”

“Rather,” she laughed. “They’ll all unconsciously aid and abet us in breaking the laws of Cetywayo’s country.”

The police horses were toiling up the slope, then standing with heaving flanks in front of the store. Their riders were not sorry to dismount.

“Well, Mr Halse, how goes it?” cried Meyrick, shaking hands. “Miss Halse – why, you are looking better than ever since those two dances we had together at Ezulwini.”

“Oh, thanks,” laughed Verna. “But that’s a poor compliment. You ought not to have allowed the possibility that I could look better than ever.”

“Sharp as ever, anyhow,” retorted Meyrick. And his comrade broke into a guffaw.

“This is Francis,” he introduced, “commonly known in the force as Frank. It’s shorter, you see, and means the same thing. Now we all know each other.”

“Not got your step yet, sergeant?” said Ben Halse. “Thought you’d have been Sub-Inspector next time I met you.”

“Don’t chaff, Mr Halse. It’s a sore point with me. The powers that be are so dashed ungrateful.”

“Well, anyway, come inside and have a refresher after your ride. I’ll send my boy to off-saddle for you. Scoff will be ready directly.”

“We kept it back on purpose when we saw you toiling up there beyond Lumisana,” said Verna. “If the sirloin is overdone it’s due to that.”

“Sirloin! By Jove! that’s royal!” cried Meyrick. Whereat Verna laughed mischievously.

Assuredly Ben Halse’s ménage kept up its reputation for hospitality, thought these two guardians of law and order, as they sat there doing full justice to the result of the midnight poaching expedition.

“Why, this beef is A1,” pronounced Meyrick, beginning upon a second helping. “You couldn’t get anything like it even in Old England.”

“I’m sure you couldn’t,” assented their host, with a touch of dryness, while Verna’s eyes danced. “The bottle’s at your right elbow – help yourself. What’s the latest from down country, by the way?”

“All sorts of yarns. They are brewing up for a row in Natal. There’s a sweep called Babatyana inclined to make trouble. Now, Mr Halse, you ought to be an authority. If there’s a bust-up there do you think it’ll spread up here?”

“Sure to. But, to what extent is another thing.”

“How does feeling run in these parts? Sapazani, you know, doesn’t carry a particularly good reputation.”

“Depends on how it’s handled. By the way, if I were you I wouldn’t name names,” for the boy had just come into the room to change the plates, and the swift look of interest that had flashed across his face as he caught the name of his chief was not lost on the experienced up-country man. “This boy here belongs to his tribe, and he’ll connect his chief’s name with the police uniform. See?”

Meyrick felt small, and said so.

“Did he hear? What an idiot I am. Well, Mr Halse, you were chaffing me about the Sub-Inspectorship, but it’s obvious I’m not ripe for it yet.”

Ben Halse passed it off with a tactful and consolatory remark, and they talked about other things. Not until afterwards did it occur to Meyrick that his host had given him no information whatever on the subject of the loyalty of Sapazani.

“He’s got some cheek, that same party whom we won’t name,” said Francis. “He flatly refused to salute his magistrate with the ‘Bayéte’ when he went to see him – hailed him as ‘Inkose’ instead; said the ‘Bayéte’ was the salute for kings.”

“He’s about right,” said Ben Halse. “There’s a precious deal too much of that ‘Bayéte’ joke going along. Every waggon-builder’s apprentice seems to expect it. What did Downes say? I’d like to have been there.”

“He nearly died of rage. Then he asked Sapazani, rather sneeringly, which king he would give the ‘Bayéte’ to, and the answer was, ‘Any king,’ which was rather smart. Downes talked of arresting him for treating his court with insolence, but there were only three of our chaps in the place, and Sapazani had a following with him big enough to have captured the whole show, even with kerries, so he chucked that plan.”

“Well, he was wise there,” said Ben Halse. “There’s no law in existence here or anywhere else I know of, that compels a native to address his magistrate as ‘Your Majesty,’ which is what giving him the salute royal amounts to. And this particular chief – to name no names – is quite knowing enough to get hold of a lawyer to stick up for him. There’s more than one that would be glad to, and could do it too.”

The fact was that the speaker knew all about this incident as well as did the narrator – and a good deal more connected with it which the latter didn’t, but this he kept to himself.

“Sapazani is a great friend of ours,” said Verna; “but I should think he’d be quite capable of making himself disagreeable if he was rubbed the wrong way.”

Then they talked on, about other things and people, and the afternoon wore on. Suddenly Meyrick was seen to start as if he had been shot, and to grope wildly and hurriedly in his pockets.

“I’m most awfully sorry, Mr Halse, for being such a forgetful ass,” he said; “but I forgot to give you this” – producing a letter. “Two of our chaps came back from Ezulwini and brought it out.”

“That’s all right. I dare say it isn’t a matter of life and death,” was the characteristic answer. But the speaker’s face was not wholly guiltless of a look of astonishment as he saw the envelope; and this was evoked not so much by the sight, of the handwriting as by the fact that the missive had never been through the post. While his guests were saddling up he quickly mastered the contents, and his astonishment did not decrease.

“How should you like a run down to Ezulwini, Verna?” he said, after the police had gone.

“To Ezulwini?”

“Yes; perhaps to Durban.”

“I’d like it a lot. Makes a change. I’m quite jolly here, but still, a change bucks one up a bit.”

Her father smiled to himself. That letter had given him an idea which tickled him, for he had a very comical side.

“But what’s on?” she said. “Are we clearing out? Has it become time to?”

“No, no. There’s no row on – as yet. That’ll come, sooner or later, all in good time. Only business.”

“Oh! What kind?”

Verna was so completely in her father’s confidence in every department of the same that there was no inquisitiveness underlying the query. There was a joke in the background of this, however, which he was not going to let her into. It would keep.

“What kind?” he repeated. “Oh, general. I say, though, Meyrick and Francis are nice chaps, aren’t they? but, good Lord! their faces would have been a study if they could have seen through that heap of waggon sail in the yard that was staring them in the eye through the window all the time they were scoffing the other bit of the owner of that head, which was browsing away in Lumisana this time yesterday. Eh? Beef! Roast beef of Old England! That was killingly funny. What?”

“Yes, it was,” rejoined Verna, who was gazing after the receding figures of the police, growing smaller and smaller on the plain below. “Still, the mistake was excusable. There’s not much difference between either. When are we going to Ezulwini, dear?”

“H’m. In a day or two.”

Chapter Seven.

The Chief

Sapazani’s principal kraal was situated in a bushy hollow, shut in on three sides by a crescent of cliff and rock abounding in clefts and caves. It contained something like a hundred dome-shaped huts standing between their symmetrical ring fences, and the space immediately surrounding it was open, save for a small clump of the flat-topped thorn-tree, Sapazani, as we have shown, was ultra-conservative, and the slovenly and slipshod up-to-date formation of a kraal – or rather lack of formation, with huts dumped down anyhow – did not obtain among his clan. They kept to the old-fashioned double-ringed fence.

Now this very conservatism on the part of Sapazani rendered him an object of suspicion and distrust among the authorities administering the country, for it pointed to “aims.” The other chiefs were content to come into the townships in grotesque medley of European clothing – as required by law – trousers, a waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, or long overcoats and broad-brimmed hats, that give to any savage an absurd and undignified appearance, but this one not. He was obliged to wear clothing on the occasions when his presence was officially required at the seats of administration, but when he did so he wore a riding suit of unimpeachable cut, and boots and spurs accordingly, but under no circumstances had he ever been known to wear a hat. He would not cover up and conceal his head-ring, as did the others. The fact of his not “falling into line” rendered him open to distrust, as a man with a strong hankering after the old state of things, and consequently dissatisfied with the new, therefore a man who might become dangerous. And there were not wanting, just then, circumstances under which he might become very dangerous indeed.

Sapazani’s kraal was remote from the seat of magistracy of his district, for which reason he was required to present himself in person, on some pretext or other, rather more frequently than was usual. To such summons he never failed to respond without delay. But also he never failed so to present himself without a considerable following. This fact sorely puzzled the authorities. They did not like it; yet to remonstrate would seem to argue that they were afraid of him, an attitude absolutely fatal to the prestige of the ruling race. And the said ruling race needed all its prestige just then, when there were less than a hundred mounted police in the whole of Zululand, and not much more than three times that number of Volunteer Rifles, but scattered throughout the length and breadth of the country pursuing their ordinary civil avocations.

Sapazani was just old enough to have fought as a mere youth in the Zulu war of ’79, and quite old enough to have fought well, and with some distinction on the Usutu side during the struggle which culminated in the exile of his present chief to Saint Helena. Now his relations with his said present chief – repatriated – were something of a mystery to the ruling race, and there were those who thought that given the opportunity he would not be averse to usurping his present chief’s position and authority; for he, too, came of royal stock, in that he was of the Umtetwa tribe and could claim descent from the House of Dingiswayo. His relations with Ben Halse dated from the time of the above-mentioned struggle in which his father, Umlali, had been killed, thus leaving him in undisputed succession to the chieftainship.

The sun was dropping over the lip of cliff-ringed crescent which shut in the hollow. Sapazani sat outside his hut, surrounded by three or four indunas, taking snuff; in this, too, he was conservative, not having yet come to the European pipe. The cattle were being brought in for milking, and the frantic bellowing of calves, and the responsive “moo” of their mothers, mingled with the shrill-voiced shouts of the young boys who were driving the respective herds. His thoughts were busy. News – great news – had come in. Down in Natal events were stirring. The tribes there were arming, and they were looking towards Zululand. No longer were they the white man’s dogs, as during the great war, when they had dared to come into the Zulu country to fight for the white man, and side by side with him. Now they were looking towards the House of Senzangakona, and – the representative of that House was dumb.

The song and clear laughter of women and girls bringing up water from the stream sounded pleasant and melodious upon the evening air, and the deep-toned voices of men, criticising the condition and well-being of the cattle in the kraal.

Blue reeks of smoke rose from the huts. The whole scene, in short, was one of quiet and pastoral peace; but in the chief’s plotting brain peace was the last consideration that entered. Peace! What was he but a mere slave – obliged to go here, or go there, at the bare official word? Peace! All the blood in his warrior veins fired at the word. Peace! on those terms! Every downy-faced youth among the whites expected him to salute him as a king: he, the descendant of kings. The black preacher of another race, who had stealthily visited his kraal two moons back preaching “Africa for the Africans,” had inspired him with ideas. He had listened, had turned the man, so to say, inside out; but one idea had taken hold. Sapazani was shrewd. He knew that by force of arms, by sheer force of arms alone, his people were incapable of holding their own. They could “eat up” every white in the country, and that in a single night. But they could not hold it afterwards. The whites could pour in such reinforcements as to eat them up in turn. But the one idea which the preacher had left in his mind was that the whites were so divided among themselves that there would be those high in the councils of the dominant nation who would compel their countrymen to concede to the Zulus their own land. It was rather mysterious, but he had heard it from other sources, from one, especially, of weight and knowledge, and more than half believed it. If that were so, and they could make a fight for it, why, then, all this officialdom might soon become a thing of the past, and he – Sapazani – a chief of weight, and in the full prime of his intellectual and physical gifts, and the descendant of a royal house, he saw himself king. As well as shrewd, Sapazani was ambitious.

“And the last word of U’ Ben was ‘No,’” the chief was saying.

“That was it,” answered Undhlawafa. “But that his child came up while we talked I think it would have been ‘Yes.’”

“Ha!” ejaculated Sapazani, now vividly interested. “What said she?”

“That I know not, son of Umlali, for I understand not the tongue of the Amangisi. But I spoke again about it yesterday, and again he refused.”

“Strange!” said the chief. “U’ Ben loves money.”

“Who does not, son of Umlali, since the whites have brought it into the country? But though U’ Ben loves money, I think that he loves his child more.”

The chief made no reply. A very curious vein of thought – for a Zulu – was running through his mind, of which, could Ben Halse have had the smallest inkling, that estimable trader would have cleared out at very short notice and have set up in business in some other part of South Africa considerably remote from this.

“U’ Ben is a fool,” he rejoined after a pause. “He must be growing too rich. We can get them brought,” he went on, talking “dark,” “and for less money. But he has always been a friend, and I wanted to give it to him. Is his mouth really shut, think you, Undhlawafa?”

“It is, I think. Besides, there is that about him which does not incline him to move other people to talk,” answered the induna meaningly. “And now, son of Umlali, what of the messenger?”

The chief’s face grew heavy, deepening into a scowl.

“Who are these that they are to order us hither and thither?” he said. “It is only a day ago (figurative) that I was required to attend. Let the dog come forward.”

In compliance with this mandate the said “dog” presently did appear, in the shape of a well-looking, middle-aged Zulu, wearing a long coat with brass buttons, also the head-ring. He saluted the chief respectfully enough, but Sapazani gazed at him sourly.

“So thou art here again, Manyana-ka-Mahlu, and still as the white man’s dog? Hau!”

The point of which remark was that the man addressed was court messenger at the magistracy in whose jurisdiction Sapazani was resident.

“Nkose! A man must live,” was the answer, with a deprecatory smile. “And we are not all born chiefs.”

Sapazani’s eyes blazed into fury, and gripping his stick he half rose. But a whisper from Undhlawafa restrained him – that, combined with another thought.

“Dog of the Abelungu,” he answered, now cool and sneering. “It is well for thee that although some of us were born chiefs we are chiefs no longer. Hau! Yet state thy message.”

The man was apologetic. Who was he to offend one of the great House of Umtetwa? he protested. He meant no such thing. He was only showing how he himself was forced to receive the white man’s money. Had there been any other way of living he need not have done so, but he was poor, and the white man ruled the land.

Then he proceeded to deliver his message. The attendance of Sapazani was required three days thence, to give evidence in a rather intricate case of disputed ownership of cattle then pending between certain of his own followers. The chief’s temper did not improve.

“Ho, Manyana. I wronged thee just now,” he said, “I called thee the white man’s dog, but we are all the white man’s dogs – I among them the most. Well, so far thy message. I will be there, as how should it be otherwise since we lie beneath the heel of these little great great ones who rule the land?” he concluded, bitterly sneering.

“Nkose!”

“Well, there are those who will give thee food and drink. Withdraw.”

“Nkose!”

The messenger obeyed, and the chief sat moodily. Would anything come of the unrest that was seething on the other side of the Tugela? He – to be summoned to take a long journey on account of some trumpery cattle case! Yet, was that only a pretext? was the sudden suspicion which flashed through his mind. Well, if it was not much was likely to come of it. No armed force had been mobilised by the whites as yet in any part of the country, and in case of any attempt at arresting him, why, as we have said, he was not in the habit of going into civilisation exactly alone. The voice of Undhlawafa broke in upon his musings.

“It is not well, son of Umlali, to shake sticks at those who come from the court,” he said drily. He was an old man, and privileged. “Manyana grows from a good tree, but what if some other had been sent, and had returned to say that he had been received with roughness, and that Sapazani was not loyal?”

“Loyal!” echoed the chief, in bitter disgust. “Loyal! Hau! Loyal – to whom?”

Beyond a murmur which might have meant anything, the other made no reply. Sapazani looked up and around. It was nearly dark. The sounds of evening had merged into the sounds of night. Most of the inhabitants of the kraal had retired within the huts, for there was a chill feeling in the air. He arose.

“The other messenger,” he said. “Now we will talk with him.”

He, too, went into his hut, and drawing his green blanket round him proceeded to take snuff. Undhlawafa, who, after a whispered injunction to some one outside, had followed him, proceeded to do likewise.

Soon a man crept through the low doorway and saluted. In his then frame of mind the chief noted with double irritation that the new arrival wore that abomination, in his eyes, the article of European clothing commonly called a shirt. Squatted on the ground the latter’s mission unfolded itself bit by bit. All the tribes in the north of Natal were ready. Those in the south of the Zulu country were ready too. How was it with those in the north?

In reply to this Sapazani and his induna put a number of questions to the emissary, as the way of natives is. These were answered – some straightly, some crooked.

“And He – what is his word?”

“He is dumb,” replied the emissary. “There are those who have spoken in his ear, and He is dumb.”

Sapazani sat, thinking deeply. “He” applied to the head of the royal House. More than ever did the insidious poison of the Ethiopian preacher of whom mention has been made, come back to his mind. Now he saw his own chance. Not by force of arms alone could a change be effected; but by the dissensions among the ruling race. Now was the time – before it should pass.

“Tell him who sent you,” he said, “that at the moment I shall be ready. That is my ‘word.’”

“Nkose!”

Chapter Eight.

The Prospectors

“I’ve got some news for you, Stride.”

He addressed was just dismounting. Obviously he had returned from a journey. His steed was flecked with sweat and had rather a limp appearance, as though ridden through the heat of a long day, and, withal, a hot one. A tent and a makeshift native shelter, together with a roughly run-up stable constituted the prospectors’ camp on the Mihlungwana River.

“Well, spit it out, then, if it’s worth having,” returned the other, with a light laugh. He was a tall, well-built young fellow, bronzed with the healthy, open-air life.

“Man, but there’s no that hurry,” said the first speaker, with a twinkle in his eyes. “First of all, what’s the news Grey Town way?”

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