Books: Nada the Lily

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"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 passed 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 passed, "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 the 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 passed 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.

But even then the boy had a great spirit, and he answered, "Time to
die, sister, when Death chooses us. See, now! Do you rest here, and I
will climb the hill and look across the forest."

So he left her and climbed the hill, and on its side he found many
berries and a root that is good for food, and filled himself with
them. At length he came to the crest of the hill and looked out across
the sea of green. Lo! there, far away to the east, he saw a line of
white that lay like smoke against the black surface of a cliff, and
knew it for the waterfall beyond the royal town. Then he came down the
hill, shouting for joy and bearing roots and berries in his hand. But
when he reached the spot where Nada was, he found that her senses had
left her through hunger, cold, and weariness. She lay upon the ground
like one asleep, and over her stood a jackal that fled as he drew
nigh. Now it would seem that there but two shoots to the stick of
Umslopogaas. One was to save himself, and the other to lie down and
die by Nada. Yet he found a third, for, undoing the strips of his
moocha, he made ropes of them, and with the ropes he bound Nada on his
back and started for the king's kraal. He could never have reached it,
for the way was long, yet at evening some messengers running through
the forest came upon a naked lad with a girl bound to his back and a
staff in his hand, who staggered along slowly with starting eyes and
foam upon his lips. He could not speak, he was so weary, and the ropes
had cut through the skin of his shoulders; yet one of the messengers
knew him for Umslopogaas, the son of Mopo, and they bore him to the
kraal. They would have left the girl Nada, thinking her dead, but he
pointed to her breast, and, feeling it, they found that her heart
still beat, so they brought her also; and the end of it was that both
recovered and loved each other more than ever before.

Now after this, I, Mopo, bade Umslopogaas stay at home within the
kraal, and not lead his sister to the wilds. But the boy loved roaming
like a fox, and where he went there Nada followed. So it came about
that one day they slipped from the kraal when the gates were open, and
sought out a certain deep glen which had an evil name, for it was said
that spirits haunted it and put those to death who entered there.
Whether this was true I do not know, but I know that in the glen dwelt
a certain woman of the woods, who had her habitation in a cave and
lived upon what she could kill or steal or dig up with her hands. Now
this woman was mad. For it had chanced that her husband had been
"smelt out" by the witch-doctors as a worker of magic against the
king, and slain. Then Chaka, according to custom, despatched the
slayers to eat up his kraal, and they came to the kraal and killed his
people. Last of all they killed his children, three young girls, and
would have assegaied their mother, when suddenly a spirit entered into
her at the sight, and she went mad, so that they let her go, being
afraid to touch her afterwards. So she fled and took up her abode in
the haunted glen; and this was the nature of her madness, that
whenever she saw children, and more especially girl children, a
longing came upon her to kill them as her own had been killed. This,
indeed, she did often, for when the moon was full and her madness at
its highest, she would travel far to find children, snatching them
away from the kraals like a hyena. Still, none would touch her because
of the spirit in her, not even those whose children she had murdered.

So Umslopogaas and Nada came to the glen where the child-slayer lived,
and sat down by a pool of water not far from the mouth of her cave,
weaving flowers into a garland. Presently Umslopogaas left Nada, to
search for rock lilies which she loved. As he went he called back to
her, and his voice awoke the woman who was sleeping in her cave, for
she came out by night only, like a jackal. Then the woman stepped
forth, smelling blood and having a spear in her hand. Presently she
saw Nada seated upon the grass weaving flowers, and crept towards her
to kill her. Now as she came--so the child told me--suddenly a cold
wind seemed to breathe upon Nada, and fear took hold of her, though
she did not see the woman who would murder her. She let fall the
flowers, and looked before her into the pool, and there, mirrored in
the pool, she saw the greedy face of the child-slayer, who crept down
upon her from above, her hair hanging about her brow and her eyes
shining like the eyes of a lion.

Then with a cry Nada sprang up and fled along the path which
Umslopogaas had taken, and after her leapt and ran the mad woman.
Umslopogaas heard her cry. He turned and rushed back over the brow of
the hill, and, lo! there before him was the murderess. Already she had
grasped Nada by the hair, already her spear was lifted to pierce her.
Umslopogaas had no spear, he had nothing but a little stick without a
knob; yet with it he rushed at the mad woman and struck her so smartly
on the arm that she let go of the girl and turned on him with a yell.
Then, lifting her spear, she struck at him, but he leapt aside. Again
she struck; but he sprang into the air, and the spear passed beneath
him. A third time the woman struck, and, though he fell to earth to
avoid the blow, yet the assegai pierced his shoulder. But the weight
of his body as he fell twisted it from her hand, and before she could
grasp him he was up, and beyond her reach, the spear still fast in his
shoulder.

Then the woman turned, screaming with rage and madness, and ran at
Nada to kill her with her hands. But Umslopogaas set his teeth, and,
drawing the spear from his wound, charged her, shouting. She lifted a
great stone and hurled it at him--so hard that it flew into fragments
against another stone which it struck; yet he charged on, and smote at
her so truly that he drove the spear through her, and she fell down
dead. After that Nada bound up his wound, which was deep, and with
much pain he reached the king's kraal and told me this story.

Now there were some who cried that the boy must be put to death,
because he had killed one possessed with a spirit. But I said no, he
should not be touched. He had killed the woman in defence of his own
life and the life of his sister; and every one had a right to slay in
self-defence, except as against the king or those who did the king's
bidding. Moreover, I said, if the woman had a spirit, it was an evil
one, for no good spirit would ask the lives of children, but rather
those of cattle, for it is against our custom to sacrifice human
beings to the Amatonga even in war, though the Basuta dogs do so.
Still, the tumult grew, for the witch-doctors were set upon the boy's
death, saying that evil would come of it if he was allowed to live,
having killed one inspired, and at last the matter came to the ears of
the king. Then Chaka summoned me and the boy before him, and he also
summoned the witch-doctors.

First, the witch-doctors set out their case, demanding the death of
Umslopogaas. Chaka asked them what would happen if the boy was not
killed. They answered that the spirit of the dead woman would lead him
to bring evil on the royal house. Chaka asked if he would bring evil
on him, the king. They in turn asked the spirits, and answered no, not
on him, but on one of the royal house who should be after him. Chaka
said that he cared nothing what happened to those who came after him,
or whether good or evil befell them. Then he spoke to Umslopogaas, who
looked him boldly in the face, as an equal looks at an equal.

"Boy," he said, "what hast thou to say as to why thou shouldst not be
killed as these men demand?"

"This, Black One," answered Umslopogaas; "that I stabbed the woman in
defence of my own life."

"That is nothing," said Chaka. "If I, the king, wished to kill thee,
mightest thou therefore kill me or those whom I sent? The Itongo in
the woman was a Spirit King and ordered her to kill thee; thou
shouldst then have let thyself be killed. Hast thou no other reason?"

"This, Elephant," answered Umslopogaas; "the woman would have murdered
my sister, whom I love better than my life."

"That is nothing," said Chaka. "If I ordered thee to be killed for any
cause, should I not also order all within thy gates to be killed with
thee? May not, then, a Spirit King do likewise? If thou hast nothing
more to say thou must die."

Now I grew afraid, for I feared lest Chaka should slay him who was
called my son because of the word of the doctors. But the boy
Umslopogaas looked up and answered boldly, not as one who pleads for
his life, but as one who demands a right:--

"I have this to say, Eater-up of Enemies, and if it is not enough, let
us stop talking, and let me be killed. Thou, O king, didst command
that this woman should be slain. Those whom thou didst send to destroy
her spared her, because they thought her mad. I have carried out the
commandment of the king; I have slain her, mad or sane, whom the king
commanded should be killed, and I have earned not death, but a
reward."

"Well said, Umslopogaas!" answered Chaka. "Let ten head of cattle be
given to this boy with the heart of a man; his father shall guard them
for him. Art thou satisfied now, Umslopogaas?"

"I take that which is due to me, and I thank the king because he need
not pay unless he will," Umslopogaas answered.

Chaka stared awhile, began to grow angry, then burst out laughing.

"Why, this calf is such another one as was dropped long ago in the
kraal of Senzangacona!" he said. "As I was, so is this boy. Go on,
lad, in that path, and thou mayst find those who shall cry the royal
salute of Bayete to thee at the end of it. Only keep out of my way,
for two of a kind might not agree. Now begone!"

So we went out, but as we passed them I saw the doctors muttering
together, for they were ill-pleased and foreboded evil. Also they were
jealous of me, and wished to smite me through the heart of him who was
called my son.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GREAT INGOMBOCO

After this there was quiet until the Feast of the First-fruits was
ended. But few people were killed at these feast, though there was a
great Ingomboco, or witch-hunt, and many were smelt out by the witch-
doctors as working magic against the king. Now things had come to this
pass in Zululand--that the whole people cowered before the witch-
doctors. No man might sleep safe, for none knew but that on the morrow
he would be touched by the wand of an Isanusi, as we name a finder of
witches, and led away to his death. For awhile Chaka said nothing, and
so long as the doctors smelt out those only whom he wished to get rid
of--and they were many--he was well pleased. But when they began to
work for their own ends, and to do those to death whom he did not
desire to kill, he grew angry. Yet the custom of the land was that he
whom the witch-doctor touched must die, he and all his house;
therefore the king was in a cleft stick, for he scarcely dared to save
even those whom he loved. One night I came to doctor him, for he was
sick in his mind. On that very day there had been an Ingomboco, and
five of the bravest captains of the army had been smelt out by the
Abangoma, the witch-finders, together with many others. All had been
destroyed, and men had been sent to kill the wives and children of the
dead. Now Chaka was very angry at this slaying, and opened his heart
to me.

"The witch-doctors rule in Zululand, and not I, Mopo, son of
Makedama," he said to me. "Where, then, is it to end? Shall I myself
be smelt out and slain? These Isanusis are too strong for me; they lie
upon the land like the shadow of night. Tell me, how may I be free of
them?"

"Those who walk the Bridge of Spears, O king, fall off into Nowhere,"
I answered darkly; "even witch-doctors cannot keep a footing on that
bridge. Has not a witch-doctor a heart that can cease to beat? Has he
not blood that can be made to flow?"

Chaka looked at me strangely. "Thou art a bold man who darest to speak
thus to me, Mopo," he said. "Dost thou not know that it is sacrilege
to touch an Isanusi?"

"I speak that which is in the king's mind," I answered. "Hearken, O
king! It is indeed sacrilege to touch a true Isanusi, but what if the
Isanusi be a liar? What if he smell out falsely, bringing those to
death who are innocent of evil? Is it then sacrilege to bring him to
that end which he has given to many another? Say, O king!"

"Good words!" answered Chaka. "Now tell me, son of Makedama, how may
this matter be put to proof?"

Then I leaned forward, whispering into the ear of the Black One, and
he nodded heavily.

Thus I spoke then, because I, too, saw the evil of the Isanusis, I who
knew their secrets. Also, I feared for my own life and for the lives
of all those who were dear to me. For they hated me as one instructed
in their magic, one who had the seeing eye and the hearing ear.

One morning thereafter a new thing came to pass in the royal kraal,
for the king himself ran out, crying aloud to all people to come and
see the evil that had been worked upon him by a wizard. They came
together and saw this. On the door-posts of the gateway of the
Intunkulu, the house of the king, were great smears of blood. The
knees of men strong in the battle trembled when they saw it; women
wailed aloud as they wail over the dead; they wailed because of the
horror of the omen.

"Who has done this thing?" cried Chaka in a terrible voice. "Who has
dared to bewitch the king and to strike blood upon his house?"

There was no answer, and Chaka spoke again. "This is no little
matter," he said, "to be washed away with the blood of one or two and
be forgotten. The man who wrought it shall not die alone or travel
with a few to the world of spirits. All his tribe shall go with him,
down to the baby in his hut and cattle in his kraal! Let messengers go
out east and west, and north and south, and summon the witch-doctors
from every quarter! Let them summon the captains from every regiment
and the headmen from every kraal! On the tenth day from now the circle
of the Ingomboco must be set, and there shall be such a smelling out
of wizards and of witches as has not been known in Zululand!"

So the messengers went out to do the bidding of the king, taking the
names of those who should be summoned from the lips of the indunas,
and day by day people flocked up to the gates of the royal kraal, and,
creeping on their knees before the majesty of the king, praised him
aloud. But he vouchsafed an answer to none. One noble only he caused
to be killed, because he carried in his hand a stick of the royal red
wood, which Chaka himself had given him in bygone years.[1]

[1] This beautiful wood is known in Natal as "red ivory."--ED.

On the last night before the forming of the Ingomboco, the witch-
doctors, male and female, entered the kraal. There were a hundred and
a half of them, and they were made hideous and terrible with the white
bones of men, with bladders of fish and of oxen, with fat of wizards,
and with skins of snakes. They walked in silence till they came in
front of the Intunkulu, the royal house; then they stopped and sang
this song for the king to hear:--

We have come, O king, we have come from the caves and the rocks
and the swamps,
To wash in the blood of the slain;
We have gathered our host from the air as vultures are gathered in
war.
When they scent the blood of the slain.

We come not alone, O king: with each Wise One there passes a
ghost,
Who hisses the name of the doomed.
We come not alone, for we are the sons and Indunas of Death,
And he guides our feet to the doomed.

Red rises the moon o'er the plain, red sinks the sun in the west,
Look, wizards, and bid them farewell!
We count you by hundreds, you who cried for a curse on the king.
Ha! soon shall we bid YOU farewell!

Then they were silent, and went in silence to the place appointed for
them, there to pass the night in mutterings and magic. But those who
were gathered together shivered with fear when they heard their words,
for they knew well that many a man would be switched with the gnu's
tail before the sun sank once more. And I, too, trembled, for my heart
was full of fear. Ah! my father, those were evil days to live in when
Chaka ruled, and death met us at every turn! Then no man might call
his life his own, or that of his wife or child, or anything. All were
the king's, and what war spared that the witch-doctors took.

The morning dawned heavily, and before it was well light the heralds
were out summoning all to the king's Ingomboco. Men came by hundreds,
carrying short sticks only--for to be seen armed was death--and seated
themselves in the great circle before the gates of the royal house.
Oh! their looks were sad, and they had little stomach for eating that
morning, they who were food for death. They seated themselves; then
round them on the outside of the circle gathered knots of warriors,
chosen men, great and fierce, armed with kerries only. These were the
slayers.

When all was ready, the king came out, followed by his indunas and by
me. As he appeared, wrapped in the kaross of tiger-skins and towering
a head higher than any man there, all the multitude--and it was many
as the game on the hills--cast themselves to earth, and from every lip
sharp and sudden went up the royal salute of Bayete. But Chaka took no
note; his brow was cloudy as a mountain-top. He cast one glance at the
people and one at the slayers, and wherever his eye fell men turned
grey with fear. Then he stalked on, and sat himself upon a stool to
the north of the great ring looking toward the open space.

For awhile there was silence; then from the gates of the women's
quarters came a band of maidens arrayed in their beaded dancing-
dresses, and carrying green branches in their hands. As they came,
they clapped their hands and sang softly:--

We are the heralds of the king's feast. Ai! Ai!
Vultures shall eat it. Ah! Ah!
It is good--it is good to die for the king!

They ceased, and ranged themselves in a body behind us. Then Chaka
held up his hand, and there was a patter of running feet. Presently
from behind the royal huts appeared the great company of the Abangoma,
the witch-doctors--men to the right and women to the left. In the left
hand of each was the tail of a vilderbeeste, in the right a bundle of
assegais and a little shield. They were awful to see, and the bones
about them rattled as they ran, the bladders and the snake-skins
floated in the air behind them, their faces shone with the fat of
anointing, their eyes started like the eyes of fishes, and their lips
twitched hungrily as they glared round the death-ring. Ha! ha! little
did those evil children guess who should be the slayers and who should
be the slain before that sun sank!

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