MISSIONARY’S DAUGHTER

CHARLES H. EDEN

A Tale of the Land of the Tsulu and Cetewayo

Letter

CHARLES H. EDEN

Finnish version.

Helsinki, Finnish Literature Society printing house, 1880.

CONTENT:

 1. My Plant Brother
 2. The King’s Messenger
 3. The Autocrat in His Council
 4. Warned and Equipped
 5. In the Camp
 6. Unfortunate Exercise
 7. After the Tragedy
 8. Expression in the Haystacks
 9. Nomteba, the Witch-Wife
10. Midnight Guest
11. Crossing the Border
12. Woe to you, my brother

Chapter 1.

My plant brother.

“Kuta,[1] wake up; the eastern sky is red and the day is about to break.”

I had been sleeping peacefully and soberly in that deep, undisturbed sleep which always follows hard work and simple food, when the above words fell upon my ears, confirmed by a slight touch upon my right shoulder. In a twinkling I was on my feet, and almost inevitably stretched out my hand to where my loaded gun hung by the bedside; for I was in a semi-civilized country of the woods, where a man’s life is in the right hand of every man, and a sudden noise may often be interpreted as a summons to battle rather than a summons to a feast. A low, bright laugh, however, revived my dulled senses, and, stretching out my arm for a necessary article of clothing which lay on a chair by my bed, I began to dress myself, before following the person who had so pitilessly interrupted my sweet slumber to the pool of water, where we intended to take our sober morning bath.

“Does the day promise anything good?” I asked, as I searched haphazardly in the semi-darkness for a lost towel.

“In half an hour the dew will have evaporated from the grass and the cattle are out in the hay. Hurry, Kuta, hurry!” And bending down to the ground, my companion handed me the lost garment, which his sharp eye had easily found.

The first principles of health care clearly state that a morning bath is a more powerful health-preserver than all other doctorings; but as I remembered with longing my warm, comfortable bed, I regretted for a moment the imprudence of which I had made myself guilty the night before, when I asked my friend to wake me a little earlier than absolutely necessary. However that was the case, no doubt was of any help, and so I trotted out into the open air, where Ula[2] had gone before me, and followed her down to the pond, whose lovely glimmer amply rewarded the interruption of my sleep.

The sun rose as we were about to decide on our attire, and another day dawned—a day that promised to be no more rich in excellent incidents than the one that had preceded it. I stood waiting for my companion, who, having shaken off the drops of water from his lithe body with a long and skillful shake, like a fluffy poodle, was now hastily dabbing himself from head to toe with some oily substance, which he poured from a small bottle, which, for want of a better place to keep it, hung gracefully dangling from his right earlobe. The smooth surface of the pond was a mirror, into which he gazed with inexpressible satisfaction, arranging his body in comfortable positions, and evidently greatly delighted with the brilliant reflection which the water reflected; for my friend was a joker, a real ladies’ man among his people.

The word friend , dear reader, is not uttered thoughtlessly, but in the fullest sense that can be applied to the title. Ula, the exiled Tsululai chief, was my friend, and one of whom any man on the face of God’s created earth might have been proud. And, to top it all, we were more than friends, we were brothers, for we had both hung on the same breast, we had both drawn our nourishment from the same source: his mother had been my suckler; Ula and I were plant brothers.

A few words will explain how things had come to be. My parents died soon after my birth, leaving me, a poor little thing, only a few months old. I was by no means a water-waste in the ordinary sense, and a good-natured new-builder, whom my guardians had appointed to look after the farmlands during my infancy, generously consented to take me into his care; and after a Tsulu wet nurse had been procured, I was taken away to the Natal frontier, on the banks of the Buffalo River, in which part of the settlement my new-builder’s house was situated. There I grew up more like a little bushman than a Christian, and in all other respects, except my white complexion, it was impossible to distinguish me from the negro rascals who were my companions. At the age of ten I was sent to England, because my guardians had at last awakened some sense of responsibility; and I still remember the sorrow with which I threw away my bush life, to submit to the tedious discipline of propriety. What heart-rending pain, both mental and physical, was the exercise of the first rudiments of learning; how the clothes which bound me, chafed my calves, and hindered my freedom of movement; how mercilessly my school-fellows teased me, when a certain scoundrel among them, who had read Gordon Cumming, soon christened me a “Bechuan bushman,” which name I was allowed to keep as long as I remained with Dr. ——s. How lonely and miserable it seemed to be thrown into the midst of a new people, into the company of strange companions, who laughed at me, made fun of me, made my life miserable; and how I longed to have my former playmate and brother, Ula, with me, under the tender care with which his mother would have cared for both her children. At that time I thought my guardians cruel and wicked, depriving me of all that I loved; now I see that they were only doing their duty. A few more years in such an untamed state of decay, and my wild nature would have been so deeply rooted that it would never have been able to leave.

While I was in England, strange news reached me from Natal concerning my foster-mother, Landela. That she was the widow of a great Tsululais chief, who had been falsely accused of witchcraft and cruelly put to death by the tyrant Panda, I had heard in my childhood, but at that age I had given the matter very little thought. My ^olijoja now informed me in his letter that the present ruler, Cetewayo, had revoked the proclamation of exile to which my nurse had been subjected, recalled both her and my half-brother Ula to his kraal[3], and promised to place the latter in his rights among the chiefs of the tribe as soon as he had attained the age of manhood. “This circumstance,” said my guardian, “will be of great advantage to you on your return to the colony. Rumor has it that your former partner is in great favor with the king, and probably with his help, and your thorough knowledge of the Tsulu language, you will have an opportunity, after selling your present farm, to settle somewhere in that lovely grassland country which borders the Transvaal, and which even the Boers, considering its proximity to the warlike Tsulu, rather dread. Ula’s influence will guarantee you a favorable reception at the royal kraal.”

Three years before the day on which this story begins, when I had come of age and had legally taken possession of my hereditary estate of several thousand acres—a vast tract of land on paper, but very small in terms of its annual income—I sailed again to Natal, and having met a countryman who agreed to buy my estate, I gladly accepted his terms, and the bargain having been made, I rose to go and greet my cousin, who was then staying at the capital of Cetewayo, the so-called Great Kraal. I will not go into the details of the journey, for later we shall often meet the Tsululais chief, and unnecessary digressions do not interest me at all. Suffice it to say that both Landela and her sons received me with the most cordial enthusiasm. The latter had grown into a noble-looking warrior, though he had not yet attained that mark of rank which in the land of the Tsulu distinguishes “men” from boys, he was not yet allowed to keep his head shaved in a circle around the crown. Cetewayo also condescended to treat me kindly, assuring me that I should fear no disturbance, even if I settled in that disputed territory north of the Pongola stream. He also gave Ula permission to accompany me in my search for good cattle and agricultural lands.

Our journey was by no means without adventure, though I will not here go into them; the proper purpose is served by mentioning that in the nearby Eloya Mountains we found a tract of land wonderfully suited both for cultivation and for stock-raising, and of which I now had possession. Our main business having been accomplished, Ula returned to Umpangeni, the King’s Kraal, while I went to some of the Transvaal outposts to procure myself cattle and other necessities. I may here remark that, though my sojourn in England had almost erased the Tsulu language from my memory, my skill in it returned as if by magic when I was again among that people, and by the time Ula left me to return to the Great Kraal, I could again speak Tsulu as fluently as I could speak English.

But while I was living in the new settlements of the hospitable Boers, I found that my knowledge of agriculture was too limited to assure me of success if I ventured to undertake farming on my own. Great experience was necessary if I was to bring cattle-raising to a profitable stock, and this experience was yet to be acquired; and so I went to apprentice myself to a good-natured old Dutchman, my nearest neighbour, to reside under his roof until I had learned the secrets of the occupation to which I intended to devote myself.

Among good old Pieter Dirksen and his honest family I remained a housekeeper for nearly two years, acquiring practical knowledge in all branches of farm management, and buying cattle whenever I had the opportunity. My own farm remained uncultivated, but I was just about to go and inspect my clumsy buildings for the kind of locks a Transvaal cattleman needs, when, returning one day from a buffalo drive, I met Karel Dirksen, my master’s eldest son, who informed me that a Tsulu man and his wife had arrived at the new farm during my absence, and that they had anxiously inquired when I might return. This was no unusual occurrence, for I was well known by reputation to most of the tribe, who often came to tempt me to mediate in their petty quarrels with their European neighbours, and so I rode home without further thought: but my astonishment was immense when my old companion Ula, looking sad, haggard, and miserably emaciated, came up to me at the door of a small outhouse, and without a word led me by the hand into the only shelter that could be found. There, on a rough plank bed, covered with flour dust, lay my foster mother, Landela, in a miserable state of exhaustion, suffering, to top it all, from a frightful wound, which had evidently been inflicted on her leg with an assegai or some similar sharp instrument. She was too weak to speak, but after explaining to Vrou (the housewife) my relationship with the unfortunate foresters, she hastened to bring them nourishing food, whereupon in a moment my old nurse recovered sufficiently to explain to me the reason for their appearance in this pitiful state, information which I might have obtained from Ula some time ago, had not her mother by signs forbidden her to speak. The frank telling of her sufferings afforded the poor wife more consolation at the moment than anything else.

It now became evident that Ula had attained a higher honour in the sight of the Tsululais chief than any of his companions: and as a mark of special favour, Cetewayo had intimated that he intended to raise the young warrior to the rank of a man at the next great feast, and at the same time to give him back the cattle and other property which had been confiscated by his father’s wrongful conviction. But this deliberate restitution greatly annoyed some of the king’s most powerful advisers, who, because they had received a share of their slain father’s estate, felt not the least inclination to throw their ill-gotten goods at his living representative.

To a Kaffir his cattle are of great value; he loves his herds as the apple of his eye, and would sooner sometimes part with his favourite wife than with some mad bull. This being the case, and the standard of justice in the Great Kraal being exceedingly low, it was not surprising that those threatened chiefs should unite and try to prevent the king’s politically absurd, though just, intention. Nor was it at all difficult to sow suspicion in the heart of the capricious forest prince; the same means which had so emphatically worked the ruin of that slain chief were still available when it was desired to accuse his son, and by the advice of the chief soothsayer or witch-priest of Cetewayo it was suggested to the king that Ula and his mother were plotting with the white men to overthrow him; and, moreover, that both were practicing witchcraft. In proof of this last-mentioned accusation, it was alleged that Ula and her mother had been seen aiming at the king’s apartment with some strange and powerful weapon.

The ruler ordered them to be on the lookout, and finding that this part of the accusation was largely true, he arrested and produced before him my unfortunate friends, together with the wicked mutiny with which they practiced their wicked magic tricks. This was no more dangerous than the scrap of a kaleidoscope[4] which, on my first return to the colony, I had presented to my fellow-creature. Knowing well the greedy nature of Cetewayo, he had been wont to conceal the possession of the treasure from his companions; but in the evenings, when the day’s work was done, both mother and son would sit down on the ground near the door of their dwelling, and amuse themselves until dark by turning the tube and admiring the many-coloured pictures which each new exercise produced. Unfortunately, the entrance to their little home opened directly onto the king’s residence, and thus the mutiny seemed to be a constant threat to the royal government mansion.

In vain did poor Ula attempt to explain the innocent nature of his delivery; Cetewayo saw that he had concealed the plaything, and this fact alone greatly angered him, and made him too susceptible to the vicious insults which Nkungulu and the others concerned were driving into his ears. He, too, no doubt, was fond of the kaleidoscope; and dreaded the thought of it once more falling into the care of its rightful owner; but, be that as it may, he declared that the charge had been proved, and sentenced both Landela and his son to death, the latter to be impaled, the former to be roasted on a red-hot coal, as is the custom among this people.

The execution was fixed for the next morning, but conscience must have troubled the king’s stony heart a little, for during the night a word from the king’s quarters called the guards away for a moment, and the prisoners did not fail to take advantage of the advantageous position thus given them. Just as they were about to pass the last dwelling, the owner of this, thinking the fugitives to be cattle thieves, threw them at my nurse with an assegai, which struck her in the leg. But Ula, lithe and swift as the antelope from which she had borrowed her name, seized the mother in her arms and carried her to safety from the nearest danger. It is easy to imagine the frightful hardships they had to endure, unarmed and without food as they were in the wilds of Africa, in the company of all kinds of wild beasts and snakes; for though they often passed within sight of their countrymen’s kraals, they were obliged to avoid intercourse with their nearest relatives, who would have taken them as fugitives, and sent them back to their deaths, from which they had so laboriously and with difficulty obtained them. At last the poor fugitives reached Pieter Dirksen’s news-house, where, as we have seen, they were given food and shelter, after having informed the Dutchman of my relation to them. This incident had occurred about a month before the day on which the story begins, by which time Landela’s wound had healed, and Ula had fully recovered from the hard exertions of the journey; and as he now stood before me on the edge of the pond in this sweet African morning, I could not help thinking what a noble expression of his people my friend was, nor without reflecting how blinded by prejudice those people are who admit no help to be found in the breasts of their black brothers.

We had finished our swim, and Ula gazed in eternal delight at the reflection of her shining body in the water, while I comfortably put on my clothes, which, although they consisted of few articles, were nevertheless more complete than those of my Tsululainen companion. Suddenly a cry drew my attention to the latter, and I saw him bending over the edge of the pond, and intently examining some object in the rapidly brightening dawn.

“One, two, three,” he read aloud, pointing to clear paw prints in the soft mud. “Three panthers, Kuta, have been here drinking last night.”

“Well then we have to get the drive going,” I replied, very worried about the cattle. “I hope they haven’t done any damage yet.”

“They must have been starving, otherwise they would never have dared to come so close to human habitation,” said my companion, who had still been examining the tracks. “That’s right, there are three of them, and one is quite a mess; look at this paw print, it’s more of a lion’s than a panther’s.”

At the same time, a shot from the direction of the house reached our ears, and as we ran in that direction we met Henrikki Dirksen, Boer’s youngest son, who, seeing us, exclaimed:

“Three of your brute beasts have been killed, William, and two of ours, besides several badly torn. That rascal Papalatsa, who was supposed to be guarded, must have gone to sleep last night and then run away to avoid the whip,” and the young Dutch giant shook his jambok (bullwhip) menacingly in the direction of the cattle yard.

This was bad news; for if we did not kill the robbers, they would probably renew their attack this day after dark. So the three of us went to the apartment to inform old Pieter of the accident. The Boer had just emerged from his bedroom when we entered, and his son, after saying a respectful good morning, told what had happened, at which the old man’s brow gradually grew more and more gloomy. Pieter Dirksen was of the finest type to be found in the stout Dutch breed of settlers that grew up in the Transvaal. His giant frame—he was three cubits and four inches tall in boots—had not been bent by the work and exertion of sixty summers; and the strongest of his sturdy sons would have been terrified to compare their strength with that of their muscular father. His face was wrinkled and his features were a few white, but that only gave a benevolent touch to his form, which in his youth had earned the name of sallowness; for Dirksen’s life had been spent in the wilds of South Africa, his learning had been limited to the little arithmetic required by his office, and to a reading capacity so great that he might read through a chapter of the Bible on Sundays, and so the intellectual intelligence which had been in him at first had been put to sleep. Calm determination and unbending will were the leading features of his face, though the benevolent hand of time had sown in them a gentle benevolence which made his form very agreeable. And yet, old Pieter had many faults common to the whole class of men to whom he belonged. No ox could have been more one-sided than he; and when the old man had once made up his mind, neither words nor threats could make him abandon the intention he had once decided in his mind. He was cunning in business matters, but at the same time hospitable; but he rarely showed himself in his most polite form if his guest happened to be an Englishman, for he regarded our people with all the prejudice of his kindred. And he could not sometimes refrain from venting his bitterness on me, although, knowing full well that his complaints were often too much to bear, I was not at all moved by those words, and I am sure that the old man regarded me more as a father than as a master. His opinions on the mutual relations between the white and black population were also completely at odds with our English ideas. He, for he believed that the natives should be the subjects of the Europeans, and rejected as both absurd and harmful all our beautiful ideas of equality. Nevertheless, he treated his Negro indentured servants with kindness and moderation, although on the other hand he mercilessly tanned their hippopotamus skins for every neglect. And I confess,I wouldn’t have liked to be the owner of Papalatsa’s back skin when Henrikki had ended his story by announcing the consequences of that boy’s carelessness.

An Englishman, on hearing that one of his animals had been killed, would probably have ordered his men to mount their horses and rode off at once to find the culprits; but old Pieter Dirksen did not. He had never undertaken anything in his life without thinking it over thoroughly, and he probably had no intention of rushing into any hasty action in this matter either. He listened with furrowed brows until his son had said what he had to say, and then, after considering the matter for a minute, he stepped to the door of his bedroom and said calmly to his wife: “Mary, bring us the fat without any fuss.”

Seeing clearly that the chase was coming, I went to my room to get some cartridges for my gun. But the strange incidents of this morning had not yet passed, for suddenly my old nurse burst in, shouting: “A messenger has arrived from the king. You will not leave us in their clutches, will you, Kuta?”

“That’s Kotsi,” remarked Ula, after glancing at the newcomer; “our bitterest enemy.”

“Then evil is coming. But don’t worry, Landela, the Dutchman won’t abandon you. Just stay here, both of you, until I return.” And with a heavy heart I went to meet the warrior, who, fully armed, was walking to the Boer’s room.

Chapter 2.

The king’s envoy.

The last observation which Ula had made increased the anxiety which I felt for the safety of my friend. Kotsi was well known to me, both in man and reputation, and I was assured that no trifling matter had occasioned his appearance as the king’s envoy in place of Pieter Dirksen. This warrior was one of Cetewayo’s most trusted companions, being the chief of the Induna-e-nkholu , or regiment of men, called the Onoba Ponkuei (panther-catchers); a name derived from the fact that these, by the command of their tyrannical master, had captured a panther alive and brought it before the monarch. Kotsi was but a young boy when this abduction was made, but he had already distinguished himself by the fearlessness with which he pursued the ferocious beast, and subsequent evidences of stout courage raised him to his present high position. Like most savage despots, the Tsululais king was troubled by the thought that a secret plot was being hatched to overthrow his power, and, fearing that his oppressed subjects would one day kill him, he had surrounded himself with a guard of chosen men, who, on the grounds that by his death they would lose everything without gaining anything, would protect him from danger for their own good. Kotsi was the head of this group, and I knew that only some important event could induce the king to let his favorite go from his vicinity.

In the meantime the warrior had reached the open door of the apartment, and after knocking several times with his knob-knife ,[5] stood calmly awaiting an answer to his knock. He must have sensed my approach, though he did not seem to be aware of my presence, a fact which in itself boded ill for my friends. Mentioning him by name, I bid him welcome to the news-apartment; but he took no notice of my greeting, but, fixing his gloomy gaze on the back of the room, settled down completely indifferent to me, with a calm, lofty haughtiness that put hot blood to a severe test. Fortunately old Pieter entered before I could empty my gall into the messenger, and the latter turned to him, with a proud nod of his head. Although Boeri had a helpful knowledge of the Tsulu language, the speech was largely incomprehensible to both him and his sons, who had also come into the room, for the warrior uttered his sentences with infinite rapidity, gradually pushing himself into a real frenzy of enthusiasm as he spoke. He paid no attention to anyone but old Dirksen, though he knew very well that I was listening to his rhyme; but when he had finished he half-nodded at me, evidently saying: “That is what I have to say; now make it known to your friends.”

I was terribly disturbed by the boundless insolence which the king’s favourite displayed in every one of his communications—a conduct so vastly different from that in which the natives usually treated Europeans. He was evidently acting under orders, for without the permission and knowledge of his master no Tsulu would have dared to enter a white man’s room and utter such threats in his presence. If I were to cut out from the envoy’s sentences all the flowery imagery with which he adorned his speech, it would almost read as follows, though it is impossible to express with pen and ink the practiced insolence with which every threat was seasoned.

“Old white man. I am Kotsi, chief of the panther hunters, whose duty and pleasure it is to guard the sacred majesty of the great Cetewayo, chief of chiefs, the Black of the Black, lord of countless herds, the Ruler of nations, the Slayer of tribes. From him I come to you, the white old man, to speak in his name: White old man, snow-haired, you have settled on my land without permission, taking possession of a wide strip of my territory and grazing your cattle and herds there. This I can forgive, for I love white men and want to live in peace with them and their kind. But you have done more. Not content with usurping foreign territory, you have taken as your protection criminals who have been condemned to death by the laws of their country; you have given a vulnerable refuge to evildoers who have plotted against the life of me, their king. I cannot believe that you are This you have done out of ignorance, for there is a man under your roof who is too well acquainted with the conduct of those criminals, who, moreover, gave them the weapon with which they laid wait for my life. But, nevertheless, my heart is tender towards the white men, and I would rather believe that you have been deceived than that your strange conduct is a whim. Therefore, in all good will and friendship, I send to you Kotsi, the chief of my guard, to make you know that you, nor your family, nor your cattle, nor your servants, have anything to fear from my subjects. Moreover, I give you permission to take possession of the territory at the foot of Mount Eloya, which the Englishman William Thornton intends to usurp; for his plot against my life will annul all agreements between us. All this I will do, but on one condition. You must leave both “The evildoers who now reside under your roof, into the hands of Kotsi, and send to me at Thornton that Englishman, all the cattle. Each of the criminals shall meet the death to which they were condemned, and the decision shall show the third that I am not the man who can be threatened with impunity. Consider this condition, and communicate your decision to my faithful servant Kotsi. If you do as I wish, your house will be safe, and you will have a friend; but if you reject my offer, I will send my warriors to seize the criminals and destroy your house; and then, if resistance is attempted, your blood will be on your own heads.”

Such was the content of the speech which Kotsi delivered in our presence, and doubtless, having reached this point, he should, according to the most missionary rules, have waited for Boer’s answer; but, carried away by the whirlwind of his own eloquence and filled with the bitterest hatred against Landela and his son, he added, for his part, a little advice to old Pieter.

“Yes, white man, and my king will do it. I, Kotsi, the panther-bearer, tell you that he will do it. Cetewayo is an elephant; he will crush you under his feet if you do not obey. He is a lion, and he will tear you limb from limb if you resist his law; he will devour you as a hyena crushes the bones of a slaughtered calf. Obey him, you white-headed old man, or tremble for yourself and your children.”

During this speech the settler’s wife and daughters had crept quietly in, and no doubt their presence induced the messenger to adopt a more threatening tone, in the hope that the timidity of the women might influence old Pieter’s decision. And the chief of the panther-soldiers was by no means a pleasant object, as, having concluded his speech, he stood staring about him, and the eagle feathers that adorned his shaved head trembled with excitement, and the leopard skin that formed a sort of kilt around his waist was caught in a fluttering movement. He was a wild-looking forester, but at the same time frightening, and little Liisu, a curly-haired girl of thirteen, rushed out of the door in fright, when Kotsi, to conclude, slammed the table with a harsh force with his knob-kirri.

But the hard-hearted old Boer and his son would not have been so suddenly frightened, even if a whole legion of such cruel warriors had been coming against them; at least, when the chief struck the table, Karel Dirksen showed such a marked tendency to throw the guest through the open door into the yard, that I had to put my hand on his shoulder to restrain the young, impetuous giant, a swift act that the inhabitants of the country would never have forgotten. To prevent violence, I immediately translated the envoy’s sentences to the old newcomer, who listened to them from beginning to end, without the slightest expression on his face indicating what was going on in his mind.

After a few minutes’ thought, my master replied: “Tell Tsulu that it is never my custom to rush about in thought. Tell him to come back in the evening, when we return from the day’s work, and then I will give him my answer. And since we are going to kill those wild cats, tell him that he and his husband may come with us if they please. Now, Maaria, give me the money; and then, boys, let’s go.”

Kotsi had, while old Pieter was speaking, fixed his sharp eyes unblinkingly on his face, and disappointed hope darkened his dark features as he saw the unperturbed calm with which the newcomer listened to Cetewayo’s message. “Have you told him the truth?” he asked suddenly, turning to me. “Have you told him that his kraal will be destroyed and he and his family will be killed?”

“I have interpreted your words as best I can,” I replied, “and you have received your answer. Do you agree to join me in the hunt?”

“Will Ula be present?” asked the messenger, burning with an inner impatience to show the white men his bravery, but still uncertain whether propriety would permit him to join in the amusement in which the man whose death he was attempting would be involved.

“Ula is about to arrive,” said my brother-in-law, who at that moment entered the room fully armed, shield and assegai in hand. “Ula is about to arrive, and then let the leader of the Panthers, who is waging war against weak batteries, show whether his father’s size [6] or Ula, that ‘boy-stupid’, will be in front, harassing the beast.”

Both men stood, snarling at each other with all the fury of savage enemies, and blows would very soon have followed this rapid call to battle, had not Karel Dirksen thrust himself between them and thus effectively prevented them from striking each other except through him.

“No violence under this roof,” I shouted to the Tsululainen. “Can’t you stay away from each other’s throats for the evening? So put your anger aside until then, and walk side by side like countrymen and not enemies. You, Ula, promise not to harm the chief, and he, on the other hand, will not take advantage of the opportunity against you. Be partners for a few hours, without growling at each other like angry lovers.”

The Tsulu nature is not like anything except what we would call brutal chivalry, and when I further pointed out the great advantage we would have from the assistance of so good a hunter as Kotsi was, this black warrior softened a little, and so at last a truce was arranged between the two men, which was to last until the return from the great hunt. And it was very illuminating as to the nature of the Tsulu to observe how freely the enemies conversed, for when the ice between them was once broken, all bitter feelings seemed to have been left behind, and in their place there had been a fine dispute as to which of them would show the most courage in the dangerous undertaking on which we were about to embark. Kotsi and Ula went together to the hut where the latter lived, and there Landela now prepared a hearty meal for the guest, whose arrival had at first been as unpleasant as it had been unexpected.

After Vrou had placed a large platter of game on the table, and coffee to wash down their throats, the whole family set to work as carelessly as if Cetewayo and his herd had been north of the equator! The thousand ups and downs of the life of a settler, together with the slowness which is inseparably connected with the Boer character, made this respectable family more grieved at the ravages of the four-legged bandits who threatened their cattle than they were troubled by the news that the Tsululais chief intended to seek them out in his vengeance unless certain impossible conditions were agreed to. And no one who saw old Pieter sitting peacefully enjoying his game roast could have guessed from his appearance that the last word had just come into his fingers from the mighty and vengeful bushman. And yet the message did not disturb his peace of mind in the least, for all his thoughts were now fixed on his cattle, and those two cattle killed by the leopard grieved him much more than Kotsi with all his threats.

When the suurus was eaten, we mounted our horses, which had been brought before the door. The faces of the negro servants evidently showed great curiosity as to the matter which had occasioned Kotsi’s sudden appearance at the new residence; but this personage was too high in their nation to be able to inquire at all, and statesmanship or other considerations prevented him from publishing the secret of his mission. Half a dozen armed warriors, who had followed him, but who had hitherto carefully kept out of sight, now came forward, and in a few minutes the party was on their way. The Boer and his son were armed with heavy single-barreled roers (fire-slingers), which are in general use among the Dutch settlers. The Tsulu each carried his shield, and his assegai; and I had only a double-barreled breech-loading gun. Several of the servants of the new house were leading fierce forest dogs on leashes, and a pack of domestic dogs of all sizes and colors barked and snarled around our horses, disobeying the heavy blows that the black-skinned assegais were delivering to their cadaverous ribs.

It may be well to mention at this point, to those who are not familiar with the subject, that the Tsulu warrior, whether on hunting expeditions or on his even more dangerous warpaths, carries with him two kinds of weapons for assault, and a third for rebellion, which he uses only in defense. These are: the assegai, the knob-kirri, and the shield.

The first is a broad-bladed iron axe, usually of the work of the natives, with a shaft about five feet long, with the thicker end of the handle nearest the stock. Each warrior carries several of these weapons, and usually hurls them at the enemy from a distance of about forty cubits. Chaka, the famous Tsululai tyrant, forbade the use of the assegai as a throwing weapon, thus forcing his people to engage in close combat with their enemies, and to use the weapon as a bayonet or a dagger. But his successors reverted to the former practice, and the assegai is now used in both ways — that is, the warrior folds the shaft when engaged in hand-to-hand combat; and uses the shortened weapon as a spear.

A knob-kirri is simply a club made of hard and heavy wood, and most often a warrior, when going into battle, leaves it at home, whereas he usually takes it with him on hunting expeditions.

The shield speaks for itself and needs no explanation. It is made of oxhide, about a foot and a half long, eighteen inches wide, generally oval in shape, and is carried by a handle attached below the center. The color of this weapon indicates the regiment and rank of the owner. It would be useless to attempt in these pages to give an account of all the strange distinctions of rank among the Cetewayo; I have reached my purpose by observing that all the men —that is, the warriors with their father’s size and shaved heads—bear white wings, while the black shields belong to boys or young men, some of whom may already be forty years old.

Many of the most prominent chiefs and warriors have gunpowder guns, but the assegai is their national weapon.

Our road passed a kraal, or large circular enclosure, into which the cattle are confined at night. All the animals were now scattered about on the grass, in herds of ten or twenty. The steady cows and bulls were eating in peace, and the more cheerful calves were amused by leaping and galloping in merry circles, their tails erect. It was a sight to gladden the heart of a native emigrant, and no feeling of uneasy dependence could be discerned on Pieter Dirksen’s face as he looked at the gaping cattle that called him their master. But suddenly there was a strange movement in our servants, who, fearing that some wild creature might escape our notice, were peering into every bush and thorn for a hundred yards round our road. A series of exclamations in the Tsulu language, and a shriek from the mouths of some black women, who, with a child girt about their loins, had followed us so far, caused us to spur our horses and to turn to the spot, when, to our astonishment and horror, we found the mangled body of Papalatsa, the missing shepherd, the man whose absence we had supposed to be due to fear of a flogging. There could be no mistake as to the manner in which the poor boy had been killed. His wife, now his widow, whose scream we had heard, was on her knees, holding in her arms the lifeless head, the back of which had been crushed like an eggshell by the scraping of the powerful paw of the panther. The face was calm and uncontorted, and except for a red streak that flowed from each nostril, there was not the slightest sign of pain or suffering in the form. But the underside of the body was horribly torn and covered with the marks of both teeth and claws; it was evident that wild beasts had feasted on the poor shepherd’s body.

“How could this have happened?” asked old Pieter; “the boy would never have wandered within half a mile[7] of the kraal on his own.”

Ula and Kotsi, who had been examining the ground, now showed us that a leopard or lion had dragged the body to its present position. There was a mark made by the other dragging hand of the victim, and the shreds of his light loincloth were visible in the thorny brambles that had fallen into the path of the retreating beasts.

“The matter is clear enough,” said Kotsi, turning to me; “a leopard with two cubs has killed a boy. It has jumped over the kraal fence and killed the cattle, but found its strength too small to carry the carcass to its cubs, who were not yet able to climb over the fence. Papalatsa must have tried to drive it away when it was killed, and seeing him weaker than an ox, the beast dragged him to this place where the cubs could eat their treats without being disturbed, is that not the case, Ula?”

My plant brother nodded in return, and further examination revealed the tracks of several panthers, proving the warrior’s suspicion correct.

“It is time for us to hurry,” cried old Pieter. “The beasts have fled to the gorge of Mount Slangopies, where we will find them sleeping, digesting their food. Let the other women help the poor boy’s wife in a suitable way to lower the body into the grave.”

We rode on, but looking back from the saddle, I saw the widow sitting motionless in her former position, holding her crushed head on her knees, and sadly peering at the lines of her face that had become fixed for ever. No cry escaped the lips of the lonely mourner, for it seemed impossible for him to comprehend the full extent of the misfortune that had befallen him. It seemed heartless to leave his grief-stricken wife alone, without attempting to console her; but the safety of the cattle depended on our success in destroying the savage robbers who had found their way into the cattle kraal; and before we had got within a yard of the body, the blacks were laughing and jesting, leaping over the grass with such speed that our horses could hardly keep up. The approach of death does not much move these people; and a corpse is viewed with eyes of horror rather than pity.

Along a steep, wooded pass a small river rushed down from the ridge of the mountain and disappeared into the valley below. Here the blacks thought the beasts had chosen their refuge, and when we reached the mouth of the lowland, old Pieter stopped to consult how best to drive them from their hiding place into the open. After a short discussion it was decided that a pack of Tsulu, led by Ula, should go round the pass from behind and, forming a line, advance towards us, searching every inch of the ground and driving the creatures, every hoof, towards us. We Europeans were to form a semicircle and prepare ourselves with warm hands to receive the panther.

After two hours of tedious waiting, the sounds of the riders began to be heard, and having dismounted from our horses, we prepared to fire. Suddenly, a tremendous shriek from the advancing blacks announced that the creature had been seen, and Kotsi, who stood trembling with excitement at my side, seized my arm, indicating the yellowish object that was slithering from one bush to another.

“There’s the panther,” he whispered. “Furious as they are, the dogs have been released from their chains.”

It was all too true. The handlers of the dogs, on perceiving the beast, had let go of their leashes, and the whole pack rushed wildly towards the creature, which, seeing them approaching, retreated into the dense grass, which perfectly concealed its movements. The dogs attacked it without hesitation, howling with the desire to catch its prey. But soon there were shrill cries, mingled with sudden growls; and soon after, first one, then the other, crawled lamely away from the unequal struggle, while the gallant barking of the unharmed companions was changed into a wild roar, over which was heard the strong whining of their quarrelsome brother. All our efforts to call away the wild-headed dogs were now in vain, and it was impossible for us to shoot into the reeds, for then our bullets might have injured the animals we wished to protect.

“Oh my god, nothing will come of this,” cried old Pieter, when a loud bark announced that yet another dog had received its fatal blow. “We must stop this slaughter”; and with his trap in full swing, the Boer now approached the scene of battle.

But before he had gone ten paces towards the island of Kahilasaari, a ghost darted past him and disappeared into the waving reeds; it was Kotsi, the panther hunter, who now saw an opportunity to show his ferocity and skill. At the same moment Ula appeared at full speed and scuttled, breaking into a jumble of Dutch and Tsulu: “Don’t go, baas (sir); go back, Kotsi, go back; it’s not a panther; it’s a lion. You’re lost.”

But the chief of the king’s bodyguard either did not hear or did not care, and only the waving of the reeds showed that he was still moving forward. Suddenly there was a roar, loud and terrifying, which drove the most common black-skinned people like sheep to the nearest shelter, and at the same moment a handsome lion sprang forward, assegai at his side. He paused for a moment to look at his pursuers, during which time he was the laughing stock of a dozen spears and bullets; but these seemed rather to increase his fury, for, roaring a second time, he charged at old Pieter, who stood calmly waiting with his gun to his cheek. I hastily discharged my second barrel at the wild beast, but could not check its progress, and in the twinkling of an eye I saw that the Boer’s weapon had failed. In the next second my good old master lay a mangled corpse: human aid seemed powerless to avert his destruction.

To escape the sight of the horror which I could not prevent, I turned half away, and was in a hurry to put fresh cartridges into my gun; but a sudden cry made me look again at the wretched scene, when, to my great astonishment, I saw the old Boer still standing, and shaking fresh gunpowder into his old sluice, as coolly as if, instead of a lion, an ordinary house-cat had been a few yards away from him. The beast stood with his fore-paw on some dark object, roaring wildly, and lashing the ground with his tail; but now old Pieter’s fire-tube rumbled, rumbled like a cannon, and the lion fell to the ground, his skull pierced.

With a vague fear in my mind as to who would be the victim, I rushed to help the unsurprised Boer, who was pulling my plant brother from under the fallen beast.

“He saved my life,” said the newsboy; “he charged forward to confront the lion, and plunged his assegai into its breast. Poor boy! I fear he is a dead man.”

I had bent over Ula’s unconscious body and raised my hand to her heart.

“It’s still beating; he’s alive,” I shouted. “Give me the bottle, Henrik; maybe we can save him.”

Nor was he dead; strange to say, quite unharmed, except for a severe blow on the right shoulder, and a terrible concussion. Whether his unexpected charge upon the animal had so stupefied and confused it, I know not, but the blow of the deadly paw had struck with all its force upon my friend’s broad shield, and thrown him to the ground with such speed that he was almost unconscious; but this saved him from the claws, and partly averted the severity of the blow.

In the meantime the young Dutchman, with the blacks, had entered the island of Kahilasaari to kill both the cubs they found there, and to bring away the unconscious body of the panther-catcher, whom they found beaten to death. He was still breathing, and a drop of brandy refreshed him so much that he could recognize us; but he never said another word, for the lower half of his face was torn off, and in a few minutes the man was gone.

“Tell his people,” said old Pieter to me, referring to the Tsululais warriors who stood in a group around their dead chief—”tell the members of the king’s bodyguard that it was my intention to give their leader an answer tonight on one of the two conditions that Cetewayo had set before me. Now I resolve, in the presence of this dead warrior, that I will never expose them to Ula’a any more than I would their mother. They came to me for shelter, and that they will get. I would not abandon them in any case, but now the boy,” and he laid his strong hand on the shoulder of my plant brother, “has saved my life, and I will show him that a Dutchman does not forget a good deed. Let us go home, boys, to dinner; I am hungry.”

3rd Chapter.

The autocrat in his council.

Cetewayo, King of the Tsulu, was in his harem (concubine house), in the great kraal at Umpongen. Around him was everything that one would have thought the heart of a sovereign could embrace. Here were wives and concubines of the grain, ready to stroke the royal forehead if too many tilts of the olive-harvest should bring the cooper to his temples; there were three regiments of warriors, whose purpose was to leap before his majesty, or if bloodshed was more to their master’s taste, those gentlemen were ready to besiege and slaughter the inhabitants of the neighboring kraal, or to commit any other cruelty that the capricious mood of the tyrant might command him. One would have thought that Cetewayo would have been the son of fortune in such relations. But such was not the case. Deep discontent clouded the royal countenance, and the position of such wretched animals, whom duty called into the proximity of the monarch, was anything but enviable.

Of late things had gone against the wishes of the great king. It was easy for his Imbongo [8] to hail him as “the elephant’s calf,” “the cow’s son,” and “the promoter of men”; but, even if such titles were granted as appropriate, they made no impression on the Portuguese merchant at Delagoa Bay, who, having produced for him a large consignment of breech-loading guns at a cheap price, now refused to procure ammunition except on the most extravagant terms; and without cartridges, the guns were, of course, useless. Being “the elephant’s calf” did not bring the king cattle to satisfy the merchant’s demands, and it seemed more than probable that he would eventually be forced to part with some of his favorite beasts. Besides, the men who had followed Kots had returned to the king’s kraal the night before, and had made known the death of his favorite, and the prohibition of old Pieter Dirksen to leave Landela or her son in his hands. All these facts greatly angered the monarch, and his shield-bearer, whose duty it was to hold the great shield between his master and the sun—an office which gave him a splendid opportunity of studying the king’s features—saw plainly enough that a storm was breaking out, and only fervently hoped that it would fall on some other head than his own.

In addition to this, a third circumstance had arisen to disturb the autocrat’s peace of mind, a small, everyday incident that would hardly be worth mentioning if it had not turned the king’s thoughts in a certain direction and led to decisions that were of great importance to me and my friends.

The reader may remember that I had presented my fellow plant with a kaleidoscope. This instrument, of course, after the judgment of Ula, fell into the hands of Cetewayo, and was used for a time to amuse the sovereign in his idle moments, but was finally thrown into the custody of his favorite wife, his youngest spouse. The dark beauty, having turned the tube around with the deepest wonder, was seized with a burning curiosity to see several of these variegated objects at once, and, supposing that the interior had been filled with innumerable pictures, she tried to pull them out, with the result that the toy instrument broke. With great cunning the young lady had laid the blame on one of her quite innocent maids, who, by the king’s order, was cruelly whipped; but besides the fact that the injury to the rebel was a source of annoyance to the king, it also caused him to send the instrument to the German Mission with the request that the pastor would immediately put it in perfect order. This Arnold Beidermann did without much difficulty; but in bringing the unfortunate toy back, he considered the opportunity to interfere in the matter on behalf of the girl who had been punished for the queen’s crime, and therefore reproached the autocrat’s injustice in the harshest terms, for the victim was one of the former pupils of the mission school. This incident had occurred the day before, and the king’s memory was still bitter with the reproach, which he had been able to accept in the hearing of all his advisers. So, as I have said before, Cetewayo had much to be angry about, and though he sniffed whole handfuls, spooning the stuff into his nostrils, and drawing in such large quantities that tears of grain dripped down his swollen cheeks, neither the tobacco nor the harsh sips of the barleycorn he swallowed could calm his stormy mind, and his shield-bearer saw with an inward shudder that sooner or later the violent atmosphere must burst.

Now Imbongo arrived with word that the troops were in battle array, awaiting the review of war, and immediately the king set off, accompanied by a boy who carried his snuff-box, and at his heels a shield-bearer, who with the greatest care held his shield so that not a single ray of sunlight could fall on his noble lord.

Cetewayo was preceded by the “Praiser,” an official whose duties might seem somewhat comical to Europeans. At first he ran across the plain, waving his arms like windmills, and stretching his neck like a camel crane; then he threw himself down on all fours, and bellowed with a voice that would have made a bull split with envy, contorting his body into various shapes, which he thought represented the movements of a lion; finally, that incomparable clerk raised one arm high in the air, arched his back, and gave a snort, by which he attempted to represent an elephant; and as this madcap antics took place in the scorching heat of the sun, the sweat fell in heavy cranberries from the poor half-madman, whose office was certainly no job for the lazy, as it required both great flexibility and lungs of brass; for after every description, Imbongo glorified the titles of king, exalting him above all the rulers of the world, and so devoted himself with all his soul to the task, that when Cetewayo had finally seated himself on a sort of portable throne, opposite his warriors, the “Praiser” lay prostrate in the dust of the earth, in a state of real or feigned insensibility.

The regiments now marched before him, each warrior, as his master passed, lowering his shield and bowing his forehead to the ground. Now and then one of the chiefs pointed out some distinguished warrior, after which a halt took place, and the person in favor charged out of the ranks, to display his agility by several leaps and bounds, wonderful to behold. A certain poor old man, whose sinews had been somewhat stiffened by the grips of time, could not perform this fool’s game to the ruler’s satisfaction, and was immediately, by the latter’s command, mercilessly whipped with knob-whips.

When the troops had passed by, the king ordered that an ox should be slaughtered for each regiment, after which the warriors, after showing their gratitude with long-drawn-out shouts, stabbed the condemned savages to death with their assegais, and now the review of the troops was over.

Having refreshed himself with deep sips of olive oil, Cetewayo called his council together, and without preamble set forth the various causes which disturbed his peace of mind. To this the Tsululais senate listened with the greatest attention, but without proposing any means by which the difficulties might be removed. At length, when it began to appear clearly from the king’s countenance that the silence must be broken, Nkungulu, the chief soothsayer, spoke thus:

“The King has an enemy,” he began, roaring around the circle, every member of which felt himself sinking to the ground at the sight of the traitor, for the accusation of this kind meant plundering of property, if not death. “The King has an enemy: let us see who the evildoer is. The Delagoa merchant will not give the Tsului ammunition, and without it our people cannot swallow the British, who have invaded the King’s country and are protecting the King’s enemies. Now the thing is, that Portuguese would never have dared to do such a thing, unless his mind had been poisoned against the King. And who could have done it? Nkungulu knows it; he is a priest and can smell the evildoer.”

The counselors looked at each other with horror, for it was certain that one of their number would be mentioned; but the seer had no intention of accusing any of his own people. He looked at the missionaries, to whom the late king Panda had given permission to settle in the country, with bitter hatred, for they had on more than one occasion attempted to expose the foolish tricks on which he relied in practicing his frauds, and Arnold Beidermann had not deigned to declare him a villainous traitor, seeking his own advantage at the expense of his fellow men. He had often used all his influence to incite Cetewayo, predicting famine and drought unless the foreigners were expelled, but the king felt himself unable without gunpowder to contend with the Europeans, and was too wise to undertake a course which would surely bring him into conflict with the British. A large consignment of guns had recently arrived at Tsului, however, and these necessary supplies of ammunition were only wanted, that the king might be quite unconcerned about the enmities of his powerful neighbours. And that Cetewayo intended to break the peace with his neighbours as soon as his army was sufficiently equipped, the witch-priest knew; he had been present the day before when the German missionary had denounced the king’s injustice in punishing an innocent person for the queen’s crime. Nkungulu saw that his master, unaccustomed as he was to the least opposition, was in just the right frame of mind to which a little cunning provocation would open his ears to every accusation that could be made against the white men; and with all the cunning of a senseless savage he now set about to carry out his designs.

“Nkungulu can smell the evildoer,” he continued, “but the evildoer is not here”;—a sigh of relief rose from the breasts of the assembled senators, which did not escape the notice of the cunning orator, who knew that fear would make the others pull together in every story he thought best to weave together—”no, he is not here, but yesterday his presence polluted the air and stung my nostrils.”

“Speak!” burst out Cetewayo; “name without fear who is the evildoer”; for that poor schemer stammered, as if he would not publish the name of a suspicious person.

“It is a white priest,” said the soothsayer, thus demanded, “a white priest who lives in Kagas and who rode out of the royal kraal yesterday.”

“Yes, yes, he is—he is,” echoed the assembled council, who rejoiced wholeheartedly that none of them or their people were appointed to die. “Listen to Nkungulu; he speaks the truth.”

The witch-priest had examined his master as he made the accusation, and, immediately perceiving from the king’s countenance that his speech was not objectionable, he proudly continued:

“It was the white priest who prevented the Portuguese merchant from bringing in ammunition, threatening to denounce him to the British. It is the white priest who has always shown himself to be an enemy of the king. Did he not refuse to give cattle to the warriors who were sent to search for those criminals, Landela and Ula, even laughing at the royal rank as a disgrace and openly expressing his hope that the criminals would escape? Did not that Englishman Kuta, or Thornton, visit his house for a month and there learn from him to rebel against the royal rank? Did he not travel here to meet the Portuguese merchant, although we tried to prevent him? Before that visit it had already been promised that ammunition should be procured; the white priest told the merchant that payment for it would never come, and so he refused to send it. Furthermore, did he not insult the king in the hearing of the council? And, finally, has he not shown that he is such a “Let the king and his people listen to the words of Nkungulu and drive out of the country the evil-doers who give him so much trouble, who protect evil-doers, and who everywhere snoop on his activities, drawing them on pieces of paper, so that people a thousand miles away may know what is going on in the sacred precincts of the Royal Kraal. Let the king, in his mercy, not condemn that witch to death, as she deserves, but send her out of the country without delay, and the herds of cattle which she has robbed of the Tsului will then increase the king’s funds for the payment of ammunition. When the spies are swept out of the country, then gunpowder and bullets will appear before long.”

“Well said,” cried the councilors in unison. “Let the white priest be driven out, and let the king send his army to devour that shameless Dutchman who will not leave the criminals in his hands.”

The Tsulu are the greatest orators in the world, if anyone would listen to them, and now every member of the assembly began to bring out some story detrimental to the missionaries, mixing truth and falsehood with such skill that an unprejudiced listener could not help but consider Cetewayo a lovable, good-natured ruler, to whose proper laws the white priests had shown the most impudent disobedience, inciting the people to rebellion against their lord and king, and bringing discord into the country instead of the peace of which they professed to be the messengers.

And I must mention here that Nkungulu’s accusation was largely based on facts. Arnold Beidermann had taken me under his roof when the wretched fever of this country had confined me to bed, had tenderly nursed me with his daughter, and had finally accompanied Ula and me in the search for land, which then ended in my selecting a strip for myself in the vicinity of Mount Eloya. It was indeed mainly to the local knowledge of the German that I succeeded in obtaining possession of so lovely a district of meadows, and perhaps the hope of becoming neighbours—in South Africa, you see, every resident within a hundred miles is entitled to this title—made him sacrifice more than his usual benevolence for my sake; for this was by no means the first occasion on which the missionary and I had had to deal with each other.

Looking back to my earliest childhood, the tall, thin ghost of Arnold Beidermann and his gentle blue eyes seemed to me old acquaintances, I began as far back in time as my memory can explain. I remember with what respect, when I was still a boy on the banks of the Tugela River, with Ula and the other Tsululais in my company, I looked upon Mrs. Beidermann, and what curiosity her little curly-haired daughter excited in me and in my companions. The kind-hearted lady would gladly have taken me, little wild-headed as I was, into her bosom, and been to me a substitute for the mother I had lost; but this the newsagent to whose care I had been entrusted would not consent; for he was a one-sided and unsympathetic, though well-meaning man, who, among his other whims, greatly despised the missionaries and their work. However, Mrs. Beidermann persuaded her enough that I was allowed to spend my days at the mission from time to time; and on one occasion, when some unexpected circumstance called mother away, I was allowed to take care of little Minna. It was then that an incident occurred that will never fade from my memory.

At this time I was nine years old and Minna Beidermann was two years younger than me. We had been strictly warned not to leave the corners of the mission, but when my little companion expressed a desire to pick some of the many-flowered bluebells that adorned the meadow, dancing in purple changes of color, I did not remember much of the warning, but followed her into the forbidden area. After all, I had spent hours with Ula in the same hayfields, much wider than the field on which the pastor’s house stood, and no harm had ever come to either of us; what danger could there be in picking a few flowers now?

Little Minna was delighted with the floral treasures that surrounded her everywhere, and threw herself gaily into the midst of each brilliant flock, mercilessly plucking flowers from the ground, which, after we had gone a few steps, were thrown away again to make way for others of a different kind. The multi-colored flowers were nothing new to me; I was accustomed to passing by them without paying attention, and it gave me great pleasure that my little companion could find amusement in such a trinket; if the floats had even been edible berries, then I too would have shared in the same feelings of pleasure with her.

So long we wandered, forgetting all but the happy present. I had thrown myself down at the foot of a bush, and was trying for a while, with the feeble assegai, which, young woodsman as I was, I always carried with me, to dig a large lizard out of its hiding-place in the ground, when a slight noise fell upon my ear, and as I sprang up I saw Mrs. Beidermann a few paces from me, her face a thousand hairs, and her hand stretched out towards the spot where her little daughter had just been playing. My eyes followed the direction indicated, and there I saw a sight that filled my soul with horror.

Sitting on the ground, little Minna still held a small book of red-flowered geraniums in her small hand, and her pretty head, from which her wide-brimmed hat had fallen to the ground, swayed slowly from side to side, as if the child had struck the time to some inaudible music. Her back was to us, so that we could not see her face, but our whole attention was fixed on the object, the evil proximity of which threatened the little girl with the most immediate death. In the windings peeped from behind a bush, which the equally lively child still held, a green inamba , the most feared of all South African snakes. The reptile had raised its head to the level of the girl’s face, and, with its eyes shining and its mane raised, swayed slowly and gracefully to and fro, two feet from its victim, who set the pace for the worm’s slitherings, evidently terrified by its awful proximity, and unable to utter a cry of distress, or make the slightest effort to escape the terrible monster; for it was the largest snake of its kind that I had ever seen.

Poor Mrs. Beidermann seemed as spellbound as her little daughter, and stood as still as a statue. The terrible horror that seemed helplessly coming had taken all her thoughtfulness from her. Once she looked imploringly at me, but her eyes soon turned back to the reptile, and she made no attempt to go to the child’s aid. The snake’s evil look had fascinated her too.

In my travels with the Tsululai boys I had often encountered inambos , which the natives regard with the greatest respect, and never dare to kill even the most venomous species; for it is a prevailing belief among them that the spirits of their ancestors inhabit the bodies of these reptiles. My acquaintance with the animal had therefore relieved me of the fear which had rooted the lady and her child to the ground; and, falling on my knees, I crawled in the direction from which I might approach the worm from behind. The bushes and bushes hid me from view as I crawled, and the reptile was evidently too busy with its unfortunate child to notice the slight rustle which my approach made. Carefully raising my head, I saw that I had reached my brainy position, and not a blink too soon, for little Minna’s head was indeed tilting closer and closer to that swaying monster that in another second would have wrapped her in its deadly coils.

Exerting all my resolve, I rose again, and, taking steady aim, plunged my assegai into the serpent’s body, just below the place where the neck rose up in one of the coiled coils. In a moment the wounded worm had coiled itself around the quivering shaft of the assegai, which I presently released from my hand; but my thrust had pinned the inambo to the ground; and the moment its gaze had been turned away, Mrs. Beidermann’s senses returned. Rushing to the spot, she snatched the little girl into her arms and fled the house, I at her heels; for I was too much in the throes of the blow to think of anything else but getting to the safety of my companions. Thus ended the adventure which at one time threatened destruction to Minna, and I have often since thought that, had I been a little older and better understood the danger of my undertaking, I would probably have chosen a more cautious method of escape, which would not have resulted in the same success as yours. The child himself had not the least idea of ​​the fearful danger from which he had escaped. And naturally at that age he was unable to explain his feelings; but from what he said, they were by no means of a disagreeable nature. People who have not had any dealings with snakes assert that they have no power to entangle and charm a human being; but sturdy, strong-bodied men have sometimes been under their spell in the open meadows, and know how to draw the other way.

The little knowledge which I had before I left Natal for England had been instilled in me by Arnold Beidermann; and on my return to the colony eleven years later, I hastened to greet my old teacher, who had obtained permission from the King of the Tsululais to establish a mission in this country, at a place called Kagas, between the Pongola and Black Unwelosi rivers. I saw my little friend Minna grow up to be a large, beautiful girl of sixteen, the support and security of her father; for death had visited the missionary’s small family, and that good Laura Beidermann was now sleeping under a few willow bushes on the banks of the Tugela river. It was only after this incident that Arnold had moved inland, hoping perhaps by a change of place to assuage his longing for the faithful wife who had followed his destinies in storms as well as in daylight; for once Beidermann, with his natural gifts, might have soared higher than as a lowly missionary. I have since heard that Germany had not many profounder scholars than my old friend, but unfortunately his zeal for freedom brought him into disfavor with the highest authorities—the unification of Germany was at that time a mere dream—and he was driven from his native land before his wife had left her youth. Expelled from his own country and filled with a spirit of genius that drove him to action, the refugee turned his talents to that most laborious and thankless of all worldly pursuits, and became a missionary among the most untamed tribes of South Africa. He labored tirelessly in his new calling, but I fear he did not convert many. Nevertheless, his condition in the land of the Tsulu seemed good. His constant rebukes against cruelty and injustice made the king more cautious in slaughtering his subjects, for he thought that the deed would be known to the outside world through the missionary; and so he, though indirectly, saved a few lives. But though my old friend only succeeded in making Christians in a bad way, he gained for himself a great reputation for his medical skill. This was the course of life to which he had given himself in his youth; and the king had more than once fallen into a debt of gratitude to the white priest, when he had relieved his bodily pains.

But notwithstanding his gratitude to the missionary’s medical assistance, Cetewayo, in his heart—if he had such a faculty—secretly detested Beidermann and his whole estate. Many of the missionaries were thoroughly senseless, and tried to enforce reforms by force, which, if carried out, would have greatly weakened the king’s power. My old friend was not one of these men; but the public manner in which he denounced tyranny was very bitter to the despot; and the contempt with which he treated the Tsululai priests, or magicians, earned him the wrath of this estate also.

For years the king had groaned under the missionary yoke, and had resolved in his mind that at the first convenient opportunity the strangers should be expelled from his country; and at the same time he intended to rescind the promises which he had made to the British Government on his accession to the throne of the Tsulu; after which he might again tread, fearlessly and unhindered, the same path of bloodshed which his worthy uncles Chaka and Dingaon had begun. It was no sudden rashness that led his purpose there, no savage whim or childish tantrum, but a firm and determined determination to free himself from the fetters of civilization, a determination which had matured in careful deliberation, and which had been the object of many years of patient preparation. Taking advantage of the laxity with which the gunpowder law was enforced during the first raid on the Transvaal diamond fields, the King had obtained a fine stock of guns; and as soon as another large consignment reached him from Delagoa Bay, he thought it was time to break peace with the British, and, well aware that some delay was necessary before our Government could decide to take action, Cetewayo did not listen with any distaste to the rancor of his witch-priest against Arnold Beidermann; on the contrary, their favorable reception made them seem credible even to his advisers. The missionary had been to a Portuguese merchant, and so he could take as his excuse the latter’s prohibition of obtaining ammunition. True, he went to help the merchant who was suffering from a fever, but that did not help matters. Here was an opportunity for the king to get rid of the man he hated, and at the same time to get some cattle. And so, rising from his throne, the monarch solemnly declared:

“Let twenty oxen be killed and my warriors feast. Tomorrow they will march against the Dutch, and the white priest will be driven out of the country.”

This decision was received by the advisors with unlimited expressions of favor, at the echo of which the king retired to his harem, to remain there unseen until the next day.

Chapter 4.

Forewarned and equipped.

While the events related in the preceding chapter were taking place, the inhabitants of the Transvaal settlement were carelessly going about their usual business. They were grazing their cattle, hoeing up plots of land for cultivation and for laying out corn or Indian barley, making embankments, forming them into reservoirs for water, for this precious substance must be carefully preserved in South Africa; implementing new methods of irrigation to promote the growth of the grain, and trying all sorts of other means which experience had shown the Boers to be suitable for making their cultivation bear fruit.

It is unnecessary to explain to the reader that I was not present at the meeting held at Cetewayo, where it was decided to drive Arnold Beidermann out of the country and to attack Pieter Dirksen’s house. The various circumstances which occurred there were afterwards related to me in detail, for the Tsululainen is endowed with a wonderful memory, together with a slippery tongue, and he can still, after many years, relate every word of the important discussion which took place in his presence. Thus, if, speaking precisely, I have deviated somewhat from the order in which the facts came to my knowledge, I have nevertheless preserved the chronological sequence in which the incidents followed one another.

A couple of weeks had passed since the hunt in which the king’s messenger had met his end, and my plant-brother had fully recovered from the frightful shock he had received in this state. We had often spoken among ourselves of the fate that would befall him if Cetewayo actually carried out his threat and succeeded in getting the fugitives into his hands; and I remarked to both Ula and Landela that it would be much wiser for them to move away for a time from the immediate vicinity of the frontier and seek hospitality among the Schwazi people, with whom the king of the Tsulu was at war. My own land on Mount Eloya is in fact, like Pieter Dirksen’s new-found land, in the Transvaal, but Cetewayo still claimed it for himself; and the knowledge that the refugees were staying in a country which he—rightly or wrongly—regarded as his own would arouse the autocrat’s vengeance and probably bring sorrow to the Dutchman’s and his family’s affairs.

My old nurse and her son both realized the truth of these thoughts, and having calmly made all the preparations for the journey, they waited for Pieter Dirksen, to express their thanks for his hospitality and to bid him farewell, before they set off to sink into that immense sea of ​​hay. With all his colloquialism, Boeri, however, had a clear idea of ​​the purpose of this sudden departure, and I now saw his rigid nature deeply moved.

“You can’t leave,” he growled, slamming his massive fist on the table with a force that sent tin plates flying.

“You are my guests, and I will not let you go, no, on the threat of all the witches who roam between this place and Cape Town, I will not. Or what do you say, Henrik, Karel, would you let the boy who stood between your father and the lion go into the wilderness because of the threats of a forest scoundrel like Cetewayo? No, by—! we are not mothers to be commanded by any man or to be frightened out of our wits. Put away your weapons, and let me hear no more of your departure.”

I had never seen my master in such a state of excitement before. Gratitude to my fellow-plant, combined with a stubborn stubbornness, was the fundamental reason for this unexpected insistence on an inch, which, if carried out, would very probably have prevented the consequences which it is my duty to relate hereafter. Once he had set his mind to something, Pieter was as stubbornly single-minded as the white rhinoceros of his native plains; and when his opinion on this matter met with the unanimous approval of the family, longer speeches were of no avail, and Ula—greatly pleased by such an expression of gratitude—remained in the new dwelling.

My intention had been to set out for Mount Eloya, to begin building my dwellings there, which would be more comfortable than is usually seen in a remote settlement; but I thought it wiser to let a week or so pass, for if Cetewayo really attempted to carry out his threats against Dirksen, the raiding party would certainly visit my settlement, and find a convenient pastime in burning down the buildings I had just finished. By uniting our companions, we can muster a force strong enough to hold the band of wildlings in check until the government should come to our aid; on the other hand, if we were separated, we would both be easy prey.

And so I lingered at the new residence, making all sorts of excuses for neglecting my original plan, for I did not dare to directly confess the real reasons that held me back, because I knew very well that the brisk old man would laugh and mock my caution—and I amused myself by hunting with Ula. In this untamed district all kinds of game were still to be found in the fields, and a three-hour ride always took us into regions where it was not difficult to meet buffalo, giraffe, innumerable antelope, and even an occasional elephant. Although I lived as a guest in the house of old Pieter Dirksen, I had servants and companions of my own to look after my cattle, my carriages, and my other possessions; so that, being away from home every day on these excursions, nothing was left to decay. I didn’t enjoy farming at all, and by setting the table with fresh wild game, I saved a decent amount of my own and Dutchman’s roast beef.

Ula and I had been out one day as usual, and having killed a couple of meadow deer, we rested for a while in the shade of a few clumps of mimosa, while the two guinea fowls I had shot were simmering in a beehive, which Ula had cleverly converted into a cauldron. It was midday, and the sun was blazing, scorching the meadow severely, and making the little respite very sweet, before we set about cutting up the flesh of the slain creatures, the parasol-like canopies of the clump of trees under which we had sought shelter, blocked the way from the sun’s rays; I leaned against the trunk of a tree, puffing smoke from my pipe with great satisfaction, and watching alternately the bush boy who was scaring birds of prey away from the antelopes he had killed, and alternately Ula who, following the custom of his people, was driving snuff into his skull, so that whole streams of tears flowed from his eyes, an operation which, however, was performed in the deepest silence, and seemed to give him the greatest pleasure. To interrupt Tsulu in this act would be considered the most impudent incivility, and as I did not wish to commit any offence against the rules of society, I waited until the pleasure of the bitter meal had worn off and my friend had regained his usual clear composure, when I turned his attention to the strange and strange exclamations of the boy who was guarding the antelopes. This little creature, still as naked as the day it was born, had climbed onto the carcass of another creature and was gesturing far into the wilderness, occasionally waving its arms wildly and making shrill noises, the meaning of which was made incomprehensible by the distance.

Ula ran to his side and stared intently at the horizon, the edge of which had become confused and indistinct from the heat of the air. For my part, I could make out nothing, no matter how hard I tried to peer through the trembling autere, but my companion’s eyes were sharper and he snapped at once: “You should have been more careful with your horses, Kuta; men on horseback are approaching.”

My horse had sprained its knee, and I had set it down to seek such food as the place could offer, but the fierce heat had driven it into the shelter of a mimosa grove, where it stood with its ears pricked up and its tail flicking away the flies that swarmed about it in swarms. We had taken two packhorses with us to bring the prey home, and these Ula guided, but no urgency would have induced him to use them as instruments of escape. With his strong legs and iron tendons, he trusted his own legs more than any other living thing, and the distance he could cover without tiring in a day showed that he really needed very little outside help.

Now I too began to distinguish two black spots, which were becoming clearer every moment, and so I asked my plant-brother what advice would be best. If his statement that the approaching travelers were supposed to be horsemen was correct, there was nothing to fear, for in that case they must have been Europeans, since the inhabitants of the country very rarely travel on horseback. I therefore proposed that he should drive our two other animals into the shade of the mimosas, while I would ride out against the strangers, whom I hardly considered to be any more dangerous objects than a wandering pair of giraffes.

This idea having been approved, I tightened my saddle-girth and rode away, greatly annoyed at the disturbance which had interrupted all my immediate hopes of tasting a roast guinea-fowl. As I approached the guests, I saw that my fellow-plants’ eyes had not deceived me; the comers were horsemen, who were evidently in a great hurry, judging from the speed with which they drove their horses across the burning sands of the desert.

“Probably two elephant shooters,” I thought; but my guess was soon dashed, for the ever-shortening distance now enabled me to perceive that one of the riders was sitting in the side saddle.

There was only one woman who could possibly appear from the corner from which the travelers were hurrying; and with a heart heavy with foreboding, I spurred Spring-buck, my horse, and galloped forward towards them. A few more blinks of the eye, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. Arnold Beidermann and his daughter stopped before me.

“Good heavens! What has happened? What has brought you across this dangerous desert, instead of coming by the usual road?” I exclaimed, staring in astonishment at my friends, whose clothes were in a strange disorder, and whose whole appearance indicated a hasty escape rather than a premeditated journey.

“Water,” Arnold sighed laboriously. “Just bring us some water, then I’ll tell you everything.”

His daughter acknowledged my presence with no more than a forced smile of familiarity; and as I looked at her more closely, I saw that the harsh sun had peeled the skin from both her face and hands. From fatigue and burning thirst she swayed in the saddle like a bent lily.

“Let’s change horses with Minna,” I exclaimed, calling her in my sorrows by that familiar name we had used in our childhood days. “Spring-bucks is comparatively fresh, and will take her to the mimosa group in ten minutes. There Ula will bathe us and give her as much water as she pleases.”

I carefully helped the exhausted girl down from the tired horse; after which, having changed the saddles and lifted the nurse back onto the horse, I saw to my satisfaction that she was galloping forward with a speed that the animal she had left behind could never have achieved. At my urging, Arnold Beidermann also hurried on, leaving me to follow on foot and lead Minna’s horse by the bridle; but before we parted he uttered a sentence which redoubled my present uneasiness and so occupied all my thoughts that I did not much notice the hot, slow, and laborious journey to the group of trees, where I finally met my friend again.

“The dispatch room is currently engulfed in flames; and the warriors of Cetewayo are marching on Dirksen’s news residence!”

That was all the pastor had managed to say before he left me, and, as anyone can easily imagine, such an unfortunate message left very little room for other thoughts.

When I reached the Mimosas, I saw that both father and daughter had been wonderfully refreshed by the water that Ula had procured for them, and also by the food that was ready just in time. As it was of the utmost importance that the missionary’s news should reach Pieter Dirksen’s ears without a moment’s unnecessary delay, I cut open the cartridge and with a charred stick drew a few lines on paper warning him of the danger that threatened him, and sent a message with Ula, who, I knew very well, could soon overtake our horses. Seeing him on the way, my immediate concern was to saddle those sound packhorses for Beidermann and myself, and to order the Tsululais boy to bring our exhausted steeds to the news-house without delay. And so there was no more thought of the antelope that we had intended to take home.

During our ride—how short it had seemed this morning, when I left home unconcerned about the future, and how unspeakably long, laborious, and tedious that trackless clearing now seemed!—during our ride I learned from my friends all they knew of the unexpected conduct of the Tsululai king, together with the particulars of their escape, and the circumstances which enabled them to elude their pursuers. I will briefly mention these incidents below.

I learned that Lumba, one of the chiefs who had been present at the Cetewayo meeting, was in a considerable debt of gratitude to Arnold Beidermann; for the missionary had once cured him of a dangerous disease which had been caused by a wound inflicted by some wild buffaloes, and which had been badly treated. This man was the brother of the queen—of the young woman who was examining the interior of the kaleidoscope—but though his connection with the royal family might have saved him from trouble if he had suspected Nkungulu’s accusations and manfully defended his benefactor, some inexplicable belief in the power of witchcraft still bound his tongue. The chief was a gallant warrior, a gentle father, and endowed with abundant intelligence—indeed, a man whose culture was considerably higher than that of his fellow citizens—and yet the fear of a certain sorcerer so completely possessed him and prevented all feeling of gratitude that he unhesitatingly joined in the clamor for the expulsion of Beidermann. When the meeting was over, word from the king summoned Lumba to the royal residence, where the monarch ordered him to lead an expedition, which was to leave the next morning, to carry out by force the recent decisions. This expression of confidence delighted the warrior immensely, and after singing the praises of Cetewayo in the most ridiculous terms, he hastened to his sister’s hut to tell her of the high favor that had fallen upon him, still congratulating himself on his supposedly so well-acquainted with the daily customs of the Beidermann household that this would easily bring the magician and his daughter into his hands. His faith in magic darkened his mind to the point of committing such a base treachery.

Unfortunately for the ambitious chief, he explained his intentions to the girl who had been unjustly whipped for the kaleidoscope affair. It should be noted that she had once learned to love both the missionary and his daughter. And the gratitude for the enthusiasm which Arnold had recently shown for her still lived in her; so that, having heard the king’s intentions towards the white priest, she determined, at all costs, to warn him of the impending danger.

By a good deal of cleverness, combined with a little trickery, the girl succeeded in getting out of the kraal before the gates were closed for the night, and presently she was pressing on into the wilderness, reaching towards Kagas. She had a journey to make which an armed party could cover in twelve hours; but the road was long and arduous, she had no food, and, above all, she was still suffering from the wounds of the flogging; for it is weeks, not days, before the marks of the Tsululais whip have faded into obscurity.

How that delicate child could overcome the dangers and obstacles that met him on his way will forever remain a wonder to us all. Presumably his own innate courage was increased by the knowledge that a fearful doom awaited him if he were caught. To escape alone from the royal Kraal was a matter of life; but to the death penalty of the person who dared to aid the magician would be added a long and dreadful torture. Many broad and rapid rivers, teeming with alligators, surged between Umpangen and Kagas, and yet Nohemu[9] without hesitation plunged into them, and, favored by his gallant courage, escaped unharmed. The roar of the beasts of the forest resounded all around him in the night, as he sat trembling on the branches of a few trees, where he had climbed for safety; and once a troop of loathsome baboons rushed upon her, and she only managed to escape her pursuers by swimming across a stream at the risk of her life. For three nights and two days the girl endured bravely, and early on the third morning she escaped, exhausted and worn out with hunger and walking, but still ahead of the king’s warriors and in time to give my friends a fair warning, by which they could mount their horses and save their lives by a quick escape.

“Yes,” Arnold Beidermann continued, “we had just finished our morning prayers when Minna uttered a faint cry, and as I raised my eyes I saw Nohemu standing on the porch, dusty and disheveled, and staggering with extreme fatigue. ‘You must escape,’ he cried; ‘go at once, both you and the white girl. The Cetewayo herds are an hour’s journey away; they have condemned you to be a sorcerer.’ I understood what he meant, William, and so, having saddled a pair of horses, Minna and I set off at once, without attempting to save a single object. We chose the road through the wilderness, not only because it was much shorter, but also because it seemed very probable that a cunning warrior like Lumba had sent a detachment to block the common road. Never had there been such an escape “I don’t care about myself; but what fate would have befallen Minna at the hands of such a brute as the Tsululais king is?”

I rode on, terrified by the thoughts that the last question aroused in me.

“You may think that, as we were only ordered to be driven out of the country, nothing worse would have happened to us,” continued my friend; “but I have learned some time ago that the king has had a design to get rid of the missionaries, and as he fears the information which these scoundrels might spread about him and his wicked government, I think it very probable that he gave a little hint to Lumba, that if by chance any evil should happen to me, he would not take it so much to heart. I know the terrible cunning of those Tsulu even better than you do, William. That brave girl Nohemu, she saved our lives.”

“And how did he become?” I asked. “Nohemu — — Nohemu,” I continued, searching my memory; “that name must be familiar to me.”

“Perhaps your plant brother has spoken about him,” said Miss Beidermann.
“Nohemu once confessed to me that they were fond of each other.”

Now I remembered that this was the case. Both Ula and Landela had heard this gentle Tsululais girl mentioned; and wondering why the Beidermanns had not taken her on their journey—for they must have known what fate awaited her if she were caught—I asked again how the girl had become.

“We tried very hard to get him to come with us,” said Minna, “but it didn’t help. He replied that by climbing over the mountains he would reach Dirksen’s new home before Lumba’s people, who would of course stop to have a big feast with our rabble; and having provided himself with a sack of flour, he disappeared again.”

“Indeed, all our exhortations were in vain,” added Arnold; “but there is the news house. Old Peter seems to have taken action without delay.”

The news-spot presented a lively spectacle, for although Ula had only arrived half an hour before us, the Boers had at once perceived the imminence of the danger, and had immediately taken action to protect themselves against it. This was by no means the first time that those rugged Dutchmen had been forced to resist an attack from the country-dwellers, and they set about fitting out the laager , or fortified camp, with a skill and speed which only long experience in the hayfields teaches.

“I guess you’re planning to dig loopholes and defend the rooms,” I shouted when I saw that the oxen had been harnessed to heavy carts, as if it were a so-called trek or migration project.

“That forest is too close to the dwellings for us to stay in,” answered old Pieter in the calmest voice. “It would give shelter to those Tsululais rascals, and they might easily set fire to the thatched roofs over our heads. No, we must make our camp in the open, near the cattle kraal, and so I think we can receive the flocks of Cetewayo with ease.”

Seeing that old Boortrekker [10] was right and trusting in his ability, I threw myself down from my horse and joined the work before us.

The measures which Pieter Dirksen had already taken showed admirable leadership and thorough knowledge of the ways of the enemy with whom we were dealing. As soon as he had received my word, he had Henrik round up the cattle that were roaming the meadows and drive them into the kraal, where they usually spent the night. This enclosure was about half a mile from the dwellings; and we could hear the clatter of hooves as the Kaffir herdsmen, with noise and shouts, drove the animals in. In the meantime, Pieter’s other sons had gathered the draft oxen and harnessed them to the wagons, in which were loaded the more valuable household goods and utensils, a large store of provisions, and all the weapons and ammunition that were about to arrive. I had three wagons of my own tools, window frames, a sleigh, and other materials that I needed to establish my home at the foot of Mount Eloya. My small possessions were already ready for that imminent move, and as I had assumed a long journey without water, an empty cistern had been placed in each of my clumsy wagons. With intelligent foresight, the newsman had ordered his wife to fill them with water; for it was probable that the enemy would block our access to the sprint , to the pond, and our well-being would depend solely on the water supplies we had carried with us.

With a loud yell and a clatter in Dutch, English, and Tsulu, the oxen were harnessed, and the heavy carts rolled forward, amid the crack of whips and curses. Vrou sat with her lively girls, calm and unruffled, amidst the earthenware and other household utensils that had been piled up around them. Minna had settled herself with the Dirksen women, and looked calm and resolute, though she still showed the signs of fatigue and the ailments she had recently suffered.

For the benefit of my readers who are not acquainted with South African conditions, I must say a few words concerning the carts which are in use among the emigrants; for it was our intention to form a provision for the coming attack from these vehicles; and the English carts, loaded with hay or other produce of the country, bear but little resemblance to the carts of the Cape.

As these last-mentioned are in many cases intended to be the home of their owner and his family for months, they are of considerable size, generally about 11 feet long and 4 feet wide. The sides are 2 or 3 feet high, and over them rises a canopy or roof rack, over which is pitched a canvas, which protects the traveller and his passengers as much from the heavy dew and severe rain as from the scorching heat of the sun. The interior of the Cape wagons is furnished with boxes of various kinds, which are placed in different positions according as experience has shown them to be convenient; but as my intention is not to undertake a fuller study of the vehicle in question, but rather to give some general idea of ​​its appearance, I will not enumerate the thousands of things which these containers contain. The inhabitants of South African wagons sleep on beds that hang from the arches of the roof racks, and one can have a pretty sweet sleep in these swinging sleeping chambers. The wagons are otherwise durable, although fragile, and move on the support of four huge wheels.

Oxen are the cattle which are invariably used to draw the Cape wagons, and a team of twelve is in most places usual, but a heavy load may require two of their number. One pair of oxen is harnessed to the pole or centre-bar, and the others are placed along a leather rope called a trektow . Beneath the carts swings a scaffolding, which is intended to carry the dams, boilers, and all sorts of other stuff, which thus hangs between the bottom of the wagon and the ground. Any man of any agility can crawl under the English wagons when they are standing; but with the Cape wagons such an attempt is impossible, by reason of the scaffolding just mentioned, a circumstance which makes them wonderfully suitable for defensive purposes.

Under the command of Pieter Dirksen, the wagons were driven together into a hollow square, against the side of the cattle-yard from which we thought the enemy would attack; this method of defence, common among the Boers, is called the formation of a laager . Six wagons surrounded a spacious quadrangle, in the centre of which we placed half a dozen riding horses and a couple of oxen as provisions, in case the siege should last long.

Our fortifications were just completed, and the only thing left to do was to examine every opening through which some Tsulu might slip his body in. This was accomplished by means of the thorn bushes, which grew in abundance in the vicinity; and having cut loopholes in the outer walls of our wagon sheds, through which we could use our gunpowder weapons with frightening effect, we proceeded to further strengthen our position by digging outside the garrison’s laager and driving the gravel brought up between the wheels, when the voice of old Pieter ordered us to be on our guard, as the enemy in front was already in sight.

Quickly climbing to my designated spot, I saw a dark ghost moving from one bush to another and towards us.

” Donder! ” roared Karel Dirksen; “I’d like to make that rascal wander a little; bring your gun here, William.”

I did so, and the young giant took serious aim; but just as his finger pressed the trigger, Ula elbowed him, and the bullet flew far from his intended target.

Boer turned around, terribly angry, but my plant brother spoke calmly.

“You don’t intend to shoot the girls! That’s ridiculous.”

Chapter 5.

At the camp.

Between the two wagons that faced the cattle kraal, a gap had been left large enough for a horse to enter; and when the bolt that blocked the gap had been quickly pulled back, the Tsulu girl entered the camp. Her arrival was welcome to all of them, but especially to Arnold Beidermann and his daughter, for whom Nohemu had dared and suffered so much. Old Landela seated the exhausted refugee beside her, caressing him with warmth and pride, and giving him such food as happened to be at hand.

Now we heard that things had gone somewhat as we had supposed, and the pastor was forcibly compelled to listen as the girl, with all the eloquence of her tribe, described the coming of the Lumba warriors; their disappointment and fury at seeing the birds flying away, and the plundering of the cattle, and the burning of the mission house, when joy had reached its highest. Nohemu had been an unwilling witness to these mischiefs, for after warning my friends, the brave child’s strength had suddenly failed him, and, unable to continue his flight, he sought refuge in a nearby cleft, from which he could unwittingly see all the horrors of the destruction. Only when it was dark were the houses set on fire, and then, refreshed by rest and wary lest any of the wild forest dwellers should stumble upon his hiding place, he secretly slipped into the forest and took Boer’s place. The hand of Sallimus again protected him, so that no wild beast or even wilder forest dweller appeared to interrupt his progress.

It was now about three o’clock in the afternoon, and according to Nohemu’s calculation at least two hours would elapse before the enemy would arrive. We spent this welcome respite by filling every container that would hold a sprint with water, and watering the hoe that had been driven between the canvas covering the wagon and the supports supporting it. We also made several trips home on horseback to bring back the forgotten mutineers; and in the meantime Vrou and her girls took the opportunity to cook a hearty meal, for which we all showed our gratitude and honor with our appetites. The day was just about to end when Ula, who had been sent to look out, returned with news that the enemy were approaching that place.

There were seventeen of us in all, who were to defend the camp against the angry pack of wildlings, and of these seventeen there were six women; the pastor, a man who was not a fighter—though Arnold did not in the least hesitate to fight if the occasion arose—guarded the flank of the garrison on the side of the cattle kraal, because from that side the least danger was to be feared; and in this duty he was assisted by Cornelius, a Hottentot horseman in my service, who, though a gallant valiant man when we sat by the camp-fires and drank “Cape brandy,” was not very reliable when real trouble came. The rest of us, nine in number—namely old Pieter Dirksen and his four sons, Karel, Jan, Edward, and Henrik; James Hanway, a woodman whom I had hired to hollow out my cabin near Mount Eloya; Adam, a Hottentot rascal, half elephant hunter, half bullock driver, also joined my company; Ula, shield, and assegai always in reserve, but yet in this state armed with one of my double-barrels; and finally I—we all placed ourselves at the mouths of the cart-loops, and waited in peace for the enemy to come.

Our black servants, Boeri and I, had dispersed as soon as the cattle had been driven into the kraal, ordering them to look after their own safety. We had no idea whether these good fellows intended to join the charge of our enemy, or to hide until fortune should turn to one side or the other.

Darkness now began to fall suddenly, distant objects began to appear indistinctly, and still the enemy gave no sign of his approach. The only sound in our camp was the smooth clicking of Vrou’s stocking-pins, for even in his haste he had taken care to take these tools with him, and went about his usual work mechanically—and the sharp voice of my Hottentot Cornelius, who amused Arnold Beidermann by telling how he had held so many Tzulus in check on a previous occasion, and by praising the merits of his fire-pipe, which, considering its size, weight, and excessive clumsiness, could easily have dismembered an elephant with invisible tusks. The cattle were still shooting and bellowing in their kraals, the frogs in the sprint’s croaking raised their croaking hooves in the stillness of the night, our horses were rattling their beaten suppers; and everything indicated rest and peace rather than the eve of a battle that would decide life and death.

Eleven o’clock came, and not a single hissing signaled the approach of the enemy. Darkness had now completely surrounded us, and as the night was cloudy, it was impossible to distinguish objects ten paces from the laager .

“There’s a thunderstorm coming, if I’m not mistaken,” remarked old Pieter, half leaning against a chest near his guard post; “the heat of the day has been unusually severe.”

“Those roadrunners would never dare to attack us in this darkness,” thought Karel Dirksen, yawning. “Half of us could follow Mother’s example and go to the ground. What do you think of that, Father? They can’t do anything before daylight.”

As if in mockery of the young Boer’s condition, a scream suddenly resounded from a thousand throats, long, cruel, and terrifying, which woke the trembling women from their slumbers and stopped the mouth of the sweating Cornelius as if by magic. Every man jolted to his feet and stared painfully into the darkness, from which nothing could be seen, although such a cry had arisen as if all hell and its goblins were about to attack.

“Here they come,” cried Ula, whose eyes were more accustomed than ours to distinguish objects in the darkness of the night. “They are rushing upon us like the floodwaters of the Tugela River”; and with that he discharged both his barrels into the thickest mass of the approaching enemy, judging by the two more terrible howls that followed the burst of his gun.

“Fire and brand! There they are,” old Pieter roared, and his heavy roer thundered. The brand illuminated great bands of forest warriors, who were rushing towards their camp from every direction.

” Bliksem , hurry up, we’re surrounded!” shouted Karel. “Some of you have to go to other carriages.”

“Exactly; you, Jan, and Edward,” said the newsman, as coolly as if it were a matter of weaning a calf from its mother. “Hurry up, boys, or they’ll take the win from the pastor.”

The battle now became a series of private skirmishes, and it was difficult to judge from anything but the gunshots how the occupants of the other wagons fared. Our numbers permitted two men to occupy each vehicle, except one, and the brave Vrou, musket in hand, took his place in the same wagon with old Pieter, loading and firing with the greatest boldness and fearlessness, and admirably filling the place of the stronger sex. The daughters of the Newfoundland, Minna, and two black women loaded and held the weapons in reserve for the combatants, so that a mostly incessant fire was blazing against the pack of the foresters, who were seething around our garrison like a flock of angry skunks.

Whatever may be thought of the courage of the individual Tsulu, no one can deny that in a crowd and inflamed with passion they fight like heroes. Our rifle fire, fired only a few feet away, swept them to the ground like a reaper’s scythe to the hay, yet their fury was not the least abated, but they threw healthy warriors over the fallen bodies and rushed towards the loopholes, through which the most savage thrust their weapons, trying to seize the protruding muzzles of our guns. Others of them, curling up in circles, clung to the trees, and hacked furiously with their assegais through the canvas of the canopies; but the blows only showed where they were, and our bullets brought the daring assailants down straight to the ground.

“Look, Kuta!” Ula shouted, “they’re setting fire to the old Boer’s house. Now we can see what we’re doing.”

I observed a faint flame rising from the new dwelling, which, clinging to the dry thatch, spread with great rapidity, and in a few minutes the burning buildings provided a fiery rear wall, against which the ghosts of the fugitives could be clearly distinguished. Every shot now made a frightening impression, but these frenzied men rushed forward again and again with undaunted courage, as if they knew well that unless they broke through our defences before the dawn had set in full swing, their last hope of victory would be extinguished. How, or why, the rooms had been set on fire I have never learned; but the curtain of this spectacle cut off all chance of victory from the Tsului. Some thoughtless or over-zealous bushmen had probably set the rooms on fire, for such a senseless act would never have been committed by Lumba’s orders.

“Scorch up, boys! Now it’s our turn!” I heard old Pieter roar in an almost jubilant voice. “Never before, I think, has anyone been so happy to see their home in flames.”

Silently stunned by the incident which had made them the prey of our bullets, the warriors gathered and rushed in a thick mass upon our camp. Fortunately we had had time enough to make our enclosure impossible to capture. With clubs in hand, and in spite of the bullets which rent their ranks, a group of daring men mounted the wheels and attempted to light a fire in the shacks. As one fell, another wild warrior snatched the torch from his failing grasp and manfully tried to renew the aborted attempt; but now even our women’s hearts had hardened at the sight of the horrible spectacle, and more than one Tsululai male met death from a pistol discharged by the hand of the fair sex. Everything that men—and brave men at that—can do, the Lumba warriors did, but our position was too strong, and when the last fierce charge had been frustrated, the stubbornness of the attackers began to weaken.

Just then another element came to our aid. Old Pieter had predicted a thunderstorm, and now it burst upon us with a terrifying fury. In the fiery heat of the battle the clouds had gathered, unnoticed by us, into a thick blanket that covered the whole sky, and with a deafening roar that silenced even the booms of the Dutch roers , thunder rumbled from the overhanging cloud mass, and with it followed streams of lightning, so continuous and lively that they seemed to blind our eyes. No creature could stand against the flood of water that rushed down with this great natural catastrophe. In every direction fled the warriors of the Tsululais chief, and in two minutes the hayfields were empty; only the bodies of the fallen and wounded—the twisted faces of the latter peering with unspeakable horror into the cunning marks of the lightning—testified to the numbers of the savage horde which had a short time before been assembled against us.

Under the covers of our wagons we all sought shelter from the penetrating rain, each lost in his own thoughts and acknowledging in our hearts the magnitude of the danger we had just avoided. Our frightened horses huddled together with their ears in puddles and their hooves flowing, and seemed to find some kind of amusement in being together in familiarity. And so it was with us. All imminent danger was in its path, and Arnold Beidermann only waited for a break in the continuous thunder to utter some simple prayer of thanks that we had been saved from the impending danger, when the unfortunate incident happened because of the inept mouthed Cornelius, who, however, had to pay dearly enough for his folly.

The Hottentot was almost petrified with horror when the war-cry of the Tsulu interrupted his boasting. He would have liked to have been once more, with his scoundrels and bottles, in the Utrecht tavern, where he had a way of getting his ill-earned wages; but all hope of escape had been and gone; if he would save his life, he must join his comrades in fate; and so, inspired by a desperate courage alone, he took part in the defence, firing his immense sling with commendable regularity, though too much afraid of the Tsulu assegai to venture near the loophole for aiming. When the enemy had made his last gallant, though unfortunate, charge, the Hottentot’s courage swelled to a marvellous extent; and when the fierce weather rose and the escapees finally fled, he approached old Pieter with the look of a hero and arrogantly demanded that he be allowed to lead the escape to rob the wounded.

The Boer was a tough man, and in England he would have been considered a brute—even cruel to his Kaffir servants, but this condition, coming from the side it came from, excited all his anger, and in clearly intelligible Dutch he barked into Cornelius’ mouth, eyes, and ears, calling him a shameless, bloodthirsty scoundrel.

In great anger the Hottentot retired to his former post. Then, perceiving a crippled, uncapable Tsulu crawling away, he thrust his impossible weapon out of the loophole and took serious aim at the defective wretch; but Landela, who happened to observe his attempt, jammed the gun and prevented his intention, crying out in a loud voice for our assistance.

The continuous peal of thunder drowned the voice of my nurse; but a force, more certain and mighty than any human action, was preventing that depraved act of cruelty. A long, drawn-out shriek was heard above the roaring thunder, and when we arrived at the scene to ascertain the matter, we saw old Landela clutching her hands with her blinded eyes, and screaming in great agony, and the Hottentot Cornelius stretched at her feet, lifeless as a log. The upward thrust of the Roer had drawn a bolt of lightning, which struck the owner of the gun to death, and completely blinded the eyes of poor Landela, who was then holding the dead man by the elbow.

The women gently led my old nurse away, and fetched such simple medicines to ease her pains as can be found in a tumultuous and chaotic mill. As for Cornelius, I will mention a curious detail in connection with his death. On examining his body, we could not discover the slightest mark to show how he came to his end. The hair, the clothes, and the skin were equally intact; but on pulling the deceased’s boots from his feet, we found that they were torn to shreds. And the soles of the wagons, through which the stamp struck, were likewise crumbled to crumbs. But but for that intoxicating downpour, the vehicles would probably have caught fire.

This incident grieved me greatly, for I was fond of my poor old nurse, and her lamentations all the rest of the night filled my heart with the deepest pity. Sweet Minna Beidermann, whose hand was gentler and softer than Vrou’s or her daughters’—though by this statement I do not mean any contempt for those good women—attended the suffering wife in the first moments of this eternal darkness, urging her to be cheerful, and by a thousand tender little services trying to get her pagan patient accustomed to the misfortune that had befallen her. Nohemu also did everything in her power to alleviate the old woman’s sufferings, and Ulaa was so shocked by the matter that for a while she could not speak a word.

The reader will probably think, from what has been said above, that it is unnecessary to relate as some extraordinary fact what is in fact only a natural feeling. But natural tenderness is very often strange to the tribes of the forest; like many forest animals, they will reject a defective person from their midst, and throw the old or weak one to the languishing hunger and want. At least that is the custom among the Tsulu. When a poor fellow becomes too old to work, he is ruthlessly driven out into the grasslands to starve to death, or otherwise to end his days as he sees fit. Mercy or pity in our sense of the word is unknown to the nation as a whole; and a gentle chief who would keep a single useless gnat in his kraal would hardly be considered by his tribe better than a madman. Fortunately, individuals of this race sometimes show a deeper feeling and respect for old age and misery, and among these I may gladly include both Ula and Nohemu; but taken as a whole, the Tzulus are heartless savages, profoundly selfish in every act of their lives, looking on without pity at the misery of others, and showing real and undisguised pleasure in the pains of dying man or creature. This is a cruel description of a whole nation; but their past and present history, their methods of punishment, as well as the long manner in which they slaughter their poor and innocent brute creatures,—all are their own to prove the truth of our words.

Slowly and laboriously the long hours of the night passed, for though we scarcely anticipated a new attack before daybreak, none of us could sleep. The fierce weather was too harsh to endure long, and a short time after the last clap of thunder had died away, the clouds dispersed, and the stars shone calmly over our camp , in whose twinkling we could distinguish the bodies of the fallen earthlings, but we saw not a glimpse of their companions who were still alive. It was a dreadful, miserable vigil, and none of us who survived the events that followed could ever forget that night, which we spent surrounded by death and slain foresters.

Long before daybreak, every man was at his post; but when the sun, rising rapidly, dispelled the darkness, we understood that no further vigilance was needed. The enemy had fled.

As soon as the increasing light made distant objects visible, old Pieter and his sons looked painfully towards the cattle kraal, from which none of the usual roars and gunshots had been heard since the beginning of the attack. It is true that the silence of the animals could have been due to the terror of the fierce weather, but in the light of the rising sun we now saw that the case was quite different. Not a single old silly cow had shot at her beloved calf for the simple reason that the kraal was empty. The previous night, the Boers and I had been the owners of the most magnificent herds; now there was not a horn, not a hoof to be seen.

Pieter Dirksen had climbed up to the roof of the wagons, from which he had a wide view over the surrounding plain. Slowly and silently the old countryman now descended, and the unutterable tears of his wife and daughters met him; for though we had all by this time perceived the full extent of our misfortune, none dared to publish bad news in the ears of the women. Many ups and downs had the hard-hearted old man encountered in the narrow path of his life; more than once had he harnessed his oxen and left the region where he had hoped to end his days in peace, and had fearlessly gone away into the untamed meadows to seek the freedom he so earnestly desired. But even then, though he threw away his home, he took his herd with him. If you had left him cattle, he would have bravely traveled the world in search of fresh pastures. Now again the world was like a samoan; but at the moment it was more than sorrowful: it was poverty that grimaced against him,—and when Pieter Dirksen met his family again, he felt himself a lost man.

And how did the old man face this crushing blow? I’d like to tell you.

It has been the custom of English writers to bring various charges against these people, to reproach them with their brutality, their avarice, their uncleanliness, and the obstinate one-sidedness with which they cling to their old-fashioned ways, and to describe many other harsh features, designed to make that patient and not very intelligent race of people a subject of contempt and ridicule. There may be some truth in these reproaches, and it is not my intention, nor even my desire, to say that they are unfounded. But I say that many of those persons whose refinements are offended by the coarse dress, simple food, and primitive customs of the Boers, could without harm learn the lesson of humble contentment with the very people whom they profess to despise. It is true that those old-fashioned Dutch are peculiar in their outward manners; but there is a strong feeling of religiosity among them, though perhaps those who are not accustomed to their society have not dreamed of it; for the Boer makes no show of his religion, and knows nothing of those petty sects which in most civilized countries afford to zealous churchgoers such a fine opportunity to boast of their own righteousness, and to condemn those who think otherwise to eternal damnation. The religion of the Boers appears in a firm trust in God, who bears good fruit, and nobly supports him when all other help is gone. And it was this feeling which animated the usually dull features of Pieter Dirksen. Coming up to his wife, he bent his massive body to kiss her tenderly on the forehead, and said:

“Wife, God has seen fit to test me greatly; and in my old age I am a lost man. But when he took my worldly goods he has left me you and our family; and therefore, Mary, we cannot get a button. Don’t cry, girls, but get the big thing ready; our immediate task is to try to find our lost cattle.”

I don’t know what other people think of this speech, but for my part, may the man who spoke thus be forgiven for his many small mistakes.

Chapter 6.

Unhappy exercise.

After a short consultation it was decided that two men should be sent to inquire whether the enemy had finally retreated or not; and having saddled their horses, Karel and Jan Dirksen set out for this purpose; our future movements would then depend on the information they brought. Ula would have been the best man for this task, for being a countryman himself he was accustomed to the cunning and treacherous war-plots of his nation; but old Pieter trusted his sons most completely, and in his hands was the supreme management of affairs.

Two hours later the young men returned, and, to our astonishment, not alone, for they were driving ahead of them a herd of five or six oxen, which as they drew nearer we realized were for the most part our draft oxen from yesterday.

In answer to our careful questions, Karel said that there was not a single living Tsulu in the vicinity. “It is evident that our fire traps have put those rascals in a tight spot,” he continued, “and they have retreated in broken spirits, contenting themselves with the cattle they found in the kraal. We could easily find these too if we acted quickly. Let us saddle the horses, father, and give chase without delay. Every minute is precious in such a situation.”

“I can’t understand how such clever bandits could have missed the most valuable part of the entire herd,” said old Pieter cautiously. “If you could get hold of our work oxen in a couple of hours, then Tsului must also know where they are. Karel, this is not going to go well.”

“There is not a single living black within a mile of us,” repeated the young Boer; “and they did not break the herd because yesterday, after we had unharnessed the oxen, we drove them into the hayfields, while we drove the other animals into their kraals. The whole matter is perfectly clear, and my feeling is that the enemy, having received a fair proof of our fighting ability, will throw himself into his prey if pursued.”

Even the old new farmer seemed to doubt, and it is difficult to say how he would have resolved the matter; but new forces came to the aid of Karel’s speculations, and the old man found himself in such a minority that he was forced to give way, although this was evidently very much against his will. First Vrou , who had been listening attentively, intervened, hearing that there was still a ray of hope of getting the cattle back, and urged her husband to take her son’s advice to heart and save their property; Loviisa and Elisabeth, although respect prevented them from opening their mouths, joined their mother in their silent but clear prayers. I dared to pull a rope with Karel directly, for the consequences of the decision were of great value to me; and both Minna and her father seemed to have thought that the opportunity at hand should not be let go. Only one of the whole crowd seemed to agree to old Dirksen’s suggestion; but when his idea wasn’t directly asked, he was too proud to force it on others: this one was Ula.

But in spite of his numerous opposition, the Boer held out, until Henrik, his youngest and favourite son, who could move more freely with his father than the others would have dared in their dreams, spoke to the old man of the gloomy prospects before them if the cattle were irretrievably lost, and of the regret which would in future add to the bitterness of their hard luck. Then old Boortrekker yielded, and when his consent had been obtained, we proceeded to divide our numbers as would be necessary.

Although Pieter’s concession had been, so to speak, wrested from his hands, he had none of that pettiness which makes a weak character seek compensation for his defeat in blatant prophecies and annoying insinuations. If in this patriarchal society the father had said “stop,” no one would have dared to think of disobeying his command, no matter how much he doubted its rightness; so, having once given his consent, he brought all his experience and knowledge to bear on the new idea.

“We cannot tarry here,” he said, “for several reasons. First, there is no water here; second, the dead bodies of the countrymen make our camp uninhabitable; third, as the house and the cattle are both a thing of the past, there is not the slightest reason to stand in this ominous spot; and the more so as we have found enough oxen to draw four of the six wagons. Now we have two tasks before us. We must see our women in a safe place, and we must find our cattle. For the latter purpose at least four men will suffice, and I stipulate that these shall be William Thornton, Edward and Jan, with Ula as our guide. Karel, Henrik, the Englishman Hanway, Adam and myself, we will harness and make the move towards Utrecht, encamping for the night and keeping a close eye. If the pastor has no objection, if he wishes to leave his daughter in our care, he may “I will travel to Utrecht myself as often as I can, and inform those concerned of the violence that has taken place. Not that there is much help to be expected from there,” he continued, with all the indignation of a Dutchman at the fact that Great Britain had just seized the Transvaal. “Our own Feld Cornet would have gathered his men and ridden to our aid; your precious people, Wille, must send a long proclamation, pointing out how wicked it is to cut the necks of your neighbors and then rob them of their property. It will take a lot of paper to be wasted before the scumbag brings me back a single hoof. Anyway, that’s my opinion, boys; what do you think of it?”

It seemed a perfect thing; indeed, I could not have found a better one. In my heart I was greatly grieved that old Boer had not chosen me to accompany the carriages, which in Minna Beidermann contained a far more formidable attachment than all my worldly possessions; but my worthy master evidently intended to give me a place of honor, and pride prevented me from showing the slightest reluctance; but secretly I envied Karel and Henrik their position as ladies’ knights.

After we had harnessed the oxen with one accord and with great effort, we burned the body of Cornelius in the middle of the place where our camp had been, and after bidding a few but heartfelt farewells, the wagons rolled heavily away over the haystacks, while the party of which I was the leader made a reconnaissance in the direction in which we thought the plundered cattle had been driven. Two of my wagons, those containing the materials necessary for the building of my new dwelling, were left with this party; and I may well mention at once that I never found more wagons than their contents in those days.

We moved in silence, the Europeans on horseback, the Ula in the rear on foot. Besides their weapons, each rider carried with him a sack of flour and a bottle of red brandy; otherwise we were content with the game we had managed to shoot. Owing to the softness of the ground, after the heavy rain, it was not very difficult to find the tracks of the cattle; for their multitude had left a wide track, which even the most inexperienced Bushman[11] would not have missed. As we advanced, we observed that the poor animals had been driven further and further away with great haste: at a few sprints away two cows stood sunk in the mud, from which they could not rise, although they still made frantic efforts. The Tsulu robbers had thrown the wretches to a prolonged death, from which we released them by shooting a bullet through the brain. Many times we passed fallen bodies of nature, through which assegais had been thrust, and so thrown to snarl in agony. The sight of this wanton loss irritated us exceedingly; and when Edward Dirksen again met one of his favourite heifers, which had been cruelly trampled by the retreating band, he swore the most terrible vengeance upon the marauders.

Although we let it go as fast as the nature of the region allowed, night overtook us before we reached the cattle, and both wisdom and the exhausted condition of our horses and our own urged us to halt. Choosing a suitable camp a short distance away from a few sprints , we unsaddled and, having adjusted our cheerful whiteness to scare away the wild beasts of the forest, cooked and ate our meager supper of bread and a trap roast, after which the Dirksens lay down to rest, leaving the first watch to Ula and me.

The place where we had taken up our quarters for the night was not a safe position, for it was in a valley, covered with a thicket of deep grass and brushwood, which might afford shelter enough for a thousand Tsululais warriors; and it was certain that it was teeming with lions and leopards, who were lying in wait for the antelopes that came up at a sprint . We five did not care for the beasts, because if we kept up a good fire they would probably not dare to trouble us; and the main reason why we here unsaddled our horses was that we hoped to get some shot in the horn. The proximity of water was also an important factor, for the day had been terribly hot, and the sun had been blazing all day from a cloudless sky, so that it would have dried up all traces of last night’s heavy rain even if the violent weather had reached our present position, which did not seem to be the case, since such gusts are usually confined to a narrow area. There was no fear of the blacks, for we were well armed, and we had no cattle to arouse their desire, even if one or two had been in the vicinity, which was not at all likely.

I had noticed that my plant-brother had looked depressed all day; but I thought the cause of it was the terrible accident that had befallen his mother. Now that we were alone together,—for the heavy breathing of the Dirksens proved that sleep had overcome them—I asked him the cause of his melancholy; for though Ula was a prominent figure among his people, he had not lost a shred of the tribe’s wild nature, on which the sufferings of even the dearest creatures leave no permanent mark. That affection for old Landela would make him sad in his presence, I could easily understand; but that it should last for several hours—and, to top it off, just when they were pursuing the enemy—was, to put it bluntly, astonishing to me.

“My sorrow,” he replied, “is not unnatural, when I think that those from whom we have just parted are journeying towards their certain death.”

“What the hell do you mean?” I exclaimed in anguish, for I thought my friend was again musing on those old superstitions of his, from which I had sincerely hoped to cure him for ever; that in his dreams he had seen a bird fluttering before his door, or had discovered a sleeping snake, or some other of those absurd omens of ill-luck to which the Tsulu people are so single-mindedly attached. “What do you mean? Have you eaten an egg”—another of their superstitions—”or what?”

“No,” he replied, in spite of my sharp talk; “Lumba is a much more intelligent man than you white people seem to believe. He has set the trap, and you have allowed me to fall headlong into it with open eyes. Yes, I have told Nohemu, and he will save my mother. You are here with me, and so I can look after you; I do not care much for the old Boer and his family, but my heart is heavy for them.”

It is easy to understand how deeply uneasy these words made me, and at the same time so infuriated me that only by a firm control of myself could I refrain from bursting into bitter reproaches against the man who had allowed us to fall victims to so thorough a deception, even if a single word from his mouth had opened our eyes. But I knew the Kaffir’s character perfectly; I felt that insults on my part would only make the evil worse; and thus, restraining my anger, I began to ask Ula what reasons she had for her terrible predictions. “The old white man saw right through the matter,” she replied. “He saw that a great herd of cattle-hungry warriors, embittered by the disgrace of the pa’o, would not have left behind them four excellent teams of oxen without purpose, when they were pretending to retreat. It takes no foresight to guess that Lumba had left them behind to make a trek , so that, once the camp was sailed, he could attack the wagons in the open meadows and make up for his recent loss. The old man had intelligence enough to see the matter; but you won his favor.”

“Well, in God’s name, if you knew this, why didn’t you speak up, or even make some sign to warn us?” I asked.

“Because I wasn’t asked,” he answered with grim dignity, “and Ula never speaks to those who don’t care about what he says. If you had been chosen to stay with the wagons, I would have prevented it, for you are my brothers; it’s all the same to the others.”

“All of them!” I said bitterly, my heart aching when I heard this. “All of them! Your foolish pride has condemned to bloody death a being ten thousand times more precious than the whole world.”

“Old Boeri is a fine warrior,” said Ula soothingly; “but my brother must find many others he can like just as much.”

“Insane!” I snarled. “You haven’t let that gray-headed old man be slaughtered alone; among them is the one I once hoped to have as my wife, the missionary’s daughter Minna Beidermann. Are you satisfied with your day’s work now?”

“Is that true, Kuta?” asked Ula, suddenly strangely relaxed. “Why didn’t you ever mention it to me?”

Why did I not mention it? Knowing well that selfishness, which was inherent in the nature of the Tsululais, which had its place in the breast of a person so far superior to all his other brothers as Ula was, I now saw my terrible mistake in not having confided my secret to the young chief and persuaded him of his feelings for Minna. He would have willingly gone to the white for my sake, but the peculiar constitution of his character made it impossible for him to have a deeper sympathy for such people to whom kinship no more than color attached him. That the thought of the impending danger of our friends burdened him for so long showed that his heart was milder than that of most of his tribe, and I now reproach myself bitterly for not having begun to inquire at once when I perceived his humiliation.

“We must return,” he cried, after a moment’s thought, and springing to his feet, eager to make amends for the past—”we must return, and by driving hard perhaps we can save them. I’ll dive, Kuta, wake the young men while I catch the horses”; and so saying he slipped into the long grass.

I roused Edward and Jan, and briefly informed them of Ula’s fears; but I was careful not to provoke their revenge by showing how easily the disaster might have been averted if he had only opened his mouth in time. By a little clever trick I endeavoured to divert the thoughtful minds of the Boers from this delicate matter; for if they had been informed that my brother had concealed the truth, their indignation would probably have broken out in a manner which might have had unfortunate consequences. But while this attempt had succeeded in some way, another disaster was on the horizon, which for the time occupied all our attention.

We stood around the white, waiting for Ula to return, when suddenly a series of fluttering whites rose from every hill bordering the valley, growing and expanding with every blink of an eye.

“Cursed!” exclaimed Jan. “The Zulus have set fire to the bush. Farewell now to our horses and all hope of saving the old people.”

Before he had finished his sentence, Ula rushed into our midst, shouting: “I’m diving down at a sprint with your weapons, your ammunition. Don’t bother with your saddles,” he continued impatiently; “you’ll never see your horses again; but you probably won’t miss them either. Hurry! hurry! the flames will surprise us like a wall, driving all the forest creatures in their circle to our necks. We’ll be ruined if we stay here.” And he gave us a good example by rushing straight to the pond, into which he plunged, wading so far that the water covered every part of his body up to his neck.

We watched as if in a dream, so suddenly and strangely had this new misfortune come upon us; and we had scarcely settled ourselves beside Ula, when we heard the sound of approaching hooves, and a herd of wildebeest, running wildly in a wildebeest panic, dashed over the edge of the pond, and disappeared. Now the view around us was lighted by a circle of fire, which was closing in on us more and more; the flames leaped up to a height of well over twenty feet, and roared violently, as if still eager to devour fresh food.

“Couldn’t we try to catch our horses,” asked Edward. “Of course they should be driven alongside the sprint .”

“They are lifeless,” replied Ula. “I found the carcass of Spring-buck so full of assegai wounds that an elephant would have died from them, and others have met the same fate. The Lumba warriors have been more clever than we.”

“Well, how do we get out of this wilderness then?” I asked.

“We must remain perfectly still until tomorrow night and then sneak away. If they see no movement, they will believe that their plan has succeeded and we are dead. Lumba is very wise, but he will not deceive us.”

Horrible as our situation was, yet every incident of this terrible spectacle is so deeply impressed upon my mind that I can recall the minutest details. Herd after herd of antelopes and antelopes rushed down to the little pond, circled it in mortal fear for three or four hours, and then, snorting with terror, they charged into that gnawing belt which surrounded the place and was every moment becoming narrower. Mixed in with the timid ruminants were several panthers and a couple of lions, but in the common danger which threatened their destruction, all fled in confusion, racing, side by side, at a dizzying pace, in spite of—and presumably unaware of—their proximity to one another. More often than not some furious animal would dive into the pond, and if we had not shouted wildly in unison, waving our hands, its companions would have followed, and we would certainly have been overturned and drowned, or had our hooves tangled. Hissing angrily and with long tongues, the green inamba slithered down the edge of the bank and came straight towards us, thinking perhaps that our heads and necks were branches on which it might rest its shiny curls; but Ula’s watchful eye had warned the monster’s approach, and the thrust of the assegai threw it back to the edge of the pond to die. The sight was terrible—but our condition was still more terrible, our arms exhausted with pain as we held our weapons above the water. Ula’s shield was indeed a sort of boat on which we placed our powder horns and cartridges, but the carrying of the barrels and locks of our guns above the water depended on us and demanded the utmost of our strength. If a group of snakes had approached us, the young Boers would no more have been able to repel them than I; for we used both hands on the weapon to keep it from getting wet. As Ula’s assegai required less care, it remained his duty to protect us.

The flames were getting narrower and narrower, and the nasty smell of scorched hair and burnt flesh was now wafting into our nostrils. The heat became extremely oppressive, scorching our skin and tormenting our eyes, so that we were very glad of the small relief when we were able to dip our burning faces in the water. Whole clouds of fine ash, which rose from the scorched grass, covered the pond with a film. The skin on our faces was peeling off and our hands were blistered.

“Oh my God! I cannot stand it any longer; I must fire the gun,” sighed Edward; but the words had scarcely escaped his lips, when the flames, with a final roar, sank into a faint, low ring, which for a few minutes flickered in the returning darkness, and then died out into eternal rest. Every object within reach had been consumed by the fire; not a blade of grass, not a bush was left to live; our enemy had died a natural death, leaving us, his prisoners, in the midst of an ash-covered valley, on whose border ridges bloodthirsty and fearless foes were living.

Wading to the bank, we laid our weapons on the edge, and then sat down on the edge of the pond to plan our future movements. The young Boers voted for an immediate departure, confidently assuring us that under the cover of darkness we would be able to slip through the enemy line; for many hours of night were yet before us, as the dawn had come and gone in a very short time, although it had seemed an eternity to us. This proposal, however, did not at all suit Ula’s mind, who remarked that hundreds of sharp eyes were searching the valley, and that also every smoking stump, upon which a careless step might be made, would throw up a flock of sparks, sufficient to indicate our course.

“I know my countrymen,” he continued, “and their methods of warfare. Only a small portion of the Lumba army has been selected to bring about our destruction, and every man of them is anxious to join the main body of the cattle-carrying party before the division of the spoils can take place. When morning comes, they will search the valley, and if they see no sign of life, they will happily consider it a certain fact that we are lost; and, thinking their work done, they will hasten to catch up with their comrades. We must remain here, as quiet as mice, until evening; then we may safely venture further and try to overtake the wagons.”

“But our parents may be slaughtered in the meantime,”
Jan sneered.

“The same fate awaits us if we move,” replied Ula again. “Our only hope of salvation depends on staying in this place.”

And so the matter remained, and we remained condemned to many hours of painful inactivity, wasting moments, each of which was more precious than gold, although we afterwards discovered that in our present position, with no other means of transport than our own legs, no effort we could have made would have brought us to the wagons in time to prevent the accident.

I need not describe at length the remainder of this varied night, nor the miserable day that followed. At the first dawn of the morning we slunk to the edge of the pond, where a few tangled reeds offered something like a home; and sitting in the water we now prepared to spend twelve hours of mental and physical misery. Fortunately we could talk to each other; had our tongues been tied, I think that, despite all the aiming woodsmen, we would have staggered to our feet in sheer despair. Ula gave us a Stoic example that rises above all praise. He did not move a hair, not even to ward off the swarms of flies that swarmed around his eyes and nostrils; and he earnestly exhorted us to endure the torture rather than to line the film of water with the slightest movement. The terrible boredom of this day will never fade from my memory: the sun beat down hard on us, the insects thrust their stingers into the pores of our tanned skin, the flash of water almost blinded our eyes. How we survived this, I do not understand; but one-sidedness hangs on life, and we endured as any man would.

When darkness came and we were allowed to leave the water, our calves were so numb that at first it seemed uncertain whether they would ever be fit for use again. Hunger also oppressed us, but there was no way in the parched plain to satisfy its demands, and we rather staggered than stepped forward in the darkness, led by my plant brother.

The predictions of the latter were exactly fulfilled: not a single armed warrior was to prevent our departure from this terrible valley, and as the surrounding country had its usual sight, we were able to shoot one in the horn at daybreak and satisfy our hunger. This gave us a little strength; with difficulty we pushed forward, Ula leading at some distance and guiding our steps with the unfailing instinct of a forest dweller.

For two days we saw not a single human being, and on the morning of the third day our guide pointed out tracks in the ground; they were the tracks made by Pieter Dirksen’s carts.

Carefully, but with the utmost haste, we followed the tracks of the wheels, and alternately hope and fear hastened our steps as mile after mile passed and there was no sign of the fugitives.

At last Ula suddenly stopped and raised his hand to warn us. Crawling on his hands and knees to him, we saw about a quarter of a mile ahead of us the four wagons; but two were lying on their sides, and there were no oxen in front of the others. A group of men were gathered around the middle wagons, some on horseback, others on foot, but their dress clearly showed that they were Europeans, and with beating hearts we rushed forward to learn the worst at once.

Why should I relate the terrible account of the tragedy which the commander of the Free Riders gave us? He had, as soon as Arnold Beidermann had brought his distress call, driven out with his troops, and reached the scene of the bloodshed about two hours before we did. Edward and Jan Dirksen were spared from seeing the mangled bodies of their loved ones, for the grave-carrier had just passed over them; but they were now the only representatives of their family. Captain Allingham told me how the two poor girls and their mother were found locked in a last embrace, and by their side lay the bodies of the men who had defended their loved ones to the last breath.

“And Minna—Miss Beidermann?” I managed to say with difficulty.

“There is no news of the three members of the party,” replied the captain, “and God grant that they have escaped. We have been unable to find any trace of Miss Beidermann, any more than of those two black women. Hist! here comes her father.”

In a flash I understood, by some incomprehensible instinct, that a fate more terrible than death had befallen my little companion of days gone by. The others only gradually and gradually learned the truth. It was clear to me before Allingham had finished his sentence. Minna Beidermann was a prisoner in the clutches of the Tsulu.

Chapter 7.

After the tragedy.

Minna Beidermann and I were not lovers in the usual sense of novelists. I had never mentioned a split word that the slightest chance might have explained into a declaration of love; and, though I kept a secret spark of hope alive that so precious a jewel might not be beyond my reach, I had no firmer foundation for supposing that she looked upon me in any other light than as an old playmate and friend of her father. On my return to the colony, I saw that the curly-haired child of old had grown into a pretty girl, in whose sweet face I could not easily find the little, chubby-cheeked heroine of the inamba adventure.

While visiting my old teacher at the Kagasi Mission, I had recklessly ventured on a few hunting expeditions into the lowland country which extends north of St. Lucia Bay, and there contracted a violent fever which nearly brought me to the point of death. Nothing but the skill of Arnold Beidermann and the tender care of his daughter could have saved me from this dreadful disease; and I suppose that during my convalescence, when I swung in a hammock fastened to the railings of the veranda, when I had nothing else to do—and could I wish for anything better?—than to gaze at the delicate figure of the maiden hovering around me, and now and then to rise and rebuke the unruly antics of the Tsululais who were scurrying about the room; It was probably when the illness had robbed me of my strength to the point that I could not even hold a book in my hand and I was thus forced to seek amusement in my own thoughts, that it began to dawn on me dimly that it might feel wonderfully wonderful to have such a lovely face by my side forever . Again and again this thought returned, especially if he sometimes lingered a few minutes longer; for with sick selfishness I grumbled that he was not always near me, and I forgot that constantly tending to a sick person’s bed was by no means a very joyful activity for a sixteen-year-old girl.

But I was still very young then, and when I thought of that wide tract of land, where cattle were grazing and green, flourishing grass was waving, I felt a much greater joy than from the most beautiful face of Eve’s daughter; so I rose from my sickbed and set out to seek my fortune, feeling, it is true, an inexpressible sadness at leaving my kind guardian, but considering this feeling to be the motive rather of gratitude than of its real cause; for at the age of twenty-three a man is not yet able to make his feelings so clear. With a woman it is another matter: she is already a woman , a man is only a boy .

And so I set out with Arnold Beidermann and Ula, and chose a strip of land near Mount Eloya. Sometimes during our travels it happened that a Kaffir would overtake Arnold, bringing news of his daughter; and I well remember the real envy, almost jealousy, with which I used to watch the missionary as he read these little greetings, which contained nothing remarkable—their letters merely mentioned that nine out of ten of the converts had again apostatized—but which showed that a loving heart was still thinking of his happiness, and revealed to me in the most painful way my own loneliness. Who would care for me, a poor orphan, who had neither shelter nor kin in the wide world? But at the end of these little letters there always appeared some kind message to me, though clothed in words which, remembering our mutual friendship, I found cold; and this circumstance broke my heart, and made me so cautious in inquiring into the affairs of my former playmate, that Arnold must have thought me the most ungrateful rascal in the world, if he ever thought of it at all. If I had known the intricacies of a woman’s heart more deeply, I would have interpreted this apparent coldness differently, and hailed it as my best ally. Many times, while staying with poor old Pieter Dirksen, I rode to the Kagas missionary residence, and each time I found it more and more difficult to drag myself away from there without giving expression to the feelings which had now undoubtedly taken possession of me. I did indeed give Arnold hints of my condition; but, although I could see that the idea was not repugnant to him, he did not in any way give me the courage to speak to Minna, but in his clear German manner gave me to understand that a man who wished to woo a girl should at least have a home to offer her.

So I concealed all the notices and set to work gallantly to increase my worldly goods. With some of the money I had received from the sale of my former farm on the banks of the Buffalo River, I procured building materials, together with glass windows and other conveniences of civilization, very little known in the wilds of South Africa. These were to be erected for me by that unfortunate salvador, James Hanway, and when my home was ready I would have considered myself justified in asking Minna to share it with me.

Now—how had things turned out? I was by no means a lost man, but a fair share of my possessions were cattle, and these were now in the clutches of the Tsulu. My hopes of establishing a home were now dimmer than ever, for the enmity with the king made the regions of Mount Eloya impossible, and my wagons, like my possessions, were scattered over the grasslands.

All this was painful, but there was nothing in it that could not be repaired. A few months of profitable barter would replace my plundered cattle, and in Durban I could buy a new room. The matter was a pity and nothing more. But who could give me back the good Pieter Dirksen, whom I had learned to respect as a father? What money could bring back to life the gentle Vrou and her rosy-cheeked daughters? Could the whole colony ever again give me the firm grip of Karel’s hand, or smile at me as that lively Henrik laughed at the English Will?

Never. Those rough, but faithful and noble hearts had ceased to beat forever. The time I had spent under their roof may now be reckoned in years; for there was no ordinary acquaintance of a week or a month between us, but a friendship born of common hobbies, a lasting companionship, and, I hope, mutual love. Now all those simple people, except two, were gone. If my trials had ended here, they would have been bitter enough; but God had seen fit to add another blow, beside which all other sorrows seemed to shrink into dwarfs. — Minna Beidermann—my Minna—the girl whom I once hoped to call my wife, was a prisoner in the midst of that pack of foresters.

To me the meaning of the word “prisoner” was perfectly clear; I had too thorough an understanding of the customs and character of the Tzulu to need an interpreter to explain the meaning of this word. Rather, I thought, would he have shared the fate of a proper Dutchman than to remain alive to become the plaything of the whims of a savage bushman.

As I was meditating on these things, I felt a hand fall upon my shoulder, and turning round, I saw Ula standing before me. A feeling of irresistible rage seized me at the sight of the man who, with a single word spoken in time, might have prevented the accident, and now I began to pour down a torrent of the most insolent insults and foul language upon the head of my fellow-creature; and I wondered afterwards that he did not stab me dead with the assegai, which trembled in his grasp. But he listened to me calmly, and only when my ardor had subsided did he answer:

“Nohemu and my mother are as dear to me as the white priest’s daughter was to you. I hope they have managed to escape; why didn’t Enamela[12] — the name by which Minna was called among the country dwellers — why didn’t Enamela follow them? She was good to Nohemu and Landela, both of whom had probably warned her. My brother does more right in trying to find the lost than in causing displeasure and slandering me.”

Remorse had followed my wild outburst; for what right had I to expect that a Tsulu, possessed by the passions and prejudices of all his kindred, would change his nature for my sake? A faint ray of light was already beginning to penetrate the darkness, coming from the direction from which one least expected hope; and after a moment’s reflection I perceived that Ula would never have uttered this aside unless he had had good reason to believe it probable. The deep sorrow which I felt must have been evident in my countenance, for again he gently laid his hand on my shoulder, and said: “Courage, Kuta, we will find them. You think it my fault that the accident happened; but why should I be blamed when I was not consulted? Now let us consider how we shall recover the lost.”

The most eloquent preacher in all Christendom, even if he had labored from morning till night, would not have convinced my brother-in-law that he had not been in the least to blame for the atrocity. It was impossible for him to understand that he should have spoken when he was not asked; and though he evidently pitied me, and was also anxious for his mother and Nohemu, it did not seem to him for a moment to understand that in this twinkling of an eye they might have been safe without his senseless silence. It was evidently useless to reminisce about the past; the present was now to be looked into, the future to be taken care of.

“What action is best to take?” I asked.

“First we will ask the white riders everything they know, and then we may make our decision. Tell the old priest not to worry, for Enamela will come back to him even if Ula’s spirit dies. Now go and get information while I explore the land.”

There was something in my friend’s voice that encouraged me without my knowing it; and as I walked towards where Arnold and Allingham stood, I felt that the spark of hope was not yet extinguished, though the prospect seemed black and gloomy.

Arnold Beidermann was too deeply lost in his own painful thoughts to hear the words that Allingham was trying to speak to him; but when I gently reminded him that Minna might have managed to escape with both of those black women, his mind took courage a little and refreshed itself enough to listen to the arguments with which I tried to support my suspicion.

“There is but one way before you, Thornton,” said Allingham. “You must bid that chief of yours go over the border into the land of the Tsuluis, and find out whether the young woman is a prisoner of Cetewayo or not. The king, though a scoundrel, would never dare to hold her prisoner for long; if it were so certain and beyond doubt that the girl was in his hands, and even if so, no real harm would come to her. But I am inclined to believe that Ula has taken the Tsululais girl to some place of refuge—ask your fellow-brethren if he would venture over the border?”

Allingham was old and experienced in the ways of the countrymen, and his proposal seemed wise, but to carry it out Ula would have to expose herself to a fearful danger—indeed, to a life-sacrifice so terrible that I hardly thought myself justified in asking her to do so. If her countrymen should capture her, she would surely be punished with the same barbarity to which the Emperor had already condemned her, and although our ties were strong, I could hardly expect so great a sacrifice from her. And to top it all off, the captain’s decision decreed for me an inactivity that would severely test my suffering. I felt a burning desire to take action, a desire to accomplish something powerful that would show my lost love that I would sacrifice anything to save her. This now supposedly meant that I was to be prevented from doing so and condemned to a painful state of idleness that would be impossible to endure.

These were my thoughts when Ula came to me again, and with her first words she immediately removed the other half of my hesitation.

“That matter is my concern, Kuta,” he said. “I will set out tomorrow, if the missing do not appear, and I will follow the tracks of Lumba’s warriors. It is best that you remain in Utrecht, for in such an affair you can do neither of you any good. But wait until dark. Nohemu is an understanding girl and may bring both of you back.”

“Ula has volunteered to go across the border and find out the facts,” I said to Allingham, “but what am I going to do in the meantime? I can’t sit idly by and watch: idleness will take my life.”

“Exactly, now I remember; that poor girl was your former playmate, Thornton; no wonder you are restless.”

I do not know whether Allingham perceived that a feeling deeper than friendship was at the root of my sorrow; at least he did not seem to notice my enthusiasm, but continued:

“As for your idleness, there is no reason for it, for you are just the man we need. Rumbold said only two days ago that he would give the whole world for a man like you who knew the language of the countrymen thoroughly; but he knew that no offers from home would tempt you.”

“Home!” I said sadly. “That word has no place in my vocabulary anymore, everything I knew and loved is either dead or lost. To speak of home to a homeless man is like a mockery. But how could I possibly be of any use to old Rumbold?”

“You have been so long in the wilderness that you have been a century behind the events of the state. For some time now the threat of war with the Tsulu has been enduring—this new mischief of Cetewayo will bring it nearer. For the last three years the King has been showing a tendency to quarrel with the whites, and now his impudence has become impatient. He is quarrelling about the boundary between the Transvaal and his own territory, openly claiming that he has been deprived of a large tract of land which he intends to reclaim, or at least to make it too hot for white people to live in. He has incited his troops to march across the border and drive out British subjects, and has refused to make any compensation for these misdeeds, and has rather rewarded than punished the perpetrators of them. In short, matters are in such a precarious position that it has been decided to call up all kinds of volunteers and to seek levies. “Among the Swats, who are at war with the Tsulu people at present. Rumbold has been in worse trouble than before to find a man who knows the language well enough to undertake this task, and has expressed his displeasure that the landlord’s antics have taken you from the service of the colony. If you agree, I will undertake to say that he will give you his orders now. I must immediately return to Utrecht with my men to report this mischief of the bushmen. We can no longer be of any use to anyone. Poor Beiderman, the chief and you will do best if you remain in this place until tomorrow morning, and if nothing is seen or heard of the missing, it is best if you come to the city area and leave your fellow plant-breeds to find out the truth of the matter alone.”

“But if it is necessary for us to separate, then we must designate a place to meet. Things may become even more confusing if we do not designate a place where we can meet.”

“Why don’t you make up your mind about the Swats and tell Ula that you will be waiting for him at Mambas . That place is a kind of center, very suitable for taking in recruits, and on top of that you will be safe from Cetewayo’s spies there. Let me tell old Rumbold that you want to get down to business.”

“Give me ten minutes of report time,” I said, “and you will get my answer.”

This time I spent in consultation with Arnold Beidermann and Ula; or, to be more correct, with my brother-in-law alone, for the poor pastor was too much depressed by grief to be able to give advice. Ula was delighted with the idea, and ardently urged me to accept the offer of the High Commissioner, whether the missing were seen or not. “Go to Mambo,” he continued. “It is not far from the Cetewayo border, and I can exchange information with you there much more easily than if you remained at Utrecht. The spies control every inch of the country south of Pongala, but the king does not pay much attention to the movements of the Swats, for,” he added with pride, “half a regiment of Tsululais can drive a whole army of them to the ground.”

“And what is the wisest thing for a white priest to do?” I asked, for it seemed that poor Arnold was incapable of making any decision for himself.

“By all means let him accompany you to Mamba,” said Ula suddenly, “for he will be protected from the many crazy rumors that may reach his ears in Utrecht, and besides, he can be of help to you while you are among the Swats. Go and tell the captain that you intend to set to work.”

I did so, and Allingham rode away, apparently very well pleased, leaving four men to guard the plundered wagons, until oxen could be obtained to draw them; and he gave me a horse to ride on, which was a most welcome gift.

To pass the time, my brother-in-law and I inspected the only wagons that belonged to me out of the four that old Pieter Dirksen had brought from home, and to our great delight we found that many very useful articles had been missed in the hasty search that the robbers had already made. I had intended to use this very vehicle as my home until my rooms were ready to be ransacked, and so I had packed into the boxes most of my clothes, all my small arms and ammunition, my rifle, my pistol, all kinds of survival gear, and a whole host of other things that a traveler needs. As soon as the warning of the emergency had been received, poor Vrou had piled on top of all this rubbish the mattresses and bedclothes belonging to the whole family, and a host of other things, under which my valuable possessions had remained so well hidden that the robbers had not even noticed. Ula regained all his vigor as we examined box after box, and found their contents untouched. The thought that Lumba’s warriors had been within a few feet of such wealth without noticing it really tingled within him; and in the meantime he seemed to forget our miserable affairs, and the death into whose mouth he was very likely to fall. When I opened my money-box, and he saw a small pile of “yellow money” which had escaped the robbers’ notice, he laughed so hard with joy that at last I thought the man was going to ruin. The Kaffirs are the greediest race in the world—a Jew among them would die poor—and they would sell gold for the apple of their eye. The thought that these few such pieces had escaped the clutches of his enemy was enough to console my friend for all that he had experienced, or what the future might bring. It dispelled every cloud, his mind became feeble, and without my knowing it his hopefulness took hold of me. A stroke of happy chance had found a suitable arrangement for me at the very moment when I most wanted something to ward off despair; now the wheel of fortune had turned a second time, and had suddenly given me back so much useful stuff that I could procure myself a team of oxen, with which to travel without delay and with great comfort to the Swazi people. The matter was perhaps a trifle compared with the terrible tragedy we had witnessed, but at least it made me look at things in a rosier light. The poor old Boer’s carts, which we found, were helplessly scattered, two of them lying on their sides, and their contents strewn about; but the robbers had evidently been in a hurry in their action, for a great deal of property had been left behind, the possession of which at another time would have made the Tsulu people exceedingly happy.

The company that gathered around the campfire that evening was sad, and none of us said many words, though every ear was on the alert in the hope that the footsteps of lost relatives might be heard, and every man gazed thoughtfully over the grass with his eyes, seeking for ghosts that did not appear to come. Both the young Boers and Arnold Beidermann were sunk in the deepest despair. I asked the former of their future intentions, hoping that they would volunteer for my planned expedition; but the burning desire to take immediate revenge on the treacherous enemy drove out all other thoughts; their slow natures were too agitated to endure the delay that would be necessary before they could attack the enemy if they intended to follow me.

“No,” said Jan, “we will gather up the scraps of our property that the enemy has left, and then I, like my brother, will take up a post with Allingham’s company. We don’t much like you Britons, but it seems the most direct way to get into a fight with the enemy. If the Almighty sees fit to bring us together with Lumba or his company, then as true as—”

He said nothing else, but cocked the butt of his gun with a threat that spoke louder than words.

Arnold Beidermann was crouched by the coals, quite unconscious, muttering to himself in broken sentences, in which the names of Laura and Minna were heard here and there. The hope which had refreshed his mind a few hours ago was now quite extinguished, and without a word he agreed to the measures which I proposed to him in connection with the journey he would make with me. His energy seemed to have gone, and I almost feared for his sanity.

The morning dawned after a sleepless night, and there was still no sign of the missing. It was now certain that they were not nearby, and it was no longer appropriate for us to waste our time waiting in vain. Ula was the first to realize this, and, staggering to her feet, she said: “Now I will go and get ready.”

What he meant by these words was a mystery to me, for my brother-in-law’s dressing usually took no more time than it took him to grease himself with lard from head to toe in a hurry; but seeing him retreat behind the overturned carts, I began to saddle my horse, which had been left for my use. While I was busy with this task, I heard his voice calling me, and I hastened to him.

The first effect I felt upon the apparition standing before me was to turn and run away; so exceedingly horrible was the sight of the wretched creature that met my eyes. But Ula’s voice, asking with considerable satisfaction, “Will this be all right,” dispelled my fear, and I began to understand the purpose of this extraordinary transformation.

The handsome, slender youth had been lost behind the carts; now stood before me an old man, leaning on a staff on his tottering body, which was not covered with the dark complexion which nature had bestowed on my friend’s family, but with a painfully pale complexion, unspeakably disgusting to look at, especially as the numerous red pimples which were everywhere all over his body looked very much like some kind of abscess. His black hair was hidden under a dirty rag, which on closer inspection appeared to be an old goatskin spare hair, and the red circles around his shining eyes, which no art could dim, made his face look extremely wicked. I have never seen anything more ghostly in my life, and my tongue stuck to my mouth when I tried to speak.

“I see that you are in worse trouble than I am,” said the disgusting phenomenon, “and I will take great care that none of my own people come so near me in broad daylight.”

“But how did you bring about this change?” I asked.

“Here and there,” he replied, pointing to a small pile of pipe ash and a small piece of red clay that poor old Pieter Dirksen had set aside for entirely different purposes. “You see, I have put a little of both in a bag and I intend to carry them with me. Now, Kuta, I am going, and you must lend me your little gun”—he meant my revolver—”which you always carry at your waist. If I survive, you will have it back; if not—well, the matter cannot be helped.”

I unbuckled my belt and handed him the gun and cartridges; but he continued:

“I intend to sneak away from here so that none of those white men will see me, and you must not tell any living person about the false dress I am wearing. Cetewayo has long ears, and his spies are as numerous as the hairs on this goatskin. One word from a Tsulu would expose me, and you understand what that means. Keep the secret to yourself, and when I have found out where Enamela is, I will tell you; I have no fear for the safety of Landela and Nohemu. Go to Mamba with the white priest and wait for me there. I will not tarry, for I know your hearts are heavy.”

Towards the end of his speech he had straightened himself, and those slender limbs looked dreadful in their hideous false form; but I thought little of that then, for my gratitude to the man who was going to such terrible danger for my sake welled up, and my eyes became moist as I shook my untamed brother’s hand in farewell.

“May God bless and protect you, Ula,” I whispered, “and bring you—”

My last words of farewell were empty. Ula had disappeared.

I cannot help but wonder at the intelligence which my fellow-creature had displayed in putting on this wicked veil of falsehood, an idea which would never have occurred to me. Among the tribes of South Africa one sometimes meets with “White Kaffirs,” miserable creatures, shunned and dreaded by all their neighbours, who hide themselves in the solitude of the wilderness, and live a miserable life, and dependent on the pity of their more compassionate countrymen. This wretched race of outcasts wander about friendless, despised, until God sees fit to deliver them from longer sufferings, and though they often meet with death in infancy, or die a miserable death later, yet I have never in my life heard of a full-grown albino[13] being actually persecuted. The Tzulus do converse with these afflicted creatures, but only at a distance, and seldom allow them to come into any closer contact; but the general rule is that they do not pretend to know anything about them. Ula had therefore shown great intelligence in coming up with this idea; and as I well knew his skill in twisting faces, I thought it reasonable to hope that his design would succeed. When I returned to the camp light, I merely mentioned briefly that he had gone his way, and after bidding Edward and Jan farewell for the time being, I bade Arnold Beidermann mount his horse, after which we both turned our backs on the scene of death and led our horses towards Utrecht.

Chapter 8.

Expression in haystacks.

By the good fortune which had saved my rebellion from the notice of the Kaffir robbers, my stay in Utrecht was limited to three days, which were necessary to receive orders which I had to execute, to load two wagons with arms, ammunition, etc. for the new levies, and to be able to select two or three experienced men to help me organize and train the Swazi levies. More auxiliaries and war supplies were to follow me in due course. My task was to form a sort of main body, a sort of central nucleus, to which other recruits could then easily be added.

I will not go into the details of the orders I received; but a wide sphere of discretion was left to me, and I was enabled to direct matters towards the desired purpose in a manner which I thought best suited the character and customs of the country-dwellers. I cannot say that I expected much help from the black band which I was authorized to assemble, for I had hitherto found that the mere name of a Tsulu was enough to confuse a whole village of Amaswats; but under capable chiefs they could fight gallantly, and I was glad to have found a sphere of influence in which I could discharge my genius. Everything was lavishly equipped for the expedition; an excellent team of oxen was given to draw my wagons, horses were procured for each of the expedition members, and to top it off, a good company of friendly country-dwellers, who performed various duties, and, with all their other carelessness, showed commendable punctuality when food was available.

So, after bidding the good people of Utrecht a hearty farewell, we set out, and when we reached the scene of the murder, we took my wagon with us. We passed over the Eland range, descended thence to the Pongola stream, and after some difficulty crossing that lovely river, arrived at Lyneburg, where we bade farewell to the civilized world, and set out on our journey through the wild meadows, bearing chiefly in a north-easterly direction.

Here I will stop my narrative, to describe briefly the ordinary course of a South African journey, though in doing so I may perhaps run the risk of mentioning well-known facts. The first twilight of the day sees the drivers harnessing their oxen, a task which is cheaper to perform on paper than in reality. Oxen, you see, though otherwise patient and hardy, have more wits in their skins than any other animal I know—except sheep. They are wonderfully sharp-witted, far more than many a man who has spent his life among them can imagine. If you happen to be in a special hurry to harness and set off, some cunning ox will at once anticipate your desire and immediately begin to perform all sorts of tricks which will triple the difficulty of your undertaking and prolong the time threefold. I cannot decide whether the animal thinks by this capricious behavior that it is avenging the severe whippings it receives from its drivers now and then; but some fine instinct seems always to tell the oxen when their obstinacy is most harmful to their owners, and they never miss an opportunity. Indeed, they are troublesome, if useless, animals.

When the carts are ready, we set off, with those heavy vehicles rolling along silently. The speed varies according to nature, but it never exceeds three miles an hour.

“And what about the roads?” the reader may ask. So, the less said about the roads of South Africa, the better. After leaving Lyneburg, we were not bothered by even a sign of any tramway, and we did not really want one. A black man walked ahead of the leading oxen, or so-called leaders, of the first wagons, leading them by a kind of rein, and the other herds follow their companions seriously. Nothing can surpass the precise instinct with which a good pair of such leading oxen find and follow the tramway. Perhaps only one wagon has been going in this direction for several months, and yet such real leaders of the first class find the cut of the wheel, follow it without anyone’s help and, what is still more important, without getting lost at all. When, on the other hand, they are traveling a new path, as we are now, the leading oxen need the guidance of a man, for the reins are not at all familiar.

About ten o’clock, or earlier if we can get to the water, we make a halt, when the cattle are let loose to feed for a couple of hours, while the two-legged ones munch or eat dinner, whichever word best suits the meal. We stop for the second time until the afternoon, and then we set up camp , an activity that in these troubled times I was not at all willing to neglect. Since this procedure has already been discussed, I will not bother to tell you more about it; I will only say that our nightly provisions were made more for wild beasts than for wild men. When the cattle, guarded by the shepherds, had eaten long enough, they were driven into camp and hitched up along the wagon line; the night watchman was appointed, and after long speeches and heavy smoking, the men one after another retired to rest, and the camp was—peaceful, I suppose? No, at least not in the sense that the inhabitants of the four walls would call it. A nervous or nightmare-ridden person will hear a large number of strange sounds that disturb his sleep. First a long, terrifying howl echoes in the ear, half a dozen others respond from different branches, and soon all the dogs in the camp rush out, barking wildly; then some snarls and growls in the distance announce that one or more of them are in a fight with a terrible wolf, whose companions are stalking around, looking for someone to devour. The dogs return one after another and crouch down to sleep, but the wolf choir continues its roar in the bushes, and some of the less experienced hounds remain awake and restless. Suddenly there is a deathly silence, and the watchman, if he is accustomed to being in the wilderness, drives a new tree into the light, which throws up a friendly hope and illuminates the confused, restless cattle, even with a faint smell. A low, deep roar echoes like a distant longing over the grass, the oxen and horses rear up in fear, and the night watchman climbs under the canopy into the nearest wagons, staring into the darkness with his eyes, his gun at full cock. But the lion comes no nearer; fearing the flame, he moves on to seek prey elsewhere, and again the wolves, with their long-drawn-out howls, declare that the thickets are once more their exclusive domain. This goes on all night, and the weary hiker pays no heed to these numerous disturbances. Habit and hard day’s work make him unaware of such rubbish, but trusts the night watchman and sleeps a righteous sleep.

It is not often that lions dare to attack a camp, unless the fire has been allowed to die out too much, or the beasts are suffering from severe hunger, — a circumstance which rarely occurs in a country so rich in game as South Africa. However, the cattle of the country-dwellers often fall prey to these animals.

During the day, while the toiling oxen slowly pulled the carts along, we made many trips to get game, killing all kinds of antelopes, wildebeests, quaggas, and sometimes even buffaloes. The flesh of the last-named animals is especially a delicacy to the country dwellers, and terrible adventures often occur in their pursuit; for the wild buffalo is a fierce opponent, who with great boldness rushes upon his enemy, and even pursues him, and if the furious creature overtakes him, there is little hope of escape, for he uses both horns and hooves to pierce and entangle his pursuer. I ask with reason whether the lion himself is so dangerous to the hunter; and the buffalo seems very little to like the king of beasts, but will fight him without hesitation, and often even attack him himself.

On the fourth night after leaving Lyneburg, we had let the cattle loose on the banks of some of the little branches of the Umgowoma stream. Dinner was eaten, pipes were lit, and every man was sitting down to chat—for we considered this evening gathering the most enjoyable of the four or five hours of the day—when the great restlessness of our dogs attracted our attention. “Mousedeer,” a good old lop-eared dog, whose sides were scarred from many a fight with wild cats and deer, seemed unusually restless, and made several reconnaissances in the bushes, instead of sleeping peacefully in the light of day as he usually did. His companions, who looked upon the old cautious animal as their leader, seemed to be affected by the patriarch’s restlessness, for they uttered rubbery growls, the meaning of which we could not understand.

“The dogs are not doing well,” said Arnold Beidermann. “Perhaps there is a leopard roaming the camp.”

“You think so?” I replied, delighted to hear my old friend speak, and still more delighted that so trivial a matter had come to his notice; for the poor minister had sunk into the deepest depression, from which it seemed impossible to raise him, and, as I have before mentioned, I sometimes feared that the uncertainty of his daughter’s fate would leave a permanent defect in his understanding.

“That’s right,” he said. “Or, wait; perhaps it’s the realization of my dream of last night. I was fast asleep when I saw a vision, like a ghost, black, withered, and ghastly, which sneered at me, and spoke thus: ‘White priest, mad priest, old fool, what good are all the letters you read in your witch book? Can they take your curly-haired girl from the hands of Cetewayo, the Black of the Black?’ I shuddered, trembling in every limb, but though the ghost had disappeared, the memory of the vision has haunted me ever since. Some misfortune or bad news will soon befall us.”

Those other men around the white were indeed good people, if not exactly nice, but nevertheless kind-hearted, who by no means intentionally wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I noticed that it was quite difficult for them not to burst out laughing at my poor friend’s nightmarish nightmare.

“The wolves must have disturbed you,” I said; “they were very vicious last night. Antti left them the goat’s skins as a reason for quarreling and fighting.”

“The whole thing,” whispered Jack Garnett, “is that the pastor ate too much buffalo roast. I always see the devil if I’ve pulled my skin more than two pounds of ribs, and—”

I don’t know what else my oldest assistant would have counted if just now old Mousedeer hadn’t suddenly jumped up and dashed off into the darkness, barking wildly, and the whole rest of the gang followed.

“Throw more wood on the fire, men!” I shouted, “and keep your guns ready! Something unusual is happening.”

I stood in the front, gun in hand, and as the flames flared, I saw the dogs barking around a dark, not very large object that was slowly moving towards us.

“By heaven! there’s the vision of the pastor,” I heard Garnett murmur; but before he could touch the trigger of his gun, a shrill cry issued from the unknown being; and, saying, “It’s a woman!” he let his gun fall back upon his arm.

As soon as I heard the sound, I ran forward; shouting and kicking those growling rascals; and taking the newcomer by the hand, I led him to the white. It was Nohemu.

“My dream has come true,” said Arnold Beidermann calmly. “I need ask no more. My daughter is in Cetewayo’s hands. See, Wille, that the poor creature gets treatment before you trouble him with a complete answer.”

As I was burning with impatience, I was greatly astonished by the calm voice of the minister. The appearance of the wretched newcomer seemed to have instantly removed the mental tension to which that cruel uncertainty had been the cause, and he spoke as a man, resigned to his fate, speaks, whose heart is broken.

“Let some of your men go with me,” said the girl in the Tsulu language; “and let them bring some food with them. Landela is yonder in the forest, exhausted with hunger and fatigue.”

Guided by Nohemu, we soon arrived at the spot where he had left his companion, whereupon we placed the withered limbs of my old nurse upon a stretcher made of branches, and carried her with great care to the camp. A little food, carefully given, soon refreshed her, and there was great reason to hope that by careful care her strength would be restored and her life preserved; for the Tzulus are a very hardy race, and are liable to suffer shocks which would helplessly oppress a white man.

And again Arnold Beidermann’s behavior surprised me. He had not asked Nohemu a single question up to this point, but had turned all his attention to seeing that old Landela received proper nourishment. Although the girl was by his side the whole time this act of mercy was going on, and a single short sentence would have enticed the truth to come out, the question was not asked, and he continued his regular work of getting that poor blind, half-dead Kaffir old woman to recover, with an apparent carelessness and inquisitiveness that seemed to me very strange. For my part, I was burning with impatience to hear the girl’s story, but the softness of Arnold’s mind before my eyes did not dare to ask a terrible question in his presence, although my future happiness depended so largely on the information that Nohemu might give. Out of tact, all our companions had withdrawn from the vicinity, well realizing that their presence would be inappropriate, although their knowledge of the Tzulu language was not sufficient to have understood a long interview in that language.

And perhaps the reader will wonder how it could be that so talkative a young woman as Nohemu was—a girl who enjoyed challenges and chatter as much as anyone else in her tribe at that age—that she could refrain from uttering the news which she knew we so desperately wanted to hear. The reason was twofold. First, respect for old Landela, whose right it was by virtue of her age to relate the particulars of the horror; secondly—should I, by mentioning it, dissipate any sympathy I may have aroused for that brave child?—Secondly, Nohemu was too busy with the enormous platter of food, and the generous hunk of buffalo roast, to care for anything else until she had satisfied the demands of hunger. My poor old, exhausted nurse had to be fed with care; but her companion was a healthy, alert young woman, with whom there were no such precautions. So we let her help herself, and, in short, she made good use of the permission. I hope this fact does not in the least detract from that excellent girl in the eyes of young romantic women, who would rather have seen her burst into lamentations for Minna’s sake, or faint at hearing that Ula had gone to the enemy’s camp, than now regain her strength and efficiency by generously enjoying the provisions brought before her. Nohemu was a good child, and followed the course of nature; and in my weakness I confess that I think she did quite right. If nothing else helps to defend the girl, let me mention that she was a forest child, to whom the customs of civilized society were utterly unknown.

At length old Landela recovered sufficiently to speak, and at the same time Nohemu took a deep breath of fresh air from her. All necessity for silence was now at an end; but as Arnold asked no questions, I did not dare to speak of Ula to my nurse, fearing that by mentioning her son I might provoke her to tell me all that had happened since our separation. But to my great chagrin the old woman only talked of the miseries she had endured in the wilderness, and the terrible sufferings her eyes had brought upon her. This last-mentioned misfortune pushed everything else aside, and she seemed to be occasionally keeping old Pieter and his family in suspense; and she seemed to have quite forgotten the existence of Minna. How much this tested my suffering is easy to understand, especially since Arnold Beidermann calmly listened to the blind man’s complaints, asking him about the nature of his suffering and the dangers he had encountered, but without mentioning a word that would have reminded the old woman that the questioner had a daughter, of whose fate we still knew nothing—at least not I, for I did not place much value on the sight, the ominousness of which seemed to satisfy my friend.

My patience finally became irresistible, and so I asked Landela if Nohemu could not tell the story of what had happened, to which she gave her consent, although she muttered in a low voice, with the sullen impatience of a sick person, that the girl had nothing more to tell, but young people are never satisfied with what their parents know how to tell.

Nohemu, delighted to have been given the floor, was about to burst into a flood of speech when Arnold Beidermann, looking up, calmly said:

“Take the girl with you and listen to her story alone. Hearing the dark story again would only make my heart heavier.”

“Again!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “How is it possible that you can know the true meaning of things?”

“I know it,” he solemnly replied; “I know that my daughter is in the hands of the King of Tsululais. The revelation I received last night was quite sufficient, and I praise Him who saw fit to release me from my ignorance. Go and hear the girl’s story, and then come back and tell me if I am wrong; until then I will cherish this old woman.”

That unwavering belief in the worst, in which Beidermann so steadfastly persisted, gradually took hold of me too; not so much because I had trusted in the dream, as because I suspected that the pastor had heard some word, slipped from the mouth of one of the women, which I had missed, and which confirmed his suspicions that Minna was a prisoner. Arnold was a man of keen sense, who would have laughed and mocked at another’s dreams, so that the above-mentioned suspicion seemed more natural to explain the thoroughgoing inquisitiveness which he now displayed; and this fact alone was sufficient to enlarge the grounds of fear which had already taken root in my mind. So, with a beating heart, having asked Nohemu to follow me to a remote corner of the camp , with a beating heart, I turned to him when we had escaped Arnold’s sight, and suddenly asked, “Miss Enamela?”

“How do I know?” the girl answered, apparently surprised by the question. “I think Lumba’s warriors killed him at the same time as those other white men.”

“His body is not among the others,” I said.

“Then he must have either escaped or been taken prisoner. The latter is most likely to have happened, for Lumba will be proud to bring the king a white girl. But why do you make such a fuss about him? He will be happy in the kraal at Cetewayo; the king will give him plenty of meat and beer, and he will not be made to till the ground for the growth of grain.”

Meat and beer! that was the speaker’s only idea of ​​earthly happiness. Meat and beer in abundance, plus freedom from physical labor! Oh, the horrors! Arnold Beidermann’s worst premonitions had thus been confirmed.

“Don’t roll your eyes like that,” the girl continued. “Nothing bad will happen to the white priest’s daughter. Cetewayo has enough black girls who will follow his mind,” she added, a little proudly, “and he will probably send Enamela to Natal.”

Here was a small spark of consolation, and on reflecting on the matter I understood that if the king had secretly ordered Minna to be taken prisoner, it must have been done for some political reason rather than for any other. Perhaps he wished to frighten the other missionaries and make them and their families leave the country; but in the condition in which I was, it was not easy to calmly discuss matters; the chief of the Tsulu was acting at his own peril; the chief—but I will not weary the reader by enumerating the wild speculations which this confirmation of our worst fears gave rise to in me. Through it all, the fact that the girl I loved was a captive in the midst of a tribe of savages was staring us in the face: and as it was impossible for Nohemun to comprehend the feelings that brought us such terrible pain, I could only briefly question him about all he had heard and seen, and draw my own conclusions from his scattered information. These he did indeed count with great pleasure—indeed, too much pleasure; for he began to describe every thing, both amusing and distressing, that had come his way, making up for the comparative poverty of his native tongue by lively facial expressions that fully compensated for the lack of words. Not a cloud, not a bush, hardly even a slithering lizard had escaped his keen eye; also the nature of the country through which he had passed was described in words so accurately that I felt it at once; and to get to the point, we must listen carefully to every syllable in this thorough story. It did not occur to me to say, “Skip over that place,” or, “Throw this thing away”; for if you did, the speaker would helplessly circle around the same place and the story would slow down rather than get through, to get a Kaffir—whether he was a man or a woman—into the story is downright impossible; so I listened patiently to the end of the whole story, which at any other time would have been very exciting, for Nohemu, if he told it slowly, told it very well.

Day had broken and the harnessing work had begun before the girl had finished, so I gave her permission to crouch down in my wagons to sleep off her fatigue. It was a great comfort to me to see that she was not at all worried about Ula.

“We shall soon see him at Mamba,” she said, “and then he will tell you all about Enamela.” I envied the girl the confidence she showed in the courage and intelligence of my plant brother, but stripped of all embellishments her story went something like this: Before Ula had set out with me in search of the plundered cattle, she had warned Nohemu of the warlike tactics which the Tsululais herd would most likely engage in, and had told him to be on his guard especially during the day, and to slip into the hayfields with old Landela at night. The girl trusted her advisor implicitly, and soon after our departure she expressed her fears to Minna, who in turn told Boer and his family. But the warning fell on deaf ears. Old Pieter had once consented to yield to the will of the majority, but now he was determined to reach his destination in spite of all opposition. After a long day’s journey the wagons were stopped, a camp was made, and two men kept watch during the night. But Landela and Nohemu had decided to follow my plant brother’s advice, lest the old Boer should remain in the camp until the help Arnold Beidermann had gone to fetch should arrive. A little before daybreak both tried to persuade the Dutchman to stay in their camp, and having received a refusal in return, they turned to Minna, asking her to join them and avoid such threatening danger. But Miss Beidermann did not consent to this, but said that since her father had once entrusted her to the care of old Pieter Dirksen and his family, it was her duty to remain where she was. Seeing that she was firm in her intention and noticing that the Boers were stubbornly beginning to harness, Nohemu provided himself with a sack of flour and slipped into the bushes, leading old Landela by the hand, just as the sun began to glimmer from the horizon.

With a fair amount of whipping—which the girl pointed out as she told it all—the wagons were set in motion, while the two women crouched in the bushes until the train could be seen; but the party had scarcely gone half a mile before wild shouts, together with the firing of rifles, announced that my fellow-creature had guessed too accurately the enemy’s intentions. The frightened girl from her hiding place watched the disproportionate battle—I wish I could have put his clear account, together with the accompanying movements!—and whispered her observations to her blind companion. She saw how the men gathered around the wagons in which the women were hiding, and how they made wild, though powerless, efforts to defend their arms. The distance was too great to make out any details, and the dark hordes of warriors hid the centre of this terrible spectacle from view; but the shots began to sound less and less frequently, while the wild yells of the enemy grew louder and louder in response, and at last the cannons fell silent, and the trembling refugees knew that their former companions were no more—that they had all been slain by the assegais of the Tsulu.

Concern for their own safety now took possession of their whole being, and both remained quite motionless, so that Nohemu did not even raise his head to look around, because the slightest movement might have attracted the attention of the robbers, who, judging from the shouts, were most of the time busy robbing wagons. Suddenly, after about half an hour (as I was afterwards told, although this time seemed like an eternity to the refugees), the noise completely ceased; and then Nohemu, daring to look in that direction, saw the army retreating.

“Then you didn’t notice anything?” I asked at this point. “Didn’t anything indicate that they were carrying a prisoner with them?”

“I was just looking,” the girl replied, “and it never occurred to me to think of any prisoners.”

“But could Enamela have been left without you caring?” I asked again.

“I’m sure; I told you I was thinking of myself, not him.”

I couldn’t get any better explanation than that, and Nohemu continued his story.

They remained in their hiding place until sunset; then they crept away in the darkness, not daring to tread on the broken wagons, for fear of the ghosts of the slain. It is easy to understand the difficulty of leading a blind woman through the night in that untamed and difficult country (for only in the hours of darkness did the unfortunate travelers dare to move). Landela had determined to seek shelter in the country of the Swats, and thither they directed their steps, subsisting on roots and berries, and enduring pains under which any other human being would very likely have been exhausted to death.

Having crossed the Pongola, the refugees dared to travel during the day, when it was easier for Nohemu to guide his companion’s steps; but I will not trouble the reader with the details of this terrible expedition. The girl had noticed our party the day before, but was careful not to show herself, as she did not know what kind of welcome she would meet. But it so happened that while hunting I came close to Nohemu’s hiding place, whereupon he separated me, and then later, as I have related, when evening had already come and he knew he would meet me at the camp, he came to the arrivals. That they should meet us was also a happy permission of God, for my old nurse could not easily have endured such a terrible strain for two more days.

Such was the story of Nohemu in its brevity; and though I derived no consolation from its gloomy events, I felt myself marveling at that girl who had clung so faithfully to her helpless companion, knowing that she would easily have obtained a good harvest if she had thrown herself upon her own luck.

Before the carriages set off, I went to Arnold’s, whom I found still watching over Landela’s bed.

“Well, wasn’t I right?” he said with a sad smile when I had come to the door.

I could only nod my head in silent acceptance; for the pastor’s dream had come true.

Chapter 9.

Nomteba, the witch-mother.

I think I am almost right in saying that Arnold Beidermann’s mind was refreshed now that we had received, beyond all reasonable doubt, the information which had befallen his daughter. His sorrowful countenance and his unavailing answers showed clearly enough that his thoughts would forever remain upon the lost child; but he always made an effort to appear cheerful, and tried to show a liking for our daily activities. His chief consolation was his long conversations with Mrs. Landela, during which many little reminiscences of the lost pet’s childhood came up, and seemed to bring some kind of wistful consolation to the lonely father. The state of my old friend’s soul during this trying period will always remain a mystery to me, as will also the extraordinary importance which he attached to the dream he had seen.

But meanwhile the wagons were still steadily rolling on, and at last those circular, beehive-shaped huts, which were collectively called Mamba, came into view. Here we stopped; but Jack Garnett, Arnold Beidermann, and I rode on to meet the chief of the kraal and to obtain information as to the whereabouts of the Amaswatsi king. The few natives whom we had thus far met seemed to be friendly to the British, and were glad of our arrival, as we might, in some measure, protect them from the attacks of the Tsulu.

The chief officer at Mamba was a certain Vamutsa, a sturdy, successful-looking bushman, who blinked his eyes quite madly, and who seemed to have a strong inclination for beer or some other intoxicating drink, if the somewhat clouded state in which he appeared gives us the right to such a conclusion in our newly begun acquaintance. He extended to us a hearty welcome in the name of the king, and informed us that his master was at some villages about forty miles to the north, and begged us to dismount at Mamba, where some of their men would pitch us huts until the king’s permission should be obtained to put the Swazi band in order.

To this we agreed, but I thought it better to set up my wagon as a sort of camp; and under the leadership of Vamutsa a fine kraal was built for our oxen against the lions. When all things were in order, I sent for my worthy master, and having melted his heart with a good quantity of rum, I began to ask him one thing and another about the military operations of his people; and I was then careful to call them our allies, for I knew well that every incendiary word would reach the ears of the Swazi king.

Vamutsa gave a hint without much difficulty that if there was anything in the world that could make his master agreeable to our intentions, it was a handsome present; and the form in which the same present would find its best value was rum—good, sparkling, strong, and invigorating stuff, and not such a sloppy liquor as that Portuguese of Delagoa Bay brought into the country. “This, for example, is no worse,” concluded the incomparable statesman, holding out his pewter mug for refilling.

I was greatly distressed to find that our worthy allies placed so much value on a bottle of rum, which the nobler Tsulu looked upon with high contempt. But, after pouring a little rum for my guest, I asked how long it would be before the king’s answer reached us.

Again it was hinted that grog[14] would make the messenger’s legs quite nimble; and indeed the strong drink seemed to have some magical power in the Swatsei country; but I had from the first resolved not to indulge the vice of drunkenness of the countrymen, and Vamutsa was somewhat astonished when I informed him that I did not intend to give a drop of rum to the king any more than to his people, and that to save myself all further trouble and unnecessary delay, I intended to set out on the journey myself the next morning to greet the sovereign.

This unexpected decision greatly embarrassed the chief, and he begged me to be quiet until he could send word to his master; but I knew well the many expedients to which these people resort, if they have the slightest reason to suspect that rum will be the end of the matter; so I held fast to my purpose, and having obtained a black guide, set out at daybreak, leaving the camp in the care of James Garnett.

There was only one incident worth mentioning on this journey. We hoped to reach our destination in a single day, although the country was very untamed, and therefore we did not stop for dinner, but let ourselves go on at a good pace in the scorching heat, so that our barefoot guide had some difficulty in keeping up. We had crossed a small river, and were just entering some thickets of wood, when suddenly a sharp buzzing met my ears. Shouting a warning to Arnold, I immediately spurred my horse to full fours, and did not tighten the briars until I had reached the clearing, when that dangerous thicket was far behind me; for the buzzing I had just heard foreshadowed a danger to the traveller, more terrible than that of a lion, leopard, or elephant—it was the war cry of the insignificant but deadly Tsetse fly.

This insect is a terrible scourge to the travellers of South Africa, and in places makes the country uninhabitable for cattle, horses, or mules, which quickly become exhausted and die from its poisonous bite. Fortunately, its habitat is confined to a few well-known regions, through which it is possible to travel at night without great danger. In appearance the Tsetse fly resembles our domestic bee, but is much smaller in size. Although we made the greatest effort, and were not more than a quarter of an hour in the forest, my horse, as well as Arnold Beidermann, were bitten, and both died about ten days later. I always suspect that our guide had chosen this road on Valmutsa’s orders, as he could easily have avoided the dangerous region; but I never received a more precise account of the matter.

Although we had travelled in haste, a black messenger had been more prompt, and on reaching the royal kraal we found that the prince had already received advance notice of our arrival. It is indeed very remarkable how quickly all news travels among the Kaffirs. One might say that the whole nation is the spies of the chief whose supremacy it acknowledges, and the European finds that his least action has been noticed and carefully committed to memory by some unknown and apparently invisible spies. Thus we afterwards saw that the Swazi king had received information of our intended arrival at Mamba before we had crossed his border, and had retired to his present place, to postpone his final answer on the matter of the levy, until his spies had brought accurate information as to the real position of the Tsulula king, and—what was still more important—until he had consulted his sorcerers, his medicine men, as to which course it would now be most advantageous for him to take.

As we were leaving the kraal, a delegation came to meet us, and we were shown into huts which had been recently cleaned for us. These Kaffir dwellings are strangely pretty in appearance, but very repulsive from their lowness, lack of light, and disgusting stench. They are nothing more or less than convex, inverted huts, neatly covered on the outside with tree branches or long grass; and the whole structure is firmly fastened in place by innumerable wooden posts and vines. The diameter of the huts varies, but those fourteen feet wide are considered very large; they are so low that it is impossible for a full-grown man to stand upright in most of them. The floor is usually bare earth, but in some of the better huts some kind of clay mixture made from white ant nests has been spread on the floor, and this takes on a very pretty shape when the women have smoothed it with flat stones. The furnishings of a Kaffir hut are poor: only a few mats on which the inhabitants sleep, baskets, tightly enough sewn together to hold beer or milk, earthenware pots, and wooden head-vessels. A fire burns in the middle of the floor, and the smoke cannot escape anywhere except through the entrance to the room, which is a miserable one, and can only be closed on all fours. And this too is carefully closed at night because of snakes and wild beasts, so that the quality of the air inside is easier to describe in one’s mind than to describe. I feel one single advantage in Kaffir huts that makes up for everything—they are, you see, waterproof.

The good people whose lodgings we were given to use had, however, left behind them a whole host of living deeds of their rent, so that our night, instead of being a time of rest and peace, was devoted to the most fierce warfare against these horrible bedfellows; but fortunately for Arnold and myself, our skins were in fair condition, and accustomed to such attacks; a pure-blooded English settler would have been swallowed alive in our place.

A splendid evening meal of beef and ale had been provided for us, and an impossible abundance of the same food appeared again for breakfast; after which we asked to be taken to the king, but were informed that the monarch could not receive us for another hour, by which time his witch-wife would have time to complete her magic, to foretell fortune or misfortune, and to determine whether the Swazi nation, in its brotherhood of alliance, would do honor to Great Britain or not.

We were smoking our pipes and examining our horses to see if the effects of the tsetse-poison were beginning to show themselves in them, when it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a wise and very wise thing to attempt to converse with the great wife who controlled the heart and conscience of the Amaswatsi king. I knew that Arnold would be of very little help in this undertaking, for his aversion to these sorcerers and magicians would probably lead him to utter words that would enrage the person whom I intended to win over to our side; and so I took my leave of him, under some slight pretext, directing my steps towards that part of the kraal where the witch’s dwelling was. Fortune favoured me so that my wife was just standing at the door of her hut when I sent her away. He had evidently only recently got his clothes in order and ready for the great banquet in which he was to play such an important part. Four or five other doctors, or healers, were gathered around their leader, watching with wonder her morning activities, and with all their strength plucking some enchanted root which the old woman was distributing to them from a small hut.

Those good men showed a great inclination to drive me away, because the power of the medicines might be weakened by the filthy gaze of a white man, but their princess prevented them from doing so, and so I had a good opportunity to gaze at her beauty to my heart’s content.

I had often seen the ordinary Kaffir magician in full costume, but this woman, with the fine observation of her sex, had dressed herself in a more hideous, and therefore more suitable, costume for the part she was about to act, than any other human being I have ever met with before or since. Her companions were indeed hideous in appearance, but she herself surpassed them in every respect; and had I not been convinced in my heart that his majesty the Devil is not in the habit of covering his hooves with any false veil, I might have been forgiven for thinking that he himself stood before me in the ghost of a witch’s hole.

I saw before me a creature, quite naked, save for a sort of apron about the loins, which was adorned with pearls of all sorts of hair, and the teeth and claws of lions, leopards, and other beasts of the forest. But let it not be supposed that this want of clothing revealed the dark complexion of the wife; for that was not the case, firstly, because she was generally painted from head to toe with red clay and pipe ashes; and secondly, because a great part of that clever ornamentation was concealed from view behind a net, so hideous that the bare sight of it almost made me faint. Around her neck were hung the entrails of some recently slaughtered animal, which had been dipped in blood, so that it slowly ran down the whole body of the woman. In coils they hung about her breasts, encircled her hips, clung to her knees, and flowed in great heaps to her bloody ankles. A decorated alligator or lizard was fitted to the crown of her head, and smaller intestines were twisted into her blood-dripping hair. I wondered how she could bear all the filth with which she had adorned herself; but all other thoughts were drowned in a single overwhelming feeling of horror, as the loathsome monster slowly stepped towards me, and addressed me by the name by which the inhabitants of the earth usually called me.

“Who are you?” I shouted at him, and I was overcome by a fierce desire to run away. “How do you know my name?”

“You are Kuta, an Englishman, whose cattle Cetewayo has robbed. And not only your cattle,” he continued, approaching so close that I feared his outrageous embellishments would touch me, “and not only your cattle. There is something in the hands of the Tsululai king that you hold dearer than your cattle,” and he grimaced wickedly, noticing that I was startled at the unexpected information.

“Tell me all you know,” I begged, imploringly, and the disgust which the nearness of the old woman had inspired in me was overcome by my fierce desire to coax from her her secret knowledge. “Why should you conceal from a grieving father revelations which would refresh his heart?”

“From a grieving father!” he said hoarsely. “What has the white priest ever done for me or my people that I should be obliged to lighten the burden which he will forever bear on his shoulders? Has he not spoken contemptuously of the estate to which I belong, and tried to make us a laughingstock and the people distrust the powers which we possess? Has he not been constantly working to have us exterminated from the earth? No, I will not say a word that will alleviate the misery of the white priest.”

“Then let me know the worst,” I said, complaining. “I have lived among the Kafferllais tribes like a brother. Why should you, who are so powerful, conceal the truth from me, who am so weak? And would it not be a victory over the white priest to be able to say: ‘Behold, you did not believe what the sorcerers of the land said; now hear the revelations which your own magic book cannot give you.’ Would that not be a better revenge than any other?”

As I said this, I painfully examined my wife’s wicked features, and to my pleasure I saw that they were becoming more gentle. It had evidently never occurred to her to enjoy the sweetness of revenge in this way, and for a long time she stood before me, motionless, lost in thought.

“Now,” I thought to myself, “if I can still get the help of my own-profit-seeking, I have won the case”; and drawing from my coat-case a pocket-watch—the last memento of my late father—I pressed my lips to its dial and whispered in a voice so low that my words could not penetrate the ears of those lesser sorcerers: “If the white priest, at that hour when the shadows are shortest, learns what has happened to his lost pet, then this day-meter will become the property of the great sorcerer’s wife.”

“A completely absurd promise,” my reader might say. “For the sake of the clock, he will tell the first lie that comes to his mind.”

But I knew better. I had been long enough among the country-dwellers to know the unusual means by which they obtain their news. I knew well that the witch-woman’s spies had brought her the most bloody news from the land of the Tsulu. It seemed clear that she had knowledge of Minna Beidermann’s capture, and that she could give us more precise information if she could only get her tongue to move. And for every reliable piece of information, whether of a reassuring or otherwise, I considered the price I had promised to be cheap.

The Aka’s eyes shone as she looked at the clock. Possession of such a strange time-keeper would give her infinite value among her mocking peers, and this thought tipped the scales in my favor, although to my Aka’s credit I must admit that I think she would have eventually revealed her secret knowledge, even without any bribes.

“You have always been, Kuta, a good friend to our people,” he said in a voice that the conjurers around him could well hear; and these now, suddenly joining the note of their leader, cried out in unison, “Yo, yo,” in agreement with the word he had uttered. “You have never laughed at our actions, though they have not gone in the same direction as those of the white men. Listen now! In a little while I will appear before the king to tell him what the future holds. Be present with your friend, and perhaps you will hear what is on your mind. But let the white priest refrain from laughing at our festivities. When the countrymen come to Kagas and see your friend dressed in a woman’s dress, they will never mock; why should he not show us the same respect? Go now to the king, and then, if you think it worth while, you will give me the day meter. Go!”

Among other things, that little reference to Arnold’s vestment showed that the old woman’s knowledge was as extensive as it was thorough; and when I met my friend again, I told her, without concealing a word, what had passed between me and the old woman-witch. I had prepared myself to hear her burst into a fit of anger against the whole horrible crowd, or to a flat refusal to be present at the pagan festival, but to my astonishment she readily agreed to the condition, and seemed to attach more weight to it than I could have for myself. “Perhaps the old woman sees a vision—a dream?” she said nervously. “That is the way by which true knowledge of things gets into the world. Don’t you think some dream is coming? Let’s go at once, or we’ll be late.”

He had been very depressed this morning, though, as usual, he tried to conceal it; now his thin body straightened up, and his steps moved with a limp as he led them to the king’s apartment. But before we had got within two hundred paces of the place, an official, who evidently performed some sort of chancellor’s duties, respectfully stepped in our way, and prevented us from proceeding further until his master had prepared to receive us.

The spectacle we witnessed was most lively, for every one of the numerous inhabitants of the kraal was in motion. Near the king’s residence were posted two regiments of warriors, gallant-looking men, with shields and assegais in their hands, though, I think, they were not nearly as handsome as the Tsulu troops. Wives and children were crowding out of the huts and back again like a pack of black rabbits crawling into their nests; a goodly company of musicians, each with a simple but effective instrument, had assembled near the king’s palace, and I guessed that they intended to begin beating their goat-skin drums, without the least regard for the nerves of the people present; Cows were bellowing, calves were bellowing, and numerous, half-starved, miserable-looking dogs were barking wildly all around to avoid the stones and wooden blocks with which the children were throwing them. In short, the sight was most varied, and the activity among the population showed that something great was about to happen.

Suddenly the drummers, with a terrible crash, shook their instruments, and each struck with all his might. The people rushed noisily towards the king’s residence, shouting in honor of their sovereign, who now appeared seated in small carts. On seeing the sovereign, the subjects threw themselves on the ground on their faces and continued their shouts of greeting more terribly than ever, and completely drowned out the voice of the Swazi imbonga , who sang the greatness, dignity, and praise of their lord, in much the same manner as the Tsulu official before mentioned.

By a gesture of the hand the king ceased the tumult, and the assembly rose to their feet, a trick which showed that the court manners of this people were less severe than at the court of Cetewayo, where no one was permitted to stand in the presence of their king. Now the order came to us to approach, and we accordingly pressed forward to the monarch, who returned our bows with a dignified turn of his body, and then graciously extended his hand to us, which we shook in turn. This extraordinary effort required some refreshment, which was offered to the king in the form of Kaffir beer from a beautifully woven basket. After a sip of the kelo, he held out a shard to me, and his eyes grew gloomy when I politely mentioned that I was not thirsty; but he soon turned the situation to his advantage and said: “Oh, you are used to something better and stronger than beer. Perhaps you have brought me some of your drink to taste?”

I replied that we had ridden here with absolutely no goods with us, except a small bottle of brandy, which he would be glad to have for himself; but he would have to wait until the discussions were over, when we would send it to him.

This, as I had expected, caused him to inquire in turn about the nature of our business; after which I systematically presented to him various points in the orders which had been given to me before we left Utrecht.

“This is a matter of certainty,” he replied, after a moment’s reflection; “this is a matter to which it is not possible to answer indiscriminately. But I will immediately consult my advisers and make known to you the decision of our consultation. Let Nomteba and Nyango[16] come to me.”

A dozen agile feet set off in the blink of an eye towards the witch’s dwelling, and in a few minutes the sound of a flute announced that she was coming to answer the king’s questions. A silent silence, a painful silence reigned in the crowd as the witch approached. A boy, dressed in a crazed manner, walked ahead of her, playing the tunes that guided the enchantress on a kind of flute, and he was followed by the under-magicians whom I had just seen around him. A wordless horror seemed to seize the people as this horribly decorated human being slowly walked forward: everyone’s eyes seemed as if they were about to fall out of their sockets and, glaring horribly, turned their whites to the naked eye in the most cruel way; the expectation of fear, of horror, was depicted on every face. Poor people! They were uncertain whether one or two victims from among them would not be required again to begin the actual ceremony, and each one trembled in his heart, thinking that he himself might be marked as that very victim.

Having reached the king’s carriage, the witch stopped, and, without making any sign of submission or respect, she asked on what pretext the king had disturbed her rest.

In a weak, trembling voice the great Swazi ruler explained the purpose of my coming, and bade Nomteba inquire of the spirits of his ancestors how this state affair should be conducted. The ruler’s horror was evidently as great as that of his subjects, and, judging from the sweat that dripped from his brow and the strange movements of his hands, was just as natural.

The witch listened attentively until the king’s explanation was finished, and then suddenly said: “Four animals should be brought here—one speckled bull, one white heifer, and two red bulls; the spirits must see blood.”

The painful tension which had hitherto prevailed, which had been visible in the form of the people, was changed into a rapture of joy, for no human sacrifice was now required, and besides, the people would probably get their share of the flesh. With incredible speed the condemned poor animals were brought to the spot, and half a dozen men held the horned white heifer firmly opposite Nomteba. The latter first examined it keenly, to see that there was no defect in it, and then anointed it strongly with some liquid which he prepared by chewing a root in his mouth. Then his fiddler handed him a sharp, short assegai, with which, with a deft stroke, he pierced the side of the animal, and, thrusting his hand into the wound, drew out some of the entrails, which he solemnly ate into his mouth. Meanwhile the people screamed wildly, and their shouts of joy drowned the painful roar of the still living victim.

During this festival the lower magicians had done the same with the three bulls, and had drunk long draughts of warm blood, which seemed to have a maddening effect on them. Having received a sign from the witch, the whole people rushed upon the spot, and soon removed with their sharp assegais every scrap of flesh from the four animals, leaving the bare bones on the bloody ground; but after this the king, by the order of the witch, ordered the people to disperse to their homes, and only the chief councillors and ourselves remained to hear from the mouth of Nomtebe what the spirits of the dead had said.

I will not tell the means and the losses which the conjurer’s wife used to get into that state of enchantment which made her capable of prophecies; it was very repugnant to me to see those disgusting tricks. But she did get into that desired state of mind, and then she looked more like some wicked demon than a human being. That she was not merely pretending, I think, is clear, for no one would have been capable of the physical exertions which she now displayed, unless a severe amount of excitement, almost bordering on frenzy, had given her strength. Before she had touched the heifer, she could hardly move under the burden of which I have just spoken; but now she really jumped high from the ground in excitement, and her terrible ornaments flew into the air as she danced, with a grace that would have been a credit to any dancer. These operations were attempted, with poor success, by his male companions to the best of their ability; but the devil seemed to be amused by the acacia alone; and so at last, when the spirit within him compelled him to utter words, he suddenly stopped and began to speak.

The first sentences that came out of Nomteba’s mouth were only an indistinct gibberish, without any connection of thought, for a thick, sticky foam flowed from his lips and prevented him from speaking. But gradually the words became clearer, and we could hear broken sentences from his mouth, which we listened to with unerring accuracy; for much, very much of our business depended on which direction the ravings of this furious wife would turn. Arnold Beidermann’s form terrified me, for quite without noticing it he contorted his face like a conjurer’s; his eyes rolled cruelly in their sockets, and his whole look was so strange that I would not have been in the least surprised if he had begun to dance a dance with the Nyangos in that place, especially since I myself felt a secret calling to the same game; so strongly did the play affect me.

At first, the witch’s understandable sentences only concerned local matters, but eventually she also got through to my mission, regarding which the king had sought advice.

“You, King of the Amaswatsi people, seek advice from the spirits of your ancestors,” he said, looking directly at his ruler, who still sat in his handcart, twiddling his thumbs, the very picture of uncertainty and misery. “My spirit has met their spirits and said what you wish. This is the answer.”

He spoke short and broken sentences, leaving his listeners to guess the rest when something obscure appeared in them.

“Cetewayo is a lion, but you are an elephant. Cetewayo’s men are buffalo, but you are a thunderbolt that strikes the ruler of the herd to the ground. Join the white men. They will help you with their cannons, and the Tsulu warriors will fall to the ground. The curly-haired girl sits in the hut crying. Neither beer nor food will do her any good, for her heart is a heavy, miserable wreck—a leper approaches her. The girl is good and does not strike the poor thing. She gives him a withered leaf. The Swats are strong. With the white men’s guns in their hands, they swallow the Tsulu. The girl knows that some hearts grieve for her, but their sorrow is fleeting. May the king join the white men and defeat his enemies. My spirit flies into the future,” he continued, his voice becoming low, barely audible, and his eyes scrutinizing the king, although their gaze was empty, unconscious, and seemed to follow thoughts that no visible “My spirit flies into the future, I see two armies in a fierce battle. The fallen lie in droves on the ground, here a redcoat, there a Swazi, beside them a host of Tsulu. I see many redcoats in the Cetewayo kraal, but their bearers have no white skin. Again I see redcoats, shining as blood, and bluecoats, handsome as the noonday sky, in the Cetewayo kraal, but this time their bearers are fair-faced. I see his cattle carried away and the Blacks exiled by the Blacks. A curly-haired girl binds the wound of a white warrior. Let the Swazis unite with the British—I have spoken.”

Towards the end of her broken stream of sentences the conjurer’s wife’s speech had become increasingly feeble; and when it had ceased she fell on her face, as it seemed to me, in the throes of some kind of debilitating disease. Arnold Beidermann presently stepped forward to offer his medical assistance, but was sharply, though politely, prevented by the sub-conjurers from touching the unconscious wife, whom they carried to a nearby hut and restored to health with medicines known to them alone.

Hearing the announcements from the land of spirits, the councillors squealed and leaped with joy—whether real or feigned; the king’s face regained its usual radiant peace, he ceased twiddling his thumbs, and recovered himself so much that he even remembered his mug of beer, which he now emptied to the bottom; the drums were again ordered to beat, when the people again rushed out of their huts in a flood; all delay was now at an end, and when the two regiments of warriors present had come to the arrivals, the Swazi ruler made a short speech and announced the decision he had come to. Fortunately for us, the monarch was a little narrow-minded and sparing of words; for we had no desire for long speeches.

“Warriors of the Amaswats,” he said, without rising from his chariot, which somewhat weakened the force of his speech. “Warriors! I have consulted the spirits of my ancestors, and they tell me that the spears of my children will be dipped in the blood of the Tsulu. Together with our friends, the white men, we will go across the border and burn the kraals of Cetewayo to ashes. Let ten oxen be killed, and let my warriors strengthen themselves for battle.”

Loud and prolonged shouts of approval greeted this proclamation, and when the cattle were killed, the people began to busily engage in long roasts, during which Arnold and I concluded our treaty with the king; and the bottle of brandy was not forgotten. The talk was that we must return straight to Mamba, where the Swazi regiments would join us, to obtain firearms and practice their use, and that the king himself intended to accompany his troops hither. Our new allies showed the greatest readiness in the smallest services we required, and half a dozen men vied for the honour of leading our horses to our lodge, and bringing to our lodge provisions which would have been quite sufficient for a whole troop of horsemen.

Both Arnold and I wished to be alone in the silence of the grass, where we could talk in peace of the information we had so strangely received. But before we set out I went to fetch Nomteba, to give him the watch which he had so honestly earned. I met the aka in full consciousness, though still exhausted from the severe tension of soul and body to which he had been subjected. The loathsome marks of his sorcerer’s rank were now gone, and he had washed his body several times, so that his form was now much less terrifying than before.

“I bring you the sun-meter here, as I promised,” I said to him. “Now let me know if I can get any more information from you and if you can give us any supporting reason for hope.”

“What the spirit told me to say, I said,” he answered, “but now that it has left me, I know nothing. Go on your journeys and be content; what has escaped my tongue will come to pass. Hear this, however,” he added in a low voice, as he took the watch from my hand, “four nights henceforth the dogs of Mamba will bark at midnight. Take care that your men do not touch the triggers too soon.”

” Is he there then?” I asked breathlessly.

“For children, only an incomprehensible question is suitable,” he replied. “Go!”

It would have been impossible to reach Mamba that night, and by the king’s orders our guide turned in a direction that would avoid the tsetse fly forest and lead us to the kraal by sunset, where we could rest. Arnold Beidermann’s appearance was very cheerful as we slowly drove along side by side, for he evidently viewed the witch’s words in the most favorable light and interpreted them in the way that pleased him best. I, for my part, was not nearly so quick to draw my conclusions, for it took me time to recover from that thrilling spectacle and calmly, without haste, to digest the whole matter; and I fear that this time I was a bad companion, for, driven by my own thoughts, absorbed in pondering the extent to which it might be possible for Minna to return on the fourth night after this, I did not pay much attention to what my companion said, although I did hear enough to know that he praised the witch’s ark and proved the effective significance of dreams and other visions.

The air was terribly hot, and one had that heavy, oppressive feeling which in South Africa foretells the coming of a thunderstorm. Towards evening the sky suddenly became thickly overcast, and we saw clearly that if we were to get under cover without getting soaked, we must go at a better pace than we had been going before. The destructive effects of the fly-bites had not yet made themselves felt in our horses, and it was only by our own free will that we had gone so slowly. Our guide pointed with his finger at the approach of the rain, and we got down on all fours. Our journey was rather against the coming storm than away from it; and straight ahead we saw a dark, heavy rain pouring down like a wall from the womb of a pitch-black cloud-bed. As we drew nearer I perceived that my horse showed distinct signs of fear; but nevertheless I kept on encouraging him, until our black-skinned guide, suddenly turning round, seized my horse by the reins, and cried out in a voice that expressed the wildest terror: “Get down on the ground and hide your faces. It is Hambuma .”[17]

There was no need to prick the reins; our horses had stopped without it, and I was peeping at the Swazi man, who had thrown himself on the ground on his face, when at the same moment a cry from Arnold’s mouth fell upon my ear, and turning towards him I saw him sitting motionless, trembling on his steed’s back, his right arm outstretched, and on his face was seen infinite astonishment, combined with the deepest, most tender love—the same look with which one might imagine a mother greeting her child whom she has unexpectedly recovered from the jaws of death. Not a sound escaped her lips; without a word she sat, her arm extended in the direction from which the storm-wind was approaching with frightening speed.

I too turned my eyes in that direction. And there my gaze met the girl whom we had thought was sitting captive in the hands of the Tsulu, but who now, as it were, was moving towards us in waves, under the cover of the approaching heavy rain. There was no mistaking that graceful ghost, on whose shoulders a sea of ​​thick yellow curls undulated. She approached us nimbly, carried by the stormy air, leaping over the low bushes that covered the plain. I tried to speak, but I could not; I tried to encourage my horse, but it was as if paralyzed with fright. Nearer and nearer the sight came, and we could already distinguish how it smiled at us in greeting; but then the rain covered the gracious expression, and slowly it vanished into the wind.

At the same time the feeling of fear left me, and turning around to speak to Arnold, I only managed to hear the words: “Thank God, now I know he is safe!” whereupon he fell unconscious from his horse.

Chapter 10.

A midnight guest.

It was the evening of the fourth day since the incident related in the last chapter, and I was in a state of some feverish excitement to know whether the first of Nomteba’s predictions had come true. I had not mentioned a word of the aka’s last announcement to Arnold Beidermann, who had now regained his former cheerfulness, and even in greater measure. He spoke to me most openly of his daughter, and evidently no longer considered her imprisonment as a greater matter than any other occasional annoyance. I thought it wiser not to say anything about the visitor whom the fortune-teller had advised me to expect; for there was reason to fear that every vain expectation would depress his mind in the same proportion as those as yet unfulfilled predictions had excited it.

So I kept the secret to myself, although I did miss the comfort that comes from entrusting one’s affairs to another. The last three days I spent my time quietly, precisely supervising the dismantling of the wagons and teaching Vamutsa’s men to build us a more spacious room than their own building intelligence could make rise. It is sometimes said of people that each one has “his own twist in his head.” A Kaffir has at least such an unhelpful twist of mind, or rather a mental circle, from which nothing can make him deviate. Assign a straight line to a black man and order him to drive piles along it. He seems so very sensible and seems to understand your purpose so perfectly that you trust him to leave the work to him alone. A deceitful trust! Come back in half an hour, and you will find a very nice oval or semicircle, made with surveying precision, but not a straight line at all. The horror of meandering and flying is never seen in South Africa.

But though these matters demanded my full attention during the day, at night, when I kept my eyes open for long hours, I had a good opportunity to carefully weigh every word that had passed Nomteba’s lips, and the more I thought about them, the more I put his fragmentary sentences into all their possible meanings, the more I became convinced that the Aka’s information about what had happened was very accurate, although on the other hand my faith in his predictions was not nearly so strong. He seemed to be thoroughly acquainted with the stages of our lives, and yet he had never seen either of us before. His words showed that the events at the mission house, together with the robbery of our cattle, were certain matters to him; and, most amazing of all, he had undoubtedly received a tip-off about Ula’s dangerous journey, had peeked through the false dress she had taken and spied that he had managed to get through to Minna and, to top it all, had gotten a message from her hand to take — for what else could that dried-up “leaf” know?

This fact was indeed strange, but at least, I thought to myself, it could be possible through the secret means that such conjurers usually have at their disposal, and it was conceivable that a group of swift runners, with sharp eyes, ever-accurate ears, and sinews of steel, could fly the word night and day, across streams and forests, that a group of such messengers could obtain information for him from so far away; for it is not difficult, on the whole, to get a secret out in the land of the Tsulu, except when the matter concerns the ruler himself. To gossip is like daily bread to the people there, and it is a real treat when they get some news to tell. The part of the revelation in obtaining information is thus not difficult: any strange object, seen or heard, is soon the subject of general conversation throughout the province, and so all that was needed was to fly the news to the ears of the witch or her subordinate conjurers, who, from the information they had privately and collectively about other people’s affairs, could weave together a story that approached the truth enough to astonish those forest people, who helplessly believed that all the revelations were of some diabolical origin.

But, all this admitted, all superstition aside, was there not great reason to be afraid for my plant-brother? If Nomteba knew of his departure and his false dress, was not the whole affair a common gossip in the land of the Tsulu, and thus known to Cetewayo? At this very moment he might be undergoing the terrible torture to which the monstrous spirit had condemned him. Aatos was terrible.

On the other hand, I was by no means inclined to deny the supernatural origin of the fortune-teller’s revelations. The memory of the horrible spectacle I had recently witnessed still had a powerful effect on me, and the form of that loathsome old woman appeared with a strange charm even in my confused dreams. Every passing moment, indeed, weakened this sense of enchantment and added more weight to the scales of reason; but I never dare hope that my feeble pen could describe the effect which that consultation of the pagan king had on me—an effect which was still increased by the blind confidence of Arnold Beidermann, the same man who until recent events had laughed at all the prophecies.

Then there was our strange coincidence with Hambuma . I had heard this beautiful phenomenon spoken of more than once at campfires, I had heard detailed descriptions from men who claimed to have seen it; but I had always dismissed their visions as the work of a wild imagination. The countrymen knew it well, and looked upon it with immense horror, and now it had appeared to us in the form of a ghost whom we both loved. Beidermann took it as a frank assurance of his daughter’s safety, his heart was feeble and his mind carefree. But to the great annoyance of my peace of mind, a terrible fear began to enter my thoughts that the girl was dead, that the apparition we had seen was her angel, and this fear forced itself upon my mind at all times and in all places, in spite of all the efforts I made to banish it.

It is easy to understand that the last four days had been terribly restless for me, and I now tried to put all conjectures and guesses out of my mind, and to foresee what the night would bring. I had decided to believe in the secret power of Nomteba to the extent that her first prediction would now come true.

It was still half an hour to midnight. The Mamba’s inhabitants were in the deepest sleep, and only the lowing of the cattle from the kraal broke the silence on that side. In our night camp, around the fire, by which I sat, all was likewise silent, for my companions had gone to rest, and the only sound was the steady tread of the watchman as he moved to and fro, humming some tune to himself. Mousedeer, the old loon, and several of his tribesmen had crouched down to sleep right by the smoldering cinder-heap, but their sleep was peaceful and showed that they sensed no danger. A dark ghost crept down from some of the carts and passed by the fire; it was Nohemu, who was going to the water-bath to drink. The thought suddenly flashed through my mind that it might be wise to make him my confidant; I called her to me at once and told her frankly what the witch had said four days ago. Without blinking her eyes, she listened with the greatest attention to every word and seemed clearly pleased, although at the same time she was visibly frightened. She considered it a sure thing that Enamela was safe, and it was equally certain to her that something would happen at midnight; but could this not mean that terrible Hambuma , who had reappeared to Gwegwesa (that was the name of our guide) and had frightened him into a fever? “We must be careful, Kuta,” the girl said in a low whisper, “for if it is the Wanderer, he will eat us up in his mouth. But I will stay here to help you.”

At the time I did not think much of the courage this pagan girl showed in offering to watch with me. If the witch-mother had influenced me and Arnold Beidermann, imagine how much fear and respect she inspired in her own nation.

The girl sat down near me, and we both sat without speaking, waiting for the minutes to tick by. The night watchman stopped pacing and came to the carts, on which was hung a clock; he looked at it, yawned deeply, and began pacing back again. “Five more minutes,” I heard him grunt. “How slowly time passes.”

Another moment passed; then Nohemu whispered: “Look, Kuta, at the dog!”

I mentioned that old Mousedeer and his companion lay curled up by the fire; now I noticed how the scratched ears of that old faithful watchman stood up restlessly in his sleep, and how he once raised his head to sniff at the grass, and then sank back again to his former position, though he still seemed to have his senses alert. It was not more than twelve minutes before my restlessness became terribly troublesome; likewise the girl sitting next to me looked equally distressed, and trembled violently, as she peered into the darkness, lost in thought.

Again the watchman stopped pacing and came to the wagons to look at the clock. “At last it’s midnight!” I heard him exclaim; at the same moment Mousedeer sprang up and ran away, barking wildly, into the darkness.

“Let the noise die! What’s the matter now?” said the man, lowering his gun into firing position.

“For God’s sake, Thompson,” I shouted fiercely, “don’t shoot; I’ll answer for the consequences.”

Nohemu had stood up in terror and was listening to the dogs’ harsh barking, when suddenly the night owl’s voice echoed unusually clearly and loudly, and immediately the girl ran into the darkness and disappeared from our sight.

“I don’t understand this,” muttered the astonished night watchman. “I should have thought old Mousedeer was used to such nocturnal creatures.”

“You must not shoot,” I replied, “come what may. I will follow the girl and see what she is doing”; and having said this I hastened in the same direction in which Nohemu had disappeared; but I had scarcely advanced six steps when the girl stood before me again, accompanied by another taller figure, that is, some earthling; this now greeted me in a voice that calmly removed my uncertainty.

“So, Kuta, my brother, I have returned,” said the voice, and I felt my hand
clenched in Ula’s grip.

He was wretchedly thin and emaciated, which I noticed in the glow of the fire to which we took him. In my unthinking way I was just about to begin to ask him one thing and another, but Nohemu, with the keen sense of love, immediately perceived his exhausted state and put a quick end to my attempts, saying that the visitor would be in need of both food and drink before he could speak a word. We now hurried to get provisions from my wagons behind the lock (for everything edible and drinkable, if left unlocked, had a strange tendency here to disappear into the unknown), and on my return I brought plenty of provisions, together with a bottle of good beer, the last I had left. These I placed before Ula, much ashamed of the burning curiosity I had shown; but the severe anxiety under which I was suffering did not escape his notice, for, before he began his meal, he drew a paper ticket from under his belt, which he handed to me, saying: “This is for the white priest, Enamela is a prisoner, but unharmed.”

“Thank God!” I cried with burning enthusiasm, taking my plant brother’s hand again, to the great astonishment of good Thompson, who had probably never heard Ula mentioned and was not accustomed to seeing such brotherly relations between a white man and a countryman. “Thank God! I will wake the pastor up at once and tell him this glad tidings.”

By the light of the lantern, Arnold Beidermann took the expensive piece of paper from my trembling hand, read it slowly, and then gave it back to me, saying: “Good boy, bring your plant brother, Wille; but I already knew this before, don’t worry about losing the note; maybe I’ll feel like looking at it tomorrow. Goodbye. What noise did the dogs make just now?”

Waste the note! No need to remember this. This old, dirty piece of paper, torn from a small notebook, the writing on which was almost impossible to make out, I have considered to this day one of my most precious treasures—a memory that always brought to my mind not only the writer, but also him, that noble friend of mine, who so faithfully brought the message to me, and who loved me so much.

The note contained only a few words, scribbled with one of those leaden pencils which I had hitherto considered the most embarrassing and unworthy pieces ever made to deceive a civilized man. The letter was only four days old—that is, sent at the same time as Nomteba had uttered his prophecy!—and testified to the immense speed with which Ula had been able to communicate; the place of dispatch appeared to be “Sirayo’s Kraal.” The contents were as follows:

“Father my dear! I am here a prisoner, but do not fear that any harm will happen to me. The Tsululai chief Lumba took me with him, and I have heard that Cetewayo had him killed for this reason. May God forgive those bloodthirsty forest people. I am being held here until the king has made some agreement with the British. Ula will tell you the rest. Tell Mr. Thornton that I am safe. We will see each other soon. God bless you.

“Your own child, Minna.”

I dare not confess how many times I read these few lines over and over again; but when I arrived at the campfire, the news of my plant brother’s arrival had spread far and wide; I found him standing in the midst of a curious and, I might add, envious flock of Swats, who, my friend Vamutsa in the lead, were staring at him intently, with greedy eyes following every morsel he put to his lips. Vamutsa even tried to get a taste of some beer, but Nohemu was more agile than he was and, to the great amusement of those present, gave him a good splatter on the palms of his hands with a knob-knife, which made the old man groan badly. Landela sat beside her son who had returned from the dead and held out her hand here and there to acknowledge him, to be convinced that he was really there, and exclaimed every time her keen ears indicated that the boy’s jaws were momentarily relaxed. The sight was strange. A white man in such a state of exhaustion as my plant-brother was now would have embraced rest rather than food to restore his health; but Ula did not remember sleep until he had taken full compensation for the miserable little provisions he had lived on since our separation. He had the heart of a hero, and in many respects he stood higher than his fellow-citizens; but in appetite he was still a full-blooded wild man.

Before retiring to rest, my plant-brother told me the outline of his journey; but it was not until late the next day that I fully learned the details of that intriguing adventure. Sitting in my wagon, he began to tell Arnold Beidermann and me about the stages of his journey in approximately the following direction:

“That dog’s Lumba warriors had already reached the other side of the border country before I left the place of the Boer family’s slaughter; and I was able to travel for two days without any greater caution than to avoid the few kraals that came my way. But once I had reached the country of the Tsulu, where every unusual phenomenon is always reported to the king, the most careful vigilance and caution became necessary. I will not attempt to relate the particulars of this first part of my journey, for you both know the grasses and understand what it means to be exposed to the fierce beasts of the forest, to treacherous snakes, and to two more terrible enemies. At night I usually climbed a tree, for I was afraid that by lighting a fire I might attract the attention of some hunter who was moving about.

“Once I had retraced my steps a few hundred paces, and then I learned that two lions were secretly creeping up my trail; the marks of their paws were plain, quite fresh, and as I could not possibly have attacked them alone with any hope of success, I was forced to climb the nearest tree until the beasts had left the vicinity. They were probably not many paces from me when I discovered their tracks, and might have sprung upon me at that moment; but, probably hoping to meet me in my sleep, they remained hidden, and thus lost their delicacy. For the rest of that day and all the following night they surrounded my refuge, as if some instinct had told them that I had no worse weapon than a revolver and an assegai; and what use were such in the hands of one man against two formidable enemies? My guards kept watch all this time, and my thirst was so great that so severe that when the day came I was already planning to jump down and sell my life as dearly as possible, but then I remembered how you and the others pinned their hopes on my expedition, and I decided to hold out until my strength failed.

“Convinced that I could not harm them, the beasts now came right up to the base of the tree and peered up at me with hungry eyes. I told them that I was quite thin and would not be half a meal for two such good warriors as they were; but they would not listen to reason, but only growled angrily, and pulled their upper lips together, so that I could see those cruel white teeth, which might soon sink into my flesh. The sun had now risen, and my thirst had become terrible. In a minute or two I would have tried the effect of their pistols—which prudence had hitherto forbidden me to use—and then, if they were of no use, I would have tried to break through with my assegai; but I suddenly perceived that my enemies were becoming restless from their comfortable peace, and, listening carefully, I heard human voices approaching.

“My condition was already desperate enough; now my danger became doubly so, for I feared my countrymen more than lions in broad daylight. A moment’s thought advised me that it was best to remain quite still and seek help from the authorities. The sounds were coming nearer and nearer, and from my hiding place I could now see two ghosts, a man and a woman, approaching; and you can understand what I felt when I recognized the former as Nkungulu, the king’s sorcerer. But at the same time a wild joy filled my breast, for I saw that, if I did not warn them of the danger, where they were going, they would, after taking another hundred steps, find themselves in a thicket behind which the lions had retreated into ambush, and where their death was certain. Without much trouble I would thus have avenged my enemy Nkungulu, and at the same time freed myself from my dangerous position. I will not move from my place, I thought; I will not utter a sound, so We’ll see if the witch priest’s skill can save him from the beasts of the forest.

“Onward the pair walked, talking rapidly and peering at the ground as if searching for some powerful magic root; every step brought them nearer the lions, and as they kept looking at the ground, there was no fear that they would discover me before their end was hopeless.

“But, Kuta, when I saw them thus walking towards certain death, when I saw the greatest consciousness of the sorcerer blindly entering into his action, then my heart melted like wax in the heat of the sun. Let them perish, said my mouth, for hunger and thirst had provoked it to anger; but my heart answered: ‘No, but let them live and may it go well both for you and for Enamela.’ I obeyed the latter voice and prepared to act without delay.

“From the high place where I sat, I could see the lions in the bush lying in wait for their prey, who were not aware of any harm and who were no longer fifty cubits away from them. Dropping to the lowest branch of my refuge, I suddenly shouted, Tala, tala! [18] and leaping down from the tree, I plunged headlong into the bush behind which the lions were hidden, my assegai in my right hand and my left hand waving a kaross’ia (cloak) in the air. This might seem to you a dangerous undertaking, but it was not. The beasts had forgotten me while waiting for Nkungulu to come, and this unexpected attack so startled them that they made a violent leap and disappeared into the dense bush. — After all, they are quite cowards, those lions, if you only know how to understand them,” continued Ula to himself, pausing in his story and refreshing himself with a good sip of wine. their domestic beer.

“If the lions were killed,” continued my plant-brother, “then I think that Nkungulu and his companions also had their share. I had not considered it necessary, while I was in the tree, to renew the red-clay paintings on my body, which had been washed away by a couple of torrential rains, and so my appearance must have been very strange. Now that the deed was done, I began to regret the inner calling that had so suddenly driven me to it, but one thought immediately came to my aid and wonderfully comforted me: — I could still kill either of them if they showed the slightest intention of betraying me. And so I stepped towards the witch-priest and his friend, who were both trembling with terror, more for my sake, I think, than for the lions. I walked towards them, with the firm intention of striking those people to the ground if they made the slightest noise; but no such precaution was needed. The knees of the wretched were trembling too much to take them anywhere, no matter how hard they tried, and their tongues were as if nailed to the roof of their mouths, so that not a word could escape their numb lips.

“‘I am Ula,’ I shouted, ‘the same Ula who through you was condemned to death for witchcraft. Do you know me?’

“‘Are you his example ?'[19] Nkungulu whispered with difficulty.

“‘How could I be an esemkofu , since I am talking to you?’ I asked in return, sticking out my tongue. ‘I am no spirit, I am Ula, son of old Landela. Will you keep my secret and help me, or shall I kill you both, as the lions would have done a moment ago?’ And threateningly I shook my assegai at the witch-priest, — whom I was indeed greatly afraid of,” continued my plant-brother, whispering familiarly in my ear; “but I did not show it to him.

“I think he still believed me to be an esemkofu , for his knees trembled violently as he felt my arms, to be assured that they were real flesh; but when he had finished his examination he said: ‘Put down the assegai, for instead of informing, we want to help you. I have done wrong to you, and in revenge you have saved my life. Nkungulu will never forget that; from this moment on he is a father to you.’

“I understood that he was speaking with all his heart, and I was greatly glad that I had obeyed the voice of my conscience, and had not allowed them to fall prey to the lions. ‘Tell me,’ he continued after a moment, ‘what brings you to this province, where your death is certain if you are discovered. Do not hide anything from us, for we are your friends.’

“‘I am utterly exhausted with hunger and thirst,’ I replied. ‘Give me food and drink, and I will tell you everything.’

“I think that this request more powerfully than anything else dispelled the idea that I was some kind of esemkofu . He led me straight away to a few nearby sprints , and my wife returned to the kraal at that time to get provisions. Then I ate the first solid meal I had tasted for many days, and straight away I told him everything calmly, without hiding anything.

“‘You have put yourself in great danger,’ he remarked, ‘very great danger, and sooner or later you would have been discovered, for Cetewayo has long ears and long arms. The white maiden, Enamela, is not in the royal kraal, and the king was quite angry with Lumba when he heard that the girl had been taken prisoner; Enamela is at present at Unodvengo, under the guardianship of the women. Cetewayo, on the other hand, is here, five miles from us.’

“Brother, I trembled when I heard that the king was so near; but Nkungulu continued: ‘The girl must be taken to the border. I can easily do that for myself, for the king is very angry that the white girl should come to his territory at all; he would rather that all the white priests with their children and brothers-in-law should be driven out of the whole country. I will tell him what the spirits have commanded, namely, that the girl must be placed with the British at once, and I will then take her with me as far as Sirayo’s kraal, which is a short distance from Natal. You must also hurry in that direction, for it is dangerous to remain here. My sister Gola here takes word to Sirayo and tells him to prepare a hut for the white girl; you must travel immediately after her, so that she can bring you food every night. When I have reached Sirayo’s kraal, I will try by some means to get you to speak to her, and then you may tell the white priest that “His daughter is safe. But be careful. The lives of all three of us depend on you not showing yourself.”

It is hardly necessary to continue at this length the detailed account of each day’s events which Ula gave in the usual Kaffir style. The adventure with the lions, which then led to that scene with Nkungulu, was the turning point of the whole affair, and brought the matter to a brilliant conclusion which would never have been reached otherwise. It was not difficult for a man who, as well as my plant-brother, knew the country, to follow Gola’s course without any trouble, especially as he always showed him the places to rest and brought him food every night.

There is no doubt that Cetewayo was greatly embarrassed when Minna was thus unexpectedly brought into his country. But, to speak more plainly, not from any pity for the poor girl, whose fate at any other time would have been most dreadful, but because the king was at the best of times making an alliance with the Boers against the British, and knew well that the Dutch would be happy to part with him if the least harm were to befall the girl. At any other time, Lumba’s little service in bringing the beautiful female captive with him would have been received with favor; but now it came at a most inopportune time, and soon afterwards the said warrior was beaten to death with knob-hooks, as a warning to all over-zealous chiefs in the future. The king had great confidence in Nkungulu’s intelligence—it is very doubtful whether he believed in his supernatural powers—and when this wise adviser now pointed out to him that it would be most convenient to show his displeasure at Lumba’s servitude by punishment and to send the girl to Natal, the king readily consented; but his savage nature could not bear the thought of his prisoner being set free, and so he only half-followed the advice of his witch-priest, sent Minna to his governor Sirayo, and ordered him to keep the prisoner in his kraal in honorable confinement until the matters between him and the English were settled. If peace were broken, the girl would then still be in his hands; but if the threatening storm were to abate for a time, he could then clear himself by pointing out Lumba’s death sentence and the fact that he had never laid eyes on his prisoner.

Having reached Sirayo’s kraal, Gola soon had occasion to let Ula slip into his quarters, where he remained hidden until Minna arrived in company with Nkungulu. The latter then engaged Ula in conversation for a short time with the prisoner, who then gave him the precious paper ticket which he had so quickly brought to us. In this state, my plant-brother, by the advice of the witch-priest, had again assumed the false form of an Albino, or white Tsulu; thus Nomteba’s prophecy had been exactly fulfilled.

This was the substance of my friend’s story, which, if told in its full extent, and describing separately every meal he had eaten on the road, would require a whole volume. It relieved me immensely, for I saw that nothing bad would happen to Minna at this moment—a thing which Arnold himself had said he had known for some time. When I had heard the smallest details of the prisoner’s condition, what he looked like, what he said, etc., I asked Ula if she thought that Nkungulu might have communicated anything to Nomteba. She denied it and doubted it; but when I afterwards learned that the Swazi witch-woman and the Tsululai magician were closely related, I had another idea of ​​the matter.

“Were you just arriving when you came to our camp last night?” I asked.

“No. I could have come at sunset,” replied Ula. “Nkungulu specifically ordered me not to appear before midnight.” This information greatly shook my faith in Nomteba’s prophetic abilities.

Chapter 11.

Crossing the border.

Six weeks had passed since my plant-brother arrived at Mamba, six painful, restless weeks, for no further news had come from Minna Beidermann; and now Cetewayo too had rejected the High Commissioner’s final settlement, and it was soon decided to march into the land of the Tsulu.

This time was by no means spent in idleness in our camp. From dawn till dusk we had continued the exercises of the Swazi infantry and taught them the first rudiments of military command (if indeed this word can be used at all for military exercises, from which taking steps, settling into squares, and other such rudiments of recruit instruction were completely omitted). It had been the intention to equip our black-skinned allies with rifles; but when this had been tried in a small number, the whole thing was abandoned. It was not worth the trouble to give them expensive firearms that they did not understand how to use; and so we took away from them the rifles we had just given them, and the warriors took hold, as before, of the assegai and shields that they had learned to handle from childhood. Then we had assembled a force of two thousand of the bravest men of the Swats, and with these we were just preparing to march across the Pongola River into the enemy’s country, when we received orders to throw in the towel and march straight to Helpmakaar, where further orders would then await us.

Before I left Mamba, Nomteba had visited me several times. He seemed to look at me with particular favor, and each time assured me that Minna Beidermann was in good health under the care of the Cetewayo governor, Sirayo. Such an announcement was always welcome, for I was sure that the old woman was in some sort of trance with the members of her own order among the Tsulu, and could not have gained anything by betraying me. The last time he honored me with his presence, he surprised me somewhat when he offered me back the pocket watch I had given him, and asked for three bottles of rum instead.

“Evil spirits have bewitched it,” he said. “Such wondrous creatures are not created for the amusement of anyone but white men.”

I accepted the offer, and gave the witch a cloak in addition to the rum; and a very superficial investigation soon told me why that venerable clock had gone on strike under Nomteba’s supervision. It had been accustomed to a very rough diet in my care, but no mechanical device can endure being fed daily with melted lard, as Nomteba had seen fit to do, driving a small amount of fat through the keyhole every morning, in the sure assurance that the clock was starving. It fought fiercely for a long time against such unnatural sustenance, but at last it stopped, whereupon Nomteba, supposing the little thing to be dead, gave it back to me for the above-mentioned compensation.

I do not think our allies were very happy to leave their own country. Their war motto had been to rush across the border and then immediately return to their own kraals to divide the spoils if the expedition was successful, or to complain if the reverse happened. They had no idea how to profit by victory, or how to ameliorate defeat by regrouping and striking again. Indeed, the Kaffir warfare has been very aptly compared to the fighting of the Scottish Highland clans in the Jacobite risings of the last century.

Our journey was long and very tedious, and during it many of our allies quietly hid in the bushes and never showed their faces again; but the greater part nevertheless kept well together, and on January 6th (1879) we arrived at Helpmakaar, where we met a considerable force already assembled.

This passage southward was very much to my mind, because it inspired my most burning desires; for if we were to march from this angle into the land of the Tsulu, the Sirayo kraal would be one of the first fortifications to be attacked, and there Minna was a prisoner. Now I was able to be one of the forces that were on the move for her rescue, and as I had not agreed to any permanent warrior post, I had the opportunity to sacrifice all my abilities to free her. Although I was willing to be of assistance to the government as much as I could, I had not agreed to conduct business with the Swazi king and to hold the upper hand in the Mamba camp for any longer than that capable chieftains should arrive to train my men and transform them from foresters into regular soldiers. My present position was, strictly speaking, that of a civilian, in which I hoped to be of use, either as an interpreter or in some other capacity, as my acquaintance with the natives might make me willing to perform. I was not attached to any regular regiment or corps, but had merely placed myself loosely in the ranks of the nostoks, ascertained their opinions, took care not to wound their prejudices unnecessarily, communicated their wants to the commanding officer, in short: dealt with all sorts of matters together. I should be very much at a loss if I were ordered to define and name my office precisely, but the Combat Agent of the Natives would answer the question most fully. My duties were one of those peculiar ones which the colonial war with the natives always brought with it; My own countrymen always looked to me when they wanted to get their orders to the blacks, and these in turn considered me their mouthpiece, and moreover, in some secret way, their protector. My plant brother was at once my servant, my assistant, and my companion. I had tried to get him to overcome his aversion to riding, but in vain; he always went on foot, and thus he followed me with difficulty on the longest, most arduous reconnaissance expeditions.

When my position was such—for I had long since given up my command at Mamba—it is easy to imagine with what great joy I greeted such a military movement that would lead me to strike a blow to the head of the forester who held Minna Beidermann prisoner; and when I saw the movement of the warriors and the noisy unrest in Helpmakaar, I could not help but confidently hope that the poor child’s rescue would soon come.

The joy, astonishment, and delight of our black warriors, when they saw the regular army, was a sight that paid for all their trouble. Their mouths opened with astonishment until their hindquarters seemed in real danger of falling off, and the words “Wow, wow” echoed from their lips, if only in some vibration, from a cry of astonishment to wild delight. The artillery in particular was an inexhaustible source of joy, and sometimes one could see how some burly forester secretly approached the cannon and stretched out his dark arm to acknowledge it, but quickly pulled his fingers back as soon as they touched the cold iron, and then the same mingled shade of fear and joy was reflected on his face, as is usually seen in the form of a frightened child who for the first time pushes open the lid of his grandmother’s snuffbox and makes it fly.

The men were immediately given worn-out shirts, worthless red caps, and other ornaments, which they displayed with infinite arrogance, not noticing how much such additional ornaments spoiled their natural appearance. These people, like all untamed nations, are childishly delighted with every ornament which they think will enhance their appearance.

On the morning of the 9th of January the small garrison of Helpmakaar presented a lively scene. The tents, which had been posted all round, were being packed up and loaded into the wagons, which, drawn by long teams of oxen, were slowly rolling towards Rodes Drift, a place about twelve miles distant; for from this point the passage was across the Buffalo River into the country of the Tsulu. The road was, in spite of all the trouble that had been expended in repairing it, in very poor condition, and the heavy rains had recently washed away the loose clay, and left high banks of earth and deep ruts, in which many of the heavy wagons got stuck or sank, thus for a time slowing down the progress of the wagons following behind. But there was a thoroughly cheerful mood among the men, which made all the little annoyances a trifle to bear; At sunset we reached the banks of the Buffalo River, and the land of the Tsulu spread out before our eyes. Right at our feet rolled that wide, turbulent stream, the waves of which had to be overcome before we could attack the other enemies, and it was no small difficulty to cross such a mighty stream, almost under the eyes of a brave enemy.

The next morning the general and his party arrived, and the levy, assembled from the country-dwellers, was summoned to be inspected by him. To each group the chief spoke a few words through an interpreter, sternly ordering them to spare the helpless and wounded, and reminding them that the sovereign whose flag they now served was accustomed to temper the cruelty of war with gentleness and humanity. My men understood the matter very well, although some of their speculations sounded somewhat strange. When they had dispersed, they gathered around me and asked if it was really true that there was no intention of burning the villages and slaughtering the inhabitants.

“It’s as if it’s true,” I replied. “The English take prisoners and consider it a traitor’s job to kill people who have surrendered.”

“Wow, wow! Wonderful! Strange!” was heard from all sides, as if the idea were completely new.

“But the prisoners eat a lot of meat, which would give the warriors a lot of strength,” thought one bloodthirsty old warrior; and although they promised to obey, this kind of warfare was obviously a complete mystery to most.

I was just about to retire when word came to me that I was required to examine an armed Tsululais warrior, whom some of our men had captured a short distance from the place where the crossing of the stream was. He was a noble-looking bushman, who looked us straight in the eye as he fearlessly answered our questions, though he doubtless considered it certain that the thrust of the assegai would save him when the examination was over. From him we learned that Sirayo was away in the king’s kraal, but that his sons had determined to prevent our passage. “And that they will do,” added the gallant warrior proudly. “They have sworn not to taste milk until they have had the white men swallow them. They will dip their spears in your blood. Kill now if you please.” And he thrust out his bare chest, ready to receive the killing blow.

I told him that no harm was intended against him; it was only our intention to keep him with us until the war was over, and that he should not be in the least afraid for his safety. His cheeks turned dark at this, and he boldly said, “Is Bube[20] a wife or a child, that you treat him so contemptuously?” When I explained that it was never our custom to kill prisoners, he seemed to be embarrassed, and now, with the coldness of a philosopher, accepted his imprisonment.

The information we received from him was not of great value; and when I tried to find out from him something about the defences of the fortress of Sirayo, he told me much that I easily saw was false. But I did not give up all hope of hearing from him whether Minna was still there, and for this purpose I sent Ula the prisoner to her place of confinement to greet her. The trick was excellent, for my cousin knew how to get the young warrior to talk, who then revealed that the girl was hidden with several other women in some nearby mountain caves, to be safe from danger if a battle should come.

This was good news to me, for I feared that the foresters, maddened by their defeat, would kill their helpless prisoner. Now he was safe from every stray bullet; and it would be very bad luck if we, with the help of Ula’s accurate knowledge of the place, did not succeed in discovering his hiding place. That night I lay down on my hard bed with a heart more feeble than I had felt for many weeks.

At about three or four o’clock the next morning the camp was up—the curtain on the first act of the war was about to rise. I peeped out of the doorway of my tent and saw that the river was covered with a thick mist, which obscured the opposite shore from my view. This, I thought, was a favorable circumstance for the enemy, and when I reached the shore I saw the raft already floating slowly towards the Tsuluje coast, I expected at any moment to hear the shouts of the Sirayo warriors, or to see a flock of assegai flying towards the troops who were assembled on the raft. But this crooked cog approached the shore without anyone obstructing it, and I saw the first man jump on the shore, quite intact. So it was not the enemy’s intention to oppose the crossing of the river.

The means of crossing were somewhat poor, only the boat-raft just mentioned, then another log-raft which the engineers who were with them had built, and finally an old boat-hut, which could carry at most a dozen men. These rafts were not carried by oars or poles, but were towed from bank to bank by ropes, so that the operation took very little time. The horsemen and most of the men-at-arms crossed the river by canoe, where, due to the rapidity of the current, it was quite difficult to keep their feet steady. Several horses were swept away by the current, but no lives were lost, and by 7 o’clock the whole army, having crossed the wide and rapid stream without injury, was properly in the land of the Tsulu.

The same mist still lay heavy over the country, and the rising sun failed to penetrate its thick, gray mantle. We were now outside the country of roads, and in the dense fog it was very difficult to distinguish the insignificant path; but by patient search we finally found it, and the march began, with a body of cavalry on each side closing our army.

“This fog is very troublesome,” I remarked to Ula, who, as usual, walked alongside my horse.

“And it will take many more hours,” he replied. “Why don’t we take advantage of it, to penetrate inland, to go around the Ingnutu hill, and so come from behind to the mountain caves? I know the places thoroughly and I guarantee that we will get there without the enemy noticing, whose entire attention is occupied in checking the movements of the army. That way we may liberate Enamela before the actual assault even begins.”

Aatos was wonderfully quick-witted and in perfect harmony with my own hobbies. “How many men do we need?” I asked hastily. “Maybe a hundred will be enough?”

“Ten is much better,” replied Ula. A smaller group will get there more quickly without being noticed. In five minutes I may choose some worthy warriors; but we must go at once.”

“Then get the men,” I said, “and wait for me here.”

I rushed to the relevant commander and presented my request to be allowed to go on a reconnaissance mission with a few companions.

“I cannot give you leave, Will,” replied Allingham, “but let it not hinder you. I will ride a little ahead, and if you are not there when I return, I will not make a noise of your absence. Good-bye; and God bless you, old fellow. I know well whom you seek.” And he spurred his horse and rode away.

This little preparation had taken but a few minutes, which I also found sufficient for my fellow-brethren to gather some warriors of their kind,—the Tzulus, who had been banished from their native land, and had fled to the British soil for protection from their own tyrannical prince. If I had needed a thousand volunteers for my expedition, I could have obtained them without difficulty, for such private adventure was exactly the inclination of our black-skinned allies. Each was thus more independent, and the opportunity of obtaining plunder much greater, which last-mentioned circumstance, it must be said, is one of the greatest desires of the Kaffir race.

Leaving the rest of the party to march on, we slipped into the thicket unnoticed, and were soon out of sight behind a blanket of mist, though here and there the crack of a whip or the distant neighing of a horse would sound, reminding us to hurry before the mist could lift. Half an hour’s rapid march at right angles to the course of the Buffalo River brought us into the silence of the thicket, where no sound of war disturbed the peace of the wilderness; and when we reached the banks of a narrow river, my plant-brother, who was our guide, stopped, and we held a sort of preparatory conference, to make up our minds. Most of my companions were well acquainted with the region of Ingnutu Hill, and on their advice it was now decided to go round the back of the mountain, ascend to the plateau on its ridge, and then pass along the steep depression at the foot of which had formed a series of caves or hollows, in one of which we had good reason to suppose that Minna Beidermann was a prisoner. There would certainly be no guards at this angle, for the top of the rock, which towered over the hollows and the fortified kraal, was almost perpendicularly steep, so that only a goat-path could be climbed by a skiff; but this path had been advised by Gola to my fellow-countryman, and we now decided to descend by this, either in the darkness of the morning, or when the Tsulu were too much in the heat of the day by the English attack to notice our movements. I had full confidence in the skill of my fellow-brethren, and saw that he, in turn, was eager to have the prisoner set free; and so I made no objections to the measures which he, with the consent of his countrymen who were acquainted with the region, thought best to undertake. I thought it wisest to leave the matter entirely to them, and the end proved that I did the right thing in this respect. It is worth mentioning here that I was on foot, and had left my horse with the main body. On horseback I would have been an object which our sharp-eyed enemies would have found helplessly, and besides, no animal more clumsy than a goat could have moved in the country we were about to enter.

When our future intentions were clear, we resumed our journey, moving forward with the greatest caution, for the fog began to gradually dissipate, penetrated by the powerful rays of the sun, and spread before our eyes from region to region the wonderful, though apparently uninhabited, country that surrounded us everywhere. Ula guided us through the wilderness, carefully avoiding those small strips of cultivation, which here and there, at small intervals, marked the undulating road. At least a hundred yards ahead of us, she slithered with the slipperiness of a snake through the thorny bushes, always calling out softly if the road was safe, after which we proceeded again in the same way. For me it was a most laborious task, although my companions, who were not hindered by any extravagance of clothing, performed themselves with ease. The rude, thorny bush tore my clothes to shreds, lacerated my skin, and more than once held me closed in its stinging embrace until one of the warriors came to my aid.

Thus we travelled for many hours, and at last we reached the scattered fragments of rock from which the Ingnutu ridge began, and we saw that reddish ridge proudly raising its head above us. Suddenly Ula raised her hand in warning, and we sank motionless into the bushes, after which we immediately noticed two women walking towards us, milk jugs on their heads. By a strange coincidence they stopped a few yards from the place where we were hiding, and after setting down their bags on a few boulders began to discuss the British attack, if, without derogating from the meaning of the word, we can call that uninterrupted flood of words that gushed out of both women’s mouths at the same time a discussion.

We were exceedingly exhausted, hungry and thirsty. To tempt us by the display of two full milk-pots was more than human nature could bear. So I thought, when close by me there came a deep and harsh roar, so natural and threatening that I crouched down at the foot of the bush behind which I was hidden, and in horror I stared over my shoulder, thinking that a furious panther had run upon some unfortunate companion of mine. But instead of the eyes of a wild cat, I saw a warrior, whose whole form radiated a subdued satisfaction, as he again uttered that awful sound from the depths of his powerful chest, and at the same time raised on the edge of his shield a small strip of his panther-skin belt, which he had quietly let go from his loins. The two women stood for a moment petrified with horror; but at the sight of the skin they ran away with a pitiful cry; we heard their voices grow faint and dying away in the distance as they continued their dizzy flight towards the nearest kraal. I do not know whether they returned for their milk-pails; but if they did, they must have wondered at the panther’s extraordinary gluttony for milk, for we emptied their vessels to the bottoms before we went any further.

We now began to ascend the slope of Ingnutu Hill, the surface of which was strewn with large boulders and dense bushes, and as darkness overtook us in the middle of our journey, our path became even more difficult. Here the sound of cattle shooting fell upon our ears, and this sound almost wrecked our whole enterprise. Crawling forward in the darkness, one of the warriors noticed a small herd of cattle, herded by only half a dozen men; and now it was the unanimous hope of the whole party to get their hands on the cattle.

“You will not be able to drive them away,” I tried to prove, “for every Tsulu in the whole country is on the alert; soon you will be overtaken by superior force and beaten to pieces. Throw away your foolish plans and go forward. I freely agree to give you as many cattle when your task is done, and you will thus avoid the great danger into which your foolish intention must lead you.”

But that gaping herd had an irresistible fascination for my companions, and my words fell on deaf ears, even though Ula did accompany me with all her might.

“We can suddenly rush upon the shepherds and kill every man,” argued the chief instigator; “we can drive the cattle to some safe place and rejoin you on the mountaintop before the appointed hour strikes.”

I was in utter despair, for I saw clearly that the whole enterprise was thus doomed to failure; but our good Kaffir is naturally a cattle thief; it has grown into his heart, and threats, as well as proofs and sensible speeches, were of no avail. “The spirits have brought the cattle our way, and we must claim them,” was the irresistible answer that met me from every man’s lips.

“You’re not going to join in the same wildness, are you?” I asked Ula, breathlessly waiting for her decision.

“I will not,” he answered firmly. “Let us go forward, brother, two; we will liberate Enamela ourselves. Give us ten minutes before you make your attack,” he said, turning to his countrymen, who silently nodded their approval. “Come, Kuta, let us go”; and he sank into the dense undergrowth, whither I immediately followed him.

We made a furious effort to climb; but long before the appointed time was up, a distant, echoing roar, and the sound of swift hoofs, announced that our former companions had begun their attack. Without a moment’s delay we pushed through the thickets and thornbushes, in spite of scrapes, bumps, and constant falls, and at last reached the flat plain which the summit of the mountain had formed. I was sorely exhausted, both from physical fatigue and from constant insults, and threw myself on the ground in agony of despair. But Ula said that a few hundred yards would take us to a cave where he had once sought shelter; and rising to my feet, I followed him to his hiding place.

At first I felt a strong desire to burst into reproaches against those scoundrels who, because of the herd of oxen, had run away from me at the eleventh hour; but, as on other occasions, my plant-brother looked at the matter in a very different light, and seemed rather pleased with their departure than the other way around.

“Let them go,” he said cheerfully. “They have lost their minds and want to get rid of their lives. When morning comes, you will see that we can do just as well without them. Let us eat first and then sleep,” he decided, taking out a small bag of flour; “we will need all our strength.”

I had a bottle of brandy with me, with which we washed what little we had of the dry flour down our throats; and having done this we both went to bed. I was just about to fall into a restless sleep, when Ula’s voice fell into my ear thus:

“I hope, Kuta, that their example doesn’t disturb our sleep.”

“How about it, human?”

“Our ancient companions, — they have been slain every man.
Farewell.”

Admittedly, Kafferilainen’s ways and ideas are wonderful.

Chapter 12.

Oh my, my brother.

Despite my extreme exhaustion, the night I spent in Ula’s cave was very restless. I could hardly close my eyes from those haunting thoughts that at any other time would have driven away sleep; and all my dreams were so vivid and painful that one might easily have believed that the ghosts of fallen warriors were really creeping around my hard, cramped bed. It was not until late that I fell into a truly refreshing sleep, but from this momentary oblivion I was soon awakened by the hand of my plant brother. Shaking me softly, he whispered: “We must set out at once, Kuta; let us try to get down from the mountain before dawn.”

I rose to my feet, stiff and worn from the previous day’s strenuous journey, and stepping to the edge of the chasm, I gazed into the depths below me.

It was a beautiful night, and the stars twinkled from a cloudless sky upon the plain below us, but without giving sufficient light to distinguish any objects with any precision. The site of the kraal could be guessed from the occasional lowing of a few oxen, and once or twice I thought I heard a human voice; but this must have been mere conjecture. My nerves were very excited with the intense excitement of the soul, and it was very probable that my senses deceived me; for not a single light flashed to indicate any movement in the Tsululais fort—all seemed still and peaceful, as if the cruel din of war were a distant gleam in these remote regions. How different, I thought, the scene would be before the sun could catch up with the rush of the sky! And how much I have to do between now and then! But Ula’s voice woke me from my dreams, and I quickly shoved the poor breakfast into my mouth, to which Ula, practical as she was, turned my attention.

I had a large-bore revolver pistol and a small breech-loading rifle, which hung from a belt on my shoulder. I examined these carefully in the poor light to see if they were in good condition; having done this, I was ready to follow Ula, whose shield and assegai needed no special inspection. I had often tried to get my brother-in-law to throw away his old weapons and take up a rifle and pistol, but he still considered the weapons to which he had been accustomed since childhood to be more suitable, and had not really become accustomed to a rifle in his life, although he fully understood the benefits of gunpowder in hunting or when it was a question of resisting an attack such as that made on Pieter Dirksen’s camp . But in fighting with men he trusted more to hand-to-hand combat and cold steel; “otherwise,” as he used to say, “an assegai makes no sound.”

As the time for dawn approached, the darkness grew darker and darker, and even with Ula’s sharp eyes it was difficult to find the narrow path that led down along the ridge.

“Good God!” I exclaimed, when I saw that he was about to descend from a point where the precipice seemed to me a vertical wall; “you have not lost your mind, have you, to dare to descend from such a place? We shall both break our necks, that is certain.”

“Then let’s go,” he answered hoarsely. “We must slide down if we wish to free Enamela. This is the only path, and the attack would begin long before we could get there by going around. Courage, brother, keep your eyes up. Just don’t look down, and you’ll do it easily. Look, there’s no need for skill,” and he descended the cliff, bidding me follow.

I am not ashamed to confess that I dread all high places; they make my brain dizzy, make me sick and helpless, and awaken a terrible desire to throw myself down, and so hasten a fate that seems inevitable. I never go near the edge of a precipice without feeling a cold shiver, and I can never read a mountain adventure without feeling a cold shiver. If I had known from the beginning the true nature of the undertaking before me, I would certainly have given it up at once, feeling my incompetence, and chosen another way, however much more dangerous it might be. I had imagined in my mind that a goat path was a narrow, slippery path, along which a slippery man could easily descend backwards. It never occurred to me that I should have to drive my claws into the cracks of the perpendicular wall and transform myself into a monkey, and a very agile one at that. I still believe that the place was not a common passage for goats, but for baboons and marauding monkeys, along which they descend at certain times of the year to destroy the cornfields; and that I must now take advantage of this dangerous path, I, who felt a shiver in my nerves at the sight of another man on a high ladder, or else throw away all hope of saving the girl I loved. But delay only made matters worse; and so, exciting my mind with the thought of her for whose sake I had undertaken the enterprise, I followed the example of my plant brother and began to descend.

A whole book would not suffice to describe my feelings during the first minutes of that dangerous journey. Fortunately, it was so dark that my eyes could not see the depths below. Following Ula’s advice, I kept looking upwards, and she, in turn, passing before me all the dangerous places, adjusted my feet to the small ledges and crevices of the rock where I could breathe a little, encouraged me by word and example, and herself seemed to stay on the bare wall of that reddish rock as easily as a fly on a smooth windowpane.

I was terribly clumsy, and at the same time terribly frightened. My gun swung to and fro with my movements, in spite of my diligent efforts to keep it in its proper place on my back, slung over my shoulders; and now and then the barrel, now the iron-headed butt, was about to strike the rock, and so produce a clank of metal, which, by its strange sound, would doubtless have aroused the suspicion and uneasiness of the Tsulu. At length my trouble with this unfortunate weapon became so troublesome that Ula claimed the whole mutiny for his own care, which I could not possibly have resisted, even if I had wanted to; for both my arms were fully occupied in supporting the weight of my body. This additional burden did not seem to be any obstacle to my agile companion, who had no fear whatever of the depths beneath us. On a cliff, the memory of which still sends chills down my spine, he calmly stopped, let go of his hand completely, and began to calmly refresh himself with a spoonful of snuff, all the while looking down into the abyss, as if the solid ground were no deeper than a cubit beneath him.

“There’s no sign or sound of movement from below yet,” he said with great satisfaction, when the flood of tears, which had been suppressed by the snuff, had stopped flowing. “We’ll get to the bottom without anyone noticing, Kuta. Onward!” and our journey downwards began again.

Suddenly the word “vou”, which in a voice of the deepest melancholy escaped Ula’s lips, made me stop and filled my soul with pain, because I knew very well that no small circumstance would have caused such an exclamation of despair to come from his mouth. Carefully descending to the top of the cliff on which my brother had been standing for a while, I noticed him staring very helplessly into the darkness below us. The reason became quite clear to me when he whispered: “The rock has split down here or Sirayo’s men have torn off a piece of the mountain. We can’t go any further, Kuta.”

It was the most miserable conclusion one could come to, and I was not at all willing to accept it. I calculated that three-quarters of the journey had already been safely completed, and as my courage increased as the distance diminished, I decided to continue my journey, even if I should then fall lifeless into the friendly arms of some bush.

“Are you absolutely sure there’s no basis for that?” I asked.

“Perfectly,” came the reply, and bending down, he felt the rock face with his assegai. It was smooth, and there was no ridge anywhere that even a mountain goat could have climbed down.

“I have to go back,” Ula said gloomily; “there’s no point in helping.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “How far do you think it is to the nearest outpost?”

“Twenty feet,” he replied, “as far as I can tell by guessing.”

So it didn’t work out. Some idea of ​​lowering my gun by the shoulder strap and then splashing down the rest of the way had struck my brain; but the depth made it impossible. “If only there were a rope,” I muttered to myself, “I could use it, but my clothes are useless for that purpose; the thorns have torn them to rags.”

“Wow,” said Ula again, but this time in a tone of satisfaction. “Your clothes are tattered, brother, but mine are not. Give me your knife. I must be quick; for in half an hour it will be daylight.”

It was a precious idea. A hard bull-hide shield could be cut into a rope, strong enough to support weights heavier than our bodies, and long enough to reach more than twenty feet deep. Fortunately, the ledge on which we stood was so wide that I could hold the shield with one hand while Ula skillfully cut it with his knife. In ten minutes the bare wooden base was left, and then we had a strong strap in our hands, twelve or fifteen cubits long.

“Wow,” exclaimed my companion for the third time, but this time in a voice of the most lively delight, “we’ve got them on our luck, brother. Line in the lake,” and he flung the exposed shield into the ravine below us on the wooden platform. When it had descended to about fifteen or thirteen feet, it seemed to stop, and by moving it by the strap Ula heard a sound which we clearly understood to be coming from some opposing bush. “We’re down sooner than I first thought,” he whispered. “This is the root of the mountain, let’s fasten the head and then I’ll go first.”

This was easily done by means of an assegai, which was firmly pressed into a few crevices in the rock, and bidding me to stand my ground until he gave the signal, my companion now seized the leather strap and carelessly descended into the darkness. I heard the stiff spear creaking as if it had been jerked in its slot, but both the wood and the leather were of the best quality, and in a few minutes I was delighted to hear the voice of my plant-brother gently whispering that I might descend in safety. I stood by him a moment longer; the danger had come and gone, the rough brushwood at the bottom of the chasm had been reached at last.

My first task, after loosening the leather strap, was to shake my comrade’s hand to my heart’s content; but Ula, ever practical, whispered: “I must get up again; there is no way we can leave any sign of our departure here for the enemy to see. Give me your knife.”

He was obliged to cut down a stout scythe to fill the office of assegai, which had so faithfully borne the whole weight of our bodies, and, lifting my gun from his shoulder to the ground, he began to climb up the strap with the agility of a tightrope walker. When he reached it, he struck the scythe instead of a spear, threw the strap twice and loosely around the scythe, and in a miraculously short time was standing by me again, after which he easily drew the strap down and slung it over his shoulder. Thus no mark was left to arouse the suspicions of the enemy.

“They must have pretty sharp eyes if they can spot a weakling,” he whispered. “Let’s go now. We must get out of hiding before daylight.”

It was not very difficult for us to find a hollow, sufficiently covered with bushes to suit our purpose; and when Ula, by his assegail, had examined, cautiously, that no green-headed inamba snake or other harmful worm had taken possession of the place before us, we settled down there for shelter, and emptied the remainder of my bottle of brandy, as a refreshment after the laborious work we had just finished.

The complicated events that occurred as we descended the mountain have taken a good deal of time to recount. But in fact the whole affair was accomplished in less than half an hour, including the time that had been lost by that unexpected accident, which had almost thwarted our whole intention. To the characters in the above-mentioned play, time seemed an eternity; to the spectator, on the contrary, it may be exceedingly short.

Having escaped with honor this most difficult problem of our mission, we could do nothing but remain in our hiding place until daybreak and the deliberate attack from the army began. Then our future action was completely dependent on circumstances; the only safe way to lose at the moment was to curb our unrest and wait to see what would happen.

I had no idea of ​​the nature of the place I was now in; for though I had often seen the Ingnutu ridge from a distance, I had never been to Sirayo’s kraal. The rapidly dawning day now permitted me to see that we were in the midst of the scattered boulders of rock which bordered the foot of the mountain. This was, as Ula told me, pierced almost at every point with deep cavities, which, by narrow passages, joined the ravines, and so formed a sort of subterranean labyrinth, into which even the whole Tsulu army could have fled. In the midst of this beehive-like area stood Sirayo’s kraal, surrounded by a strong wall with loopholes. Nature had so fortified it that, defended by brave men, it seemed almost impossible to conquer. As I lay there peering through the bushes and contemplating the difficult task that our troops had to face, I noticed, as the morning dawned, that the hollow in which we were hiding extended far back and evidently belonged to the same series of caves that filled the whole area. “How is it possible to find a poor child in this beehive?” I thought, but at the same time a low cry turned my attention towards the lowland, where the British vanguard was now marching into view. Soon after, the main body followed; in a few minutes the attack was about to begin.

It is easy to describe how I, compelled as I was to watch these subsequent events without a moment’s hesitation, observed every movement of the army, every advance. For I knew well that on their success depended my own life and that of those dearest to me in the world. A cold shiver ran down my spine when the first gun fired. A whole hundred followed, and the cheers of our men resounded gallantly, accompanied by the roar of the Kaffirs, both allies and enemies. From the position where Ula and I were, the main assault could not be seen, as a sharp promontory on this side blocked our view. But my brother-in-law said that another village lay in this direction; and it was evident that the commander-in-chief intended to capture this before the main fort, protected by fortified hollows, was attacked.

“Can’t we leave now?” I asked—and there was no need to whisper, for the roar of battle roared around us, echoing mightily from the caves of the mountain and making our speech almost inaudible. “The warriors are probably gathered in the kraal to repel the attack, and perhaps we will find Minna unguarded.”

“Wait a moment,” he replied. “Listen! The Tsulu are rushing to the ramparts,” he added after a moment; “let them get inside, and then we will dare to leave. Hist!” he whispered hoarsely, gripping my arm with such force that for many days afterwards a blue ring adorned it.

This urgent warning was not in vain, for several fleeing Tzulus, shields and assegais in hand, rushed past the mouth of our hiding place, their faces fierce with the heat of the battle. That our troops had captured the first kraal was evident from the few words which escaped the lips of these men, as well as from the still intermittent firing and the joyful cheers of the British; but a few sudden shots here and there indicated that the enemy still held their ground on the rugged ground, from which it was very difficult to dislodge them, and a fierce bush-fight was still being fought around the captured position.

Scarcely had these departed when another group approached us, carrying a wounded man, evidently some chief of high birth, whom we soon learned to be one of Sirayo’s sons.

“Tease me no more,” he feebly murmured. “Lay me down here and let me die; the white dogs have been stronger than we. Stay!” he added, when the bearers had laid him down, a few yards from our hiding place. “Stay! My end is come, but I can yet have my revenge. The daughter of the white priest is in a secret cave. There, Gume and Koka, my assegai, let her drink her heart’s blood; then my death will be easy. Kill Nkungulu also,” he growled. “The witch-priest said I would be victorious; he lied. Make haste and bring back my weapons, baptized in his blood. Make haste, my soul will not depart until I know I have been avenged.” And the cruel scoundrel fell exhausted upon his back.

Half a dozen of the fleeing warriors had heard the rest of the speech, and, eager to enjoy the agony of their victim, followed the two men whom the chief had appointed to the office of murderer; and the whole troop disappeared into a cleft in the rock a few yards from our hiding place, leaving the dying man alone.

“Follow,” said Ula, gripping the assegai tightly, and looking even more firmly at me, “follow, Kuta, and we will prevent this evil work.”

I was sick with fear and emotion, but I staggered after my plant brother, who rushed into the cavern passages, from where we could hear the sound of the departing murderers’ feet as they hurried along the winding paths to the secret cave. Alone I would have been lost in the mazes and twists, but Ula’s keen ear was our sure guide as we followed the enemy’s tracks; and with his incessant talk they did not hear the sound of our steps.

“Clamp your revolvers,” Ula whispered. “I’m diving, now they’re talking to Nkungulu. Vou,” and he leaped forward, while a scream, a cry of pain, made the hollow caves echo—the king’s witch priest had been killed.

I saw my plant-brother darting to the right and left with his assegai, but my whole attention was fixed on the end of the cave, where stood a giant-sized forest-dweller, one hand clasped in the yellow locks of hair, the other raised to stab the fair-haired girl, who looked him in the eyes with prayer. My pistol went off, thundering through the cavernous passages like a six-pound cannon, and the murderer, letting go, fell backward before he could strike the killing blow. Two more shots rang out, two bloodthirsty rascals, who had been thoroughly bewildered by our sudden appearance, fell, and in the twinkling of an eye I had placed myself between Minna and all the greater danger. I saw my plant-brother fighting like a noble lion with the others, and I hastened to help, when suddenly I felt a cruel stab of pain in my body. I felt the assegai slam into my side, I grabbed its handle like a vein, and falling to the ground, I went into a trance.

* * * * *

When I came to myself again, I lay in a cave, which bore no resemblance at all to the subterranean dungeon in which the above-mentioned events had taken place. This cavern was high, spacious, and the day brightly illuminated its sides; the former was low and dark, a very fitting scene for the tragedy which had almost occurred.

And how different what I saw and heard around me! Then the dizzying clang of weapons from every direction; now all was calm and silent, and my eyes met two people who looked at me with pained faces—they were Arnold Beidermann and Minna, his daughter.

All the details flashed through my memory in a flash—the murderous forest dwellers—the frail ghost of that beloved creature, bowing down under the threat of death—my brave plant brother, nobly fighting against superior force. “Thank God,” I thought, “Minna is saved,” and I held out my hand, which Arnold warmly clasped.

“And Ula? Where’s Ula?” I whispered. “Why don’t I see her here?”

My old friend’s face darkened, tears welled up in Minna’s eyes; but before they could answer, a shot from several rifles rang out simultaneously through the air—a second—a third time—then all was silent.

“Is it for him?” I asked wildly; for the truth, as if brought by instinct, flashed into my soul.

“He died like a hero and has been laid to rest in a warrior’s grave,” whispered Minna, sobbing softly.

“May God have mercy on his soul!” said Arnold Beidermann, “for a nobler heart———”

I never heard the last words, because with much reduced blood flow, I went into a trance for the second time.

* * * * *

Many words are not needed. I was conveyed from the cave of Sirayo to Durban, where I was placed under more accustomed medical care. It was said that only the sea air and the colder climate could save my life. So, bidding farewell to South Africa for the time being, I sailed straight for England. I doubt whether I could have endured the hardships of the journey in the hot equatorial region without the tender care of my wife; for Minna had become my wife, and Arnold had married us the evening before the ship sailed. My father-in-law had promised to take poor old Landela and Nohemu under his care until we returned; and the latter he hoped to convert to the Christian faith and enter into my wife’s service. I have been told that Jan and Edward Dirksen were establishing themselves among the Allinghams, but the details have not reached my ears, as neither of the young giants was very disposed to correspond.

The doctors think that a year’s stay in England will restore me to my former strength; but I do not believe it, for an assegai stab in the side is no trifle. I have every reason to be grateful that I am still alive. And if there is one thing that can increase my love for my wife, it is the memory of my untamed brother, that brave, noble heart, who now sleeps at the foot of Ingnutu Hill, and who, while giving me the most precious pearl of man, a loving spouse, at the same time makes me happy to mourn such a brother.

REFERENCE EXPLANATIONS:

[1] Kuta means “resolute, brave” in the Tsulu language.

[2] Ula in the Tsulu language means a species of antelope.

[3] Kraal = Negro village; see below.

[4] A kaleidoscope is a small tube-shaped toy with mirror pieces placed inside it, so that when you look through it at the outside world, instead of clear objects, you see the most colorful, rich, and brilliant variety of colors.

[5] See below.

[6] A ring worn on the top of the head, thought to be bare, is called an issikoko , which indicates that its wearer is considered a man.

[7] English mile = 1 2/3 Finnish mile.

[8] An Imbongo is a man who holds the office of “Announcer of Royal Titles”, or “Praiser”.

[9] Nohemu means “White Stork”.

[10] Boortrekker is the term used to refer to the most distant migrants.

[11] The Bushmen are a people in Southern Africa, known for their cowardice and low level of civilization.

[12] Enamela means contentment in the Tsulu language.

[13] Albino is the name given by civilized peoples to just such unborn children among the black tribes of Africa.

[14] Grog is what the English call a mixture of rum and water.

[15] In Latin, Glossina morsitans.

[16] Nyanga is a sorcerer or medicine man.

[17] Hambuma, Wanderer.

[18] Tala, tala! “Be careful!” — from word to word “Look carefully around you!”

[19] Esemkofu — a spirit, a deceased person, whose tongue has been cut out by a witch to prevent it from revealing secrets.

[20] Bube means lion; it was a nickname for a man.