The Induna's Wife

As the days went by, the gloom that lay upon the mind of the King deepened, and herein the izanusi– ever eager for blood, or for gain – saw their opportunity. The wizardry which had wrought ill for our arms must be removed. So there was “smelling out,” and many were killed; but still the invaders did not melt away in fear, as the witch doctors had promised. On the contrary, they grew stronger; for others crossed Kwahlamba to join them.

Then the izanusi declared they had seen other visions – had received a new and important revelation, to the effect that the workers of tagati had not yet been discovered, but should be by an entirely new method. But Dingane was becoming weary of them and their trickeries. He sent for Tola, the chief of the izanusi, and roundly told him to use what methods he liked, but if his prophecies fell short of fulfilment this time death should be his reward.

The land seemed shaken by a shudder of ill-ease. The warriors were growing impatient once more to be sent against the Amabuna, but the counsels of Umhlela, that we should wait for our enemies to make the first move – as they surely would – prevailed. So when the word went forth that all were to assemble at Nkunkundhlovu for a great witch-finding, an eagerness of relief went through all; for now we would see what the new method, as announced by the izanusi, would bring forth.

Many a “smelling out” had I witnessed, Nkose, as you know, and the truth was, I hated them. I had been too much among the heads of the nation not to know what their real object was, however much the common people might be deceived, and believe – or pretend to – in the power of the izanusi. I had known but two real magicians in my life – Masuka, the old Mosutu, and Lalusini, my sorceress wife – and these used not their powers to destroy any, save real evil-doers; never to take the lives of brave men for the sake of gain or malice. All others I knew to be jugglers and impostors, and that Tola and his following were of this order I had long since determined. So there was no eagerness in my mind as on the day appointed I sat near the King, in the midst of the other izinduna, while the witch doctors began in their usual way.

The open space within the great kraal was densely packed, save that room was left for the wild dancing and other ceremonies employed by the izanusi. These ran up and down, mouthing and bellowing, and shaking the ornaments of their calling – bladders filled with blood, festoons of entrails of sacrificed beasts, bunches of feathers and bird’s claws, and snakes and lizards. Now and again they would halt, and pointing with their wands, tipped with giraffe tail, at some one in the crowd, would name him, calling, out a string of instances of witch dealing. This one held converse with a black baboon, that one slept all day and only moved out at night, another was reputed to eat snakes, and so forth. All so named were immediately led forth to the place of slaughter; but I noticed that among them was no person of any consequence. The witch doctors, to all appearance, were destroying them out of sheer wanton craving for blood.

Dingane was growing impatient. His brows were wrinkled into a heavy frown. Not for such a well-worn exhibition as this, surely, had the bulk of the nation been convened. If so, then indeed it would go ill with Tola and his following. This was running in the mind of the King; and I, who sat near him, could see into his thoughts.

Now the witch doctors ceased in their mouthings, and suddenly, from behind them, appeared a band of girls. There might have been three score of them, and they seemed to have been chosen from the handsomest and finest of the nation. They were arrayed in the richest beadwork, and wore wreaths of green leaves upon their heads and twined around their shapely limbs. A strange band, indeed, to spring up suddenly from the midst of those wizard-hounds of blood and of death.

They advanced, swaying to a measured dancing step, and softly singing. A deep murmur of amazement and delight arose from all; for this was a fair and goodly sight, and all welcomed it as a relief from the grim hideousness of the witch doctors. A weight of fear seemed lifted from the minds of many. These, surely, were not here to doom to death.

But as their singing rose louder and louder, as I caught the burden of their song, I, for one, felt by no means so sure. They sang of a nation cursed by an evil blight, of the counsels of strangers, of the first repulse the great Zulu power had ever known, of the presence of strangers in the ranks of the lion-cubs, of the presence of a stranger. And every time they repeated the words they would sway round so as to face me, as I sat among the izinduna at the right hand of the King.

Then, Nkose, the nerves within me seemed to tingle. Well knew I the meaning of this. I was the object of their denunciations. Any moment now I might step into the Dark Unknown. Doom had found me at last. I was being “smelt out.”

Well, indeed, could I see through it all now. This had been arranged between Tambusa, my enemy, and Tola, the head izanusi. The singing band of girls, designed to add novelty to the witch finding, as well as to please Dingane, had for its object my death. The red cloud began to surge around my brain as I sat there. Not in me was it to die tamely; and softly I reached forth for the stick which was the only approach to a weapon which custom allowed upon such an occasion, and calculated how great a spring would enable me to crush in Tambusa’s skull ere they could lay hands on me. The death of the stake would be my lot; no matter – I must slay somebody.

The band of singing-girls swayed nearer and nearer; then with a rush of their light feet they came straight for me. Now for the doom. But – not yet. Some unseen force seemed to turn them back again. They held on around the circle, not having pointed at or named me.

This happened several times, and each time I looked to hear the word of doom, each time I tightened up my muscles for my spring upon Tambusa. Each time, too, the song denunciatory of “the stranger” grew fiercer, each time only to sink and die away in their throats. Then the izanusi, as in encouragement, lifted up their deep hoarse voices, as the voices of beasts growling for blood.

Whau, Nkose! I can see it all still – for at such moments a man may seem to live a thousand lifetimes – the immense kraal, with its ringed fences and vast circles of yellow huts – the assembled multitude blackening the earth in its awed hush – the sea of expectant faces – the countenance of the King sternly set, those of the izinduna expressionless as stones – the band of singing-girls – the savage eyes of the witch doctors – and, as a background to the whole, a brooding sky, blue-black with the threatenings of its pent-up storm.

Once more, encouraged by the wild howling of the izanusi, this strange band of doom came whirling towards me. This time I was gone. But, no! They halted more suddenly than before, and their song seemed to die on their very lips. Then I looked up from calculating the distance between my stick and the skull of Tambusa, and beheld – a woman!

She was standing alone in the open, midway between the cloud of scowling witch doctors and the band of girls, and there was that in her wondrous eyes which constrained and controlled the latter. She, too, was arrayed in rich beadwork, but wore no wreaths or garlands of leaves, and as I gazed upon her standing there – a splendid and majestic form – why then, Nkose, anybody who chose might have stepped up and slain me, unresisting in my amazement. For she who stood there was none other than my lost sorceress-wife, Lalusini.

Had the shades sent forth their spirits? Had the grim alligators in Umzilikazi’s pool of death shrank back in fear from so royal a prey? Was I dreaming, or had I gone mad with the prolonged suspense of my impending doom? No! In the very life there she stood – she to avenge whom I would have slain a king – would have destroyed a whole mighty nation. And she stood there to avert from me the sure and dreadful death – the death of the man at whom the witch-wand has been pointed.

One glance she flashed upon me from her wonderful eyes – quick, full, penetrating – one glance and no more; but in that glance I knew I was safe, for who should harm one whom the most marvellous magic ever known now protected?

For some time thus she stood, speaking no word, only gazing around with calm commanding eyes. Then the King grew impatient.

“Have done,” he exclaimed, with a frown. “Let us see whether the magic of Mahlula is greater than that of Tola.”

“The magic of Mahlula,” had said Dingane. Then Lalusini was not known. Yet it seemed to me the majesty of the House of Senzangakona was so stamped upon every feature that her very look must betray her.

“Judge now for thyself, Father of the Wise,” she replied. “This is the word of Mahlula. The ‘stranger’ of whom Tola speaks, of whom his company did but now sing, is not here, else these” – showing with a sweep of the hand the band of girls, who had ceased their movements and were now sitting in a ring around her – “these whom I have trained and taught would have found him – for my will works through theirs – my eyes see through theirs. Therefore, he cannot be here.”

“Why, then, are we?” said Dingane, with a meaning in his tone that boded ill for Tola and his following.

“Was it to learn the fate of a nation, Great Great One?” answered Lalusini, or Mahlula, as she was known here. “Learn it then so far. The end is not yet. But – I see the shook of war. I see men and horses advancing. The lion-cubs of Zulu flee before them. But lying behind the hills on either side is a dark cloud of terrible ones. Still they advance, those whites. Then that cloud whirls down upon them, breaks over them. Ha! There are death-screams as the flash of the spears rises and falls, and horses straggling, hoofs in air, and the song of those black ones is a battle-song of triumph.”

Now I saw that the speaker had fallen into one of those divining trances I knew so well, and in which all she foretold had come to pass. Dingane, too, began to see this, and asked eagerly, yet not without awe in his tone:

“And when shall this be, sister?”

“Hearken to no idle counsels. Heed no false magic,” she answered, with meaning. “I, and I alone, can see into the future. Be led by me if this nation would live.”

With these words, I, who looked, saw the vision pass away from Lalusini’s countenance, and her eyes were as those of one who awakens out of a deep sleep. The King, too, must have seen it, for he forebore to question her further. Then he spoke, low at first, but raising his voice in a black and terrible burst of wrath.

“Now of yon impostors I will make an end. Take them away, ye black ones.” And he pointed with his spear at Tola and his following.

At the word of the King, the slayers sprang forward. But the witch doctors fled howling, and keeping in a compact body, broke through all who stood in their path, and the lower end of the kraal became full of the kicking, tumbling bodies of men. But the slayers were among them; and the people barring their way to the lower gate, they were seized and dragged, howling and shrieking, without the kraal. And as the knobkerries fell with a heavy thud upon their cunning and bloodthirsty brains, a murmur of fierce delight escaped all who heard, for the people hated these wolves of izanusi, and rejoiced that they themselves should taste the death they loved to deal out to others.

There was one, however, who did not so rejoice, and that was Tambusa; indeed at first he had made a movement to stay the word, which was that of doom to the izanusi; but the look on the face of Dingane was so fell and deadly, that even the boldness of Tambusa quailed before it.

And I —Whau! – I rejoiced that I still lived, and that Tola was dead. But Tambusa did not.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Dwelling of the Wise One

With the slaughter of the witch doctors Dingane had retired, and the vast assemblage of the people, breaking up, was streaming away in different directions. Mahlula had disappeared.

Then, having gained my huts, I gave orders that I was to be left alone, and sat down to take snuff and to think. For here was a wonderful thing. She whom I had thought dead was alive again – had reappeared at the very moment when death would otherwise have overtaken me. There was something of fear in my mind as I thought of it all. Was it really Lalusini whom I had seen, or was it another sorceress who bore to her a most marvellous likeness – a sister, perhaps? But even the House of Senzangakona could not produce two such, I reflected; and then the very method she had adopted of averting from me the doom was the method of Lalusini. And now I longed for her again, for, as I told you, Nkose, I loved her as you white men love your women; but if, for some reason, she had been forced to hide herself under another name, how could I, the wanderer, the stranger, the man who had come hither to deliver his own nation to destruction, reveal the real relationship between us by laying claim to her?

How was it I had never heard men speak of her? No talk, no word of a marvellous witch doctress, of a sorceress like no other ever seen, had reached my ear. Tola I knew, and those who worked magic with him, but of this one never a word. Was it because I was a stranger and not yet fully trusted? But old Gegesa’s tale was untrue anyhow, for here was Lalusini alive and well, and beautiful as ever. Then I thought how to get speech with her.

To this end I went out. First I sought the hut of Silwane. But when after bringing round the talk to the events of the morning I would have drawn out of him what he knew as to the sorceress Mahlula, I found that he knew but little, as did those who sat in his hut. Her appearance in their midst was mystery, her movements were mystery, her very dwelling was mystery; and hearing this I thought how greatly I could have amazed Silwane by revealing how it was through the magic of this sorceress that our arms had won success over the great impi he had helped to command at the Place of the Three Rifts. But from them I could obtain no tidings, nor from any with whom I talked on the subject; and as day after day went by, I began to wish I had not beheld Lalusini again, for now it seemed as though I were losing her once more.

Then my mind went back – back over my life since I had first beheld Lalusini and at great peril had managed to keep her for myself; back over our first meetings in the rock chamber of the Mountain of Death, what time we had eaten up the Bakoni, the nation who owned the Blue Cattle, and I remembered her words: “There is a people into whose midst I will one day return, and there I shall be great indeed, and you through me.” Ha! Was this part of a scheme – of a carefully-matured plan? It seemed like it. So I resolved to wait and let things shape their course.

Now the very day on which I had formed this resolve I chanced to be outside of Nkunkundhlovu alone. Two girls strode by me with bundles on their heads, and as they did so, one whispered, “This night – induna of the Great One who site in the north. This night, by the two large reed-beds at the turn of the river. Mahlula waits.”

The speaker passed on, but I, Nkose– my blood leaped at the words. At last I would have speech with Lalusini. At last we would meet face to face. Yet, even in the midst of my joy came a misgiving. Was it a snare – was it a trap Tambusa had set for my undoing? for the man who wanders at night on mysterious business —au! he is soon an object of suspicion, and to be an object of suspicion at that time meant death.

This, however, I was ready to risk, but for all that I resolved to proceed warily, and he who should attempt treachery upon me might well wish he never had. So with my great assegai, together with a heavy knob-stick and a small shield, I wandered up the river shortly before sundown, and did not return to Nkunkundhlovu for the night.

It had fallen quite dark, though the stars glittered forth in countless eyes from the blackness above. There was just the faintest murmur of the wind in the reed-beds, like the sigh of one who waits, and expecting, is disappointed for the time. The water flowed, evenly and smooth, lapping a low rock slab on the opposite bank, and now and again a soft splash and ripple as some crocodile rose or sank. In the air was a feeling of wizardry and awe; but I had passed through too many strange things to hold such in fear. Yet it seemed over long that I sat by that dark water and whispering reeds, waiting, while I listened to the many voices of the night, near and far.

“Greeting, Untúswa!”

The words seemed to come out of nowhere. Quickly I looked up, but the voice was not that of Lalusini! Then I made out a dark shape – a very shadow.

“Follow now, holder of the White Shield,” it said, and immediately began to move away.

The voice was that of a woman – soft and pleasing. Keeping the shadow in view, yet warily, I moved forward. Beneath the heavy gloom of trees overhanging the river bank we moved, and I had quite lost to view my guide, but at such times her voice would lead me; and at last I found she had halted at the entrance to a great rift like unto that wherein I had hid what time Jambúla was surprised by the impi in search of me.

My guide signed me to follow, and lo! we were threading our way in darkness between two great walls of earth. Then a light shone dully forth, and there, in a cave formed by the closing of the earth walls overhead, I beheld a fire.

“Advance now, induna of another King,” said the voice of my guide, “for my errand is done.”

Even as I looked round for her she had disappeared. But raising my eyes to the lighted space in front I beheld that which made me forget all else, for before me stood Lalusini.