The Induna's Wife

Chapter Eight.

Gegesa’s Tale

For several days I went about as usual, to the eyes of men showing no difference in my converse and behaviour. At first all would watch me furtively, as though to observe what effect my loss would have on me, if any; but this soon ceased as they saw no difference, and indeed this was not strange, for it is not our custom to allow ourselves to be affected by the loss of a woman, more or less. There were plenty more women in the nation, and I, Untúswa, the second commander of the King’s hosts, could take as many wives as I chose. The King had given me this particular wife, and if he chose to take her from me, openly or secretly, who might run his will against the will of the Great Great One, at whose word we held our lives?

So men looked at it, but I – well, I looked at it from another point of view. That the King’s hand moved behind the matter I could see by the uniform silence with which it was treated, nor could I even overhear so much as the “darkest” of talking among any of the people. But I was awaiting my time, and to allay suspicion I took a new wife. She was young and good-tempered, and was a daughter of Xulawayo, an induna of rank, and a commander of high standing in the army, by reason of which he demanded much cattle in lobola for her, all of which I paid him without objection. This astonished him greatly, nor could he sleep for three nights for wishing he had demanded more. But I had an object in view, which was to bind so influential a leader as Xulawayo more closely to me against the time for striking my blow.

Now of this I never lost sight for a moment. Carefully I sounded my own followers, and lost no opportunity of rendering myself popular among the army at large. Yet the game was a terribly risky one, and I felt as a man might who attempts to walk on a ridge of rock no wider than an assegai blade, with the depth of a whole mountain on either side. But the game was worth the risk, for I was playing for a throne and for revenge.

Now and again the King would rally me.

“Taking new wives at last, Untúswa?” he would say. “Whau! but you have been long content with old ones. How often have I told you that women are like a bowl of tywala: delightful and stimulating when fresh; but, when stale, sour and injurious, and the sooner thrown away the better.”

And I would laugh pleasantly at the royal wit, and send lobola for yet another girl, this one, as before, the daughter of an influential fighting induna; but, for all that, the loss of Lalusini was none the less present in my mind, and the desire for my projected vengeance grew, the longer that vengeance was delayed.

Two things, however, I observed, and these did not look well for my plot. One was that never now would Umzilikazi commune with me alone as in the old friendly manner of former days; the other that he never appeared without a strong body-guard in attendance, fully armed, and composed of young warriors chosen from houses whose fidelity to the House of Matyobane was beyond suspicion, they being themselves of that House. But my time was coming, and that I knew, for the very desperation and assurance of a man who values not his own life.

There were times when, looking upon the múti bag – Lalusini’s last gift to me, which I ever wore – I felt moved to open it. But her words were explicit. It was only to be opened in the very last extremity, and such extremity I felt had not yet been reached. So I forebore.

And now, Nkose, there befell one of those occurrences which will befall even the wisest and coolest and most experienced of any of us when least we look for it, which are destined to alter all our most carefully laid plans, for there is ever some moment in life when the wisest and most carefully thinking man is no better than a fool. And this is how it came about.

One evening I was walking back, along the river bank, to my kraal, alone – thinking, as ever, upon my now fast ripening scheme – when I heard my name called out in a quavering croak. Turning, I beheld the shrivelled figure of an old crone, perched upon a point of rock overhanging a long deep reach. Beside her was a bundle of sticks she had been gathering.

“Give me snuff, Untúswa, O Great Fighter,” she cried, stretching out a bony claw. “Give me snuff from that pretty box stuck in your ear, for I have none.”

I stepped aside, and, taking the horn tube from the lobe of my ear, poured half its contents into her skinny old hand, and as I did so I recognised in the old witch one who had an evil repute among us for Umtagati; indeed, it was reported that she had been “smelt out” and killed in the time of Tshaka, but had somehow managed to come to life again, and had not been interfered with since because of our custom under which no one can be killed twice.

She was very, very old – so old that beyond a wisp or two of white wool her scalp was entirely bald. Her limbs were mere bits of stick, to which even her few rags of clothing would hardly cling. Looking at her squatting there, I thought she would make an exact mate for old Gasitye, as I had seen him in the tagati cave, squatting in like fashion; and I must have laughed at the thought, for she said, with some show of fire:

“Laugh, Untúswa, laugh, I am old and shrivelled, am I not? But that is a complaint you will never suffer from. Oh, no! Oh, no!”

“What mean you, mother?” I said, pausing as I was about to continue on my way, for there was that in her words which fitted not well in with my thoughts just then. “I am a fighting man, and such may reasonably not live to grow old.”

“Ah, ah! A fighting man. Thou art more. He who would sit in the seat of the mighty is hardly likely to die of old age,” she answered slowly, poking her head forward with a meaning chuckle.

“Now,” I thought, “this old witch knows too much. I will just drop her over into the river and make her safe.”

But before I could do so, she again croaked out:

“What will you give to know something, Untúswa? What will you give me if I tell you that which you would most like to learn?”

The blood seemed to stand still within me at the words. “That which I would most like to learn” – the secret of Lalusini’s disappearance, of course. I strove to restrain all semblance of anxiety, but the dim eyes of the old hag seemed to pierce my thoughts through and through.

“If it is indeed something I would like to learn, mother, then will I give anything – not too great – you may choose to ask. But, beware of fooling me with old women’s tales.”

“Ha, ha! And the fate of the Daughter of the Great – is that an old woman’s tale?”

“Tell me of that, if you know it, mother,” I said.

“Ah, ah! If I know it. See now, Untúswa, I am old – so old that I am as they of another world. And the other world moves about at night – and I – often I steal out at night and talk with those of another world.”

I murmured assent, and she went on.

“See yon pool, Untúswa?” pointing up the river where the alligators dwelt, to whom were cast those whom the King had doomed to die. “Often, at night, I go out and sit over that pool that I may talk with the ghosts of them who have died there; and they come creeping up, those ghosts of dead men, all dripping and bloody, as though fresh from the alligators’ jaws. Ha! and we have such talks, I, old Gegesa, and those ghosts of dead men – yes, and of women, too, Untúswa – of women, too;” and she paused with a shrill cackle, and leered at me. “There was thy former inkosikazi, Nangeza, she who died there, and she came up and talked with me, saying she should soon have fitting company in the land of ghosts, for it was not healthy to be the inkosikazi of Untúswa. And just then I heard steps – the footsteps of men – although it was night, and the neighbourhood of the pool was one of fear and of death. So I hid myself, Untúswa – crept away behind a stone which the moon threw into a black shadow, and this is what I saw. Four great, fierce looking men came down to the brink of the rock which overhangs the pool, and in their midst was a woman – ”

“A woman!” I echoed, staring at her.

“Eh-é! a woman – tall and shapely and beautiful, as a daughter of the Great.”

“What then?”

I hissed the words rather than uttered them. Again that blood-wave surged around my brain. I knew what was coming – knew the worst.

“What then? This,” went on the hag. “They led her to the brink of the pool, and were about to throw her in. But she spoke, and her voice was firm and sweet, as the wind’s whisper. ‘Lay not hands on me,’ she said, ‘for I come of the greatest the world ever saw.’ Then they refrained, and the foremost said, ‘Go in thyself, then, Daughter of the Great, for it is the word of the King. It is our lives or thine.’ Then she looked for one moment in front of her, the moon full on her face, and dropped quietly over. And I heard the splash and the rush through the water, as the alligators seized their meat, even as I have often heard it. But while the moon was on her face, I knew her.”

“Who was she?” I whispered.

“Lalusini, the daughter of that Great One, the founder of all nations. Thine inkosikazi, Untúswa.”

“And the men, who were they?”

“They were chief among the King’s slayers.”

“Their names? Did you not know them, Gegesa?”

“Did I not know them? Ah, ah! who is there I do not know?” And she told me the names of all four, and I laid them up in my memory; for I thought how I would have those slayers let down by thongs over the edge of the rock so that the alligators might eat them piece by piece – might crunch off first a foot, then a leg, and so on, as they dangled there. Oh, what vengeance should be mine!

“But how do I know this is true, thou witch?” I said. “How can I tell it is not all a made-up story?”

“What have I to gain by making it up? Have I not rather to gain by not telling it? Go home, Untúswa, and be happy with your new wives; they are young and bright-eyed, and round, as I was once. Yau! Rest content now you know Lalusini can never return. A returning inkosikazi is not always welcome; ha, ha!”

I stood gazing at her in silence, and the old hag went on.

“Yet it is better to lose an inkosikazi, if by that loss you sit in the seat of a King! Ah, ah! Untúswa; there will be food for the alligators then.”

“Meanwhile they shall have some now. You have lived too long, Gegesa, and you know too much. I trust not that croaking old tongue. This is the price I pay for thy news – the price it is worth.”

So saying, I picked her up by her ragged old blanket where it was knotted round her, and before she had time to utter a cry, tossed her clean over the brink of the rock. I heard the splash in the water beneath, and without troubling to look over, I turned away.

With the blood-wave surging around my brain, I strode quickly onward. Now the mystery of Lalusini’s disappearance was a mystery no more. Any last hope I might have clung to that she might one day reappear was shattered. She had died as my first inkosikazi had died, a death of horror and of blood. Whau! but other blood should flow – should flow in rivers – before many days had gone by. When the King had rid me of Nangeza I had been well pleased, for her pestilent tongue and evil temper had gone far towards rendering life a weariness; but I had lived even longer with Lalusini than with Nangeza, but so far from doing aught that should cause my love for her to decrease, Lalusini had taken care that it should grow instead.

By the time I reached my kraal, night had fallen. Entering my large hut, I called for Jambúla the slave who had been with me in the slaying of the ghost-bull. By birth Jambúla was of the Amaxosa, a numerous and warlike people whose land is to the southward, as you know, Nkose. When a young man his family had been “eaten up” by order of its chief; and he, narrowly escaping with is life, had at last found refuge with a tribe of Basuti, among whom we had captured him. And now I knew that if there was one man upon whose fidelity I could entirely reckon, that man was Jambúla.

Having made sure that none could overhear us, to him now I opened the plot. His face lighted up with joy as he listened.

“To-morrow, by this time, we shall both be ghosts in the shadow world, or I sit in the seat of Umzilikazi, and you among the izinduna of this nation. How like you that, Jambúla?”

“If you are dead, my father, I too am dead,” he answered. “Not too soon, either, is it to strike, for my eyes and ears have not been closed in these days, nor have those of the Great Great One. It is his life or ours. The time when this place shall awaken hemmed in by the spear-points of the slayers is but a question of a few nights more or less.”