doom, too, Nkose, had the King himself narrowly escaped; but that all men did not know, it being, indeed, only known to me.
Chapter Three.
An Ominous Parting
You will see, Nkose, that my times now were stormy and troublesome, and indeed I have ever observed that as it is with nations and people so it is with individuals. There comes a time when all is fair – all is power and strength and richness – then comes a decline, and neither nation nor individual is as before.
Such a time had come upon myself. After the battle of the Three Rifts, when we had rolled back the might of Dingane – a matter, indeed, wherein I had fully borne my part – there had followed a time of great honour and of rest. I was, next to the King, the greatest man in the nation, for Kalipe, the chief fighting induna, was getting on in age, and would fain have seen me in his place, having no jealousy of me. I had taken to wife the beautiful sorceress whose love I had longed to possess; moreover, the King had rid me of Nangeza, whose tongue and temper had become too pestilent for any man to bear aught of. My cattle had increased, and spread over the land, and they who owned me as chief were many, and comprised some of the best born and of the finest fighting men in the nation. Yet this was not to last, and as age and security increased for Umzilikazi, his distrust of me gained too, and now I knew he would almost gladly be rid of me, and quite gladly of Lalusini, my principal wife. Yes. To this had things come. I, Untúswa, the second in command of the King’s troops, who had largely borne part in the saving of our nation, who had even been hailed as king by the flower of the Zulu fighting indunas, had now to set out upon a ghost hunt, and, in the event of failure, the penalty hanging over me was such as might have fallen upon a miserable cheat of an izanusi.
Thus pondering I took my way back to my principal kraal, followed by Lalusini and others of my wives and followers who had separated from the throng and joined themselves on to me when the order was given to disperse. Arrived there, I entered my hut, accompanied by Lalusini alone. Then I sat down and took snuff gloomily and in silence. This was broken by Lalusini.
“Wherefore this heaviness, holder of the White Shield?” she said. “Do you forget that you have a sorceress for inkosikazi?”
For a while I made no reply, but stood gazing at her with a glance full of admiration and love. For, standing there, tall and beautiful and shapely, it seemed to me that Lalusini looked just as when I first beheld her in the rock cave high up on the Mountain of Death. Time had gone by since I had taken her to wife, yet she seemed not to grow old as other women do. My two former wives, Fumana and Nxope, were no longer young and pleasing, but Lalusini seemed ever the same. Was it her magic that so kept her? She had borne me no children, but of this I was rather glad than otherwise, for we loved each other greatly, and I desired that none should come between to turn her love away from me, as children would surely do. For my other wives it mattered nothing, but with Lalusini it was different. I loved her, Nkose, as some of you white people love your women. Whau! Do you not allow your women to walk side by side with you instead of behind? This I have seen in my old age. And those among us who have been at Tegwini (Durban) tell strange tales of white men who go out with their women, that they might load themselves with all the little things their women had bought from the traders. Few of us could believe that, Nkose– the tale is too strange; and yet it was somewhat after this manner that I loved Lalusini – I, the second induna of the King’s warriors, I, who since I was but a boy had slain with my own hand more of the King’s enemies than I could count. I, moreover, who had known what the ingratitude and malice of women could do, in the person of my first wife, Nangeza, for whom I had sacrificed my fidelity to the King and the nation – even my life itself. But with Lalusini, ah! it was very different. No evil or sullen mood was ever upon her; nor did she ever by look or word give me to understand that a daughter of the House of Senzangakona, the royal house of Zululand, might perchance be greater than even the second induna of a revolted and fugitive tribe, now grown into a nation. Even her counsels, which were weighty and wise, she would put forward as though she had not caused me to win the White Shield – had not saved our nation at the Place of the Three Rifts.
“It seems to me, Lalusini,” I said at last, “it seems to me that in this nation there is no longer any room for us two. I have served Umzilikazi faithfully and well. I have more than once snatched back the life of the King, when it was tottering on the very brink of the Dark Unknown, but kings are ever ungrateful; and now I and my house are promised the death of the traitor. The destruction of the Red Terror, which is my ordeal, is no real trial at all – it is but a trick. The King would be rid of us, and, whether I succeed or whether I fail, the Dark Unknown is to be our portion.”
Lalusini bent her head with a murmur of assent, but made no remark.
“And now I am weary of this ingratitude,” I went on, sinking my voice to a whisper, but speaking in a tone of fierce and gloomy determination. “What has been done before can be done again. I have struck down more of the enemies of our nation than the King himself. One royal spear – one white shield is as good to sit under as another; and – it is time our new nation sat down under its second king.”
“Great dreams, Untúswa,” said Lalusini, with a smile that had something of sadness in it.
“Great acts shouldst thou say rather, for I am no dreamer of dreams,” I answered bitterly. “Ha! do I not lead the whole nation in war? for, of late, Kalipe is old, and stiff in the limbs. One swift stroke of this broad spear, and the nation will be crying ‘Bayéte’ to him who is its leader in war. Ah! ah! What has happened before can happen again.”
But here I stopped, for I was referring darkly to the death of that Great Great One, the mighty Tshaka, from whose loins my inkosikazi had sprung. Yet no anger did she show.
“So shall we be great together at last, Lalusini, and my might in war, and thy múti combined, shall indeed rule the world,” I went on. “Ha! I will make believe to go on this tagati business, but to-night I will return in the darkness, and to-morrow —whau! – it may indeed be that the appearance of the Red Death has presaged the accession of a new King – even as those dogs, who were burnt to-day, did declare. How now for that, Lalusini?”
“The throne of Dingiswayo is older than that of Senzangakona, and both are older than that of Matyobane,” she answered. “Yet I know not – my múti tells me that the time is not yet. Still, it will come – it will come.”
“It will come – yes, it will come – when we two have long since been food for the alligators,” I answered impatiently. “The King’s word is that I slay this horror – this tagati thing – by the foil of the moon. What if I fail, Lalusini?”
“Fail? Fail? Does he who rolled back the might of the Twin Stars of Zulu talk about failure? Now, nay, Untúswa – now, nay,” she answered, with that strange and wonderful smile of hers.
“I know not. Now cast me ‘the bones,’ Lalusini, that I may know what success, if any, lieth before me against the Red Terror.”
“The bones? Ha! Such methods are too childish for such as I, Untúswa,” she answered lightly. “Yet – wait – ”
She ceased to speak and her face clouded, even as I had seen it when she was about to fall into one of her divining trances. Anxiously I watched her. Her lips moved, but in silence. Her eyes seemed to look through me, into nowhere. Then I saw she was holding out something in her hand. Bending over I gazed. She had held nothing when we sat down nor was there any place of concealment whence she could have produced anything. But that which lay in her hand was a flat bag, made of the dressed skin of an impala. Then she spoke – and her voice was as the voice of one who talks in a dream.
“See thou part not from this, Untúswa.
