or a lawsuit of half a century back between the respective grandfathers of two men who have reached the critical point, is quite enough to set the sticks whirling. Indeed, beer seems to act like a kind of sympathetic ink in bringing every ancient and half-obliterated grievance to the surface.
After the quarrelsome stage succeeds one of torpor, and from this the revellers arise with appetites which only meat, and plenty of it, can assuage. Then, unless the giver of the feast be rich and liberal enough to kill for his guests, the flocks and herds of the stock-owners in the vicinity are apt to suffer.
The stage of boasting had been reached when Galada and the headmen returned to the banquet. On different sides men were declaiming loudly of the wealth and greatness of their relations, ancestral and contemporary—several talking at the same time. Galada’s eye at once sought out Mangèlè, the son of Makanda, who had just been mentioned to him as being a leper. Mangèlè was a most splendid specimen of manhood. As he lay naked on his blanket in the bright sunshine, his splendid torso and muscular limbs seemed to be the very embodiment of health and reposeful strength. Looking more closely, however, the Sergeant was able to notice the signs of the disease which had been mentioned by Rolobèlè. Superficially, all that was wrong with the knee was a slight thickening on the outside—so slight, indeed, that Galada would certainly never have noticed the thing had his attention not been drawn to it. Mangèlè’s left hand was, however, distinctly swollen and distorted. He kept it concealed as much as possible, hiding it under a fold of the blanket he lay upon.
Mangèlè’s voice was not heard among those of the boasters. He lay silent and abstracted, slightly apart from the others, drinking deeply and apparently taking no notice of the Babel around him. For an instant he looked up as Xaba joined the circle, and the glances of these two seemed to flash at each other like spears. Then Mangèlè took another long draught of beer and bent his head lower than before.
“We of the Radèbè,” shouted ’Mzondo, a fierce-looking savage, who had a heavy ivory armlet above his left elbow, “hau—there are none like us; we are the black cattle of the pastures. My father was a bull with a strong neck and I am his calf. Look at our sticks in a fight—look how the strangers come to seek our daughters in marriage. Wau—but we are a race of chiefs—a great people.”
“We of the Amahlubi,” shouted one ’Mbulawa, “were never tillers of the fields of the Amagcaleka, nor were our daughters taken as concubines by the sons of Hintza. We were bulls when the Radèbè were oxen.”
At this reference to the captivity of the Radèbè, half a century previously, all present of that clan leaped to their feet and seized their sticks. Rolobèlè, however, managed to restore tranquillity. The majority of those present were Hlubis. The headman rebuked ’Mbulawa for his rudeness. Then, in the course of a long and eloquent speech, he adroitly led the thoughts of his guests to an episode in which both clans had equally covered themselves with glory. Thus was the anger appeased and the danger of a breach of the peace averted for the moment.
Xaba, who had for some time been drinking heavily in silence, began to dispute with one Fodo over the merits of some old family quarrel which had been settled many years previously. The sombre eye of Mangèlè followed every gesture of his enemy. Fodo was a small man, and Xaba, who in spite of his size was rather cowardly, began to address him in most insulting terms. Suddenly Mangèlè sprang to his feet, seized his sticks, and strode across the circle toward the bully. Xaba drew back before his assailant, while a number of Mangèlè’s friends threw themselves in his course and prevented him from reaching his enemy.
Under the Territorial Law, the giver of a beer-party is responsible for any breach of the peace that may occur at it. This circumstance, and the fact of the Sergeant’s presence, impelled Rolobèlè to strain every nerve to prevent fighting. After some difficulty the two furious men were forced away in different directions; they, all the time, shouting insult and defiance at each other. At length Xaba called out—
“You—bull with the water in your bones—your days are over. To-morrow you will be tied up with the sick oxen at Emjanyana. If you do not believe me, ask Galada. Good-bye; I am now going to see Nosèmbè.”
Mangèlè at once ceased from shouting and struggling, and allowed himself to be led away without resistance. His head was bent, and his heavy, leonine features set themselves into a sombre, tragic mask, out of which his eyes seemed to blaze.
Two
On the day after the transmission of the Magistrate’s message the different headmen concerned went round among their respective locations and warned the lepers to assemble at a certain spot near Izolo in ten days’ time. Mangèlè received the message in silence. His relations, who hated him for having prevented their spoliation of old Makanda, were delighted at the prospect of getting rid of him, but they wisely refrained from expressing their feelings on the subject in his presence.
Nosèmbè and Mangèlè were attached to each other in a manner somewhat rare among the uncivilised natives. She was the handsomest girl in the neighbourhood, and several other men besides Xaba had wished to marry her. She had never suspected for a moment that her lover was suffering from the dread, nameless disease that filled the bones with water, and when in the course of the next few days it came to be whispered that Mangèlè was one of those who had to go into confinement at Emjanyana, she laughed at the report. Later, Xaba spoke of it to her and she spat at him in her fury at the insult. When, however, she heard her father and brothers discussing the question of the return of the dowry cattle, she knew that the rumour was true, and her whole soul revolted at the injustice. Mangèlè was the strongest and handsomest man in the neighbourhood—why should he be locked up like a criminal because he happened to have a sore place upon his hand? She at once made up her mind that if her lover had to go, she would follow him into captivity.
Three days Nosèmbè waited in the hope that Mangèlè would visit her, but she waited in vain; so, on the fourth night, she arose from her mat after all the others had gone to sleep, crept out of the hut, and sped along the pathway which led over the divide beyond which his kraal was situated.
The night was sultry and the sky was brightly starlit as Nosèmbè glided between the patches of scrub which dappled the hillside at the back of the kraal. She knew the hut which Mangèlè occupied by himself; all she feared was that the dogs might give the alarm and some of the people come out and see her. As she crouched behind a bush the dogs suddenly set up a chorus of barking and rushed down the hillside on the opposite side of the kraal in pursuit of a supposed enemy. Here was her chance; she sprang up and ran swiftly down the slope to Mangèlè’s hut.
Mangèlè was sitting on a stone in front of the doorway, in an attitude expressive of the deepest dejection. His head was bowed upon the arms which rested upon his bent knees, and the corner of his blanket was drawn over it as though he could not bear even the light of the gentle stars. He heard Nosèmbè’s footstep, and lifted his sombre face. For a few seconds the two regarded each other silently; then the girl flung herself to the ground at the man’s feet and broke into a passion of tears.
Mangèlè lifted Nosèmbè from where she lay and clasped her closely to him. Her sobs ceased, but it was long before either spake a word. The girl was the first to break the silence.
“It is not true that you have to go to Emjanyana.”
“It is true.”
“But you are not sick,” she rejoined, passionately. “You are stronger than other men. And you have done no wrong. How, then, can they put you in prison?”
“I am sick,” he replied, in a heart-broken voice; “my bones are filling with water. It is right that I go away. I am a dead man.”
