and he told you to go north and lent you a certain Great Medicine, did he not?”
Here Hands proceeded to light his corn-cob pipe with an ash from the fire, all the time keeping his beady eyes fixed upon that part of me where he knew the talisman was hung.
“Quite true, Hans, but now I mean to show Zikali that I am not his messenger, for south or north or east or west. So to-morrow morning we cross the river and trek for Natal.”
“Yes, Baas, but then why not cross it this evening? There is still light.”
“I have said that we will cross it to-morrow morning,” I answered with that firmness which I have read always indicates a man of character, “and I do not change my word.”
“No, Baas, but sometimes other things change besides words. Will the Baas have that buck’s leg for supper, or the stuff out of a tin with a dint in it, which we bought at a store two years ago? The flies have got at the buck’s leg, but I cut out the bits with the maggots on it and ate them myself.”
Hans was right, things do change, especially the weather. That night, unexpectedly, for when I turned in the sky seemed quite serene, there came a terrible rain long before it was due, which lasted off and on for three whole days and continued intermittently for an indefinite period. Needless to say the river, which it would have been so easy to cross on this particular evening, by the morning was a raging torrent, and so remained for several weeks.
In despair at length I trekked south to where a ford was reported, which, when reached, proved impracticable.
I tried another, a dozen miles further on, which was very hard to come to over boggy land. It looked all right and we were getting across finely, when suddenly one of the wheels sank in an unsuspected hole and there we stuck. Indeed, I believe the waggon, or bits of it, would have remained in the neighbourhood of that ford to this day, had I not managed to borrow some extra oxen belonging to a Christian Kaffir, and with their help to drag it back to the bank whence we had started.
As it happened I was only just in time, since a new storm which had burst further up the river, brought it down in flood again, a very heavy flood.
In this country, England, where I write, there are bridges everywhere and no one seems to appreciate them. If they think of them at all it is to grumble about the cost of their upkeep. I wish they could have experienced what a lack of them means in a wild country during times of excessive rain, and the same remark applied to roads. You should think more of your blessings, my friends, as the old woman said to her complaining daughter who had twins two years running, adding that they might have been triplets.
To return—after this I confessed myself beaten and gave up until such time as it should please Providence to turn off the water-tap. Trekking out of sight of that infernal river which annoyed me with its constant gurgling, I camped on a comparatively dry spot that overlooked a beautiful stretch of rolling veld. Towards sunset the clouds lifted and I saw a mile or two away a most extraordinary mountain on the lower slopes of which grew a dense forest. Its upper part, which was of bare rock, looked exactly like the seated figure of a grotesque person with the chin resting on the breast. There was the head, there were the arms, there were the knees. Indeed, the whole mass of it reminded me strongly of the effigy of Zikali which was tied about my neck, or rather of Zikali himself.
“What is that called?” I said to Hans, pointing to this strange hill, now blazing in the angry fire of the setting sun that had burst out between the storm clouds, which made it appear more ominous even than before.
“That is the Witch Mountain, Baas, where the Chief Umslopogaas and a blood brother of his who carried a great club used to hunt with the wolves. It is haunted and in a cave at the top of it lie the bones of Nada the Lily, the fair woman whose name is a song, she who was the love of Umslopogaas.”[*]
[*] For the story of Umslopogaas and Nada see the book
called “Nada the Lily.”—Editor.
“Rubbish,” I said, though I had heard something of all that story and remembered that Zikali had mentioned this Nada, comparing her beauty to that of another whom once I knew.
“Where then lives the Chief Umslopogaas?”
“They say that his town is yonder on the plain, Baas. It is called the Place of the Axe and is strongly fortified with a river round most of it, and his people are the People of the Axe. They are a fierce people, and all the country round here is uninhabited because Umslopogaas has cleaned out the tribes who used to live in it, first with his wolves and afterwards in war. He is so strong a chief and so terrible in battle that even Chaka himself was afraid of him, and they say that he brought Dingaan the King to his end because of a quarrel about this Nada. Cetywayo, the present king, too leaves him alone and to him he pays no tribute.”
Whilst I was about to ask Hans from whom he had collected all this information, suddenly I heard sounds, and looking up, saw three tall men clad in full herald’s dress rushing towards us at great speed.
“Here come some chips from the Axe,” said Hans, and promptly bolted into the waggon.
I did not bolt because there was no time to do so without loss of dignity, but, although I wished I had my rifle with me, just sat still upon my stool and with great deliberation lighted my pipe, taking not the slightest notice of the three savage-looking fellows.
These, who I noted carried axes instead of assegais, rushed straight at me with the axes raised in such a fashion that anyone unacquainted with the habits of Zulu warriors of the old school, might have thought that they intended nothing short of murder.
As I expected, however, within about six feet of me they halted suddenly and stood there still as statues. For my part I went on lighting my pipe as though I did not see them and when at length I was obliged to lift my head, surveyed them with an air of mild interest.
Then I took a little book out of my pocket, it was my favourite copy of the Ingoldsby Legends—and began to read.
The passage which caught my eye, if “axe” be substituted for “knife” was not inappropriate. It was from “The Nurse’s Story,” and runs,
“But, oh! what a thing ’tis to see and to know
That the bare knife is raised in the hand of the foe,
Without hope to repel or to ward off the blow!”
This proceeding of mine astonished them a good deal who felt that they had, so to speak, missed fire. At last the soldier in the middle said,
“Are you blind, White Man?”
“No, Black Fellow,” I answered, “but I am short-sighted. Would you be so good as to stand out of my light?” a remark which puzzled them so much that all three drew back a few paces.
When I had read a little further I came to the following lines,
“ ’Tis plain,
As anatomists tell us, that never again,
Shall life revisit the foully slain
When once they’ve been cut through the jugular vein.”
In my circumstances at that moment this statement seemed altogether too suggestive, so I shut up the book and remarked,
