CHAPTER XIII
CETEWAYO
It was dark when at last we reached the Ulundi kraal, for the
growing moon was obscured by clouds. Therefore I could see
nothing and was only aware, by the sound of voices and the
continual challenging, that we were passing through great numbers
of men. At length we were admitted at the eastern gate and I was
taken to a hut where I at once flung myself down to sleep, being
so weary that I could not attempt to eat. Next morning as I was
finishing my breakfast in the little fenced courtyard of this
guest-hut, Goza appeared and said that the king commanded me to
be brought to him at once, adding that I must "speak softly" to
him, as he was "very angry."
So off we went across the great cattle kraal where a regiment of
young men, two thousand strong or so, were drilling with a fierce
intensity which showed they knew that they were out for more than
exercise. About the sides of the kraal also stood hundreds of
soldiers, all of them talking and, it seemed to me, excited, for
they stamped upon the ground and even jumped into the air to give
point to their arguments. Suddenly some of them caught sight of
me, whereon a tall, truculent fellow called out--
"What does a white man at Ulundi at such a time, when even John
Dunn dare not come? Let us kill him and send his head as a
present to the English general across the Tugela. That will
settle this long talk about peace or war."
Others of a like mind echoed this kind proposal, with the result
that presently a score or so of them made a rush at me,
brandishing their sticks, since they might not carry arms in the
royal kraal. Goza did his best to keep them off, but was swept
aside like a feather, or rather knocked over, for I saw him on
his back with his thin legs in the air.
"You must climb out of this pit by yourself," he began,
addressing me in his pompous and figurative way. Then somebody
stamped on his face, and fixing his teeth in his assailant's
heel, he grew silent for a while.
The truculent blackguard, who was about six feet three high and
had a mouth like a wolf's throat, arrived in front, of me and,
bending down, roared out--
"We are going to kill you, White Man."
I had a pistol in my pocket and could perfectly well have killed
him, as I was much tempted to do. A second's reflection showed
me, however, that this would be useless, and in a sense put me in
the wrong, though when the matter came on for argument it would
interest me no more. So I just folded my arms and, looking up at
him, said--
"Why, Black Man?"
"Because your face is white," he roared.
"No," I answered, "because your heart is black and your eyes are
so full of blood that you do not know Macumazahn when you see
him."
"Wow!" said one, "it is Watcher-by-Night whom our fathers knew
before us. Leave him alone."
"No," shouted the great fellow, "I will send him to watch where
it is always night, I who keep a club for white rats," and he
brandished his stick over me.
Now my temper rose. Watching my opportunity, I stretched out my
right foot and hooked him round the ankle, at the same time
striking up with all my force. My fist caught him beneath the
chin and over he went backwards sprawling on the ground.
"Son of a dog!" I said, "if a single stick touches me, at least
you shall go first," and whipping out my revolver, I pointed it
at him.
He lay quiet enough, but how the matter would have ended I do not
know, for passion was running high, had not Goza at this moment
risen with a bleeding nose and called out--
"O Fools, would you kill the king's guest to whom the king
himself has given safe-conduct. Surely you are pots full of
beer, not men."
"Why not?" answered one. "This is the Place of Soldiers. The
king's house is yonder. Give the old jackal a start of a length
of ten assegais. If he reaches it first, he can shake hands with
his friend, the king. If not we will make him into medicine."
"Yes, yes, run for it, Jackal," clamoured the others, knocking
their shields with their sticks, as men do who would frighten a
buck, and opening out to make a road for me.
Now while all this was going on, with some kind of sixth sense I
had noted a big man whose face was shrouded by a blanket thrown
over his head, who very quietly had joined these drunken rioters,
and vaguely wondered who he might be.
"I will not run," I said slowly, "that I may be saved by the
king. Nay, I will die here, though some of you shall die first.
Go to the king, Goza, and tell him how his servants have served
his guest," and I lifted my pistol, waiting till the first stick
touched me to put a bullet through the bully on the ground.
"There is no need," said a deep voice that proceeded from the
draped man of whom I have spoken, "for the king has come to see
for himself."
Then the blanket was thrown back, revealing Cetewayo grown fat
and much aged since last I saw him, but undoubtedly Cetewayo.
"Bayete!" roared the mob in salute, while some of those who had
been most active in the tumult tried to slip away.
"Let no man stir," said Cetewayo, and they stood as though they
were rooted to the ground, while I slipped my pistol back into my
pocket.
"Who are you, White Man?" he asked, looking at me, "and what do
you here?"
"The King should know Macumazahn," I answered, lifting my hat,
"whom Dingaan knew, whom Panda knew well, and whom the King knew
before he was a king."
"Yes, I know you," he answered, "although since we spoke together
you have shrunk like an oxhide in the sun, and time has stained
your heard white."
"And the King has grown fat like the ox on summer grass. As for
what I do here, did not the King send for me by Goza, and was I
not brought like a baby in a blanket."
"The last time we met," he went on, taking no heed of my words,
"was yonder at Nodwengu when the witch Mameena was tried for
sorcery, she who made my brother mad and brought about the great
battle, in which you fought for him with the Amawombe regiment.
Do you not remember how she kissed you, Macumazahn, and took
poison between the kisses, and how before she grew silent she
spoke evil words to me, saying that I was doomed to pull down my
own House and to die as she died, words that have haunted me ever
since and now haunt me most of all? I wish to speak to you
concerning them, Macumazahn, for it is said in the land that this
beautiful witch loved you alone and that you only knew her mind."
I made no reply, who was heartily tired of this subject of
Mameena whom no one seemed able to forget.
"Well," he went on, "we will talk of that matter alone, since it
is not natural that you should wish to speak of your dead
darlings before the world," and with a wave of the hand he put
the matter aside. Then suddenly his attitude changed. His face,
that had been thoughtful and almost soft, became fierce, his form
seemed to swell and he grew terrible.
"What was that dog doing?" he asked of Goza, pointing to the
brute whom I had knocked down and who still lay prostrate on his
back, afraid to stir.
"O King," answered Goza, "he was trying to kill Macumazahn
because he is a white man, although I told him that he was your
guest, being brought to you by the royal command. He was trying
to kill him by giving him a start of ten spears' length and
making him run to the isigodhlo (the king's house) and beating
him to death with the sticks of these men if they caught him,
which, as he is old and they are young, they must have done.
Only the Watcher-by-Night would not run; no, although he is so
small he knocked him to the earth with his fist, and there he
lies. That is all, O King."
"Rise, dog," said Cetewayo, and the man rose trembling with fear,
and, being bidden, gave his name, which I forget.
"Listen, dog," went on the king in the same cold voice. "What
Goza says is true, for I saw and heard it all with my eyes and
ears. You would have made yourself as the king. You dared to
try to kill the king's guest to whom he had given safe-conduct,
and to stain the king's doorposts with his blood, thereby
defiling his house and showing him to the white people as a
murderer of one of them whom he had promised to protect.
Macumazahn, do _you_ say how he shall die, and I will have it
done."
"I do not wish him to die," I answered, "I think that he and
those with him were drunk. Let him go, O King."
"Aye, Macumazahn, I will let him go. See now, we are in the
centre of the cattle-kraal, and to the eastern gate is as far as
to the isigodhlo. Let this man have a start of ten spears'
length and run to the eastern gate, as he would have made
Macumazahn run to the king's house, and let his companions, those
who would have hunted Macumazahn, hunt him.
"If he wins through to the gate he can go on to the Government in
Natal and tell them of the cruelty of the Zulus. Only then, let
those who hunted him be brought before me for trial and perhaps
we shall see how _they_ can run."
Now the poor wretch caught hold of my hand, begging me to
intercede for him, but soldiers who had come up dragged him away
and, having measured the distance allowed him, set him on a mark
made upon the ground. Presently at a word off he sped like an
arrow, and after him went his friends, ten or more of them. I
think they caught him just by the gate doubling like a hare, or
so the shouts of laughter from the watching regiment told me, for
myself I would not look.
"That dog ate his own stomach," said Cetewayo grimly, thereby
indicating in native fashion that the biter had been bit or the
engineer hoist with his petard. "It is long since there has been
a war in the land, and some of these young soldiers who have
never used an assegai save to skin an ox or cut the head from a
chicken, shout too loud and leap too high. Now they will be
quieter, and while you stay here you may walk where you will in
safety, Macumazahn," he added thoughtfully.
Then dismissing the matter from his mind, as we white people
dismiss any trivial incident in a morning stroll, he talked for a
few minutes to the commanding officer of the regiment that was
drilling, who ran up to make some report to him, and walked back
towards the isigodhlo, beckoning me to follow with Goza.
After waiting for a little while outside the gate in the
surrounding fence, a body-servant ordered us to enter, which we
did to find the king seated on the shady side of his big hut
quite alone. At a sign I also sat myself down upon a stool that
had been set for me, while Goza, whose nose was still bleeding,
squatted at my side.
"Your manners are not so good as they were once, Macumazahn,"
said Cetewayo presently, "or perhaps you have been so long away
from the royal kraal that you have forgotten its customs."
I stared at him, wondering what he could mean, whereon he added
with a laugh--
"What is that in your pocket? Is it not a loaded pistol, and do
you not remember that it is death to appear before the king
armed? Now I might kill you and have no blame, although you are
my guest, for who knows that you are not sent by the English
Queen to shoot me?"
"I ask the King's pardon," I said humbly enough. "I did not
think about the pistol. Let your servants take it away."
"Perhaps it is safer in your pocket, where I saw you place it in
the cattle-kraal, Macumazahn, than in their hands, which do not
know how to hold such things. Moreover, I know that you are not
one who stabs in the dark, even when our peoples growl round each
other like two dogs about to fight, and if you were, in this
place your life would have to pay for mine. There is beer by
your side; drink and fear nothing. Did you see the Opener of
Roads, Goza, and if so, what is his answer to my message?"
"O King, I saw him," answered Goza. "The Father of the doctors,
the friend and master of the Spirits, says he has heard the
King's word, yes, that he heard it as it passed the King's lips,
and that although he is very old, he will travel to Ulundi and be
present at the Great Council of the nation which is to be
summoned on the eighth day from this, that of the full moon. Yet
he makes a prayer of the King. It is that a place may be
prepared for him, for his people and for his servants who carry
him, away from this town of Ulundi, where he may sojourn quite
alone, a decree of death being pronounced against any who attempt
to break in upon his privacy, either where he dwells or upon his
journey. These are his very words, O King:
"'I, who am the most ancient man in Zululand, dwell with the
spirits of my fathers, who will not suffer strangers to come nigh
them and who, if they are offended, will bring great woes upon
the land. Moreover, I have sworn that while there is a king in
Zululand and I draw the breath of life, never again will I set
foot in a royal kraal, because when last I did so at the slaying
of the witch, Mameena, the king who is dead thought it well to
utter threats against me, and never more will I, the Opener of
Roads, be threatened by a mortal. Therefore if the King and his
Council seek to drink of the water of my wisdom, it must be in
the place and hour of my own choosing. If this cannot be, let me
abide here in my house and let the King seek light from other
doctors, since mine shall remain as a lamp to my own heart.'"
Now I saw that these words greatly disturbed Cetewayo who feared
Zikali, as indeed did all the land.
"What does the old wizard mean?" he asked angrily. "He lives
alone like a bat in a cave and for years has been seen of none.
Yet as a bat flies forth at night, ranging far and wide in search
of prey, so does his spirit seem to fly through Zululand.
Everywhere I hear the same word. It is--'What says the Opener of
Roads?' It is--'How can aught be done unless the Opener of Roads
has declared that it shall be done, he who was here before the
Black One (Chaka) was born, he who it is said was the friend of
Inkosi Umkulu, the father of the Zulus who died before our
great-grandfathers could remember; he who has all knowledge and
is almost a spirit, if indeed he be not a spirit?' I ask you,
Macumazahn, who are his friend, what does he mean, and why should
I not kill him and be done?"
"O King," I answered, "in the days of your uncle Dingaan, when
Dingaan slew the Boers who were his guests, and thus began the
war between the White and the Black, I, who was a lad, heard the
laughter of Zikali for the first time yonder at the kraal
Ungungundhlovu, I who rode with Retief and escaped the slaughter,
but his face I did not see. Many years later, in the days of
Panda your father, I saw his face and therefore you name me his
friend. Yet this friend who drew me to visit him, perhaps by
your will, O King, has now caused me to be brought here to Ulundi
doubtless by your will, O King, but against my own, for who
wishes to come to a town where he is well-nigh slain by the first
brawler he meets in the cattle kraal?"
"Yet you were not slain, Macumazahn, and perhaps you do not know
all the story of that brawler," replied Cetewayo almost humbly,
like one who begs pardon, though the rest of what l had said he
ignored. "But still you are Zikali's friend, for between you and
him there is a rope which enabled him to draw you to Zululand,
which rope I have heard called by a woman's name. Therefore by
the spirit of that woman, which still can draw you like a rope, I
charge you, tell me--what does this old wizard mean, and why
should I not kill him and be rid of one who haunts my heart like
an evil vision of the night and, as I sometimes think, is an,
umtakati, an evil-doer, who would work ill to me and all my
House, yes, and to all my people?"
"How should I know what he means, O King?" I answered with
indignation, though in fact I could guess well enough. "As for
killing him, cannot the King kill whom he will? Yet I remember
that once I heard you father ask much the same question and of
Zikali himself, saying that he was minded to find out whether or
no he were mortal like other men. I remember also Zikali
answered that there was a saying that when the Opener of Roads
came to the end of his road, there would be no more a king of
Zululand, as there was none when first he set foot upon his road.
Now I have spoken, who am a white man and do not understand your
sayings."
"I remember it also, Macumazahn, who was present at the time," he
replied heavily. "My father feared this Zikali and his father
feared him, and I have heard that the Black One himself, who
feared nothing, feared him also. And I, too, fear him, so much
that I dare not make up my mind upon a great matter without Ws
counsel, lest he should bewitch me and the nation and bring us to
nothing."
He paused, then turning to Goza, asked, "Did the Opener of Roads
tell you where he wished to dwell when he comes to visit me here
at Ulundi?"
"O King," answered Goza, "yonder in the hills, not further away
than an aged man can walk in the half of an hour, is a place
called the Valley of Bones, because there in the days of those
who went before the King, and even in the King's day, many
evildoers have been led to die. Zikali would dwell in this
Valley of Bones, and there and nowhere else would meet the King
and the Great Council, not in the daylight but after sunset when
the moon has risen."
"Why," said Cetewayo, starting, "the place is ill-omened and,
they say, haunted, one that no man dares to approach after the
fall of darkness for fear lest the ghosts of the dead should leap
upon him gibbering."
"Such were the words of the Opener of Roads, O King," replied
Goza. "There and nowhere else will he meet the King, and there
he demands that three huts should be built to shelter him and his
folk and stored with all things needful. If this be not granted
to him, then he refuses to visit the King or to give counsel to
the nation."
"So be it then," said Cetewayo. "Send messengers to the Opener
of Roads, Goza, saying that what he desires shall be done. Let
my command go out that under pain of death none spy upon him
while he journeys hither or returns. Let the huts be built
forthwith, and when it is known that he is coming, let food in
plenty be placed in them and afterwards morning by morning taken
to the mouth of the valley. Bid him announce his arrival and the
hour he chooses for our meeting by messenger. Begone."
Goza leapt up, gave the royal salute, and retreated backwards
from the presence of the king, leaving us alone. I also rose to
depart, but Cetewayo motioned to me to be seated.
"Macumazahn," he said, "the Great Queen's man who has come to
Natal (Sir Bartle Frere) threatens me with war because two
evil-doing women were taken on the Natal side of the Tugela and
brought back to Zululand and killed by Mehlokazulu, being the
wives of his father, Sirayo, which was done without my knowledge.
Also two white men were driven away from an island in the Tugela
River by some of my soldiers."
"Is that all, O King?" I asked.
"No. The Queen's man says I kill my people without trial, which
is a lie told him by the missionaries, and that girls have been
killed also who refused to marry those to whom they were given
and ran away with other men. Also that wizards are smelt out and
slain, which happens but rarely now; all of this contrary to the
promises I made to Sompseu when he came to recognize me as king
upon my father's death, and some other such small matters."
"What is demanded if you would avoid war, O King?"
"Nothing less than this, Macumazahn: That the Zulu army should be
abolished and the soldiers allowed to marry whom and when they
please, because, says the Queen's man, he fears lest it should be
used to attack the English, as though I who love the English, as
those have done who went before me, desire to lay a finger on
them. Also that another Queen's man should be sent to dwell here
in my country, to be the eyes and ears of the English Government
and have power with me in the land; yes, and more demands which
would destroy the Zulus as a people and make me, their king, but
a petty kraal-head."
"And what will the King answer?" I asked.
"I know not what to answer. The fine of two thousand cattle I
will pay for the killing of the women. If it may be, I wish no
quarrel with the English, though gladly I would have fought the
Dutch had not Sompseu stretched out his arm over their land. But
how can I disband the army and make an end of the regiments that
have conquered in so many wars? Macumazahn, I tell you that if I
did this, in a moon I should be dead. Oh! you white people think
there is but one will in Zululand, that of the king. But it is
not so, for he is but a single man among ten thousand thousand,
who lives to work the people's wish. If he beats them with too
thick a stick, or if he brings them to shame or does what the
most of them do not wish, then where is the king? Then, I say,
he goes a road that was trodden by Chaka and Dingaan who were
before me, yes, the red road of the assegai. Therefore today, I
stand like a man between two falling cliffs. If I run towards
the English the Zulu cliff falls upon me. If I run towards my
own people, the English cliff falls upon me, and in either case I
am crushed and no more seen. Tell me then, Macumazahn, you whose
heart is honest, what must I do?"
So he spoke, wringing his hands, with tears starting to his eyes,
and upon my word, although I never liked Cetewayo as I had liked
his father, Panda, perhaps because I loved his brother, Umbelazi,
whom he killed, and had known him do many cruel deeds, my heart
bled for him.
"I cannot tell you, King," I answered, thinking that I must say
something, "but I pray you do not make war against the queen, for
she is the most mighty One in the whole earth, and though her
foot, of which you see but the little toe here in Africa, seems
small to you, yet if she is angered, it will stamp the Zulus
flat, so that they cease to be."
"Many have told me this, Macumazahn. Yes, even Uhamu, the son of
my uncle Unzibe, or, as some say, the son of his spirit, to which
his mother was married after Unzibe was dead, and others
throughout the land, and in truth I think it myself. But who can
hold the army which shouts for war? Ow! the Council must decide,
which, means perhaps that Zikali will decide, for now all hang
upon his lips.
"Then I am sorry," I exclaimed.
He looked at me shrewdly.
"Are you? So am I. Yet his counsel must be asked, and better
that it should be here in my presence than yonder secretly at the
Black Kloof. I would kill him if I dared, but I dare not, who am
sure--why I may not say--that the same sun will see his death and
mine."
He waved his hand to show that the talk on this matter was ended,
then added--
"Macumazahn, you are my prisoner for a while, but give me your
word that you will not try to escape and you may go where you
will within an hour's ride of Ulundi. I would pay you well to
stop here with me, but this I know you would never do should
there be trouble between us and your people. Therefore I promise
you that if war breaks out I will send you safely to Natal, or
perhaps sooner, as my messenger, whence doubtless you will return
to fight against me. Know that I have given orders that every
other white man or woman who is found in Zululand shall be killed
as a spy. Even John Dunn has fled or is flying, or so I hear,
John Dunn who has fed out of my hand and grown rich on my gifts.
You yourself would have been killed as you came from Swazi-Land
in your cart, had not command been sent to those chiefs through
whose lands you passed that neither they nor their people were so
much as to look at you."
Now for one intense moment I thought, as hard as ever I had done
in my life. It was evident--unless he dealing very cunningly
with me, which I did not believe--that Cetewayo knew nothing of
Anscombe and Heda, but thought that I had come into Zululand
alone. Should I or should I not tell him and beg his protection
for them? If I did so he might refuse or be unable to give it to
them far away in the midst of a savage population aflame with the
lust of war. As the incident of the morning showed, it war as
much as he could do to protect myself, although the Zulus knew me
for their friend. On the other hand no one who dwelt under
Zikali's blanket, to use the Kaffir idiom, would be touched,
because he was looked on as half divine and therefore everything
under it down to the rat in his thatch was sacred. Now Zikali by
implication and Nombe with emphasis, had promised to safeguard
these two. Surely, therefore, they would run less risk in the
Black Kloof than here at Ulundi, if ever they got so far.
All this went through my brain in an instant, with the result
that I made up my mind to say nothing. As the issue proved, this
was a terrible mistake, but who can always judge rightly? Had I
spoken out it seems to me probable that Cetewayo would have
granted my prayer and ordered that these two should be escorted
out of Zululand before hostilities began, although of course they
might have been murdered on the way. Also, for a reason that
will become evident later, it is possible that there would never
have been any hostilities. All I can plead is, that I acted for
the best and Fate would have it so. Another moment and the
chance was gone.
The gate opened and a body-servant appeared announcing that one
of the great captains with some of his officers waited to see the
king. Cetewayo made a sign, whereon the servant called out
something, and they entered, three or four of them, saluting
loudly. Seeing me they stopped and stared, whereon Cetewayo
shortly, but with much clearness, repeated to them and to an
induna who accompanied them, what he had already said to me,
namely that I was his guest, sent for by him that he might use me
as a messenger if he thought fit. He added that the man who
dared to speak a word against me, or even to look at me askance,
should pay the price with his life, however high his station, and
he commanded that the heralds should proclaim this his decree
throughout Ulundi and the neighbouring kraals. Then he held out
his hand to me in token of friendship, bidding me to "go softly"
and come to see him whenever I wished, and dismissed me in charge
of the induna, one of the captains and some soldiers.
Within five minutes of reaching my hut I heard a loud-voiced
crier proclaiming the order of the king and knew that I had no
more to fear.
