CHAPTER XIX
DEPART IN PEACE
A tall Kaffir, one of the king's household guards, who carried an
assegai, came up to me and whispered:
"Hearken, little Son of George. The king would save you, if he can,
because you are not Dutch, but English. Yet, know that if you try to
cry out, if you even struggle, you die," and he lifted the assegai so as
to be ready to plunge it through my heart.
Now I understood, and a cold sweat broke out all over me. My companions
were to be murdered, every one! Oh! gladly would I have given my life
to warn them. But alas! I could not, for the cloth upon my mouth was so
thick that no sound could pass it.
One of the Zulus inserted a stick between the reeds of the fence.
Working it to and fro sideways, he made an opening just in a line with
my eyes--out of cruelty, I suppose, for now I must see everything.
For some time--ten minutes, I dare say--the dancing and beer-drinking
went on. Then Dingaan rose from his chair and shook the hand of Retief
warmly, bidding him "Hamba gachle," that is, Depart gently, or in peace.
He retreated towards the gate of the labyrinth, and as he went the
Boers took off their hats, waving them in the air and cheering him. He
was almost through it, and I began to breathe again.
Doubtless I was mistaken. After all, no treachery was intended.
In the very opening of the gate Dingaan turned, however, and said two
words in Zulu which mean:
"Seize them!"
Instantly the warriors, who had now danced quite close and were waiting
for these words, rushed upon the Boers. I heard Thomas Halstead call
out in English:
"We are done for," and then add in Zulu, "Let me speak to the king!"
Dingaan heard also, and waved his hand to show that he refused to
listen, and as he did so shouted thrice :
"Bulala abatagati!" that is, Slay the wizards!
I saw poor Halstead draw his knife and plunge it into a Zulu who was
near him. The man fell, and again he struck at another soldier, cutting
his throat. The Boers also drew their knives--those of them who had
time--and tried to defend themselves against these black devils, who
rushed on them in swarms. I heard afterwards that they succeeded in
killing six or eight of them and wounding perhaps a score. But it was
soon over, for what could men armed only with pocket-knives do against
such a multitude?
Presently, amidst a hideous tumult of shouts, groans, curses, prayers
for mercy, and Zulu battle cries, the Boers were all struck down--yes,
even the two little lads and the Hottentot servants. Then they were
dragged away, still living, by the soldiers, their heels trailing on the
ground, just as wounded worms or insects are dragged by the black ants.
Dingaan was standing by me now, laughing, his fat face working
nervously.
"Come, Son of George," he said, "and let us see the end of these
traitors to your sovereign."
Then I was pulled along to an eminence within the labyrinth, whence
there was a view of the surrounding country. Here we waited a little
while, listening to the tumult that grew more distant, till presently
the dreadful procession of death reappeared, coming round the fence of
the Great Kraal and heading straight for the Hill of Slaughter, Hloma
Amabutu. Soon its slopes were climbed, and there among the dark-leaved
bushes and the rocks the black soldiers butchered them, every one.
I saw and swooned away.
I believe that I remained senseless for many hours, though towards the
end of that time my swoon grew thin, as it were, and I heard a hollow
voice speaking over me in Zulu.
"I am glad that the little Son of George has been saved," said the
echoing voice, which I did not know, "for he has a great destiny and
will be useful to the black people in time to come." Then the voice
went on:
"O House of Senzangacona! now you have mixed your milk with blood, with
white blood. Of that bowl you shall drink to the dregs, and afterwards
must the bowl be shattered"; and the speaker laughed--a deep, dreadful
laugh that I was not to hear again for years.
I heard him go away, shuffling along like some great reptile, and then,
with an effort, opened my eyes. I was in a large hut, and the only
light in the hut came from a fire that burned in its centre, for it was
night time. A Zulu woman, young and good-looking, was bending over a
gourd near the fire, doing something to its contents. I spoke to her
light-headedly.
"O woman," I said, "is that a man who laughed over me?"
"Not altogether, Macumazahn," she answered in a pleasant voice. "That
was Zikali, the Mighty Magician, the Counsellor of Kings, the Opener of
Roads; he whose birth our grandfathers do not remember; he whose breath
causes the trees to be torn out by the roots; he whom Dingaan fears and
obeys."
"Did he cause the Boers to be killed?" I asked.
"Mayhap," she answered. "Who am I that I should know of such matters?"
"Are you the woman who was sick whom I was sent to visit?" I asked
again.
"Yes, Macumazahn, I was sick, but now I am well and you are sick, for so
things go round. Drink this," and she handed me a gourd of milk.
"How are you named?" I inquired as I took it.
"Naya is my name," she replied, "and I am your jailer. Don't think that
you can escape me, though, Macumazahn, for there are other jailers
without who carry spears. Drink."
So I drank and bethought me that the draught might be poisoned. Yet so
thirsty was I that I finished it, every drop.
"Now am I a dead man?" I asked, as I put down the gourd.
"No, no, Macumazahn," she who called herself Naya replied in a soft
voice; "not a dead man, only one who will sleep and forget."
Then I lost count of everything and slept--for how long I know not.
When I awoke again it was broad daylight; in fact, the sun stood high in
the heavens. Perhaps Naya had put some drug into my milk, or perhaps I
had simply slept. I do not know. At any rate, I was grateful for that
sleep, for without it I think that I should have gone mad. As it was,
when I remembered, which it took me some time to do, for a while I went
near to insanity.
I recollect lying there in that hut and wondering how the Almighty could
have permitted such a deed as I had seen done. How could it be
reconciled with any theory of a loving and merciful Father? Those poor
Boers, whatever their faults, and they had many, like the rest of us,
were in the main good and honest men according to their lights. Yet
they had been doomed to be thus brutally butchered at the nod of a
savage despot, their wives widowed, their children left fatherless, or,
as it proved in the end, in most cases murdered or orphaned!
The mystery was too great--great enough to throw off its balance the
mind of a young man who had witnessed such a fearsome scene as I have
described.
For some days really I think that my reason hung just upon the edge of
that mental precipice. In the end, however, reflection and education,
of which I had a certain amount, thanks to my father, came to my aid. I
recalled that such massacres, often on an infinitely larger scale, had
happened a thousand times in history, and that still through them,
often, indeed, by means of them, civilisation has marched forward, and
mercy and peace have kissed each other over the bloody graves of the
victims.
Therefore even in my youth and inexperience I concluded that some
ineffable purpose was at work through this horror, and that the lives of
those poor men which had been thus sacrificed were necessary to that
purpose. This may appear a dreadful and fatalistic doctrine, but it is
one that is corroborated in Nature every day, and doubtless the
sufferers meet with their compensations in some other state. Indeed, if
it be not so, faith and all the religions are vain.
Or, of course, it may chance that such monstrous calamities happen, not
through the will of the merciful Power of which I have spoken, but in
its despite. Perhaps the devil of Scripture, at whom we are inclined to
smile, is still very real and active in this world of ours. Perhaps
from time to time some evil principle breaks into eruption, like the
prisoned forces of a volcano, bearing death and misery on its wings,
until in the end it must depart strengthless and overcome. Who can say?
The question is one that should be referred to the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Pope of Rome in conclave, with the Lama of Thibet for
umpire in case they disagreed. I only try to put down the thoughts that
struck me so long ago as my mind renders them to-day. But very likely
they are not quite the same thoughts, for a full generation has gone by
me since then, and in that time the intelligence ripens as wine does in
a bottle.
Besides these general matters, I had questions of my own to consider
during those days of imprisonment--for instance, that of my own safety,
though of this, to be honest, I thought little. If I were going to be
killed, I was going to be killed, and there was an end. But my
knowledge of Dingaan told me that he had not massacred Retief and his
companions for nothing. This would be but the prelude to a larger
slaughter, for I had not forgotten what he said as to the sparing of
Marie and the other hints he gave me.
From all this I concluded, quite rightly as it proved, that some general
onslaught was being made upon the Boers, who probably would be swept out
to the last man. And to think that here I was, a prisoner in a Kaffir
kraal, with only a young woman as a jailer, and yet utterly unable to
escape to warn them. For round my hut lay a courtyard, and round it
again ran a reed fence about five feet six inches high. Whenever I
looked over this fence, by night or by day, I saw soldiers stationed at
intervals of about fifteen yards. There they stood like statues, their
broad spears in their hands, all looking inwards towards the fence.
There they stood--only at night their number was doubled. Clearly it
was not meant that I should escape.
A week went by thus--believe me, a very terrible week. During that time
my sole companion was the pretty young woman, Naya. We became friends
in a way and talked on a variety of subjects. Only, at the end of our
conversations I always found that I had gained no information whatsoever
about any matter of immediate interest. On such points as the history
of the Zulu and kindred tribes, or the character of Chaka, the great
king, or anything else that was remote she would discourse by the hour.
But when we came to current events, she dried up like water on a red-hot
brick. Still, Naya grew, or pretended to grow, quite attached to me.
She even suggested naively that I might do worse than marry her, which
she said Dingaan was quite ready to allow, as he was fond of me and
thought I should be useful in his country. When I told her that I was
already married, she shrugged her shining shoulders and asked with a
laugh that revealed her beautiful teeth:
"What does that matter? Cannot a man have more wives than one? And,
Macumazahn," she added, leaning forward and looking at me, "how do you
know that you have even one? You may be divorced or a widower by now."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I? I mean nothing; do not look at me so fiercely, Macumazahn. Surely
such things happen in the world, do they not?"
"Naya," I said, "you are two bad things--a bait and a spy--and you know
it."
"Perhaps I do, Macumazahn," she answered. "Am I to blame for that, if
my life is on it, especially when I really like you for yourself?"
"I don't know," I said. "Tell me, when am I going to get out of this
place?"
"How can I tell you, Macumazahn?" Naya replied, patting my hand in her
genial way, "but I think before long. When you are gone, Macumazahn,
remember me kindly sometimes, as I have really tried to make you as
comfortable as I could with a watcher staring through every straw in the
hut."
I said whatever seemed to be appropriate, and next morning my
deliverance came. While I was eating my breakfast in the courtyard at
the back of the hut, Naya thrust her handsome and pleasant face round
the corner and said that there was a messenger to see me from the king.
Leaving the rest of the meal unswallowed, I went to the doorway of the
yard and there found my old friend, Kambula.
"Greeting, Inkoos," he said to me; "I am come to take you back to Natal
with a guard. But I warn you to ask me no questions, for if you do I
must not answer them. Dingaan is ill, and you cannot see him, nor can
you see the white praying-man, or anyone; you must come with me at
once."
"I do not want to see Dingaan," I replied, looking him in the eyes.
"I understand," answered Kambula; "Dingaan's thoughts are his thoughts
and your thoughts are your thoughts, and perhaps that is why he does not
want to see _you_. Still, remember, Inkoos, that Dingaan has saved your
life, snatching you unburned out of a very great fire, perhaps because
you are of a different sort of wood, which he thinks it a pity to burn.
Now, if you are ready, let us go."
"I am ready," I answered.
At the gate I met Naya, who said:
"You never thought to say good-bye to me, White Man, although I have
tended you well. Ah! what else could I expect? Still, I hope that if I
should have to fly from this land for _my_ life, as may chance, you will
do for me what I have done for you."
"That I will," I answered, shaking her by the hand; and, as it happened,
in after years I did.
Kambula led me, not through the kraal Umgungundhlovu, but round it. Our
road lay immediately past the death mount, Hloma Amabutu, where the
vultures were still gathered in great numbers. Indeed, it was actually
my lot to walk over the new-picked bones of some of my companions who
had been despatched at the foot of the hill. One of these skeletons I
recognised by his clothes to be that of Samuel Esterhuizen, a very good
fellow, at whose side I had slept during all our march. His empty
eye-sockets seemed to stare at me reproachfully, as though they asked me
why I remained alive when he and all his brethren were dead. I echoed
the question in my own mind. Why of that great company did I alone
remain alive?
An answer seemed to rise within me: That I might be one of the
instruments of vengeance upon that devilish murderer, Dingaan. Looking
upon those poor shattered and desecrated frames that had been men, I
swore in my heart that if I lived I would not fail in that mission. Nor
did I fail, although the history of that great repayment cannot be told
in these pages.
Turning my eyes from this dreadful sight, I saw that on the opposite
slope, where we had camped during our southern trek from Delagoa, still
stood the huts and wagons of the Reverend Mr. Owen. I asked Kambula
whether he and his people were also dead.
"No, Inkoos," he answered; "they are of the Children of George, as you
are, and therefore the king has spared them, although he is going to
send them out of the country."
This was good news, so far as it went, and I asked again if Thomas
Halstead had also been spared, since he, too, was an Englishman.
"No," said Kambula. "The king wished to save him, but he killed two of
our people and was dragged off with the rest. When the slayers got to
their work it was too late to stay their hands."
Again I asked whether I might not join Mr. Owen and trek with him, to
which Kambula answered briefly:
"No, Macumazahn; the king's orders are that you must go by yourself."
So I went; nor did I ever again meet Mr. Owen or any of his people. I
believe, however, that they reached Durban safely and sailed away in a
ship called the Comet.
In a little while we came to the two milk trees by the main gate of the
kraal, where much of our saddlery still lay scattered about, though the
guns had gone. Here Kambula asked me if I could recognise my own
saddle.
"There it is," I answered, pointing to it; "but what is the use of a
saddle without a horse?"
"The horse you rode has been kept for you, Macumazahn," he replied.
Then he ordered one of the men with us to bring the saddle and bridle,
also some other articles which I selected, such as a couple of blankets,
a water-bottle, two tins containing coffee and sugar, a little case of
medicines, and so forth.
About a mile further on I found one of my horses tethered by an outlying
guard hut, and noted that it had been well fed and cared for. By
Kambula's leave I saddled it and mounted. As I did so, he warned me
that if I tried to ride away from the escort I should certainly be
killed, since even if I escaped them, orders had been given throughout
the land to put an end to me should I be seen alone.
I replied that, unarmed as I was, I had no idea of making any such
attempt. So we went forward, Kambula and his soldiers walking or
trotting at my side.
For four full days we journeyed thus, keeping, so far as I could judge,
about twenty or thirty miles to the east of that road by which I had
left Zululand before and re-entered it with Retief and his commission.
Evidently I was an object of great interest to the Zulus of the country
through which we passed, perhaps because they knew me to be the sole
survivor of all the white men who had gone up to visit the king. They
would come down in crowds from the kraals and stare at me almost with
awe, as though I were a spirit and not a man. Only, not one of them
would say anything to me, probably because they had been forbidden to do
so. Indeed, if I spoke to any of them, invariably they turned and
walked or ran out of hearing.
It was on the evening of the fourth day that Kambula and his soldiers
received some news which seemed to excite them a great deal. A
messenger in a state of exhaustion, who had an injury to the fleshy part
of his left arm, which looked to me as though it had been caused by a
bullet, appeared out of the bush and said something of which, by
straining my ears, I caught two words--"Great slaughter." Then Kambula
laid his fingers on his lips as a signal for silence and led the man
away, nor did I see or hear any more of him. Afterwards I asked Kambula
who had suffered this great slaughter, whereon he stared at me
innocently and replied that he did not know of what I was speaking.
"What is the use of lying to me, Kambula, seeing that I shall find out
the truth before long?"
"Then, Macumazahn, wait till you do find it out, And may it please you,"
he replied, and went off to speak with his people at a distance.
All that night I heard them talking off and on--I, who lay awake plunged
into new miseries. I was sure that some other dreadful thing had
happened. Probably Dingaan's armies had destroyed all the Boers, and,
if so, oh! what had become of Marie? Was she dead, or had she perhaps
been taken prisoner, as Dingaan had told me would be done for his own
vile purposes? For aught I knew she might now be travelling under
escort to Umgungundhlovu, as I was travelling to Natal.
The morning came at last, and that day, about noon, we reached a ford of
the Tugela which luckily was quite passable. Here Kambula bade me
farewell, saying that his mission was finished. Also he delivered to me
a message that I was to give from Dingaan to the English in Natal. It
was to this effect: That he, Dingaan, had killed the Boers who came to
visit him because he found out that they were traitors to their chief,
and therefore not worthy to live. But that he loved the Sons of George,
who were true-hearted people, and therefore had nothing to fear from
him. Indeed, he begged them to come and see him at his Great Place,
where he would talk matters over with them.
I said that I would deliver the message if I met any English people,
but, of course, I could not say whether they would accept Dingaan's
invitation to Umgungundhlovu. Indeed, I feared lest that town might
have acquired such a bad name that they would prefer not to come there
without an army.
Then, before Kambula had time to take any offence, I shook his
outstretched hand and urged my horse into the stream. I never met
Kambula again living, though after the battle of Blood River I saw him
dead.
Once over the Tugela I rode forward for half a mile or so till I was
clear of the bush and reeds that grew down to the water, fearing lest
the Zulus should follow and take me back to Dingaan to explain my rather
imprudent message. Seeing no signs of them, I halted, a desolate
creature in a desolate country which I did not know, wondering what I
should do and whither I should ride. Then it was that there happened
one of the strangest experiences of all my adventurous life.
As I sat dejectedly upon my horse, which was also dejected, amidst some
tumbled rocks that at a distant period in the world's history had formed
the bank of the great river, I heard a voice which seemed familiar to me
say:
"Baas, is that _you_, baas?"
I looked round and could see no one, so, thinking that I had been
deceived by my imagination, I held my peace.
"Baas," said the voice again, "are you dead or are you alive? Because,
if you are dead, I don't want to have anything to do with spooks until I
am obliged."
Now I answered, "Who is it that speaks, and whence?" though, really, as
I could see no one, I thought that I must be demented.
The next moment my horse snorted and shied violently, and no wonder, for
out of a great ant-bear hole not five paces away appeared a yellow face
crowned with black wool, in which was set a broken feather. I looked at
the face and the face looked at me.
"Hans," I said, "is it you? I thought that _you_ were killed with the
others."
"And I thought that _you_ were killed with the others, baas. Are you
sure that you are alive?"
"What are you doing there, you old fool?" I asked.
"Hiding from the Zulus, baas. I heard them on the other bank, and then
saw a man on a horse crossing the river, and went to ground like a
jackal. I have had enough of Zulus."
"Come out," I said, "and tell me your story."
He emerged, a thin and bedraggled creature, with nothing left on him but
the upper part of a pair of old trousers, but still Hans, undoubtedly
Hans. He ran to me, and seizing my foot, kissed it again and again,
weeping tears of joy and stuttering:
"Oh, baas, to think that I should find you who were dead, alive, and
find myself alive, too. Oh! baas, never again will I doubt about the
Big Man in the sky of whom your reverend father is so fond. For after I
had tried all our own spirits, and even those of my ancestors, and met
with nothing but trouble, I said the prayer that the reverend taught us,
asking for my daily bread because I am so very hungry. Then I looked
out of the hole and there you were. Have you anything to eat about you,
baas?"
As it chanced, in my saddle-bags I had some biltong that I had saved
against emergencies. I gave it to him, and he devoured it as a famished
hyena might do, tearing off the tough meat in lumps and bolting them
whole. When it was all gone he licked his fingers and his lips and
stood still staring at me.
"Tell me your story," I repeated.
"Baas, I went to fetch the horses with the others, and ours had strayed.
I got up a tree to look for them. Then I heard a noise, and saw that
the Zulus were killing the Boers; so knowing that presently they would
kill us, too, I stopped in that tree, hiding myself as well as I could
in a stork's nest. Well, they came and assegaied all the other Totties,
and stood under my tree cleaning their spears and getting their breath,
for one of my brothers had given them a good run. But they never saw
me, although I was nearly sick from fear on the top of them. Indeed, I
was sick, but into the nest.
"Well, I sat in that nest all day, though the sun cooked me like beef on
a stick; and when night came I got down and ran, for I knew it was no
good to stop to look for you, and 'every man for himself when a black
devil is behind you,' as your reverend father says. All night I ran,
and in the morning hid up in a hole. Then when night came again I went
on running. Oh! they nearly caught me once or twice, but never quite,
for I know how to hide, and I kept where men do not go. Only I was
hungry, hungry; yes, I lived on snails and worms, and grass like an ox,
till my middle ached. Still, at last I got across the river and near to
the camp.
"Then just before the day broke and I was saying, 'Now, Hans, although
your heart is sad, your stomach will rejoice and sing,' what did I see
but those Zulu devils, thousands of them, rush down on the camp and kill
all the poor Boers. Men and women and the little children, they killed
them by the hundred, till at last other Boers came and drove them away,
although they took all the cattle with them. Well, as I was sure that
they would come back, I did not stop there. I ran down to the side of
the river, and have been crawling about in the reeds for days, living on
the eggs of water-birds and a few small fish that I caught in the pools,
till this morning, when I heard the Zulus again and slipped up here into
this hole. Then you came and stood over the hole, and for a long while
I thought you were a ghost.
"But now we are together once more and all is right, just as what your
reverend father always said it would be with those who go to church on
Sunday, like me when there was nothing else to do." And again he fell
to kissing my foot.
"Hans," I said, "you saw the camp. Was the Missie Marie there?"
"Baas, how can I tell, who never went into it? But the wagon she slept
in was not there; no, nor that of the Vrouw Prinsloo or of the Heer
Meyer."
"Thank God!" I gasped, then added: "Where were you trying to get to,
Hans, when you ran away from the camp?"
"Baas, I thought perhaps that the Missie and the Prinsloos and the
Meyers had gone to that fine farm which you pegged out, and that I would
go and see if they were there. Because if so, I was sure that they
would be glad to know that you were really dead, and give me some food
in payment for my news. But I was afraid to walk across the open veld
for fear lest the Zulus should see me and kill me. Therefore I came
round through the thick bush along the river, where one can only travel
slowly, especially if hollow," and he patted his wasted stomach.
"But, Hans," I asked, "are we near my farm where I set the men to build
the houses on the hill above the river?"
"Of course, baas. Has your brain gone soft that you cannot find your
way about the veld? Four, or at most five, hours on horseback, riding
slow, and you are there."
"Come on, Hans," I said, "and be quick, for I think that the Zulus are
not far behind."
So we started, Hans hanging to my stirrup and guiding me, for I knew
well enough that although he had never travelled this road, his instinct
for locality would not betray a coloured man, who can find his way
across the pathless veld as surely as a buck or a bird of the air.
On we went over the rolling plain, and as we travelled I told him my
story, briefly enough, for my mind was too torn with fears to allow me
to talk much. He, too, told me more of his escape and adventures. Now
I understood what was that news which had so excited Kambula and his
soldiers. It was evident that the Zulu impis had destroyed a great
number of the Boers whom they found unprepared for attack, and then had
been driven off by reinforcements that arrived from other camps.
That was why I had been kept prisoner for all those days. Dingaan
feared lest I should reach Natal in time to warn his victims!
