CHAPTER XXXI
SIHAMBA'S FAREWELL
Then they began the work, for much must be done before the daylight
came. First Sihamba took a sharp knife, and with it cut off Suzanne's
beautiful hair close to the head, over which what was left of it
curled naturally. To disguise it further, for though it was dark it
was too fine for the hair of a native, she put grease upon it and
powdered it with the blue dust that Kaffir women use. This done, the
poor girl stripped herself, and with the help of Sihamba smeared all
her body, every inch of it down to the soles of her feet, with the
ink-like juice mixed with the black earth and grease, which when it
was dry made her the colour of a Kaffir. Next Sihamba dressed her in a
native woman's moocha made of skin and beads, and gave her an old skin
blanket to wear upon her shoulders and hide sandals for her feet,
together with anklets of beads and copper wire. Then having examined
her all over to see that no sign of her white skin could be seen
through the pigments, and burned the long tresses of her hair, Sihamba
went to the door of the hut.
"Where are you going?" asked Suzanne.
"To find Zinti," she answered, "for now we must have his help."
"No, no," cried Suzanne, "I am ashamed to be seen thus by any man."
"Wherefore, Swallow, seeing that for some days you are but a Kaffir
woman, and this is their dress, of which none think harm? Nay, you
must, for remember that if you show doubt or shame, you will betray
yourself."
Then with a groan Suzanne yielded, and crouching upon the floor like a
native, awaited the return of Sihamba. Presently she came, followed by
Zinti, who was in good case, though somewhat thin, for Zinti was
clever and provident, and, foreseeing what would come, he had hidden
water for himself among the rocks.
"Zinti," said Sihamba, "I would speak with you of secret matters."
"Speak on, lady," he answered--here his eyes fell upon Suzanne
crouched on the ground in the full light of the lamp--"but there is a
stranger present."
"This is no stranger, Zinti," said Sihamba, "but one whom you know
well."
"Indeed, lady, I know her not. Should I forget one so beautiful? And
yet--and yet--" and he rubbed his eyes and stared, gasping, "it cannot
be."
"Yes, it is, Zinti. There sits the lady Swallow and none other."
Now although there was little mirth left in him, Zinti burst out
laughing till the tears ran from his eyes, and Sihamba struck him with
her hands, calling him "Fool," and commanding him to be silent.
"Wow!" he said, "this is wonderful. This is magic indeed. She who was
white as snow has become black as coal, and yes, she looks best black.
Oh! this is magic indeed."
At his words Suzanne sprang up looking as though she were about to
weep, and Sihamba stopped his lips with fierce words and blows, though
he took small heed of either, but stood staring.
"Zinti," Sihamba said, "you have done me many services, but to-day you
must do me the greatest of all. This morning at the daylight the lady
Swallow will pass with the multitude down the cleft yonder and none
will know her in that disguise. You must go with her, but not too near
her, and cross the plain, meeting her by the saw-edged rock which
stands yonder at the mouth of the gorge in the Quathlamba mountains.
Then you must lead her as fast as you can travel to that camp of the
Boers which is near the Tugela River, where she will be safe. Do you
understand?"
"I understand, lady. But what of yourself?"
"It is my plan to hide on the mountain," Sihamba answered quickly, "in
a secret place I know of, seeing that it is impossible that I should
escape because my stature would betray me. I will join you at the Boer
camp later; or, failing that, you can return in a while--say on the
first night of the new moon--to search for me. But talk no more, for
we have still much to do. Yes, we who have made a white woman black,
must make a black woman white. Follow me, both of you," and giving
Zinti a jar of pigment and the long goat-skin cloak, which Suzanne
wore for an outer garment, she left the hut, carrying in her hand
strips of ox-hide tanned white.
Avoiding the groups of thirst-tormented people who sat or wandered
about in the coolness of the night, they passed through the gates of
the kraal unheeded, and walking quickly across the wide stretch of
tableland reached the eastern edge of the cliff. Now upon the very
verge of this cliff rose a sharp pinnacle of rock fifty feet or more
into the air, and upon the top of this pinnacle was that stone shaped
like a great chair, in which Suzanne sat day by day, poised like an
eagle over the dizzy gulf of space, for the slopes of the mountain
swelled five hundred feet beneath, watching for the help that never
came. Not far from the base of this point Sihamba began to search in
the starlight till she found what she wanted, the body of a young
woman who had crept here to die of thirst, and whose death and the
place of it had been reported to her.
Now she took the jar of white clay, and, aided by Zinti, set about her
ghastly task, daubing the stuff thickly upon the cold features and the
neck and arms and feet. Soon it was done, for such work needed little
care, but then began their true toil since the corpse must be carried
up the sharp point of rock, and that by no easy path. Had not Zinti
been so strong it could never have been done; still, with the aid of
Suzanne and Sihamba herself, at last it was finished.
Up that steep place they toiled, the three of them, dragging the dead
body from knob to knob of rock, well knowing that one false step in
the gloom would send them to be broken to pieces hundreds of feet
beneath. At length they reached the little platform where there was
scarcely room for all of them to stand with their burden, and climbing
on to the stone which was called the Chair, Zinti drew the dead woman
into the seat of it.
Then as Sihamba bade him he wrapped her in Suzanne's long white cape
of goat-skin, putting the hood of it upon her head, after which he
made the corpse fast in a sitting posture, lashing it round the neck
and middle to the back of the stone with the white tanned rimpis in
such fashion that it could not fall or even slip.
"So," said Sihamba grimly, "there sits the bridge upon whom Swart Piet
can feast his eyes while you seek safety across the mountains. Now
back to the town, for from this height I can already see light
glimmering in the east."
Accordingly they returned to the hut and entered it, leaving Zinti
without, none noting them since by now the multitudes were thronging
the narrow way. Here Sihamba lit the lamp, and by its light once more
examined Suzanne carefully, retouching the dye in this place and in
that, till she was sure that no gleam of white showed through it.
"It is good," she said at length; "unless you betray yourself, your
skin will not betray you. And now, lady Swallow, the hour has come for
us to part, and I rejoice to think that some of the debt I owe you I
have repaid. Long ago I told you that very far away I should live to
save you as you saved me, and I am sure that I have saved you; there
is no doubt of it in my heart. Yes, yes, Swallow, I see you most happy
in the love of husband and of children, thinking of all these things
as a far-off evil dream, as of a dream that never will return. What
more do I desire? What more have I to ask?
"I say that I have repaid to you part of the debt I owe, but all of it
I can never repay, for, Swallow, you have given me love which
elsewhere has been denied to me. Others have parents and brothers and
sisters and husbands to love them; I have none of these. I have only
you who are to me father and mother and sister and lover.
"How then can I repay you who have taught this cold heart of mine to
love, and have deigned to love me in return? Oh! and the love will not
die; no, no, it will live on when all else is dead, for although I am
but a Kaffir doctoress, at times light shines upon my heart, and in
that light I see many new things. Yes, yes, I see that this life of
ours is but a road, a weary road across the winter veldt, and this
death but the black gate of a garden of flowers----"
"Oh! why do you speak thus?" broke in Suzanne. "Is this then our last
farewell, and does your wisdom tell you that we part to meet no more?"
"I know not, Swallow," answered Sihamba hastily, "but if it should be
so I care nothing, for I am sure that through all your days you will
not forget me, and that when your days are done I shall meet you at
the foot of the death-bed. Nay, you must not weep. Now go swiftly, for
it is time, and even in your husband's love be mindful always that a
woman can love also; yes, though she be but a dwarfed Kaffir
doctoress. Swallow--Sister Swallow, fare you well," and, throwing
herself upon her breast, Sihamba kissed her again and again. Then,
with a strange strength, she thrust her from the hut, calling to Zinti
to take charge of her and do as she had bidden him, adding that if he
failed in this task she would blast his body and haunt his spirit.
Thus parted Sihamba, the Kaffir witch-doctoress, and my daughter
Suzanne, whom she kept safe for nearly three years, and saved at last
at the cost of her own life. Yes, thus they parted, and for always in
the flesh, since it was not fated that they should meet again in this
world, and whether it has been permitted to Sihamba--being a Kaffir,
and no Christian--to enter a better one is more than I can say. In her
case, however, I hope that she has found some hole to creep through,
for although she was a black witch-doctoress, according to her
knowledge she was a good woman and a brave one, as the reader will say
also before he comes to the end of this story.
Outside the hut Zinti took Suzanne by the arm and led her through the
mazes of the town to the open ground that lay between it and the mouth
of the steep cleft which ran down to the slopes of the mountain.
All this space was crowded with people, for as yet they could not
enter the cleft, which nowhere was more than ten feet wide, because it
was filled with cattle, some alive and some dead, that, drawn by the
smell of water beneath, had gathered as near to it as the stone walls
which blocked the pass would allow.
Suzanne and Zinti mingled with this crowd of fugitives, taking a
position almost in the midst of it, for they did not wish to pass out
either among the first or the last. There they waited a while, none
noting them, for in their great agony of thirst all thought of
themselves and not of their neighbours. Indeed, husbands deserted
their sick wives and mothers their children, which were too heavy to
carry; yes, they deserted them to be trampled by the feet of men and
the hoofs of cattle.
Now, the eastern sky grew grey, and though the sun had not yet risen
the light was such that a man could see the veins upon the back of his
hand and the white moons on his finger-nails. Presently, as though
moved by one impulse, thousands of voices uttered a hoarse cry of "It
is dawn! Open, open!"
But it would seem that the wall still stood, for the cattle remained
packed in so dense a mass that a man could have walked upon their
backs, as, indeed, some tried to do.
At last the sun rose, or rather its rays shot upwards across the
eastern skies like a fan of fire. Suzanne turned her head and watched
till presently the arrows of light struck upon the tall chair rock
which was the highest point of all the mountain. Yes, there in the
chair sat the white figure and by its side stood what seemed to be a
black child. It was Sihamba. Far below other eyes were watching also,
the eyes of Swart Piet, for he would not let the people go until he
knew that Suzanne and Sihamba stayed behind. But now he saw them,
Suzanne in her accustomed place, and at her side Sihamba.
"Pull down the walls," he shouted to his men, for he was eager to
clear the pass of cattle and Kaffirs that he might go up it, and they
obeyed him. Before they were more than half down the oxen, pushing and
leaping forward madly, cleared what was left of them and, open-
mouthed, their lolling tongues hanging from their dry jaws, rushed
downward to the water, goring or trampling to death some of those who
worked at the wall.
"The schanzes are down," screamed the people, seeing the long line of
cattle move, and immediately they began to press forward also.
At Suzanne's side was a young woman so weak with thirst that she could
scarcely walk, and on her back a year-old boy, insensible but living,
for a red froth bubbled from his lips. A man thrust this woman to one
side and she fell; it was that aged councillor who on the yesterday
had brought news of the surrender to Sihamba. She tried to struggle to
her feet but others trampled upon her.
"Sister, sister!" she cried, catching Suzanne by the hide blanket
which she wore, "I am dead, but oh! save my child."
"Let it be," whispered Zinti, but Suzanne could not deny those piteous
eyes, and as she passed she snatched up the boy and the sling in which
he was carried by the dying woman, setting the band of it beneath her
own breast. So she went forward, bearing him upon her hip, nor did
that act of mercy lack its reward, for as shall be seen it was her
salvation. Also the child lived, and to this day is a faithful servant
in our house, though now his beard is white.
Down the narrow way surged the crowd, scrambling over rocks and dead
cattle and crushed women and children, till at the last Suzanne drew
near its opening, where stood Swart Piet and some twenty of his
followers, watching the multitude pass out.
"Lady," whispered Zinti into her ear, "now I fall behind, for Bull-
Head may know me. If I win through I will rejoin you on the plain, or
by the saw-edged rock; if I do not, throw away that child, and follow
the road of which I have told you, you can scarcely mistake it. Go on,
showing no fear, and--stay, let that blanket hang open in front, it is
not the custom of these women to wear their garments wrapped so
closely."
Suzanne groaned, but she obeyed.
