Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard (most interesting books to read TXT) 📖

“There, that will do. These oxen I must have to replace those in my teams which died on the trek, but I want no more.”

“Wow!” said Saduko, and all those who stood with him, while one of them added—I think it was old Tshoza:

“He refuses six hundred cattle which are fairly his! He must be mad!”

“No friends,” I answered, “I am not mad, but neither am I bad. I accompanied Saduko on this raid because he is dear to me and stood by me once in the hour of danger. But I do not love killing men with whom I have no quarrel, and I will not take the price of blood.”

“Wow!” said old Tshoza again, for Saduko seemed too astonished to speak, “he is a spirit, not a man. He is holy!”

“Not a bit of it,” I answered. “If you think that, ask Mameena”—a dark saying which they did not understand. “Now, listen. I will not take those cattle because I do not think as you Kafirs think. But as they are mine, according to your law, I am going to dispose of them. I give ten head to each of my hunters, and fifteen head to the relations of him who was killed. The rest I give to Tshoza and to the other men of the Amangwane who fought with us, to be divided among them in such proportions as they may agree, I being the judge in the event of any quarrel arising.”

Now these men raised a great cry of “Inkoosi!” and, running up, old Tshoza seized my hand and kissed it.

“Your heart is big,” he cried; “you drop fatness! Although you are so small, the spirit of a king lives in you, and the wisdom of the heavens.”

Thus he praised me, while all the others joined in, till the din was awful. Saduko thanked me also in his magnificent manner. Yet I do not think that he was altogether pleased, although my great gift relieved him from the necessity of sharing up the spoil with his companions. The truth was, or so I believe, that he understood that henceforth the Amangwane would love me better than they loved him. This, indeed, proved to be the case, for I am sure that there was no man among all those wild fellows who would not have served me to the death, and to this day my name is a power among them and their descendants. Also it has grown into something of a proverb among all those Kafirs who know the story. They talk of any great act of liberality in an idiom as “a gift of Macumazana,” and in the same way of one who makes any remarkable renunciation, as “a wearer of Macumazana’s blanket,” or as “he who has stolen Macumazana’s shadow.”

Thus did I earn a great reputation very cheaply, for really I could not have taken those cattle; also I am sure that had I done so they would have brought me bad luck. Indeed, one of the regrets of my life is that I had anything whatsoever to do with the business.

Our journey back to Umbezi’s kraal—for thither we were heading—was very slow, hampered as we were with wounded and by a vast herd of cattle. Of the latter, indeed, we got rid after a while, for, except those which I had given to my men, and a hundred or so of the best beasts that Saduko took with him for a certain purpose, they were sent away to a place which he had chosen, in charge of about half of his people, under the command of his uncle, Tshoza, there to await his coming.

Over a month had gone by since the night of the ambush when at last we outspanned quite close to Umbezi’s, in that bush where first I had met the Amangwane free-spears. A very different set of men they looked on this triumphant day to those fierce fellows who had slipped out of the trees at the call of their chief. As we went through the country Saduko had bought fine moochas and blankets for them; also head-dresses had been made with the long black feathers of the sakabuli finch, and shields and leglets of the hides and tails of oxen. Moreover, having fed plentifully and travelled easily, they were fat and well-favoured, as, given good food, natives soon become after a period of abstinence.

The plan of Saduko was to lie quiet in the bush that night, and on the following morning to advance in all his grandeur, accompanied by his spears, present the hundred head of cattle that had been demanded, and formally ask his daughter’s hand from Umbezi. As the reader may have gathered already, there was a certain histrionic vein in Saduko; also when he was in feather he liked to show off his plumage.

Well, this plan was carried out to the letter. On the following morning, after the sun was well up, Saduko, as a great chief does, sent forward two bedizened heralds to announce his approach to Umbezi, after whom followed two other men to sing his deeds and praises. (By the way, I observed that they had clearly been instructed to avoid any mention of a person called Macumazahn.) Then we advanced in force. First went Saduko, splendidly apparelled as a chief, carrying a small assegai and adorned with plumes, leglets and a leopard-skin kilt. He was attended by about half a dozen of the best-looking of his followers, who posed as indunas or councillors. Behind these I walked, a dusty, insignificant little fellow, attended by the ugly, snub-nosed Scowl in a very greasy pair of trousers, worn-out European boots through which his toes peeped, and nothing else, and by my three surviving hunters, whose appearance was even more disreputable. After us marched about four score of the transformed Amangwane, and after them came the hundred picked cattle driven by a few herdsmen.

In due course we arrived at the gate of the kraal, where we found the heralds and the praisers prancing and shouting.

“Have you seen Umbezi?” asked Saduko of them.

“No,” they answered; “he was asleep when we got here, but his people say that he is coming out presently.”

“Then tell his people that he had better be quick about it, or I shall turn him out,” replied the proud Saduko.

Just at this moment the kraal gate opened and through it appeared Umbezi, looking extremely fat and foolish; also, it struck me, frightened, although this he tried to conceal.

“Who visits me here,” he said, “with so much—um—ceremony?” and with the carved dancing-stick he carried he pointed doubtfully at the lines of armed men. “Oh, it is you, is it, Saduko?” and he looked him up and down, adding: “How grand you are to be sure. Have you been robbing anybody? And you, too, Macumazahn. Well, you do not look grand. You look like an old cow that has been suckling two calves on the winter veld. But tell me, what are all these warriors for? I ask because I have not food for so many, especially as we have just had a feast here.”

“Fear nothing, Umbezi,” answered Saduko in his grandest manner. “I have brought food for my own men. As for my business, it is simple. You asked a hundred head of cattle as the lobola [that is, the marriage gift] of your daughter, Mameena. They are there. Go send your servants to the kraal and count them.”

“Oh, with pleasure,” Umbezi replied nervously, and he gave some orders to certain men behind him. “I am glad to see that you have become rich in this sudden fashion, Saduko, though how you have done so I cannot understand.”

“Never mind how I have become rich,” answered Saduko. “I am rich; that is enough for the present. Be pleased to send for Mameena, for I would talk with her.”

“Yes, yes, Saduko, I understand that you would talk with Mameena; but”—and he looked round him desperately—“I fear that she is still asleep. As you know, Mameena was always a late riser, and, what is more, she hates to be disturbed. Don’t you think that you could come back, say, to-morrow morning? She will be sure to be up by then; or, better still, the day after?”

“In which hut is Mameena?” asked Saduko sternly, while I, smelling a rat, began to chuckle to myself.

“I really do not know, Saduko,” replied Umbezi. “Sometimes she sleeps in one, sometimes in another, and sometimes she goes several hours’ journey away to her aunt’s kraal for a change. I should not be in the least surprised if she had done so last night. I have no control over Mameena.”

Before Saduko could answer, a shrill, rasping voice broke upon our ears, which after some search I saw proceeded from an ugly and ancient female seated in the shadow, in whom I recognised the lady who was known by the pleasing name of “Worn-out-Old-Cow.”

“He lies!” screeched the voice. “He lies. Thanks be to the spirit of my ancestors that wild cat Mameena has left this kraal for good. She slept last night, not with her aunt, but with her husband, Masapo, to whom Umbezi gave her in marriage two days ago, receiving in payment a hundred and twenty head of cattle, which was twenty more than you bid, Saduko.”

Now when Saduko heard these words I thought that he would really go mad with rage. He turned quite grey under his dark skin and for a while trembled like a leaf, looking as though he were about to fall to the ground. Then he leapt as a lion leaps, and seizing Umbezi by the throat, hurled him backwards, standing over him with raised spear.

“You dog!” he cried in a terrible voice. “Tell me the truth or I will rip you up. What have you done with Mameena?”

“Oh! Saduko,” answered Umbezi in choking tones, “Mameena has chosen to get married. It was no fault of mine; she would have her way.”

He got no farther, and had I not intervened by throwing my arms about Saduko and dragging him back, that moment would have been Umbezi’s last, for Saduko was about to pin him to the earth with his spear. As it proved, I was just in time, and Saduko, being weak with emotion, for I felt his heart going like a sledge-hammer, could not break from my grasp before his reason returned to him.

At length he recovered himself a little and threw down his spear as though to put himself out of temptation. Then he spoke, always in the same terrible voice, asking:

“Have you more to say about this business, Umbezi? I would hear all before I answer you.”

“Only this, Saduko,” replied Umbezi, who had risen to his feet and was shaking like a reed. “I did no more than any other father would have done. Masapo is a very powerful chief, one who will be a good stick for me to lean on in my old age. Mameena declared that she wished to marry him—”

“He lies!” screeched the “Old Cow.” “What Mameena said was that she had no will towards marriage with any Zulu in the land, so I suppose she is looking after a white man,” and she leered in my direction. “She said, however, that if her father wished to marry her to Masapo, she must be a dutiful daughter and obey him, but that if blood and trouble came of that marriage, let it be on his head and not on hers.”

“Would you also stick your claws into me, cat?” shouted Umbezi, catching the old woman a savage cut across the back with the light dancing-stick which he still held in his hand, whereon she fled away screeching and cursing him.

“Oh, Saduko,” he went on, “let not your ears be poisoned by these falsehoods. Mameena never said anything of the sort, or if she did it was not to me. Well, the moment that my daughter had consented to take Masapo as her husband his people drove a hundred and twenty of the most beautiful cattle over the hill, and would you have had me refuse them, Saduko? I am sure that when you have seen them you will say that I was quite right to accept such a splendid lobola in return for one sharp-tongued girl. Remember, Saduko, that although you had promised a hundred head, that is less by twenty, at the time you did not own one, and where you were to get them from I could not guess. Moreover,” he added with a last, desperate, imaginative effort, for I think he saw that his arguments were making no impression, “some strangers who called here told me that both you and Macumazahn had been killed by certain evil-doers in the mountains. There, I have spoken, and, Saduko, if you now have