Nada the Lily

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[2] This would have made him nearly a hundred years old, an age rarely
attained by a native. The writer remembers talking to an aged Zulu
woman, however, who told him that she was married when Chaka was
king.--ED.

Before the Zulus were a people--for I will begin at the beginning--I
was born of the Langeni tribe. We were not a large tribe; afterwards,
all our able-bodied men numbered one full regiment in Chaka's army,
perhaps there were between two and three thousand of them, but they
were brave. Now they are all dead, and their women and children with
them,--that people is no more. It is gone like last month's moon; how
it went I will tell you by-and-bye.

Our tribe lived in a beautiful open country; the Boers, whom we call
the Amaboona, are there now, they tell me. My father, Makedama, was
chief of the tribe, and his kraal was built on the crest of a hill,
but I was not the son of his head wife. One evening, when I was still
little, standing as high as a man's elbow only, I went out with my
mother below the cattle kraal to see the cows driven in. My mother was
very fond of these cows, and there was one with a white face that
would follow her about. She carried my little sister Baleka riding on
her hip; Baleka was a baby then. We walked till we met the lads
driving in the cows. My mother called the white-faced cow and gave it
mealie leaves which she had brought with her. Then the boys went on
with the cattle, but the white-faced cow stopped by my mother. She
said that she would bring it to the kraal when she came home. My
mother sat down on the grass and nursed her baby, while I played round
her, and the cow grazed. Presently we saw a woman walking towards us
across the plain. She walked like one who is tired. On her back was a
bundle of mats, and she led by the hand a boy of about my own age, but
bigger and stronger than I was. We waited a long while, till at last
the woman came up to us and sank down on the veldt, for she was very
weary. We saw by the way her hair was dressed that she was not of our
tribe.

"Greeting to you!" said the woman.

"Good-morrow!" answered my mother. "What do you seek?"

"Food, and a hut to sleep in," said the woman. "I have travelled far."

"How are you named?--and what is your people?" asked my mother.

"My name is Unandi: I am the wife of Senzangacona, of the Zulu tribe,"
said the stranger.

Now there had been war between our people and the Zulu people, and
Senzangacona had killed some of our warriors and taken many of our
cattle. So, when my mother heard the speech of Unandi she sprang up in
anger.

"You dare to come here and ask me for food and shelter, wife of a dog
of a Zulu!" she cried; "begone, or I will call the girls to whip you
out of our country."

The woman, who was very handsome, waited till my mother had finished
her angry words; then she looked up and spoke slowly, "There is a cow
by you with milk dropping from its udder; will you not even give me
and my boy a gourd of milk?" And she took a gourd from her bundle and
held it towards us.

"I will not," said my mother.

"We are thirsty with long travel; will you not, then, give us a cup of
water? We have found none for many hours."

"I will not, wife of a dog; go and seek water for yourself."

The woman's eyes filled with tears, but the boy folded his arms on his
breast and scowled. He was a very handsome boy, with bright black
eyes, but when he scowled his eyes were like the sky before a
thunderstorm.

"Mother," he said, "we are not wanted here any more than we were
wanted yonder," and he nodded towards the country where the Zulu
people lived. "Let us be going to Dingiswayo; the Umtetwa people will
protect us."

"Yes, let us be going, my son," answered Unandi; "but the path is
long, we are weary and shall fall by the way."

I heard, and something pulled at my heart; I was sorry for the woman
and her boy, they looked so tired. Then, without saying anything to my
mother, I snatched the gourd and ran with it to a little donga that
was hard by, for I knew that there was a spring. Presently I came back
with the gourd full of water. My mother wanted to catch me, for she
was very angry, but I ran past her and gave the gourd to the boy. Then
my mother ceased trying to interfere, only she beat the woman with her
tongue all the while, saying that evil had come to our kraals from her
husband, and she felt in her heart that more evil would come upon us
from her son. Her Ehlose[3] told her so. Ah! my father, her Ehlose
told her true. If the woman Unandi and her child had died that day on
the veldt, the gardens of my people would not now be a wilderness, and
their bones would not lie in the great gulley that is near
U'Cetywayo's kraal.

[3] Guardian spirit.--ED.

While my mother talked I and the cow with the white face stood still
and watched, and the baby Baleka cried aloud. The boy, Unandi's son,
having taken the gourd, did not offer the water to his mother. He
drank two-thirds of it himself; I think that he would have drunk it
all had not his thirst been slaked; but when he had done he gave what
was left to his mother, and she finished it. Then he took the gourd
again, and came forward, holding it in one hand; in the other he
carried a short stick.

"What is your name, boy?" he said to me as a big rich man speaks to
one who is little and poor.

"Mopo is my name," I answered.

"And what is the name of your people?"

I told him the name of my tribe, the Langeni tribe.

"Very well, Mopo; now I will tell you my name. My name is Chaka, son
of Senzangacona, and my people are called the Amazulu. And I will tell
you something more. I am little to-day, and my people are a small
people. But I shall grow big, so big that my head will be lost in the
clouds; you will look up and you shall not see it. My face will blind
you; it will be bright like the sun; and my people will grow great
with me; they shall eat up the whole world. And when I am big and my
people are big, and we have stamped the earth flat as far as men can
travel, then I will remember your tribe--the tribe of the Langeni, who
would not give me and my mother a cup of milk when we were weary. You
see this gourd; for every drop it can hold the blood of a man shall
flow--the blood of one of your men. But because you gave me the water
I will spare you, Mopo, and you only, and make you great under me. You
shall grow fat in my shadow. You alone I will never harm, however you
sin against me; this I swear. But for that woman," and he pointed to
my mother, "let her make haste and die, so that I do not need to teach
her what a long time death can take to come. I have spoken." And he
ground his teeth and shook his stick towards us.

My mother stood silent awhile. Then she gasped out: "The little liar!
He speaks like a man, does he? The calf lows like a bull. I will teach
him another note--the brat of an evil prophet!" And putting down
Baleka, she ran at the boy.

Chaka stood quite still till she was near; then suddenly he lifted the
stick in his hand, and hit her so hard on the head that she fell down.
After that he laughed, turned, and went away with his mother Unandi.

These, my father, were the first words I heard Chaka speak, and they
were words of prophecy, and they came true. The last words I heard him
speak were words of prophecy also, and I think that they will come
true. Even now they are coming true. In the one he told how the Zulu
people should rise. And say, have they not risen? In the other he
told how they should fall; and they did fall. Do not the white men
gather themselves together even now against U'Cetywayo, as vultures
gather round a dying ox? The Zulus are not what they were to stand
against them. Yes, yes, they will come true, and mine is the song of a
people that is doomed.

But of these other words I will speak in their place.

I went to my mother. Presently she raised herself from the ground and
sat up with her hands over her face. The blood from the wound the
stick had made ran down her face on to her breast, and I wiped it away
with grass. She sat for a long while thus, while the child cried, the
cow lowed to be milked, and I wiped up the blood with the grass. At
last she took her hands away and spoke to me.

"Mopo, my son," she said, "I have dreamed a dream. I dreamed that I
saw the boy Chaka who struck me: he was grown like a giant. He stalked
across the mountains and the veldt, his eyes blazed like the
lightning, and in his hand he shook a little assegai that was red with
blood. He caught up people after people in his hands and tore them, he
stamped their kraals flat with his feet. Before him was the green of
summer, behind him the land was black as when the fires have eaten the
grass. I saw our people, Mopo; they were many and fat, their hearts
laughed, the men were brave, the girls were fair; I counted their
children by the hundreds. I saw them again, Mopo. They were bones,
white bones, thousands of bones tumbled together in a rocky place, and
he, Chaka, stood over the bones and laughed till the earth shook.
Then, Mopo, in my dream, I saw you grown a man. You alone were left of
our people. You crept up behind the giant Chaka, and with you came
others, great men of a royal look. You stabbed him with a little
spear, and he fell down and grew small again; he fell down and cursed
you. But you cried in his ear a name--the name of Baleka, your sister
--and he died. Let us go home, Mopo, let us go home; the darkness
falls."

So we rose and went home. But I held my peace, for I was afraid, very
much afraid.

CHAPTER II

MOPO IS IN TROUBLE

Now, I must tell how my mother did what the boy Chaka had told her,
and died quickly. For where his stick had struck her on the forehead
there came a sore that would not be healed, and in the sore grew an
abscess, and the abscess ate inwards till it came to the brain. Then
my mother fell down and died, and I cried very much, for I loved her,
and it was dreadful to see her cold and stiff, with not a word to say
however loudly I called to her. Well, they buried my mother, and she
was soon forgotten. I only remembered her, nobody else did--not even
Baleka, for she was too little--and as for my father he took another
young wife and was content. After that I was unhappy, for my brothers
did not love me, because I was much cleverer than they, and had
greater skill with the assegai, and was swifter in running; so they
poisoned the mind of my father against me and he treated me badly. But
Baleka and I loved each other, for we were both lonely, and she clung
to me like a creeper to the only tree in a plain, and though I was
young, I learned this: that to be wise is to be strong, for though he
who holds the assegai kills, yet he whose mind directs the battle is
greater than he who kills. Now I saw that the witch-finders and the
medicine-men were feared in the land, and that everybody looked up to
them, so that, even when they had only a stick in their hands, ten men
armed with spears would fly before them. Therefore I determined that I
should be a witch-doctor, for they alone can kill those whom they hate
with a word. So I learned the arts of the medicine-men. I made
sacrifices, I fasted in the veldt alone, I did all those things of
which you have heard, and I learned much; for there is wisdom in our
magic as well as lies--and you know it, my father, else you had not
come here to ask me about your lost oxen.

So things went on till I was twenty years of age--a man full grown. By
now I had mastered all I could learn by myself, so I joined myself on
to the chief medicine-man of our tribe, who was named Noma. He was
old, had one eye only, and was very clever. Of him I learned some
tricks and more wisdom, but at last he grew jealous of me and set a
trap to catch me. As it chanced, a rich man of a neighbouring tribe
had lost some cattle, and came with gifts to Noma praying him to smell
them out. Noma tried and could not find them; his vision failed him.
Then the headman grew angry and demanded back his gifts; but Noma
would not give up that which he once had held, and hot words passed.
The headman said that he would kill Noma; Noma said that he would
bewitch the headman.

"Peace," I said, for I feared that blood would be shed. "Peace, and
let me see if my snake will tell me where the cattle are."

"You are nothing but a boy," answered the headman. "Can a boy have
wisdom?"

"That shall soon be known," I said, taking the bones in my hand.[1]

[1] The Kafir witch-doctors use the knuckle-bones of animals in their
magic rites, throwing them something as we throw dice.--ED.

"Leave the bones alone!" screamed Noma. "We will ask nothing more of
our snakes for the good of this son of a dog."

"He shall throw the bones," answered the headman. "If you try to stop
him, I will let sunshine through you with my assegai." And he lifted
his spear.

Then I made haste to begin; I threw the bones. The headman sat on the
ground before me and answered my questions. You know of these matters,
my father--how sometimes the witch-doctor has knowledge of where the
lost things are, for our ears are long, and sometimes his Ehlose tells
him, as but the other day it told me of your oxen. Well, in this case,
my snake stood up. I knew nothing of the man's cattle, but my Spirit
was with me and soon I saw them all, and told them to him one by one,
their colour, their age--everything. I told him, too, where they were,
and how one of them had fallen into a stream and lay there on its back
drowned, with its forefoot caught in a forked root. As my Ehlose told
me so I told the headman.

Now, the man was pleased, and said that if my sight was good, and he
found the cattle, the gifts should be taken from Noma and given to me;
and he asked the people who were sitting round, and there were many,
if this was not just. "Yes, yes," they said, it was just, and they
would see that it was done. But Noma sat still and looked at me
evilly. He knew that I had made a true divination, and he was very
angry. It was a big matter: the herd of cattle were many, and, if they
were found where I had said, then all men would think me the greater
wizard. Now it was late, and the moon had not yet risen, therefore the
headman said that he would sleep that night in our kraal, and at the
first light would go with me to the spot where I said the cattle were.
After that he went away.

I too went into my hut and lay down to sleep. Suddenly I awoke,
feeling a weight upon my breast. I tried to start up, but something
cold pricked my throat. I fell back again and looked. The door of the
hut was open, the moon lay low on the sky like a ball of fire far
away. I could see it through the door, and its light crept into the
hut. It fell upon the face of Noma the witch-doctor. He was seated
across me, glaring at me with his one eye, and in his hand was a
knife. It was that which I had felt prick my throat.

"You whelp whom I have bred up to tear me!" he hissed into my ear,
"you dared to divine where I failed, did you? Very well, now I will
show you how I serve such puppies. First, I will pierce through the
root of your tongue, so that you cannot squeal, then I will cut you to
pieces slowly, bit by bit, and in the morning I will tell the people
that the spirits did it because you lied. Next, I will take off your
arms and legs. Yes, yes, I will make you like a stick! Then I will"--
and he began driving in the knife under my chin.

"Mercy, my uncle," I said, for I was frightened and the knife hurt.
"Have mercy, and I will do whatever you wish!"

"Will you do this?" he asked, still pricking me with the knife. "Will
you get up, go to find the dog's cattle and drive them to a certain
place, and hide them there?" And he named a secret valley that was
known to very few. "If you do that, I will spare you and give you
three of the cows. If you refuse or play my false, then, by my
father's spirit, I will find a way to kill you!"

"Certainly I will do it, my uncle," I answered. "Why did you not trust
me before? Had I known that you wanted to keep the cattle, I would
never have smelt them out. I only did so fearing lest you should lose
the presents."

"You are not so wicked as I thought," he growled. "Get up, then, and
do my bidding. You can be back here two hours after dawn."

So I got up, thinking all the while whether I should try to spring on
him. But I was without arms, and he had the knife; also if, by chance,
I prevailed and killed him, it would have been thought that I had
murdered him, and I should have tasted the assegai. So I made another
plan. I would go and find the cattle in the valley where I had smelt
them out, but I would not bring them to the secret hiding-place. No; I
would drive them straight to the kraal, and denounce Noma before the
chief, my father, and all the people. But I was young in those days,
and did not know the heart of Noma. He had not been a witch-doctor
till he grew old for nothing. Oh! he was evil!--he was cunning as a
jackal, and fierce like a lion.. He had planted me by him like a tree,
but he meant to keep me clipped like a bush. Now I had grown tall and
overshadowed him; therefore he would root me up.

I went to the corner of my hut, Noma watching me all the while, and
took a kerrie and my small shield. Then I started through the
moonlight. Till I was past the kraal I glided along quietly as a
shadow. After that, I began to run, singing to myself as I went, to
frighten away the ghosts, my father.

For an hour I travelled swiftly over the plain, till I came to the
hillside where the bush began. Here it was very dark under the shade
of the trees, and I sang louder than ever. At last I found the little
buffalo path I sought, and turned along it. Presently I came to an
open place, where the moonlight crept in between the trees. I knelt
down and looked. Yes! my snake had not lied to me; there was the spoor
of the cattle. Then I went on gladly till I reached a dell through
which the water ran softly, sometimes whispering and sometimes talking
out loud. Here the trail of the cattle was broad: they had broken down
the ferns with their feet and trampled the grass. Presently I came to
a pool. I knew it--it was the pool my snake had shown me. And there at
the edge of the pool floated the drowned ox, its foot caught in a
forked root. All was just as I had seen it in my heart.

I stepped forward and looked round. My eye caught something; it was
the faint grey light of the dawn glinted on the cattle's horns. As I
looked, one of them snorted, rose and shook the dew from his hide. He
seemed big as an elephant in the mist and twilight.

Then I collected them all--there were seventeen--and drove them before
me down the narrow path back towards the kraal. Now the daylight came
quickly, and the sun had been up an hour when I reached the spot where
I must turn if I wished to hide the cattle in the secret place, as
Noma had bid me. But I would not do this. No, I would go on to the
kraal with them, and tell all men that Noma was a thief. Still, I sat
down and rested awhile, for I was tired. As I sat, I heard a noise,
and looked up. There, over the slope of the rise, came a crowd of men,
and leading them was Noma, and by his side the headman who owned the
cattle. I rose and stood still, wondering; but as I stood, they ran
towards me shouting and waving sticks and spears.

"There he is!" screamed Noma. "There he is!--the clever boy whom I
have brought up to bring shame on me. What did I tell you? Did I not
tell you that he was a thief? Yes--yes! I know your tricks, Mopo, my
child! See! he is stealing the cattle! He knew where they were all the
time, and now he is taking them away to hide them. They would be
useful to buy a wife with, would they not, my clever boy?" And he made
a rush at me, with his stick lifted, and after him came the headman,
grunting with rage.

I understood now, my father. My heart went mad in me, everything began
to swim round, a red cloth seemed to lift itself up and down before my
eyes. I have always seen it thus when I was forced to fight. I
screamed out one word only, "Liar!" and ran to meet him. On came Noma.
He struck at me with his stick, but I caught the blow upon my little
shield, and hit back. Wow! I did hit! The skull of Noma met my kerrie,
and down he fell dead at my feet. I yelled again, and rushed on at the
headman. He threw an assegai, but it missed me, and next second I hit
him too. He got up his shield, but I knocked it down upon his head,
and over he rolled senseless. Whether he lived or died I do not know,
my father; but his head being of the thickest, I think it likely that
he lived. Then, while the people stood astonished, I turned and fled
like the wind. They turned too, and ran after me, throwing spears at
me and trying to cut me off. But none of them could catch me--no, not
one. I went like the wind; I went like a buck when the dogs wake it
from sleep; and presently the sound of their chase grew fainter and
fainter, till at last I was out of sight and alone.

CHAPTER III

MOPO VENTURES HOME

I threw myself down on the grass and panted till my breath came back;
then I went and hid in a patch of reeds down by a swamp. All day long
I lay there thinking. What was I to do? Now I was a jackal without a
hole. If I went back to my people, certainly they would kill me, whom
they thought a thief. My blood would be given for Noma's, and that I
did not wish, though my heart was sad. Then there came into my mind
the thought of Chaka, the boy to whom I had given the cup of water
long ago. I had heard of him: his name was known in the land; already
the air was big with it; the very trees and grass spoke it. The words
he had said and the vision that my mother had seen were beginning to
come true. By the help of the Umtetwas he had taken the place of his
father Senzangacona; he had driven out the tribe of the Amaquabe; now
he made war on Zweete, chief of the Endwande, and he had sworn that he
would stamp the Endwande flat, so that nobody could find them any
more. Now I remembered how this Chaka promised that he would make me
great, and that I should grow fat in his shadow; and I thought to
myself that I would arise and go to him. Perhaps he would kill me;
well, what did it matter? Certainly I should be killed if I stayed
ehre. Yes, I would go. But now my heart pulled another way. There was
but one whom I loved in the world--it was my sister Baleka. My father
had betrothed her to the chief of a neighbouring tribe, but I knew
that this marriage was against her wish. Perhaps my sister would run
away with me if I could get near her to tell her that I was going. I
would try--yes, I would try.

I waited till the darkness came down, then I rose from my bed of weeds
and crept like a jackal towards the kraal. In the mealie gardens I
stopped awhile, for I was very hungry, and filled myself with the
half-ripe mealies. Then I went on till I came to the kraal. Some of my
people were seated outside of a hut, talking together over a fire. I
crept near, silently as a snake, and hid behind a little bush. I knew
that they could not see me outside the ring of the firelight, and I
wanted to hear what they said. As I guessed, they were talking of me
and called me many names. They said that I should bring ill-luck on
the tribe by having killed so great a witch-doctor as Noma; also that
the people of the headman would demand payment for the assault on him.
I learned, moreover, that my father had ordered out all the men of the
tribe to hunt for me on the morrow and to kill me wherever they found
me. "Ah!" I thought, "you may hunt, but you will bring nothing home to
the pot." Just then a dog that was lying by the fire got up and began
to sniff the air. I could not see what dog it was--indeed, I had
forgotten all about the dogs when I drew near the kraal; that is what
comes of want of experience, my father. The dog sniffed and sniffed,
then he began to growl, looking always my way, and I grew afraid.

"What is the dog growling at?" said one man to another. "Go and see."
But the other man was taking snuff and did not like to move. "Let the
dog go and see for himself," he answered, sneezing, "what is the good
of keeping a dog if you have to catch the thief?"

"Go on, then," said the first man to the dog. And he ran forward,
barking. Then I saw him: it was my own dog, Koos, a very good dog.
Presently, as I lay not knowing what to do, he smelt my smell, stopped
barking, and running round the bush he found me and began to lick my
face. "Be quiet, Koos!" I whispered to him. And he lay down by my
side.

"Where has that dog gone now?" said the first man. "Is he bewitched,
that he stops barking suddenly and does not come back?"

"We will see," said the other, rising, a spear in his hand.

Now once more I was terribly afraid, for I thought that they would
catch me, or I must run for my life again. But as I sprang up to run,
a big black snake glided between the men and went off towards the
huts. They jumped aside in a great fright, then all of them turned to
follow the snake, saying that this was what the dog was barking at.
That was my good Ehlose, my father, which without any doubt took the
shape of a snake to save my life.

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