Nada the Lily

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Now for awhile the two circled round and round, each waiting for a
chance to strike. Presently Faku smote at the head of Umslopogaas, but
the Slaughterer lifted Groan-Maker to ward the blow. Faku crooked his
arm and let the axe curl downwards, so that its keen edge smote
Umslopogaas upon the head, severing his man's ring and the scalp
beneath.

Made mad with the pain, the Slaughterer awoke, as it were. He grasped
Groan-maker with both hands and struck thrice. The first blow hewed
away the plumes and shield of Faku, and drive him back a spear's
length, the second missed its aim, the third and mightiest twisted in
his wet hands, so that the axe smote sideways. Nevertheless, it fell
full on the breast of the captain Faku, shattering his bones, and
sweeping him from the ledge of rock on to the slope beneath, where he
lay still.

"It is finished with the daylight," said Umslopogaas, smiling grimly.
"Now, Dingaan, send more Slayers to seek your slain," and he turned to
find Nada in the cave.

But Faku the captain was not yet dead, though he was hurt to death. He
sat up, and with his last strength he hurled the axe in his hand at
him whose might had prevailed against him. The axe sped true, and
Umslopogaas did not see it fly. It sped true, and its point struck him
on the left temple, driving in the bone and making a great hole. Then
Faku fell back dying, and Umslopogaas threw up his arms and dropped
like an ox drops beneath the blow of the butcher, and lay as one dead,
under the shadow of a stone.

All day long Nada crouched in the cave listening to the sounds of war
that crept faintly up the mountain side; howling of wolves, shouting
of men, and the clamour of iron on iron. All day long she sat, and now
evening came apace, and the noise of battle drew near, swelled, and
sank, and died away. She heard the voices of the Wolf-Brethren as they
called to each other like bucks, naming the number of the slain. She
heard Galazi's cry of "Victory!" and her heart leapt to it, though she
knew that there was death in the cry. Then for the last time she heard
the faint ringing of iron on iron, and the light went out and all grew
still.

All grew still as the night. There came no more shouting of men and no
more clash of arms, no howlings of wolves, no cries of pain or triumph
--all was quiet as death, for death had taken all.

For awhile Nada the Lily sat in the dark of the cave, saying to
herself, "Presently he will come, my husband, he will surely come; the
Slayers are slain--he does not but tarry to bind his wounds; a
scratch, perchance, here and there. Yes, he will come, and it is well,
for I am weary of my loneliness, and this place is grim and evil."

Thus she spoke to herself in hope, but nothing came except the
silence. Then she spoke again, and her voice echoed in the hollow
cave. "Now I will be bold, I will fear nothing, I will push aside the
stone and go out to find him. I know well he does but linger to tend
some who are wounded, perhaps Galazi. Doubtless Galazi is wounded. I
must go and nurse him, though he never loved me, and I do not love him
overmuch who would stand between me and my husband. This wild wolf-man
is a foe to women, and, most of all, a foe to me; yet I will be kind
to him. Come, I will go at once," and she rose and pushed at the rock.

Why, what was this? It did not stir. Then she remembered that she had
pulled it beyond the socket because of her fear of the wolf, and that
the rock had slipped a little way down the neck of the cave.
Umslopogaas had told her that she must not do this, and she had
forgotten his words in her foolishness. Perhaps she could move the
stone; no, not by the breadth of a grain of corn. She was shut in,
without food or water, and here she must bide till Umslopogaas came.
And if he did not come? Then she must surely die.

Now she shrieked aloud in her fear, calling on the name of
Umslopogaas. The walls of the cave answered "Umslopogaas!
Umslopogaas!" and that was all.

Afterwards madness fell upon Nada, my daughter, and she lay in the
cave for days and nights, nor knew ever how long she lay. And with her
madness came visions, for she dreamed that the dead One whom Galazi
had told her of sat once more aloft in his niche at the end of the
cave and spoke to her, saying:--

"Galazi is dead! The fate of him who bears the Watcher has fallen on
him. Dead are the ghost-wolves; I also am of hunger in this cave, and
as I died so shall you die, Nada the Lily! Nada, Star of Death!
because of whose beauty and foolishness all this death has come
about."

This is seemed to Nada, in her madness, that the shadow of him who had
sat in the niche spoke to her from hour to hour.

It seemed to Nada, in her madness, that twice the light shone through
the hole by the rock, and that was day, and twice it went out, and
that was night. A third time the ray shone and died away, and lo! her
madness left her, and she awoke to know that she was dying, and that a
voice she loved spoke without the hole, saying in hollow accents:--

"Nada? Do you still live, Nada?"

"Yea," she answered hoarsely. "Water! give me water!"

Next she heard a sound as of a great snake dragging itself along
painfully. A while passed, then a trembling hand thrust a little gourd
of water through the hole. She drank, and now she could speak, though
the water seemed to flow through her veins like fire.

"Is it indeed you, Umslopogaas?" she said, "or are you dead, and do I
dream of you?"

"It is I, Nada," said the voice. "Hearken! have you drawn the rock
home?"

"Alas! yes," she answered. "Perhaps, if the two of us strive at it, it
will move."

"Ay, if our strength were what it was--but now! Still, let us try."

So they strove with a rock, but the two of them together had not the
strength of a girl, and it would not stir.

"Give over, Umslopogaas," said Nada; "we do but waste the time that is
left to me. Let us talk!"

For awhile there was no answer, for Umslopogaas had fainted, and Nada
beat her breast, thinking that he was dead.

Presently he spoke, however, saying, "It may not be; we must perish
here, one on each side of the stone, not seeing the other's face, for
my might is as water; nor can I stand upon my feet to go and seek for
food."

"Are you wounded, Umslopogaas?" asked Nada.

"Ay, Nada, I am pierced to the brain with the point of an axe; no fair
stroke, the captain of Dingaan hurled it at me when I thought him
dead, and I fell. I do not know how long I have lain yonder under the
shadow of the rock, but it must be long, for my limbs are wasted, and
those who fell in the fray are picked clean by the vultures, all
except Galazi, for the old wolf Deathgrip lies on his breast dying,
but not dead, licking my brother's wounds, and scares the fowls away.
It was the beak of a vulture, who had smelt me out at last, that woke
me from my sleep beneath the stone, Nada, and I crept hither. Would
that he had not awakened me, would that I had died as I lay, rather
than lived a little while till you perish thus, like a trapped fox,
Nada, and presently I follow you."

"It is hard to die so, Umslopogaas," she answered, "I who am yet young
and fair, who love you, and hoped to give you children; but so it has
come about, and it may not be put away. I am well-nigh sped, husband;
horror and fear have conquered me, my strength fails, but I suffer
little. Let us talk no more of death, let us rather speak of our
childhood, when we wandered hand in hand; let us talk also of our
love, and of the happy hours that we have spent since your great axe
rang upon the rock in the Halakazi caves, and my fear told you the
secret of my womanhood. See, I thrust my hand through the hole; can
you not kiss it, Umslopogaas?"

Now Umslopogaas stooped his shattered head, and kissed the Lily's
little hand, then he held it in his own, and so they sat till the end
--he without, resting his back against the rock, she within, lying on
her side, her arm stretched through the little hole. They spoke of
their love, and tried to forget their sorrow in it; he told her also
of the fray which had been and how it went.

"Ah!" she said, "that was Zinita's work, Zinita who hated me, and
justly. Doubtless she set Dingaan on this path."

"A little while gone," quoth Umslopogaas; "and I hoped that your last
breath and mine might pass together, Nada, and that we might go
together to seek great Galazi, my brother, where he is. Now I hope
that help will find me, and that I may live a little while, because of
a certain vengeance which I would wreak."

"Speak not of vengeance, husband," she answered, "I, too, am near to
that land where the Slayer and the Slain, the Shedder of Blood and the
Avenger of Blood are lost in the same darkness. I would die with love,
and love only, in my heart, and your name, and yours only, on my lips,
so that if anywhere we live again it shall be ready to spring forth to
greet you. Yet, husband, it is in my heart that you will not go with
me, but that you shall live on to die the greatest of deaths far away
from here, and because of another woman. It seems that, as I lay in
the dark of this cave, I saw you, Umslopogaas, a great man, gaunt and
grey, stricken to the death, and the axe Groan-maker wavering aloft,
and many a man dead upon a white and shimmering way, and about you the
fair faces of white women; and you had a hole in your forehead,
husband, on the left side."

"That is like to be true, if I live," he answered, "for the bone of my
temple is shattered."

Now Nada ceased speaking, and for a long while was silent; Umslopogaas
was also silent and torn with pain and sorrow because he must lose the
Lily thus, and she must die so wretchedly, for one reason only, that
the cast of Faku had robbed him of his strength. Alas! he who had done
many deeds might not save her now; he could scarcely hold himself
upright against the rock. He thought of it, and the tears flowed down
his face and fell on to the hand of the Lily. She felt them fall and
spoke.

"Weep not, my husband," she said, "I have been all too ill a wife to
you. Do not mourn for me, yet remember that I loved you well." And
again she was silent for a long space.

Then she spoke and for the last time of all, and her voice came in a
gasping whisper through the hole in the rock:--

"Farewell, Umslopogaas, my husband and my brother, I thank you for
your love, Umslopogaas. Ah! I die!"

Umslopogaas could make no answer, only he watched the little hand he
held. Twice it opened, twice it closed upon his own, then it opened
for the third time, turned grey, quivered, and was still forever!

Now it was at the hour of dawn that Nada died.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE VENGEANCE OF MOPO AND HIS FOSTERLING

It chanced that on this day of Nada's death and at that same hour of
dawn I, Mopo, came from my mission back to the kraal of the People of
the Axe, having succeeded in my end, for that great chief whom I had
gone out to visit had hearkened to my words. As the light broke I
reached the town, and lo! it was a blackness and a desolation.

"Here is the footmark of Dingaan," I said to myself, and walked to and
fro, groaning heavily. Presently I found a knot of men who were of the
people that had escaped the slaughter, hiding in the mealie-fields
lest the Slayers should return, and from them I drew the story. I
listened in silence, for, my father, I was grown old in misfortune;
then I asked where were the Slayers of the king? They replied that
they did not know; the soldiers had gone up the Ghost Mountain after
the Wolf-Brethren and Nada the Lily, and from the forest had come a
howling of beasts and sounds of war; then there was silence, and none
had been seen to return from the mountain, only all day long the
vultures hung over it.

"Let us go up the mountain," I said.

At first they feared, because of the evil name of the place; but in
the end they came with me, and we followed on the path of the impi of
the Slayers and guessed all that had befallen it. At length we reached
the knees of stone, and saw the place of the great fight of the Wolf-
Brethren. All those who had taken part in that fight were now but
bones, because the vultures had picked them every one, except Galazi,
for on the breast of Galazi lay the old wolf Deathgrip, that was yet
alive. I drew near the body, and the great wolf struggled to his feet
and ran at me with bristling hair and open jaws, from which no sound
came. Then, being spent, he rolled over dead.

Now I looked round seeking the axe Groan-Maker among the bones of the
slain, and did not find it and the hope came into my heart that
Umslopogaas had escaped the slaughter. Then we went on in silence to
where I knew the cave must be, and there by its mouth lay the body of
a man. I ran to it--it was Umslopogaas, wasted with hunger, and in his
temple was a great wound and on his breast and limbs were many other
wounds. Moreover, in his hand he held another hand--a dead hand, that
was thrust through a hole in the rock. I knew its shape well--it was
the little hand of my child, Nada the Lily.

Now I understood, and, bending down, I felt the heart of Umslopogaas,
and laid the down of an eagle upon his lips. His heart still stirred
and the down was lifted gently.

I bade those with me drag the stone, and they did so with toil. Now
the light flowed into the cave, and by it we saw the shape of Nada my
daughter. She was somewhat wasted, but still very beautiful in her
death. I felt her heart also: it was still, and her breast grew cold.

Then I spoke: "The dead to the dead. Let us tend the living."

So we bore in Umslopogaas, and I caused broth to be made and poured it
down his throat; also I cleansed his great wound and bound healing
herbs upon it, plying all my skill. Well I knew the arts of healing,
my father; I who was the first of the izinyanga of medicine, and, had
it not been for my craft, Umslopogaas had never lived, for he was very
near his end. Still, there where he had once been nursed by Galazi the
Wolf, I brought him back to life. It was three days till he spoke,
and, before his sense returned to him, I caused a great hole to be dug
in the floor of the cave. And there, in the hole, I buried Nada my
daughter, and we heaped lily blooms upon her to keep the earth from
her, and then closed in her grave, for I was not minded that
Umslopogaas should look upon her dead, lest he also should die from
the sight, and because of his desire to follow her. Also I buried
Galazi the Wolf in the cave, and set the Watcher in his hand, and
there they both sleep who are friends at last, the Lily and the Wolf
together. Ah! when shall there be such another man and such another
maid?

At length on the third day Umslopogaas spoke, asking for Nada. I
pointed to the earth, and he remembered and understood. Thereafter the
strength of Umslopogaas gathered on him slowly, and the hole in his
skull skinned over. But now his hair was grizzled, and he scarcely
smiled again, but grew even more grim and stern than he had been
before.

Soon we learned all the truth about Zinita, for the women and children
came back to the town of the People of the Axe, only Zinita and the
children of Umslopogaas did not come back. Also a spy reached me from
the Mahlabatine and told me of the end of Zinita and of the flight of
Dingaan before the Boers.

Now when Umslopogaas had recovered, I asked him what he would do, and
whether or not I should pursue my plots to make him king of the land.

But Umslopogaas shook his head, saying that he had no heart that way.
He would destroy a king indeed, but now he no longer desired to be a
king. He sought revenge alone. I said that it was well, I also sought
vengeance, and seeking together we would find it.

Now, my father, there is much more to tell, but shall I tell it? The
snow has melted, your cattle have been found where I told you they
should be, and you wish to be gone. And I also, I would be gone upon a
longer journey.

Listen, my father, I will be short. This came into my mind: to play
off Panda against Dingaan; it was for such an hour of need that I had
saved Panda alive. After the battle of the Blood River, Dingaan
summoned Panda to a hunt. Then it was that I journeyed to the kraal of
Panda on the Lower Tugela, and with me Umslopogaas. I warned Panda
that he should not go to this hunt, for he was the game himself, but
that he should rather fly into Natal with all his people. He did so,
and then I opened talk with the Boers, and more especially with that
Boer who was named Ungalunkulu, or Great Arm. I showed the Boer that
Dingaan was wicked and not to be believed, but Panda was faithful and
good. The end of it was that the Boers and Panda made war together on
Dingaan. Yes, I made that war that we might be revenged on Dingaan.
Thus, my father, do little things lead to great.

Were we at the big fight, the battle of Magongo? Yes, my father; we
were there. When Dingaan's people drove us back, and all seemed lost,
it was I who put into the mind of Nongalaza, the general, to pretend
to direct the Boers where to attack, for the Amaboona stood out of
that fight, leaving it to us black people. It was Umslopogaas who cut
his way with Groan-Maker through a wing of one of Dingaan's regiments
till he came to the Boer captain Ungalunkulu, and shouted to him to
turn the flank of Dingaan. That finished it, my father, for they
feared to stand against us both, the white and the black together.
They fled, and we followed and slew, and Dingaan ceased to be a king.

He ceased to be a king, but he still lived, and while he lived our
vengeance was hungry. So we went to the Boer captain and to Panda, and
spoke to them nicely, saying, "We have served you well, we have fought
for you, and so ordered things that victory is yours. Now grant us
this request, that we may follow Dingaan, who has fled into hiding,
and kill him wherever we find him, for he has worked us wrong, and we
would avenge it."

Then the white captain and Panda smiled and said, "Go children, and
prosper in your search. No one thing shall please us more than to know
that Dingaan is dead." And they gave us men to go with us.

Then we hunted that king week by week as men hunt a wounded buffalo.
We hunted him to the jungles of the Umfalozi and through them. But he
fled ever, for he knew that the avengers of blood were on his spoor.
After that for awhile we lost him. Then we heard that he had crossed
the Pongolo with some of the people who still clung to him. We
followed him to the place Kwa Myawo, and there we lay hid in the bush
watching. At last our chance came. Dingaan walked in the bush and with
him two men only. We stabbed the men and seized him.

Dingaan looked at us and knew us, and his knees trembled with fear.
Then I spoke:--

"What was that message which I sent thee, O Dingaan, who art no more a
king--that thou didst evil to drive me away, was it not? because I set
thee on thy throne and I alone could hold thee there?"

He made no answer, and I went on:--

"I, Mopo, son of Makedama, set thee on thy throne, O Dingaan, who wast
a king, and I, Mopo, have pulled thee down from thy throne. But my
message did not end there. It said that, ill as thou hadst done to
drive me away, yet worse shouldst thou do to look upon my face again,
for that day should be thy day of doom."

Still he made no answer. Then Umslopogaas spoke:--

"I am that Slaughterer, O Dingaan, no more a king, whom thou didst
send Slayers many and fierce to eat up at the kraal of the People of
the Axe. Where are thy Slayers now, O Dingaan? Before all is done thou
shalt look upon them."

"Kill me and make an end; it is your hour," said Dingaan.

"Not yet awhile, O son of Senzangacona," answered Umslopogaas, "and
not here. There lived a certain woman and she was named Nada the Lily.
I was her husband, O Dingaan, and Mopo here, he was her father. But,
alas! she died, and sadly--she lingered three days and nights before
she died. Thou shalt see the spot and hear the tale, O Dingaan. It
will wring thy heart, which was ever tender. There lived certain
children, born of another woman named Zinita, little children, sweet
and loving. I was their father, O Elephant in a pit, and one Dingaan
slew them. Of them thou shalt hear also. Now away, for the path is
far!"

Two days went by, my father, and Dingaan sat bound and alone in the
cave on Ghost Mountain. We had dragged him slowly up the mountain, for
he was heavy as an ox. Three men pushing at him and three others
pulling on a cord about his middle, we dragged him up, staying now and
again to show him the bones of those whom he had sent out to kill us,
and telling him the tale of that fight.

Now at length we were in the cave, and I sent away those who were with
us, for we wished to be alone with Dingaan at the last. He sat down on
the floor of the cave, and I told him that beneath the earth on which
he sat lay the bones of that Nada whom he had murdered and the bones
of Galazi the Wolf.

On the third day before the dawn we came again and looked upon him.

"Slay me," he said, "for the Ghosts torment me!"

"No longer art thou great, O shadow of a king," I said, "who now dost
tremble before two Ghosts out of all the thousands that thou hast
made. Say, then, how shall it fare with thee presently when thou art
of their number?"

Now Dingaan prayed for mercy.

"Mercy, thou hyena!" I answered, "thou prayest for mercy who showed
none to any! Give me back my daughter. Give this man back his wife and
children; then we will talk of mercy. Come forth, coward, and die the
death of cowards."

So, my father, we dragged him out, groaning, to the cleft that is
above in the breast of the old Stone Witch, that same cleft where
Galazi had found the bones. There we stood, waiting for the moment of
the dawn, that hour when Nada had died. Then we cried her name into
his ears and the names of the children of Umslopogaas, and cast him
into the cleft.

This was the end of Dingaan, my father--Dingaan, who had the fierce
heart of Chaka without its greatness.

CHAPTER XXXVI

MOPO ENDS HIS TALE

That is the tale of Nada the Lily, my father, and of how we avenged
her. A sad tale--yes, a sad tale; but all was sad in those days. It
was otherwise afterwards, when Panda reigned, for Panda was a man of
peace.

There is little more to tell. I left the land where I could stay no
longer who had brought about the deaths of two kings, and came here to
Natal to live near where the kraal Duguza once had stood.

The bones of Dingaan as they lay in the cleft were the last things my
eyes beheld, for after that I became blind, and saw the sun no more,
nor any light--why I do not know, perhaps from too much weeping, my
father. So I changed my name, lest a spear might reach the heart that
had planned the death of two kings and a prince--Chaka, Dingaan, and
Umhlangana of the blood royal. Silently and by night Umslopogaas, my
fosterling, led me across the border, and brought me here to Stanger;
and here as an old witch-doctor I have lived for many, many years. I
am rich. Umslopogaas craved back from Panda the cattle of which
Dingaan had robbed me, and drove them hither. But none were here who
had lived in the kraal Duguza, none knew, in Zweete the blind old
witch-doctor, that Mopo who stabbed Chaka, the Lion of the Zulu. None
know it now. You have heard the tale, and you alone, my father. Do not
tell it again till I am dead.

Umslopogaas? Yes, he went back to the People of the Axe and ruled
them, but they were never so strong again as they had been before they
smote the Halakazi in their caves, and Dingaan ate them up. Panda let
him be and liked him well, for Panda did not know that the Slaughterer
was son to Chaka his brother, and Umslopogaas let that dog lie, for
when Nada died he lost his desire to be great. Yet he became captain
of the Nkomabakosi regiment, and fought in many battles, doing mighty
deeds, and stood by Umbulazi, son of Panda, in the great fray on the
Tugela, when Cetywayo slew his brother Umbulazi.

After that also he plotted against Cetywayo, whom he hated, and had it
not been for a certain white man, a hunter named Macumazahn,
Umslopogaas would have been killed. But the white man saved him by his
wit. Yes, and at times he came to visit me, for he still loved me as
of old; but now he has fled north, and I shall hear his voice no more.
Nay, I do not know all the tale; there was a woman in it. Women were
ever the bane of Umslopogaas, my fostering. I forget the story of that
woman, for I remember only these things that happened long ago, before
I grew very old.

Look on this right hand of mine, my father! I cannot see it now; and
yet I, Mopo, son of Makedama, seem to see it as once I saw, red with
the blood of two kings. Look on--

Suddenly the old man ceased, his head fell forward upon his withered
breast. When the White Man to whom he told this story lifted it and
looked at him, he was dead!

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