Part 30 (1/2)

”Because I see no end to be answered in killing him; it is surely sufficient that the one already dead should die. Killing his murderer will not raise him to life again, neither will it benefit his family: besides, it is depriving the chief of one man more.”

Zoonah interposed, ”The English say that the murderer must be made to feel what the dead man felt--that was, to die.”

”But what help,” asked Lulu, who, though the least educated, was the shrewdest of the three in argument,--”what help is that to the living?

Why do they not _eat him up_ [a Kafir phrase for ruining any one by confiscation of his property], and let him live?”

Zoonah spoke, in a low, deep voice, ”Where _is_ the dead?”

”_No_ more!” replied Doda; ”he has ceased to be.”

”Then,” asked Lulu, ”how will he know his murderer has been killed or eaten up?--he is not there to see him.”

”What need,” asked Zoonah, ”for him to know he is no more?”

”It would compensate his heart for the loss of his body,” replied Lulu.

”But,” said Doda, ”we have nothing more to do with his heart--his body is gone--he is no longer a man.”

There was a long pause.

Doda was the first to break silence. ”When,” said he, ”I inquire of my own heart, one view of the case makes me on the side of the English lawgivers. We know the two princ.i.p.als in a murder are the murderer and the murdered. The last has left this world, so we cannot call for his evidence. The murderer denies all about it. The English say, G.o.d made man; to destroy what G.o.d made is _ukwapula umsila_, to break His representative. It is clearly a case beyond the jurisdiction of man.

It can only be understood and disposed of by the maker of the _dead thing_; and on these grounds it seems reasonable that the murderer should be sent the same path that he caused the other to go, in order that _they may meet and he judged before G.o.d_.”

”I see what you say,” answered Lulu, after due deliberation; ”it is too strong for me. Do the English do this from such views? They can talk: they do talk--but one cannot always believe them. His argument is good.

My heart is satisfied; I have heard. My heart is satisfied with your words. Nevertheless, I do not comprehend--”

And Lulu withdrew to ponder in silence on this argument.

After this, Lyle bid Doda question Zoonah on all that he had seen in his late perambulations ”to and fro” upon the earth.

Zoonah complied partially, but omitted the episode of his being discovered by May, and outwitted also by the bushman.

He described the two sportsmen, and the cavalcade with which they were attended; and added, that they had retraced their steps, and had joined the bivouac at Annerley, which was known by all the Kafir scouts to be the rendezvous for the women and children of the district farmers. The scouts, of course, were in constant communication with some of the Annerley herdsmen, who, as was shown in the last chapter, were spies, ready to desert at the right moment. One of these had, some weeks previously to the open demonstrations of enmity in the frontier districts, on overhearing Mr Daveney announce to a farmer that England was sending troops, quitted the settlement, travelled 160 miles without sleep, and, after delivering his message, dropped dead at the feet of his chief. All Kafirland now was ripe for war, the tribes were gathering in the hill, and the watch-fires beginning to smoke.

Zoonah, in his turn, put manifold queries to Doda. The former said his path was uncertain; his ”feet were towards Umlala's Kraal, but his face turned away sometimes.” He asked, also, about Amani's proceedings.

Amani was his bitter foe. Lulu was bound for the settlements in the Annerley district, to look for plunder. Was Amayeka at Umlala's Kraal?

He must get cattle to offer Doda, for his daughter. He thought he should go with Lulu; he must come to Doda with full hands, to ask for Amayeka. How many bullocks would Doda want for her--the girl with the s.h.i.+ning hair?

And then there was the usual subtle bartering argument between the two Kafirs.

Meanwhile, a thought had struck Lyle. Taking one of Zoonah's a.s.segais from the bundle, he scratched with his clasp-knife his name and a certain date on the blade of the weapon. Zoonah, who could elicit no decided answers from Doda, leaned over the convict's shoulder.

He had seen books; indeed, as a boy, in a former war, he had, with others, cut them up as wadding for muskets, but could not read.

Nevertheless, he knew that letters were, as he called them, ”silent words.”

Lulu came too, and sat down beside Lyle--”Was he bewitching Zoonah's a.s.segai?”

Zoonah grasped the weapon, and would have drawn it away.

Lyle explained to him, in a mingled jargon, that the words _were_ mystical, but not intended to injure _him_. ”Take it,” he said, ”to Daveney's Great Place, Annerley. Be like the asphogels. Watch them, but let them not see you till the time comes to cast the weapon before them. You know that Daveney is your enemy. Doda knows that I am the friend of the Amakosas. I have brought you guns and powder. I have made a path between you and the Dutch. The Dutch hate the English more than you do now. There are people in my country, beyond the great waters, who know that the English colonists are great liars. Can the white chiefs sent hither ever carry their threats as far they declare they will? No. You know that when they have laid schemes to drive you from your lands, a word comes to them across the foaming vley, and they are forced to eat their own words.--Your chiefs have many to speak for them in my country. I have been one of your mouths there. I was here long ago, when the son of Umlala's great wife was no taller than that mimosa: when I went back to my land, I spoke in council. I said you were under the feet of the English here; that you were not permitted to sit still in green places in your own territory; that you only wanted grazing-ground and patches of land to grow corn in; but that instead of rewarding you for refusing to help the Boers against the English, we have suffered your cattle and your land to be taken from you. You see, too, that the Boers are angry. They have cause. You and they were as two gnoos fighting for plunder. One gnoo comes first, and possesses himself of the prey; another follows, and would seize it. Up stalks the lion, he parts the combatants, seizes the plunder, and takes it to himself. What should the gnoos do? They should unite, go to war with the lion, take the plunder from him and share it. The land is large enough for all; but when you would have justice, the lion puts his paw beyond his own boundary, shakes his mane, his eyeb.a.l.l.s burn and roll like flames, he roars, and the very trees of the forest tremble at the sound. Up, then, Amakosas, and at this roaring, ravaging lion. Quarrel not among yourselves; the musket and the flint, and the powder and the bullet, are all good when used together; apart, what are they?