Part 21 (1/2)
Afterwards, while pretending to give him certain articles out of the waggon, I had a few private words with Umslopogaas, who told me that the arrangement was that he should be allowed to escape at night with his people.
”Be sure of this, Mac.u.mazahn,” he said, ”that if I do not escape, neither will that captain, since I walk at his side and keep my axe, and at the first sign of treachery the axe will enter the house of that thick head of his and make friends with the brain inside.
”Mac.u.mazahn,” he added, ”we have made a strange journey together and seen such things as I did not think the world had to show. Also I have fought and killed Rezu in a mad battle of ghosts and men which alone was worth all the trouble of the journey. Now it has come to an end as everything must, and we part, but as I believe, not for always. I do not think that I shall die on this journey with the captain, though I do think that others will die at the end of it,” he added grimly, a saying which at the time I did not understand.
”It comes into my heart, Mac.u.mazahn, that in yonder land of witches and wizards, the spirit of prophecy got caught in my moocha and crept into my bowels. Now that spirit tells me that we shall meet again in the after-years and stand together in a great fray which will be our last, as I believe that the White Witch said. Or perhaps the spirit lives in Zikali's Medicine which has gone down my throat and comes out of it in words. I cannot say, but I pray that it is a true spirit, since although you are white and I am black and you are small and I am big, and you are gentle and cunning, whereas I am fierce and as open as the blade of my own axe, yet I love you as well, Mac.u.mazahn, as though we were born of the same mother and had been brought up in the same kraal. Now that captain waits and grows doubtful of our talk, so farewell. I will return the Great Medicine to Zikali, if I live, and if I die he must send one of the ghosts that serve him, to fetch it from among my bones.
”Farewell to you also, Yellow Man,” he went on to Hans, who had appeared, hovering about like a dog that is doubtful of its welcome; ”well are you named Light-in-Darkness, and glad am I to have met you, who have learned from you how a snake moves and strikes, and how a jackal thinks and avoids the snare. Yes, farewell, for the spirit within me does not tell me that you and I shall meet again.”
Then he lifted the great axe, and gave me a formal salute, naming me ”Chief and Father, Great Chief and Father, from of old” (Baba! Koos y umcool! Koos y pagate!), thereby acknowledging my superiority over him, a thing that he had never done before, and as he did, so did Goroko and the other Zulus, adding to their salute many t.i.tles of praise. In another minute he had gone with the King's captain, to whose side I noted he clung lovingly, his long, thin fingers playing about the horn handle of the axe that was named Inkosikaas and Groan-maker.
”I am glad we have seen the last of him and his axe, Baas,” remarked Hans, spitting reflectively. ”It is very well to sleep in the same hut with a tame lion sometimes, but after you have done so for many moons, you begin to wonder when you will wake up at night to find him pulling the blankets off you and combing your hair with his claws. Yes, I am very glad that this half-tame lion is gone, since sometimes I have thought that I should be obliged to poison it that we might sleep in peace. You know he called me a snake, Baas, and poison is a snake's only spear. Shall I tell the boys to inspan the oxen, Baas? I think the further we get from that King's captain and his men, the more comfortably shall we travel, especially now when we no longer have the Great Medicine to protect us.”
”You suggested giving it to him, Hans,” I said.
”Yes, Baas, I had rather that Umslopogaas went away with the Great Medicine, than that you kept the Great Medicine and he stopped with us here. Never travel with a traitor, Baas, at any rate in the land of the king whom he wishes to kill. Kings are very selfish people, Baas, and do not like being killed, especially by someone who wants to sit upon their stool and to take the royal salute. No one gives the royal salute to a dead king, Baas, however great he was before he died, and no one thinks the worse of a king who was a traitor before he became a king.”
CHAPTER XXV
ALLAN DELIVERS THE MESSAGE
Once more I sat in the Black Kloof face to face with old Zikali.
”So you have got back safely, Mac.u.mazahn,” he said. ”Well, I told you you would, did I not? As for what happened to you upon the journey, let it be, for now that I am old long stories tire me and I daresay that there is nothing wonderful about this one. Where is the charm I lent you? Give it back now that it has served its turn.”
”I have not got it, Zikali. I pa.s.sed it on to Umslopogaas of the Axe to save his life from the King's men.”
”Oh! yes, so you did. I had forgotten. Here it is,” and opening his robe of fur, he showed me the hideous little talisman hanging about his neck, then added, ”Would you like a copy of it, Mac.u.mazahn, to keep as a memory? If so, I will carve one for you.”
”No,” I answered, ”I should not. Has Umslopogaas been here?”
”Yes, he has been and gone again, which is one of the reasons why I do not wish to hear your tale a second time.”
”Where to? The Town of the People of the Axe?”
”No, Mac.u.mazahn, he came thence, or so I understood, but thither he will return no more.”
”Why not, Zikali?”