Part 1 (2/2)
”Ah! it coht ”Out with it, then, Macurow tired, for you are an old friend of mine and will so remain till the end, many years hence, and if I can serve you, I will”
I filled ain upon the stool of carved red-hich had been brought for me
”You are named 'Opener-of-Roads,' are you not, Zikali?” I said
”Yes, the Zulus have always called me that, since before the days of Chaka But what of na at all?”
”Only that I want to open a road, Zikali, that which runs across the River of Death”
”Oho!” he laughed, ”it is very easy,” and snatching up a little assegai that lay beside hi, ”Be brave now and fall on that Then before I have counted sixty the road will be wide open, but whether you will see anything on it I cannot tell you”
Again I shook ainst our law Also while I still live I desire to knohether I shall meet certain others on that road after my time has come to cross the River Perhaps you who deal with spirits, can prove the matter to hed Zikali again ”What do my ears hear? Am I, the poor Zulu cheat, as you will remember once you called me, Macumazahn, asked to show that which is hidden froreat White People?”
”The question is,” I answered with irritation, ”not what you are asked to do, but what you can do”
”That I do not know yet, Macumazahn Whose spirits do you desire to see? If that of a woman called Mameena is one of them, I think that perhaps I whom she loved--”[]
[] For the history of Mameena see the book called ”Child of Storm”-Editor
”She is not one of them, Zikali Moreover, if she loved you, you paid back her love with death”
”Which perhaps was the kindest thing I could do, Macuuess, and others hich I will not trouble you But if not hers, whose? Let me look, let me look! Why, there seeht that white men only took one wife Also a multitude of others; their faces float up in the water of your rey hair, little children, perhaps they were brothers and sisters, and some who may be friends Also very clear indeed that Mameena whom you do not wish to see Well, Macumazahn, this is unfortunate, since she is the only one who Unless indeed there are other Kaffir women--”
”What do you mean?” I asked
”I mean, Macumazahn, that only black feet travel on the road which I can open; over those in which ran white blood I have no power”
”Then it is finished,” I said, rising again and taking a step or tards the gate
”Come back and sit down, Macuic in Africa, which I a country?”
I ca with me, was excited
”Thank you, Zikali,” I said, ”but I will have no dealings with more of your witch-doctors”
”No, no, because you are afraid of the that they are all cheats except myself I am the last child of wisdom, the rest are stuffed with lies, as Chaka found out when he killed every one of theht be a white doctor ould have rule over white spirits”
”If you an hastily
”No, Macu men who are cast in one ht to say, not thinking for themselves”
”Some of them think, Zikali”
”Yes, and then the others fall on the sticks The real priest is he to whos, and speaks through a mask carved by his father's fathers I am a priest like that, which is why all my fellowshi+p have hated me”
”If so, you have paid back their hate, Zikali, but cease to cast round the lion, like a timid hound, and tell me what you mean Of whom do you speak?”
”That is the trouble, Macumazahn I do not know This lion, or rather lioness, lies hid in the caves of a very distant mountain and I have never seen her-in the flesh”
”Then how can you talk of what you have never seen?”
”In the same way, Macumazahn, that your priests talk of what they have never seen, because they, or a few of thee of it I will tell you a secret All seers who live at the sareat, commune with each other because they are akin and their spirits meet in sleep or dreams Therefore I know of ajackals, who for thousands of years has lain sleeping in the northern caves and, huh I a, ”but perhaps, Zikali, you will come to the point of the spear What of her? How is she named, and if she exists will she help me?”
”I will answer your question backwards, Macumazahn I think that she will help you if you help her, in ay I do not know, because although witch-doctors so now, Macumazahn, witch-doctoresses never do As for her na our company is 'Queen,' because she is the first of all of the wo, except that she has always been and I suppose, in this shape or in that, will always be while the world lasts, because she has found the secret of life unending”
”You mean that she is immortal, Zikali,” I answered with a smile
”I do not say that, Macuht of io, she had lived so long that scarce would she knew the difference between then and now, and already in her breast was all wisdoh, as I have said, we have never seen each other, at tiether in our sleep, for thus she shares her loneliness, and I think, though this ht she told me to send you on to her to seek an answer to certain questions which you would put to me to-day Also to me she seemed to desire that you should do her a service; I know not what service”
Now I grew angry and asked, ”Why does it please you to fool me, Zikali, with such talk as this? If there is any truth in it, shohere the woman called Queen lives and how I am to coai which he had offered to me and with its blade raked our ashes from the fire that always burnt in front of hiht in a random fashi+on, perhaps to distract my attention, of a certain white man whom he said I should meet upon my journey and of his affairs, also of other matters, none of which interested me much at the time These ashes he patted down flat and then on therooves for streams, certain marks for bush and forest, wavy lines for water and swamps and little heaps for hills
When he had finished it all he bade me come round the fire and study the picture across which by an after-thought he dreandering furroith the edge of the assegai to represent a river, and gathered the ashes in a lue mountain
”Look at it well, Macu, since if you et, you die Nay, no need to copy it in that book of yours, for see, I will staathered up the warm ashes in a double handful and threw the aloud, ”There, now you will re, ”and I beg that you will not play such a joke upon ain”
As a matter of fact, whatever ot any detail of that extre river must be the Zambesi,” I stuttered, ”and even then the mountain of your Queen, if it be her mountain, is far away, and how can I come there alone?”