Part 7 (1/2)
”To-morrow thou shalt have five oxen for this deed; thou shalt choose them from the royal herd.”
”The king is good; he sees that my belt is drawn tight; he satisfies my hunger. Will the king suffer that I go? My wife is in labour and I would visit her.”
”Nay, stay awhile; say how it is with Baleka, my sister and thine?”
”It is well.”
”Did she weep when you took the babe from her?”
”Nay, she wept not. She said, 'My lord's will is my will.'”
”Good! Had she wept she had been slain also. Who was with her?”
”The Mother of the Heavens.”
The brow of Chaka darkened. ”Unandi, my mother, what did she there? By myself I swear, though she is my mother--if I thought”--and he ceased.
There was a silence, then he spoke again. ”Say, what is in that mat?” and he pointed with his little a.s.segai at the bundle on my shoulders.
”Medicine, king.”
”Thou dost carry enough to doctor an impi. Undo the mat and let me look at it.”
”Now, my father, I tell you that the marrow melted in my bones with terror, for if I undid the mat I feared he must see the child and then--”
”It is tagati, it is bewitched, O king. It is not wise to look on medicine.”
”Open!” he answered angrily. ”What? may I not look at that which I am forced to swallow--I, who am the first of doctors?”
”Death is the king's medicine,” I answered, lifting the bundle, and laying it as far from him in the shadow of the fence as I dared. Then I bent over it, slowly undoing the rimpis with which it was tied, while the sweat of terror ran down by face blinding me like tears. What would I do if he saw the child? What if the child awoke and cried? I would s.n.a.t.c.h the a.s.segai from his hand and stab him! Yes, I would kill the king and then kill myself! Now the mat was unrolled. Inside were the brown leaves and roots of medicine; beneath them was the senseless bade wrapped in dead moss.
”Ugly stuff,” said the king, taking snuff. ”Now see, Mopo, what a good aim I have! This for thy medicine!” And he lifted his a.s.segai to throw it through the bundle. But as he threw, my snake put it into the king's heart to sneeze, and thus it came to pa.s.s that the a.s.segai only pierced the outer leaves of the medicine, and did not touch the child.
”May the heavens bless the king!” I said, according to custom.
”Thanks to thee, Mopo, it is a good omen,” he answered. ”And now, begone! Take my advice: kill thy children, as I kill mine, lest they live to worry thee. The whelps of lions are best drowned.”
I did up the bundle fast--fast, though my hands trembled. Oh! what if the child should wake and cry. It was done; I rose and saluted the king.
Then I doubled myself up and pa.s.sed from before him. Scarcely was I outside the gates of the Intunkulu when the infant began to squeak in the bundle. If it had been one minute before!
”What,” said a soldier, as I pa.s.sed, ”have you got a puppy hidden under your moocha, (1) Mopo?”
(1) Girdle composed of skin and tails of oxen.-ED.
I made no answer, but hurried on till I came to my huts. I entered; there were my two wives alone.
”I have recovered the child, women,” I said, as I undid the bundle.
Anadi took him and looked at him.
”The boy seems bigger than he was,” she said.
”The breath of life has come into him and puffed him out,” I answered.