Part 14 (1/2)
Then all the councillors wept aloud, while Chaka glared at them.
”Hearken, Mopo!” said the king, when the weeping was done. ”None can give me back my mother; but I can give thee more wives, and thou shalt find children. Go in among the damsels who are reserved to the king, and choose thee six; go in among the cattle of the king, and choose thee ten times ten of the best; call upon the servants of the king that they build up thy kraal greater and fairer than it was before! These things I give thee freely; but thou shalt have more, Mopo--yes! thou shalt have vengeance! On the first day of the new moon I summon a great meeting, a bandhla of all the Zulu people: yes, thine own tribe, the Langeni, shall be there also. Then we will mourn together over our woes; then, too, we will learn who brought these woes upon us. Go now, Mopo, go! And go ye also, my councillors, leaving me to weep alone because my mother is dead!”
Thus, then, my father, did the words of Baleka come true, and thus, because of the crafty policy of Chaka, I grew greater in the land than ever I had been before. I chose the cattle, they were fat; I chose the wives, they were fair; but I took no pleasure in them, nor were any more children born to me. For my heart was like a withered stick; the sap and strength had gone from my heart--it was drawn out in the fire of Chaka's hut, and lost in my sorrow for those whom I had loved.
CHAPTER XII. THE TALE OF GALAZI THE WOLF
Now, my father, I will go back a little, for my tale is long and winds in and out like a river in a plain, and tell of the fate of Umslopogaas when the lion had taken him, as he told it to me in the after years.
The lioness bounded away, and in her mouth was Umslopogaas. Once he struggled, but she bit him hard, so he lay quiet in her mouth, and looking back he saw the face of Nada as she ran from the fence of thorns, crying ”Save him!” He saw her face, he heard her words, then he saw and heard little more, for the world grew dark to him and he pa.s.sed, as it were, into a deep sleep. Presently Umslopogaas awoke again, feeling pain in his thigh, where the lioness had bitten him, and heard a sound of shouting. He looked up; near to him stood the lioness that had loosed him from her jaws. She was snorting with rage, and in front of her was a lad long and strong, with a grim face, and a wolf's hide, black and grey, bound about his shoulders in such fas.h.i.+on that the upper jar and teeth of the wolf rested on his head. He stood before the lioness, shouting, and in one hand he held a large war-s.h.i.+eld, and in the other he grasped a heavy club shod with iron.
Now the lioness crouched herself to spring, growling terribly, but the lad with the club did not wait for her onset. He ran in upon her and struck her on the head with the club. He smote hard and well, but this did not kill her, for she reared herself upon her hind legs and struck at him heavily. He caught the blow upon his s.h.i.+eld, but the s.h.i.+eld was driven against his breast so strongly that he fell backwards beneath it, and lay there howling like a wolf in pain. Then the lioness sprang upon him and worried him. Still, because of the s.h.i.+eld, as yet she could not come at him to slay him; but Umslopogaas saw that this might not endure, for presently the s.h.i.+eld would be torn aside and the stranger must be killed. Now in the breast of the lioness still stood the half of Umslopogaas's broken spear, and its blade was a span deep in her breast.
Then this thought came into the mind of Umslopogaas, that he would drive the spear home or die. So he rose swiftly, for strength came back to him in his need, and ran to where the lioness worried at him who lay beneath the s.h.i.+eld. She did not heed him, so he flung himself upon his knees before her, and, seizing the haft of the broken spear, drove it deep into her and wrenched it round. Now she saw Umslopogaas and turned roaring, and clawed at him, tearing his breast and arms. Then, as he lay, he heard a mighty howling, and, behold! grey wolves and black leaped upon the lioness and rent and worried her till she fell and was torn to pieces by them. After this the senses of Umslopogaas left him again, and the light went out of his eyes so that he was as one dead.
At length his mind came back to him, and with it his memory, and he remembered the lioness and looked up to find her. But he did not find her, and he saw that he lay in a cave upon a bed of gra.s.s, while all about him were the skins of beasts, and at his side was a pot filled with water. He put out his hand and, taking the pot, drank of the water, and then he saw that his arm was wasted as with sickness, and that his breast was thick with scars scarcely skinned over.
Now while he lay and wondered, the mouth of the cave was darkened, and through it entered that same lad who had done battle with the lioness and been overthrown by her, bearing a dead buck upon his shoulders. He put down the buck upon the ground, and, walking to where Umslopogaas lay, looked at him.
”Ou!” he said, ”your eyes are open--do you, then, live, stranger?”
”I live,” answered Umslopogaas, ”and I am hungry.”
”It is time,” said the other, ”since with toil I bore you here through the forest, for twelve days you have lain without sense, drinking water only. So deeply had the lion clawed you that I thought of you as dead.
Twice I was near to killing you, that you might cease to suffer and I to be troubled; but I held my hand, because of a word which came to me from one who is dead. Now eat, that your strength may return to you.
Afterwards, we will talk.”
So Umslopogaas ate, and little by little his health returned to him--every day a little. And afterwards, as they sat at night by the fire in the cave they spoke together.
”How are you named?” asked Umslopogaas of the other.
”I am named Galazi the Wolf,” he answered, ”and I am of Zulu blood--ay, of the blood of Chaka the king; for the father of Senzangacona, the father of Chaka, was my great-grandfather.”
”Whence came you, Galazi?”
”I came from Swaziland--from the tribe of the Halakazi, which I should rule. This is the story: Siguyana, my grandfather, was a younger brother of Senzangacona, the father of Chaka. But he quarrelled with Senzangacona, and became a wanderer. With certain of the people of the Umtetwa he wandered into Swaziland, and sojourned with the Halakazi tribe in their great caves; and the end of it was that he killed the chief of the tribe and took his place. After he was dead, my father ruled in his place; but there was a great party in the tribe that hated his rule because he was of the Zulu race, and it would have set up a chief of the old Swazi blood in his place. Still, they could not do this, for my father's hand was heavy on the people. Now I was the only son of my father by his head wife, and born to be chief after him, and therefore those of the Swazi party, and they were many and great, hated me also. So matters stood till last year in the winter, and then my father set his heart on killing twenty of the headmen, with their wives and children, because he knew that they plotted against him. But the headmen learned what was to come, and they prevailed upon a wife of my father, a woman of their own blood, to poison him. So she poisoned him in the night and in the morning it was told me that my father lay sick and summoned me, and I went to him. In his hut I found him, and he was writhing with pain.
”'What is it, my father?' I said. 'Who has done this evil?'
”'It is this, my son,' he gasped, 'that I am poisoned, and she stands yonder who has done the deed.' And he pointed to the woman, who stood at the side of the hut near the door, her chin upon her breast, trembling as she looked upon the fruit of her wickedness.
”Now the girl was young and fair, and we had been friends, yet I say that I did not pause, for my heart was mad within me. I did not pause, but, seizing my spear, I ran at her, and, though she cried for mercy, I killed her with the spear.
”'That was well done, Galazi!' said my father. 'But when I am gone, look to yourself, my son, for these Swazi dogs will drive you out and rob you of your place! But if they drive you out and you still live, swear this to me--that you will not rest till you have avenged me.'
”'I swear it, my father,' I answered. 'I swear that I will stamp out the men of the tribe of Halakazi, every one of them, except those of my own blood, and bring their women to slavery and their children to bonds!'
”'Big words for a young mouth,' said my father. 'Yet shall you live to bring these things about, Galazi. This I know of you now in my hour of death: you shall be a wanderer for a few years of your life, child of Siguyana, and wandering in another land you shall die a man's death, and not such a death as yonder witch has given to me.' Then, having spoken thus, he lifted up his head, looked at me, and with a great groan he died.
”Now I pa.s.sed out of the hut dragging the body of the dead girl after me. In front of the hut were gathered many headmen waiting for the end, and I saw that their looks were sullen.
”'The chief, my father, is dead!' I cried in a loud voice, 'and I, Galazi, who am the chief, have slain her who murdered him!' And I rolled the body of the girl over on to her back so that they might look upon her face.