Harry Collingwood

“ Thereupon I proceeded to describe minutely the entire scene as I had beheld it, the big town with its huts, to the number of two thousand or more, symmetrically arranged within its circle of stout, high palings; the kopje close by, with its scattered piles of rock interspersed with straggling clumps of bush, and its vultures; the great plain with its herds of grazing cattle beside the stream—in short, every feature of my vision, as I vividly recalled it. And when I had finished, Mafuta sat for several minutes ruminating deeply. ”

“ Salutations and homage, O high and mighty King! I know not how it has come to pass, but this is a great and happy day for Bandokolo; for at last the dominion has passed out of the hands of that cruel and wicked woman, under whose galling yoke the country has groaned for unnumbered generations, and has passed into yours, who will rule us mercifully, wisely, and justly. Great is my pride and joy, O Chia’gnosi, that mine is the privilege to be the first to hail you king. ”

“ Nay, it is great and terrible magic, and I will have naught to do with it. And thou, white man with the unpronounceable name, art also a great and wonderful magician, for at thy will the lightning flashes from thy fire tube and the very birds of the air fall dead at thy feet. Also, when thou didst fight ’Mfuni, thou didst cause the sword in thy hand to flash lightnings about thee by the swiftness with which thou didst wield it. Therefore I give thee a new name; and henceforth thou shalt be known as Chia’gnosi (The Smiter with Lightning) . Go now, in peace, Chia’gnosi. ”

“ Was it possible that this extraordinary woman, reputed to be old far beyond the limits of the age usually ascribed to humanity—this queen of a wonderful people hidden away in the mysterious depths of Africa, the continent of strange and mystic happenings, was really the possessor of the gift of unlimited knowledge? To me, a plain, simple, matter-of-fact Briton, such a thing seemed impossible; yet Pousa had already supplied me with proof that surely ought to have been convincing to any reasonable man. ”

“ But instead of receiving a gracious assent to my request, I was somewhat perturbed to see Moshesh himself, splendidly mounted, and attired in his new rig-out, accompanied by some ten or a dozen indunas and about a thousand of his troops, all mounted, filing out of the gate and heading straight for the wagon—for, to be quite candid, the South African savage is a little uncertain in his moods, and the man who is to-day in high favour may, as likely as not, find himself staked out on an ant-heap to-morrow, to die the awful “death of the ants” in revenge for some unknown and unintended offence. ”

“ Then, turning to the king, I said—the shouts of applause and encouragement having ceased on the instant of ’Mfuni’s discomfiture:
“Thou hast seen, O King! Although thy chosen champion fought well and did his best, I have conquered him with this weapon, of which thou wert inclined to think so little. Art thou still inclined to think lightly of it; or art thou convinced that it is a good weapon, capable of protecting a man’s life in the heat of battle?”
“Nay,” answered Lomalindela, “it is a good weapon; thou hast proved it to be so at the risk of thy life, and I thank thee for the gift. ”

“ To see those nine men fearlessly charge the rushing herd was a distinctly thrilling sight; for none knew better than they the implacably savage nature of the brutes they were about to contend with, or the deadliness of the peril to which they were so light-heartedly exposing themselves. Yet not one of them manifested the slightest disposition to shirk the encounter: possibly they all knew that to perish upon the horns of a buffalo would be preferable to the punishment that surely awaited them should they disgrace themselves and their king by showing fear in the presence of a white man. ”

“ Anuti laughed heartily as he grasped my extended hand. “There was no need for you to tell me that, Chia’gnosi,” he said, “for I know Bimbane, and am fully aware of her extraordinary powers of persuasion. Her magic is potent and wonderful, ay, even to the extent of enabling her to persuade you that this blaze of sunlight is the darkness of the great cavern whence we obtain our shining stones, that yonder sun is the day-old moon, or that she herself is young and beautiful. ”

“ Bimbane is a great magician, who keeps herself alive by certain secret arts unknown to the rest of us. And she does so, not only because she fears to die, but also because she is persuaded that somewhere in the world there is—or will be—a man who, if she can find him and induce him to become her spouse, will restore to her her long-lost youth and all the joy of life that she once knew. It is the great desire of her life to find this man, and no sooner did she see Anuti than the thought arose that he might be the one through whom she would attain the fulfilment of her desires ”

“ Halt there, Machenga! Halt, I say, or thou diest! Deceiver and murderer, destroyer of the king’s most faithful friends, and giver of evil counsel to the Great, Great One, my magic tells me that in that evil heart of thine thou hast conceived the design to slay me, because when thou didst come secretly to my wagon last night I refused to give thee one of my magic fire tubes. Now I will prove thee, rascal; I will show the king that thou, his chief witch doctor forsooth, art nothing but a base pretender, a player upon his credulity. Thou dost claim to be a great and powerful magician ”

“ Then I am very sorry for you, Chia’gnosi; very sorry for us all. For in that case you will never be permitted to leave Bandokolo, never have the opportunity to rescue the captive daughter of your friend; while as for the rest of us, we shall inevitably be plunged into a disastrous civil war, in which many of Bandokolo’s highest and best will be slain. Probably Bimbane, aided by you, will triumph; but, believe me, when it is too late and the evil has been wrought, you will discover that you have made a disastrous mistake—or, rather, have been hideously deceived. ”

“ With another shout of delight I pressed my heels to Prince’s ribs, and three minutes later Piet and I trotted gaily out through the mouth of the gorge into the sunlit plain—to find ourselves confronted by a troop of some fifty of the most extraordinary-looking warriors I had ever seen, who had evidently been lying perdu in waiting for us behind the screen of towering rocks that formed the gateway, as it were, of the gorge. ”

“ I know the story which the lips of the dying Siluce whispered into your ears, for my spirit was with you both then, and I say that every word of it is true, although I know that Bimbane has asserted the contrary. Think of this, therefore, Chia’gnosi, and ask yourself whether you may not have been led by a cunning, unscrupulous, and lying old witch to give your sympathy to the wrong person. If you are capable of being convinced by the truth—as I believe you are—I can convince you. ”

“ Now am I a white king, and when my enemies behold me they shall tremble, and their hearts shall melt within them as the snow upon the mountain tops melts when the glory of the sun shines upon it. Their courage shall fail and their spirit shall wither at the sight of me, even as the grass withers and shrivels at the breath of fire. ”

“ Around on every hand stretched a brilliant, sun-kissed picture of rugged mountain slopes, scored deeply by the storms of ages; deep kloofs, precipitous of side, shaggy with their vesture of dense bush, and mysterious with their broad masses of dark shadow; rolling uplands, dotted here and there with clumps of timber and bush or with our grazing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and horses, sweeping gently down toward the wide-stretching, bush-clad plains, through which wound tiny spruits, like threads of silver, hurrying to lose themselves in the broader waters of the Great Fish River. ”

“ You have only her word for it; she has not furnished you with a shadow of proof. It is easy for a woman—or a man—to express exalted sentiments and lofty aspirations, even though she—or he—may not feel them. As a matter of fact, I entertain the precise sentiments and have the same aspirations with which you credit Bimbane; but I suppose you will require something more than my bare assertion before you will believe me. Yet why should you doubt me, and believe her? I will tell you. It is because she has thrown the spell of her magic over you! ”

“ But thou hast not yet told me how Mafuta came to know of my presence in Basutoland. I saw no man yesterday. But perchance one of you belonging to the village saw my wagon from afar, and hastened to spread the news?”
“Nay,” answered ’Ngaga; “no man saw thy wagon, from afar, or brought news of thine approach to the village. Mafuta is a great nyanga, and perchance he saw a vision of thine approach in his magic smoke. How should I know? It is not good for mere ordinary mortals to enquire too curiously into the doings of the nyangas.” ”

“ There was the great “town”—containing, I suppose, quite two thousand huts—built upon the crest of a gently rising hill, and completely surrounded by a stout, high palisade with an open gateway in it through which passed a number of people going about their business, and merely pausing for a minute or two to gaze in wonder at my handsome team of zebras; and there, too, close at hand, was the singular-looking hog-backed kopje, with its straggling bushes and its tumbled masses of dark rock, upon which were perched some fifty or sixty vultures that seemed to be quite at home there. ”

“ At length, however, the shrieks grew weaker and more intermittent, and finally they died away altogether. The night seemed endless, for what with the horror that seized me as I lay there listening and trying to imagine what was happening, and the excruciating pain of my tightly bound limbs, sleep was an impossibility; but the morning dawned at last, the village awoke, and an hour or two later I was unbound and led forth. They took me to a place about a quarter of a mile away, and showed me—something which they told me was all that remained of Van Raalte. ”

“ But instead I beheld as splendid an exhibition of courage and alertness as I think I have ever witnessed, for the man, firmly standing his ground to the very last fraction of a second, sprang nimbly to one side at the precise moment when, as it seemed, the point of the horn was about to be dashed into his naked body, and then, as the great beast thundered past within reach of his hand, down flashed the formidable, broad-bladed bangwan, with so sure and strong a stroke that the buffalo crashed headlong to the ground dead, with its fierce heart cleft in twain. ”

“ The prince from whom Anuti descended must have lived—let me see—yes, more than one thousand six hundred moons ago. Surely your queen is not so old as that!”
“Ah, but she is, and infinitely older!” answered Siluce. “No man knows how old she is; there is no record of her birth and parentage; she has been queen of the Bandokolo for unnumbered ages.”
“Oh, but that is nonsense, you know!” I retorted; “unless of course your records have been very badly kept. Why, in my country, if a man lives to be thirteen hundred moons old we regard him as a marvel. Surely your queen cannot be older than that?” ”

“ In the twinkling of an eye each warrior had selected one buffalo in particular as his own especial foe, and had planted himself with uplifted bangwan square in the brute’s path, while the buffalo, promptly accepting the challenge, responded to it with fierce bellows and savage flourishings of the terrible horns. ”

“ But, unfortunately for me, I had a partner in the expedition, a Boer named Van Raalte, who was cursed with an outrageously quarrelsome disposition and a vile temper, especially where natives were concerned; and it was he who spoiled everything. Our expedition—which had originally been a hunting trip, pure and simple, you must understand—had been brilliantly successful; we had enjoyed magnificent sport—lion, elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe, no end—and had filled our wagon chock-full of ivory, skins, and horns, and had then found out about the gold. ”

“ Machenga had obeyed my imperative command to halt, thus unconsciously demonstrating at once that his state of trance was merely a pretence; and when I ceased to speak he further betrayed himself by answering me.
“Au, Chia’gnosi!” he exclaimed, “so thou, too, art a magician? And thou dost threaten to kill me! Fool! no man living, magician or otherwise, can kill me, else I should have died ages before thou wert born. But I can and will kill thee, in despite of thy magic, and thus I do it!” ”

“ We reached the funeral pyre as the last rays of the sun were gilding the tops of the trees which hemmed in the valley, when the bodyguard formed a hollow square round the pyre, with Anuti and the nobles inside it, while the inhabitants ranged themselves upon the adjacent hillside to witness, for the first time in their lives, the spectacle of a royal cremation. ”

“ Then, gliding meanwhile slowly hither and thither in a series of narrow circles and turns and twists, in a kind of slow waltz step, Machenga began a song, the burden of which was the glory, majesty, and power of the king, and the inexpressible wickedness of those who presumptuously dared to entertain evil thoughts of him. ”