W. C. Scully

“ To see if she were in earnest, I lifted the spear as if to strike, still keeping up the semblance of anger—but she just closed her eyes, smiled, and leant slightly towards me, I then saw she was in earnest, so I flung down the spear and said in a kinder voice that she should remain, and that Lukwazi might keep his cattle. When I had said this, she flung herself to the ground on her face, and wept as though she would die. ”

“ Shasha suddenly drew himself straight up, and chanted in a sing-song voice, rattling his charms at every period:
"I am the ruler of the baboons and the master of the owls. I talk to the wild cat in the hush. I call Tikoloshe (a water spirit) out of the river in the night-time and ask him questions. I make sickness do my bidding on men and cattle. I drive it away when I like. I can bring blight to the crops, and stop the milk of cows. I can, by my magic medicines, find out the wicked ones who do these things. ”

“ Weak as the Zulus were in point of numbers, the Makalakas did not yet dare to attack them.
The gigantic forms, the red shields and the gleaming, broad-bladed spears of Kondwana's small band, and the terrible evidence of prowess as shown in the night attack, had inspired great dread. Moreover, the Makalaka Chief determined on making sure that not a single man should escape to tell the tale to Tshaka. So as the Zulus marched on, a large army, collected from all available quarters, followed on their track at a respectful distance. ”

“ As the cart went slowly down the hill, the moon was rising over the eastern mountains, and a breathless stillness reigned, broken only by the rumble of the vehicle. How familiar it all was; he knew every curve of the road and every ant-heap; every bush looming in the twilight seemed like an old acquaintance. Nineteen years had passed since Kellson had last seen the village. A clerk in the local public offices, he had left it on promotion, and now he was returning as chief Government functionary. ”

“ Every night the lions roared around their encampment, attracted by the smell of the meat, but repelled by the fires around which the men slept. It was found that so long as game was plentiful the lions did not come close enough to give any serious trouble—they could always he heard growling, but they made no attack—but in passing through regions where game was scarce, the lions, grown bold from hunger, would prowl round and round the camp, silently, and with deeply lurid eyes. ”

“ I know the mountain where Impandulu (the Lightning Bird) builds its nest. I can make men invulnerable in battle with my medicines, and I can cause the enemies of my Chief to run like a bush-buck pursued by dogs."
The speech ended, Shasha again bowed down, quivering and contorting, beat the ground with his hands and the soles of his feet and then sprang aside into the darkness.
Sololo looked at Vooda as though he would say, "What do you think of that; is he not a most terribly potent war-doctor?" All the other men looked extremely terrified. ”

“ The scenery in this particular area of the Drakensberg range, the neighbourhood of the Mont aux Sources, is indescribably grand and impressive, and is quite unlike anything else in South Africa. Enormous and fantastically-shaped mountains are here huddled together indiscriminately, and between them wind and double deep gloomy gorges, along the bottoms of which mighty boulders are thickly strewn. On dizzy ledge and steep slope dense thickets of wild bamboo grow, and a few stunted trees fill some of the less deep clefts, wherever the sunshine can penetrate. ”

“ When hungry men are about, sheep have no master. Would your father have let me die rather than take a hamel from the flock of a rich, lazy boer, who never counts his sheep. Many a sheep your father and I have lifted in the old days. We never wanted meat. If my son were to let your father hunger, I would break his head."
In the foregoing remarks the tempter had accidentally hit upon a fact. Gert Botha, after a three years' experience of Maliwe's honesty and carefulness, very seldom took the trouble to count his sheep. ”

“ Kellson sat down in his chair and thought. His brain was quite calm, and his mind was clear, He heard the rumble of the waggon, and the voice of the boy shouting to the bullocks as he drove the team. He stood up, and mechanically seized his hat and stick. He wondered where the keys of the Office were kept. He would go down to the Office, find the record, and strike the lashes out of the sentence. No—the sentence must stand. The one stainless record which his conscience held up to him, was that of his public life. He had never yet done a deed in his official capacity of which he was ashamed. ”

“ The gate and the fence were new, but the verandah, the door and the windows, as in the case of the hotel, were the same he had known in the old days. He opened the door and walked in, his footsteps sounding hollow in the empty house.
Kellson stood in the passage. He had left the front door wide open so as to admit the light. The air of the empty house seemed dense with the essence of the past. He went into every room, pausing for a few seconds in each, and then entering the next on tip-toe. He stood in the dining-room, before the fireplace. ”

“ For a long time he was unable to dismiss the face of the prisoner Erlank from his memory, it seemed to be almost as familiar to him as the houses of the street along which he was walking.
The village had hardly changed since he had last seen it. It is one of those places that do not grow because they happen not to be on any one of the great highways to the North. One or two old fogeys came up and greeted Kellson in the street—men he had known well in the old days, now so changed as to be almost unrecognisable. ”

“ Had he not seen the natives, for whose benefit his blameless and strenuous life had been ungrudgingly spent, sinking lower and lower, exchanging the virtues of barbarism for the vices of civilisation? Had he not seen the chosen lambs of his flock sink back into the savagery that surrounded them, lured by those tribal rites which bear a fundamental resemblance to the ritual of the worship of the Cyprian Venus? Had he not seen the land covered with plague-spots in the shape of canteens from which poisonous liquor was set flowing far and wide, ruining the natives, body and soul? ”

“ He called upon his hearers to thank the Lord that such men as he, the Reverend Robley Wilson, had thought fit to devote their lives to the service of the children of Ham, instead of shining in metropolitan pulpits and pouring vials of saving grace over the heads of the elect of the children of Shem. He dwelt on the inconveniences of mission life in South Africa, and drew a moving picture of the contrast between such, and existence in a civilised, European city—comforted by the appliances of Science and cheered by the achievements of Art. ”

“ The front door was still open, and Kellson, remembering this, went to shut it. The moon had now soared high above the mountain, and a spectacle, wonderfully and wildly beautiful, was revealed. Kellson walked into the garden and gazed on it. The mist, no longer smooth and clinging, but drawn and curled into fantastic wreaths, was rising slowly into the windless sky. The tired-out man took one lingering look, and then walked quickly into the house. ”

“ He does not know Kalaza, the only Fingo his father Zangalele ever made a friend of. He does not know the man who used to cut sticks for him when he was a little boy."
"Sit down, Kalaza," replied Maliwe, "I meant no offence. I do not remember you, but if you were my father's friend, you are mine."
So they went into the hut, and they refreshed the fire, and they talked, and they put some dry mealies to roast with fat in the three-legged pot, and they talked of Maliwe's relations, of old Dalisile, and of his daughter Nalai whom Maliwe was going to marry. ”

“ Food, they now had none, and hunger gnawed at them with incessant and increasing violence. Their feet were so sore that every step over the rough, stony ground caused torture. Every now and then men dropped, unable to proceed further, and were at once speared by their companions.
On the evening of the day after they had struck into the mountains, the Zulus reached the forest-belt on the coast slope, and in front of them, distant about two days' easy march, could be seen the shining, wood-fringed reaches of the Limpopo, beyond which lay their only chance of salvation. ”

“ Men have told Indabeni that you refuse to deliver to the Magistrate one who has done wrong."
"The leopard may stand on one side and tear the flank of the buffalo as he passes. He may then hide in the caves of the rocks where the buffalo cannot follow," said Sololo, sententiously.
"The buffalo may call the wolves to his aid to drive the leopard from his cave," rejoined Vooda, developing the allegory further; "but why will you not give up the wrong-doer to the magistrate?" ”

“ You have heard of Umdava, who used to eat men in Natal long ago, after the wars of Tshaka—well, he was my uncle. After Umdava had been killed and his people scattered, my father, with a few followers, came to live amongst these mountains. But we found that after having eaten human flesh we could enjoy no other food, so we caught people and ate them. These two men lying dead are my sons, and that woman is my daughter. My four wives were here to-night. They are very old women. Have you not seen them?" he asked, looking at Whitson. ”

“ The Zulus were now in a comparatively open Country. A grassy expanse between two shallow, forest-filled valleys sloped up gently in front. Kondwana sent scouts ahead. These soon returned with the report that they had found a number of armed men sleeping around some huts close to a kraal which was filled with cattle. The dogs barked incessantly, out as much on account of the Makalaka strangers at the kraal as the Zulus. As a matter of fact, after the alarm was given late in the afternoon, as many of the Makalakas as could be communicated with had assembled here. ”

“ Then she began to suffer from violent thirst, but there was neither water nor milk in the hut. Owing to Samuel's bad reputation no one ever came to his dwelling, and thus Martha had no chance of succour before his return, which she now longed for. The sun went down, and she lay in agony, watching the dying daylight. She lay through the long, slow hours of the night, unable co move, and with the poor little child tugging at her in vain, and fitfully wailing from hunger and cold, for the fire had long since gone out. ”

“ Were it ever to be even suspected that he had betrayed the Chief, not alone would he be certainly killed, but all his relations would be shunned by the other natives. He was an old man, so for him, personally, nothing mattered very much, but a man is bound to consider the interests of his family. Traveling only by night, and lying still and hidden during the day, were therefore absolutely necessary stipulations, and Langley and Whitson agreed to them as intelligible and reasonable. All being settled, the latter started for the Camp, Ghamba baring his teeth excessively as they walked away. ”

“ Miss Blake felt unable to reply, so after a short pause Samuel continued:
"When a black man walks in the ways of the whites, he becomes a stranger to his own kind, and he has really no friends. The white man says 'Come here to us,' and when the black man comes as near as he can, there is still a gulf that he cannot pass. I am a lonely man, Miss Elizabeth; I have left my own people, and there is no one that I can call a friend. ”

“ After getting well past the Amaswazi country, the expedition left the mountains, and traveled through the low, wooded plains that lie between the Drakensberg on the north-west, and the Lebomba hills on the south-east. In this region no men dwell: except the wretched "Balala," naked and weaponless fugitives from the Tonga and other tribes, whose villages had been destroyed in war, and who had escaped to lead a life in the desert compared with which death by the spear would have been merciful. ”

“ Numjala was very anxious that I should spend the night at his kraal, and offered, would I agree to remain, to kill a juicy looking kid and roast it for supper. I had, however, promised my wife to return by midnight, and I feared she might be uneasy were I not to do so; I therefore declined the invitation.
"Does your horse lead well?" asked Numjala.
"Not particularly," I replied; "why do you ask?"
"You say you are going by the footpath past the Ghoda bush?"
"Yes."
"Unless your horse leads well, you will never get him past the Ghoda to-night, this being the night of the New Moon. ”

“ Kondwana was a distinguished man. He had, years previously, fought against Tshaka, but since his tribe, the Abambo, had made submission, and had been incorporated into the Zulu nation, he had served his new master with faithfulness and zeal. But one of the awkward conditions of savagery is this, that whenever a subordinate shows any extraordinary capacity, and consequently attains to a position of influence, his master is apt to regard him with jealousy and fear, and will therefore often destroy him ruthlessly on the first shadow of a pretext. ”

“ Whilst the hymn was being sung, the probationer's earnest eyes rested as often on the yellow-haired girl at the harmonium as on his particular charge, the dusky choir. The eleven girls stood in a crescent, some modest and demure enough, but others looking bold, their wanton, roving eyes and generously developed figures being much in evidence. The youngest girl might have been twelve years of age, and the eldest twenty. The latter, a girl named Martha Kawa, was of a much lighter colour than any of her schoolmates, but her physiognomy was of the usual Kafir type. ”

“ Kalaza pondered for a few seconds, and then asked:
"But what makes you think he steals?"
"Well, you know what a Kafir is. Maliwe lives alongside the sheep, in a hut on the mountain—all alone. The kraal is far from the homestead. Gert Botha never gives his servants enough to eat, and Maliwe must often be hungry. There you have it—a man hungry night after night, and close to him a kraal fall of fat sheep. ”