Cetewayo

“ Farewell, Prince Cetewayo. You will never be the man your brother would have been, and your lot is very evil, you who are doomed to pull down a House built by One who was great. Farewell, Saduko the fool, who threw away your fortune for a woman’s eyes, as though the world were not full of women. Nandie the Sweet and the Forgiving will nurse you well until your haunted end. Oh! why does Umbelazi lean over your shoulder, Saduko, and look at me so strangely? Farewell, Panda the Shadow. ”

“ Suddenly Zikali lifted his head and looked at them through the thin flame of the fire which made his eyes shine like those of a tiger or of a cornered baboon.
“At what do you gaze so hard, King and Councillors?” he asked. “I see nothing. At what then do you gaze so hard?”
“On the rock above you stands a white spirit in her glory. It is the Inkosazana herself,” muttered Cetewayo.
“Has she come then?” mocked the old wizard. ”

“ His form grew rigid, his eyes closed, his face became fixed as though in death, and foam appeared upon his lips. He was a dreadful sight to look on, there in the gloomy hut.
Cetewayo watched him and shivered. Then he opened his blanket and I perceived that fastened about him by a loop of hide in such a fashion that it could be drawn out in a moment, was the blade of a broad assegai, the shaft of which was shortened to about six inches. His hand grasped this shaft, and I understood that he was contemplating the murder of Zikali. ”

“ I cannot tell one of them from the other. Who is it? Who, who of all that you have slain and who therefore are your foes?”
“Umbelazi, my brother,” groaned Cetewayo. “My brother Umbelazi stands before me with spear raised; he whom I brought to his death at the battle of the Tugela. His eyes flame upon me, his spear is raised to strike. He speaks words I cannot understand. Protect me, O Wizard! Lord of Spirits, protect me from the spirit of Umbelazi.”
Zikali laughed wildly and continued to wave his arms above the fire from which smoke poured ever more densely, till the hut was full of it. ”

“ I will send a Spirit to her, if you so will it, to warn her to watch for you and your company, O King, and show you the mouth of the kloof, where are some old huts and water. There you will never be found unless you are betrayed.”
“Who can betray me when none know whither I am going?” asked Cetewayo. “Send the Spirit, send it at once, that this one-armed witch may make ready.”
“What is the hurry, King, seeing that the forest is far away? Yet be it as you will. Keep silence now, lest evil should befall you.”
Then of a sudden Zikali seemed to go off into one of his trances. ”

“ As soon as we were clear of the kraal Magepa began to open his heart to me.
"Macumazahn," he said, looking up at me earnestly, for I was mounted and he walked beside my horse, "there is to be war. Cetewayo will not consent to the demands of the great White Chief from the Cape"—he meant Sir Bartle Frere. "He will fight with the English; only he will let them begin the fighting. He will draw them on into Zululand and then overwhelm them with his impis and stamp them flat, and eat them up; and I, who love the English, am very sorry. Yes, it makes my heart bleed. ”

“ For a while he looked at Umbelazi, and I saw love and fear in his eye, for towards him Panda always had more affection than for any of his other children.
“Cetewayo has behaved ill,” he said at length; “and before a white man, who will report the matter, which makes it worse. He has no right to dictate to me to whom I shall or shall not give my daughters in marriage. Moreover, I have spoken; nor do I change my word because he threatens me. It is known throughout the land that I never change my word; and the white men know it also, do they not, O Macumazana?” ”

“ Then they halted, recalled the stragglers, and slowly returned over the scene of the long encounter, the whole route being heaped with the dead and dying with a sad and terrible sameness.
“Well, Vander Heyden,” said Rivers, as they lay on their karosses that evening, too much exhausted with their day’s work to raise their heads from their pillows, “our vows are fulfilled at last. Cetewayo is completely crushed. His army is destroyed, or too widely scattered to be gathered together again. He will never fight another battle nor summon another council. ”

“ If this cannot be, let me abide here in my house and let the King seek light from other doctors, since mine shall remain as a lamp to my own heart.’”
Now I saw that these words greatly disturbed Cetewayo who feared Zikali, as indeed did all the land.
“What does the old wizard mean?” he asked angrily. “He lives alone like a bat in a cave and for years has been seen of none. Yet as a bat flies forth at night, ranging far and wide in search of prey, so does his spirit seem to fly through Zululand. Everywhere I hear the same word. ”

“ It seems, King, that there is a white man here hidden in this kloof, he who is named Macumazahn, a good man and a truthful, known to many of us from of old, who can tell you what his people think, though he is not one of their indunas. If you question my words, ask him.”
“We know what the white men think,” said Cetewayo, “so there is no need to ask Macumazahn to sing us an old song. The question is—what must the Zulus do? Must they swallow their spears and, ceasing to be a nation, become servants, or must they strike with them and drive the English into the sea, and after them the Boers?” ”

“ A little photo of the party, as they appeared on this memorable morning, hangs in his room with that of the Union Jack.
"The real reason," said Mr. Haggard, "why the Transvaal was annexed was to prevent its inhabitants being wiped out of the world by Cetewayo. The Transvaal forces had been defeated, and Cetewayo had massed his regiments to attack it. Sir Theophilus Shepstone knew that, unless the territory became Queen's land, Cetewayo would take it. ”

“ At this question I distinctly saw a shiver shake the frame of Zikali who realized too late the terrible mistake he had made. Yet as only the great can do, he retrieved and even triumphed over his error.
“Oho-ho!” he laughed, “who am I that I can tell how such things happen? Do you not know, O King, that the Spirits leave what they will and take what they will, whether it be but a blade of grass, or the life of a man”—here he looked at Cetewayo—“or even of a people? Sometimes they take the shadow and sometimes the substance, since spirit or matter, all is theirs. ”

“ The result was somewhat ludicrous, for they jammed in the gateway. Here, however, Umbelazi’s greater weight told, for, putting out his strength, he squeezed his brother into the reeds of the fence, and won through a foot or so in front of him.
“You grow too fat, my brother,” I heard Cetewayo say, and saw him scowl as he spoke. “If I had held an assegai in my hand you would have been cut.” ”

“ Within two days, except for those regiments which Panda kept to guard his person, scarcely a soldier was to be seen in the neighbourhood of Nodwengu. The princes also departed to muster their adherents, Cetewayo establishing himself among the Mandhlakazi that he commanded, and Umbelazi returning to the kraal of Umbezi, which happened to stand almost in the centre of that part of the nation which adhered to him. ”

“ Then it was taken to those outside.
“What is this that my ears hear?” asked Zikali when Nombé and the others had gone, “that the White Dogs are on the spoor of the Black Bull?”
Cetewayo nodded heavily, and answered—
“My impis were broken to pieces on the plain of Ulundi; the cowards ran from the bullets as children run from bees. My kraals are burnt and I, the King, with but a faithful remnant fly for my life. The prophecy of the Black One has come true. The people of the Zulus are stamped flat beneath the feet of the great White People.” ”

“ With their prisoner strictly guarded, the party passed the night of the 29th August in the forest of Ngome, and Florian, as he flung himself on the dewy grass, with fevered limbs and aching head, felt an emotion of thankfulness that all was over, and it was nearly so with himself now!
The moon had not yet risen; the darkness was dense around the hut where lay Cetewayo, guarded by many a sabre and bayonet; and the jackals and hyenas were making night hideous with their howling, mingled at times with the yells of wild dogs. ”

“ Therefore today, I stand like a man between two falling cliffs. If I run towards the English the Zulu cliff falls upon me. If I run towards my own people, the English cliff falls upon me, and in either case I am crushed and no more seen. Tell me then, Macumazahn, you whose heart is honest, what must I do?”
So he spoke, wringing his hands, with tears starting to his eyes, and upon my word, although I never liked Cetewayo as I had liked his father, Panda, perhaps because I loved his brother, Umbelazi, whom he killed, and had known him do many cruel deeds, my heart bled for him. ”

“ Towards the end of the year 1878, serious disputes arose between the British authorities of Natal and Cetewayo, the King of the Zulus, a savage monarch possessing a large army of warriors, composed of men well-trained according to the savage idea of warfare, and possessed of extreme bravery. ”

“ Goza, lead Macumazahn back to his hut and set a guard about it. At the dawn a company of soldiers will be waiting with orders to take him to the border. You will go with him and answer for his safety with your life. Let him be well treated on the road as my messenger.”
Then Cetewayo rose and stood while all present gave him the royal salute, after which he walked away down the kloof. I remained for a moment, making pretence to examine the blade of the little assegai that had been thrown by the figure on the rock, which I had picked from the ground. ”

“ I could tell you the story of a white teacher who did not believe and would not guard—but never mind, never mind. Good-bye, Macumazahn, I will speak with Nombé. Ask her for a lock of her hair to wear upon your heart after she has enchanted it. The charm is good against spells. O-ho—Oho-o! What fools we are, white and black together! That is what Cetewayo is thinking to-day.”
After this Nombé became much more agreeable. That is to say she was very polite, her smile was more fixed and her eyes more unfathomable than ever. Evidently Zikali had spoken to her and she had listened. ”

“ The general belief throughout Natal—it might be said throughout the whole of Southern Africa—was that if Cetewayo, leaving a sufficient force to keep Wood and Pearson within their camps, were to lead say thirty thousand of his braves into the colony, no resistance could be offered. The inhabitants would have to shut themselves up in the towns, which had been fortified in anticipation of such a danger, leaving their villages, their farm and country houses, their cattle and their crops, an undisputed prey to their invaders. ”

“ And who are we that we should question the King’s decrees? Is it our business to judge or to obey?”
“Has Saduko perchance made you a present of some of those cattle which he stole from the Amakoba, Umbelazi?” asked Cetewayo. “As our father asks no lobola, perhaps you have taken the gift instead.”
“The only gift that I have taken from Saduko,” said Umbelazi, who, I could see, was hard pressed to keep his temper, “is that of his service. He is my friend, which is why you hate him, as you hate all my friends.” ”

“ It narrates, through the mouth of Allan Quatermain, the consummation of the vengeance of the wizard Zikali, alias The Opener of Roads, or “The-Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born,” upon the royal Zulu House of which Senzangacona was the founder and Cetewayo, our enemy in the war of 1879, the last representative who ruled as a king. Although, of course, much is added for the purposes of romance, the main facts of history have been adhered to with some faithfulness. ”

“ Subsequently she obtained a place as a cook at Howick, and for a while I saw her no more.
At Maritzburg, as in duty bound, I called upon various persons in authority and delivered Cetewayo’s message, leaving out all Zikali’s witchcraft which would have sounded absurd. It did not produce much impression as, hostilities having already occurred, it was superfluous. Also no one was inclined to pay attention to the words of one who was neither an official nor a military officer, but a mere hunter supposed to have brought a native wife out of Zululand. ”

“ As you know, I was attached to the centre column that advanced into Zululand by Rorke's Drift on the Buffalo River. Before war was declared, or at any rate before the advance began, while it might have been and many thought it would be averted, I was employed transport-riding goods to the little Rorke's Drift Station, that which became so famous afterwards, and incidentally in collecting what information I could of Cetewayo's intentions. ”

“ Frere at the same time reiterated the demand for satisfaction for certain outrages committed on British subjects, and asked for assurances that Cetewayo would carry on his government in the spirit of the promises he had made when he was crowned by Sir Theophilus Shepstone. Frere specially demanded full satisfaction for the murder of two black women and for the detention of two English surveyors. He further required that the king should introduce a settled form of government into the country; should abolish the existing military system ”

“ Why trouble about the dead when there are so many to be sent to join them? Macumazahn, the hour is at hand. The fool Cetewayo has quarrelled with your people, the English, and on my counsel. He has sent and killed women, or allowed others to do so, across the river in Natal. His messengers came to me asking what he should do. I answered, 'Shall a king of the blood of Chaka fear to allow his own wicked ones to be slain because they have stepped across a strip of water, and still call himself king of the Zulus?’ So those women were dragged back across the water and killed ”