Chaka

“ In the main cabin I found Lieutenant Allerton sitting at breakfast with Captain Steele, Uncle Naboth and Archie. Joe was snoozing after his late watch and Ned Britton was on deck. Behind our guest’s chair stood the handsomest Indian I have ever seen, the Maya he had mentioned to us and whose name was Chaka. Our South Sea Islanders were genuine black men, but Chaka’s skin was the color of golden copper. He had straight black hair, but not the high cheek bones of the typical American Indian, and the regularity of his features was certainly remarkable. ”

“ The three priests knelt and stretched their arms toward the grinning Bacáb, and to my astonishment the image nodded its head in a very natural way.
“The gods consent!” cried aloud the three, in unison.
At that moment I saw Chaka protrude the nozzle of his electrite from his robe and point it at his uncle. Every other eye was at that instant turned intently upon the horrible figure of the god. ”

“ See this assegai? I throw it into the air; if the blade falls uppermost the tall man shall go free; if the shaft falls uppermost, then life is to the short one, so!” And he sent the little spear whirling round and round in the air. Every eye watched it as it wheeled and fell. The haft struck the ground first.
“Come hither, thou,” said Chaka to the tall brother. “Hasten back to the kraal of Makedama, and say to him, Thus says Chaka, the Lion of the Zulu-ka-Malandela, ‘Years ago thy tribe refused me milk. To-day the dog of thy son Mopo howls upon the roof of thy hut.’ Begone!” ”

“ If my Brother Paul and my other friends approve, I will show them how we may escape.”
“Speak, my brother,” returned Paul.
“It is not wise to go to-night,” began Chaka, “for I do not know the way to the mountain very well. All I know is that by some means we must get to the top of Aota. There is no wind. If we ascend into the air now we will remain suspended over the city, except for the small progress we could make with our wings, which have never been tested. In this country a breeze always springs up in the morning. It blows from the north and the north-west. ”

“ Now Chaka was very angry at this slaying, and opened his heart to me.
“The witch-doctors rule in Zululand, and not I, Mopo, son of Makedama,” he said to me. “Where, then, is it to end? Shall I myself be smelt out and slain? These Isanusis are too strong for me; they lie upon the land like the shadow of night. Tell me, how may I be free of them?”
“Those who walk the Bridge of Spears, O king, fall off into Nowhere,” I answered darkly; “even witch-doctors cannot keep a footing on that bridge. Has not a witch-doctor a heart that can cease to beat? Has he not blood that can be made to flow?” ”

“ Chaka looked at me strangely. “Thou art a bold man who darest to speak thus to me, Mopo,” he said. “Dost thou not know that it is sacrilege to touch an Isanusi?”
“I speak that which is in the king’s mind,” I answered. “Hearken, O king! It is indeed sacrilege to touch a true Isanusi, but what if the Isanusi be a liar? What if he smell out falsely, bringing those to death who are innocent of evil? Is it then sacrilege to bring him to that end which he has given to many another? Say, O king!”
“Good words!” answered Chaka. “Now tell me, son of Makedama, how may this matter be put to proof?” ”

“ Now he hunts no more, no more shall Groan-Maker be aloft; it is a woman’s kiss he craves, not the touch of your rough tongue, it is a woman’s hand he holds, not the smooth haft of horn, he, who of all men, was the fiercest and the first; for this last shame has overtaken him. Surely Chaka was a great king though an evil, and he showed his greatness when he forbade marriage to the warriors, marriage that makes the heart soft and turns blood to water. ”

“ There are not many of the ancient race of Tcha, and they live so secluded in their mountain fastness that nothing definite is known concerning them. When Chaka’s father was a young man he, with a band of followers, unconsciously invaded the territory of the Tcha and climbed the mountain near their sacred retreat. The atkayma and his men were promptly seized and carried into the hidden city, where all were destroyed except the Itzaex ruler. ”

“ It was another Mopo whom Chaka killed; I slew Chaka, Chaka did not slay me.”
“And of Nada, what of Nada, my sister?” he said.
“Macropha, your mother, and Nada, your sister, are dead, Umslopogaas. They are dead at the hands of the people of the Halakazi, who dwell in Swaziland.”
“I have heard of that people,” he answered presently, “and so has Galazi the Wolf, yonder. He has a hate to satisfy against them—they murdered his father; now I have two, for they have murdered my mother and my sister. Ah, Nada, my sister! Nada, my sister!” ”

“ The white man holds the land, he goes to and fro about his business of peace where impis ran forth to kill; his children laugh and gather flowers where men died in blood by hundreds; they bathe in the waters of the Imbozamo, where once the crocodiles were fed daily with human flesh; his young men woo the maidens where other maids have kissed the assegai. It is changed, nothing is the same, and of Chaka are left only a grave yonder and a name of fear. ”

“ Then I became the counsellor of Dingaan, whom I hated worse than I had hated Chaka, for he was Chaka again without his greatness, and you know the end of Dingaan, for you had a share in that war, and of Umhlangana, his brother and fellow-murderer, whom I counselled Dingaan to slay. This I did through the lips of the old Princess Menkabayi, Jama’s daughter, Senzangakona’s sister, the Oracle before whom all men bowed, causing her to say that ‘This land of the Zulus cannot be ruled by a crimson assegai.’ For, Macumazahn, it was Umhlangana who first struck Chaka with the spear. ”

“ The Itongo in the woman was a Spirit King and ordered her to kill thee; thou shouldst then have let thyself be killed. Hast thou no other reason?”
“This, Elephant,” answered Umslopogaas; “the woman would have murdered my sister, whom I love better than my life.”
“That is nothing,” said Chaka. “If I ordered thee to be killed for any cause, should I not also order all within thy gates to be killed with thee? May not, then, a Spirit King do likewise? If thou hast nothing more to say thou must die.” ”

“ We held no unnecessary converse with one another on the trail, not being anxious to appear as chatterboxes before these silent natives; but when we had camped for the night in another small clearing, which we reached at dusk, we gathered in a group and in English talked over the day’s adventures and our future prospects. Chaka came and sat with us after he had indulged in a somewhat lengthy interview with Gatcha the chief, and he looked rather solemn and thoughtful. ”

“ I told him the name of my tribe, the Langeni tribe.
“Very well, Mopo; now I will tell you my name. My name is Chaka, son of Senzangacona, and my people are called the Amazulu. And I will tell you something more. I am little to-day, and my people are a small people. But I shall grow big, so big that my head will be lost in the clouds; you will look up and you shall not see it. My face will blind you; it will be bright like the sun; and my people will grow great with me; they shall eat up the whole world. ”

“ All night long the people drew on from every side towards the kraal, and, as they came in thousands and tens of thousands, they filled the night with their cries, till it seemed as though the whole world were mourning, and loudly. None might cease their crying, and none dared to drink so much as a cup of water. The daylight came, and Chaka rose, saying, “Come, let us go forth, Mopo, and look on those who mourn with us.” So we went out, and after us came men armed with clubs to do the bidding of the king. ”

“ There he conquered all the tribes, enrolled them in his own army, and gradually became as formidable as Chaka himself. In the arrangements of his army, he followed the same plans as Chaka, and has now become a most powerful monarch, and, they do say, is almost as great a tyrant and despot as Chaka himself was. I believe that the Griquas are right in saying there would be danger in passing through his dominions without his permission. ”

“ I remarked.
“That mountain is bigger than it seems from here,” declared Joe.
“Yes,” said Chaka; “it is a big mountain, and in its center, so my father told me, is a big valley where all things beautiful grow and flourish. The people are not many as compared with the Itzaex. Perhaps they number a thousand—perhaps two thousand—I do not know. But they are a powerful race, descended from those who once came from Atlantis, and in their valley they find all that they need to support life.” ”

“ In consideration of Dala foregoing his wish to murder me he was to be given a canoe to return down the river in, which he could say he had captured from the Balaba in fight.
I was ordered to return to where Chaka was lying, and I told him of the conversation between Dala and Kifura.
“Oh that I were free,” said he, “that I might kill him and die. He is a dog, and the son of a dog. But, Franki, while Chaka is with you he will be your slave, and what service he can render you he will render.” ”

“ They are many, oh my brother! There has been war, and for this once my people have been defeated. I know not where the battle was fought nor how many were engaged; but victory is with our enemies. On their spears they bear the heads of many brave Itzaex; foremost among them is that of the great, the noble atkayma—my father!”
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He broke down again, to renew his sobs.
“Poor Chaka!” said Paul.
There was no time left us for more parley. We began to hear the shouts of the approaching hosts and must prepare for a desperate defense. It was all right for Chaka to grieve over his father ”

“ Now few men remained in the kraal Duguza, for nearly all had gone with the impi, and only women and aged people were left. Dingaan and Umhlangana, brothers of the king, were there, for Chaka would not suffer them to depart, fearing lest they should plot against him, and he looked on them always with an angry eye, so that they trembled for their lives, though they dared not show their fear lest fate should follow fear. ”

“ Callaway thought not that her mind was wandering, but that 'there appears in this account to be rather the intermixture of several faiths, which might have met and contended or amalgamated at the time to which she alludes'—the early days of Chaka—' 1. Primitive faith in a heavenly Lord or Creator. 2. The ancestor-worshipping faith, which confounds the Creator with the first man. 3. The Christian faith, again directing the attention of the natives to a God who is not anthropomorphic' She might also, in a part of her tale, allude to the fabled ascension of the father of King Chaka prior to 1813. ”

“ Paul said we could go if we wished, but for his part he intended to stay until Ama was out of her trouble. Chaka declared he would stay also. There was no use in arguing with them, for they both loved the girl; so of course we all stayed. No one can desert a comrade at such a time.
On the evening of the third day a Tcha who had been put to guard the rift in the mountain came running to say that a great horde of Itzaex warriors was marching toward us and had encamped for the night but three hours’ distant from the city. ”

“ The air was dry, hot and perfectly still.
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“Yonder,” said Chaka in English, as he faced the south, “stands the great mountain of Aota. Around it are the four peaks of Gam. That country is barren and covered with rocks. There are secret caves in which dwell fierce animals with evil spirits, and deep wells that draw one to his death. So my people have always been told, and they believe the tale. No Itzaex ever go to those mountains; they are considered sacred to the spirits of evil.”
“And where lies the hidden city?” asked Paul, eagerly. ”

“ The writer remembers talking to an aged Zulu woman, however, who told him that she was married when Chaka was king.—ED.
Before the Zulus were a people—for I will begin at the beginning—I was born of the Langeni tribe. We were not a large tribe; afterwards, all our able-bodied men numbered one full regiment in Chaka’s army, perhaps there were between two and three thousand of them, but they were brave. Now they are all dead, and their women and children with them,—that people is no more. It is gone like last month’s moon ”

“ This tribe dwells in the vast sierras of Yucatan, near the Great Lake, and the Atkayma of the Itzaex has the same importance and power as the Inca of Peru or the Caciques of the Aztecs formerly enjoyed. Chaka is the eldest son of the ruling atkayma; by this time he may even have succeeded to the title of atkayma himself, the head of his people, for his father was an old man when the boy left him. The family of rulers is a sacred one, said to be descended from the sun, and every one of the atkayma’s fifty thousand subjects would die for him without hesitation. ”

“ There was no confusion or excitement apparent—I wonder if an Itzaex ever could get excited?—but they plainly showed their interest in their newly discovered youthful atkayma by trooping out to meet him.
And Chaka received a right royal welcome.
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Men, women and children “bit the dust,” as Archie said, by prostrating themselves before him. The boy looked very handsome in his gleaming copper skin and the single heron feather set in his hair, and he walked into his hereditary kingdom as proud as a peacock, as well he might. ”