The White Hand and the Black Part 11

So the old chief sat there, gazing blinkingly into his dying fire, wondering why he should not be allowed to lay down his old bones in peace, instead of being hustled by a great crowd of idiots bent on seeking their own death. Had either or both of his two sons been alive how different things would have turned. He had taught them sound commonsense, at any rate, and would have been willing that the leadership of the tribe should devolve upon them. But Babatyana?

_Whau_, Babatyana!

Now he was roused from his musings by a sound outside. It was the voice of someone singing--calling to him the tribal _sibongo_, or praise. The door of the hut was pushed open and a youth crept in, saying that a stranger craved leave to speak with the chief.

Zavula, though old, and shorn of much of his tribal dignity, had plenty of the latter left--of a personal character. He did not hurry, and after a s.p.a.ce of full five minutes he intimated that the stranger might come in.

A man crept in through the low doorway, and raising his right hand gave the chief _sibongo_. The latter acknowledged it with a murmur, then for a moment there was silence. The new arrival was a middle-aged ringed man, and though he had described himself as a stranger this was only as a term of humility. As a matter of fact he was one of Zavula's most influential headmen.

"I see you, Nxala," said the chief. "And now? What is the news?"

There was ever so faint a twinkle in the speaker's eyes as he asked the question, ever so ironical a _soupcon_ in his tone.

"My father, things are moving. The news is great, but not to be cried aloud. The people are nearly ready."

"M-m! Nearly ready? Ready--for what?"

"The people are crying aloud for their father, the Chief of the Amahluzi, but he takes no part in their councils. His voice is not heard."

"The Chief of the Amahluzi takes no part in the councils of fools,"

returned the old man in tones of cold irony, looking through the other.

"Of fools?"

"Of fools--and worse. When children listen no more to the counsel of their fathers then are those children undone."

Again there was silence. Then Zavula raised his voice in a hail. In response two women appeared, and having received an order, returned in a minute or two bearing a large bowl of _tywala_ and two smaller drinking vessels. Into these they poured some of the liquor, which creamed up with a pleasant frothing sound. Then, each having taken the preliminary sip, required by native etiquette, they withdrew.

The headman took a long pull at his beer, and then another. The firelight glowed upon the placid countenance and short white beard of the old chief and upon the shine of the new arrival's head-ring, and still there was silence. At last the latter spoke.

"The people are tired of the white man's exactions, my father. They have to pay more and more, and they are tired of it. They wish to hear the voice of their chief."

"They have heard that voice already, Nxala--not only once nor only twice. They have heard it as foolish, rebellious children. They will hear it no more. But the time is very near when they will wish, through blood and through tears, that they had listened to it."

An unpleasant look flitted across the crafty face of the headman.

"But they murmur, my father," he said. "They are saying--'Lo, our father, Zavula, is old, and he is asleep. But Babatyana is not old, and he is awake.' So say the people."

"_Whau_, Babatyana!"

The infinite contempt in the old man's tone was quiet and cutting. The evil look deepened in the face of the other. To hide it he took up his drinking vessel again, and drained it. His host at once refilled it from the large bowl, and also his own.

"Has the Chief of the Amahluzi no word for Babatyana?" went on Nxala.

"_Whau_, Babatyana!"

This time the contempt in the old man's tone was more cutting than before. The other appreciated it to the full.

"And to the people, father? The people, thy children?"

"The people? Fools--all fools. But to them I have one word--one last word. Let them come here with the rising of to-morrow's sun and hear it. Fools--because only a fool wants the same word uttered into his ear again and again."

If it be wondered that during this talk nothing definite was said--no plan propounded--it must be remembered that the colloquial process known as coming straight to the point is an attribute vested in the civilised man. To the savage it is utterly foreign, even abhorrent. These two knew perfectly well what was in each other's mind. There was no occasion to formulate anything. In matters of moment safety lay that way, a tradition fostered through countless generations. Now Babatyana's emissary knew that his mission had failed. Babatyana's chief--the chief of the Amahluzi tribe--was as firm as a rock. Suddenly Nxala's countenance lit up.

"_Whau_! The spear! The great spear!" he exclaimed. "That is the spear with which my father met the might of Cetywayo, and slew two warriors. I would fain gaze upon that spear once more."

Zavula turned his head, following the speaker's glance. Behind him hung a fine a.s.segai, of the broad-bladed, short-handled Zulu type, which he had wielded with effect at Isandhlwana as leader of the Native Contingent, before he was forced to fly before the weight of numbers.

But as he turned his head the hand of Nxala shot out by a quick movement; perhaps two inches, and no more. But Zavula, though old, was not the fool that the other--and, incidentally, the bulk of his people-- chose to take him for.

"Ha! The spear?" he answered, in the genial, pleased tones of a veteran invited to enlarge once more on bygone deeds. "It was great, this _umkonto_, was it not? And now it must be kept bright or it will rust; for there is no more use for it."

He rose, and turning his back full upon his guest, stood, deliberately taking down the weapon from where it hung behind him. For half a minute he thus stood, gazing lovingly upon it as he held it in his hand. But in a fraction of that half minute the hand of Nxala again shot out till it rested above the chief's drinking vessel, and as quickly withdrew.

The latter sat down again leisurely, the a.s.segai in his hand.

"Yes. It is a great spear," he went on meditatively, but carefully refraining from handing it to the other. "And there is no more use for it. But--we will drink to its memory."

He raised the bowl before him. The other watching him, could hardly suppress the gleam of satisfaction which flitted across his face. But it faded in an instant. The bowl dropped from the chief's hand on to his knees. The liquor gushed forth on to the floor.

"The bowl, my father," cried Nxala eagerly. "Break it into pieces--in small pieces--for it is bad _muti_ to drop it at the moment of drinking."

"It is worse _muti_, sometimes, to drink the moment before dropping it,"

answered the old man, tranquilly, setting the bowl beside him. "I will have another brought." And again he raised his voice in a hail. Again the women appeared, and having supplied another bowl, and also a fresh brew of _tywala_, withdrew.

Nxala, watching, could scarcely restrain himself. The first part of his diabolical scheme had miscarried. Was it time for the second act? And there before him sat the old chief, the fine a.s.segai in his hand--yet held in a firm grip, he did not fail to notice--crooning words of _sibongo_ to it, as he recalled its deeds in past times. Had the scheme succeeded all would have gone so easy. This kraal of Zavula's was an insignificant cl.u.s.ter of a dozen huts, whither the old chief loved to retire. He was old--what more natural than that he should die in retirement? Yes--it was time for the second act. He would give the signal.

"Have you heard, my father; the new song that the people have made?" he said. "The new war-song? Listen. This is how it runs."

But before he had uttered three words of it a trampling of hoofs was heard outside the hut, and a l.u.s.ty European voice--though speaking faultless Zulu--enquiring which was the hut of the chief. Following on the answer there came through the low door of the hut a man, a white man--and he was known to both as the magistrate's clerk from Kwabulazi.

"Greeting to you, father," he cried, falling into the native idiom, and shaking Zavula heartily by the hand.

"Greeting, my son," answered the old chief genially. "Sit. Here is _tywala_. Have you ridden far?"

"Far? Have I not? And I am come to sleep at your kraal, for Kwabulazi is another stage away, and it is night, and my horse is dead lame."

Nxala, taking in the situation, was beside himself with inward rage, which, in fact, had got nearly to that pitch where the Machiavellian caution of the savage is apt to forget, and lose itself in an outburst of uncontrolled, unthinking blood l.u.s.t. But he had not overlooked the fact that the new arrival had, slung around him, a remarkably business-like revolver. No, the time was not yet.

A dozen armed savages, lying in wait in the dark bush shadows a little way beyond Zavula's kraal, had sprung up at the first words of the new war-song, which was to be the signal, but subsided again at the sound of the approaching horse-hoofs. Now, after a muttered consultation, they withdrew to a distance to await their leader's reappearance and instructions. But there was an armed white man, and he an official, sleeping at Zavula's kraal, which made all the difference.

Twice that night the life of the chief of the Amahluzi had hung on a hair. It was saved--for the present.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"GOOD NIGHT, ZAVULA!"

Elvesdon was seated in his inner office, busied with his ordinary routine work. It was afternoon and hot, and he had thrown off his coat and waistcoat, and sat in his shirt and light duck trousers smoking a pipe of excellent Magaliesberg. Court was over, he had disposed of the few cases, mostly of a trumpery nature, before lunch, and now the office work was not of a particularly engrossing character; wherefore perhaps it was not strange that his thoughts should go back to his Sunday visit, which, of course, spelt Edala Thornhill.