The White Hecatomb Part 14

Sobede belonged to the Hlangweni tribe, whilst his companions were Gaika Kafirs from near King William's Town. But the important difference between Sobede and the others lay in this: that whereas they were guilty of the crime laid to their charge, he was as innocent as was his Lordship the learned judge who, clad in a gorgeous vestment of crimson silk, was trying him.

Appearances were, however, strongly against Sobede. The evidence showed that the stolen cattle had been found by the farmers who followed on their spoor in the possession of the three prisoners, and were at the time being driven up one of the gorges of the steep Drakensberg range, in the direction of Basutoland, that great and grievous receptacle for stolen stock of all kinds. When Sobede told his story, namely, that he had casually joined the other two but a few minutes before he had been apprehended, having come from his kraal along one of the many footpaths leading through the same gorge, no one believed him, although the relation was perfectly true. His wife, Mampitizili, with her two-months-old baby slung on her back and hushing it as she spoke, gave evidence to the effect that her husband had left her after the sun was high on the same day for the purpose of fetching medicine from a native doctor for the week-old baby, which happened at the time to be ailing, whereas the cattle had been stolen thirty hours previously. His old, half-decrepit father, 'Mbope, corroborated Mampitizili's statement in a voice that rose to a quavering shout. The old man's lips trembled, his eyes flashed for a moment through the blue film that had gradually overspread them during the past few years, and he held his shaking right hand with the two first fingers extended high over his head. He really afforded a very fine tragic spectacle, and suggested a kind of Bantu Lear in appearance and mien, but to judge by the behaviour of the jury the exhibition was rather comic than otherwise, for they put their heads together and laughed consumedly. _They_ knew the dodges all these old n.i.g.g.e.rs get up to, and it was quite clear that the old man had pitched it too strong for sincerity. The old man's display evidently impressed his Lordship, but was nevertheless of no use to Sobede. The d.a.m.ning fact remained that the cattle had been stolen from a farmer in whose service he had for some time been, and when the pa.s.sing flash of insight had faded from the mind of the judge, no one in court except Sobede's wife and father had the slightest doubt as to Sobede's guilt.

The prosecuting barrister finished his address to his own entire satisfaction, and then, sitting down, leaned back in his seat and contemplated the recently-painted ceiling, conscious of having done his duty to society. Then the judge made a few remarks of an a.n.a.lytic nature, inclining at the same time towards the jury-box with that well-known and well-studied air of forensic friendliness which so tends to establish a good understanding between all parties concerned; except, perhaps, the prisoner at the bar. After this the nine heads of the jurymen bent towards each other in a whispered colloquy which may perhaps have lasted for thirty seconds. Then the jurymen all stood up together, and the foreman communicated their verdict as one of "guilty"

against the three prisoners.

Then the judge, pushing back the forensic friendliness stop, and drawing out that of judicial austerity, began to admonish the prisoners, and it could be seen that it was at Sobede his harangue was chiefly aimed.

Although the address was well interpreted, Sobede could not follow the drift of it, his attention being divided between the wails of his child sounding faintly from the court-house yard where the witnesses were kept, and the little white tippets which waggled a silent accompaniment to his Lordship's eloquence over the breast of his Lordship's beautiful red silk robe. The baseness of ingrat.i.tude (it had transpired in the course of the evidence that Sobede had, in recognition of meritorious service, been sent away with four goats over and above his specified wages) was enlarged upon, and the ineradicable nature of the furtive bent in the average Bantu was treated from an ethnological point.

Eventually Sobede found himself sentenced to three years' imprisonment with hard labour, whilst his companions, who could not help smiling at the peculiarity of the situation, got off each with a year less.

After sentence, as he was being hurried through the court-house yard to the lock-up, Sobede caught a glimpse of old 'Mbope crouching with bent head in a corner, and then he pa.s.sed Mampitizili. She was still hushing the baby, who as yet refused to be comforted, and as her husband pa.s.sed her with the horror of the prospect of three years of unmerited, painful servitude darkening his uncivilised soul, these two exchanged such looks as are never forgotten on this side of the grave.

_Two_.

Mampitizili and 'Mbope took two days wherein to perform the return journey to Sidote's location, where they dwelt. Owing to his infirmities the old man walked with great difficulty, but he kept a good heart, and endeavoured his best to comfort the miserable wife of his unhappy son, reminding her from his vantage coign of old age that three years pa.s.s very quickly and do not, after all, make much of a slice out of a lifetime. This is quite true when the lifetime is regarded from near the wrong end of it, but such philosophy is unintelligible to the young. The poor woman had only been married about a year, and the baby, a boy, was not yet three months old. It had not as yet even been given a name.

They reached home one cold, misty evening, and it was then that the full significance of their misfortune came home to them for the first time.

The friends who had taken charge of the premises during their absence left next morning taking with them a goat, as a reward for their services, and all day long the two miserable creatures sat and hugged their misery. The hearth was cold, the milk-sacks were empty, and the strong arm and shrewd head of Sobede were missed at every turn.

The season was early autumn, and the crops were nearly ready to reap, but during their absence the cattle, the birds, and marauding children from kraals in the next valley had so damaged them that they were now hardly worth the reaping. The calves of two of the best cows had died, and consequently milk was scarce. Everything seemed to be falling into disorganisation. A boy of about twelve years of age, a grandson of the old man, was sent to dwell at the kraal for the purpose of a.s.sisting in looking after the stock, but the loneliness weighed upon him to such an extent that he repeatedly deserted and ran home, in spite of repeated heavy beatings from his father, who had been promised a cow in payment for the boy's services.

Mampitizili struggled on bravely, and carried up basket after basket of grain from the depleted field, but when the last cob had been harvested there was hardly enough grain to last half-way through the winter, to say nothing of seed for the ensuing spring.

'Mbope had another son whose name was Manciya. Manciya's mother had been the "great wife," and consequently he took precedence of Sobede, whose mother was the wife of 'Mbope's "right hand." All the rest of 'Mbope's children were daughters, and they had all long since been married. Sobede was 'Mbope's youngest child and his favourite.

Manciya and his father did not agree, and consequently 'Mbope had dwelt with Sobede since the latter had married and set up a kraal of his own on a sheltered ledge near the head of a deep valley on the eastern fringe of the Hlangweni location. Manciya had, under pretext of seniority, seized the lion's share of the cattle. He had, it is true, a right to a great deal of it, but he took more than his share, and it was only after much trouble that he was compelled to disgorge. However, a herd of about twenty head had been rescued from his clutches and formally ceded to Sobede as his prospective share in his father's estate, to be his unconditionally after 'Mbope's death.

Manciya now and then called to see his father. His kraal, where he dwelt with his several wives, was situated about five miles away. His visits were not welcome, for the reason that he always appeared to a.s.sume that Sobede was guilty, and this was resented by both 'Mbope and Mampitizili. Theft of cattle, especially if it happens to be on a large scale, is probably regarded by the native of to-day more or less as it was regarded by the moss-trooper of the Scotch Border in the sixteenth century. In Sobede's case, however, his wife and his father knew him to be suffering for a sin he had not committed. The ever-present sense of injustice made them sensitive, and they felt the inconvenience of their position most keenly.

Two years pa.s.sed, full of misery to the widowed wife and the old man who now felt his death approaching, and keenly longed for a sight of his favourite son to carry with him into the grave. They did not even know at which of the convict stations Sobede was serving his time, for no word from him had ever reached them since the day of his conviction.

The little boy grew strong and tall. He was now able to run about.

"Kungaye" was the name given to him. This word means "It was through (or owing to) him." This name, the significance of which will be obvious, was not given as a reproach, but so that, in after life, the son might remember and deplore his father's unmerited sufferings, of which he had been the innocent cause.

_Three_.

One evening old 'Mbope, who had the habit of pottering about digging out medicinal roots with an iron spike, returned and laid himself down on his mat after refusing to eat any supper. The season was again early autumn, and a bitterly cold wind swept down from the snow-flecked Drakensberg range. Next day he was unable to arise, and he lay moaning then and throughout the following night in a burning fever, whilst a cruel cough racked his spent frame. His talk, as he wandered in delirium, was ever of Sobede, and the "red chief" who had punished him undeservedly. The poor old man appeared to imagine that he was still giving evidence at the trial. In the early morning he tried to stand up, but fell back dead on his mat.

Manciya came over and buried his father, and then Mampitizili, with little Kungaye, accompanied him back to his kraal. Manciya was now the head of the family, and according to native custom the interests of Sobede were vested in him for the time being. The cattle and goats were driven over, and the mats, calabashes, and other _lares_ and _penates_, with the a.s.segais and clubs of Sobede, were taken to Manciya's kraal.

Mampitizili found herself disposed of as joint occupant, with Manciya's oldest and ugliest wife, of a large hut on the left-hand side of the cattle kraal.

For a time Mampitizili was left to herself, but within a few months she had come to find that all the inconvenience she had previously suffered was as nothing compared to what she now had to endure.

A rumour was set afloat to the effect that Sobede was dead; this at first caused her much terror, but when all efforts to trace it to its source had failed, Mampitizili ceased to give it much credence; nevertheless, it left a rankling thorn of uneasiness in her mind. Soon after this she began to see far more of Manciya than she liked, and then he commenced paying her attentions that were extremely distasteful.

Among the many Jewish customs followed by the Kafirs is the one prescribed in the fifth verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, and Manciya, a.s.suming the report as to Sobede's death to be true, proposed to follow this custom in Mampitizili's ease. She, it may be stated, was an extremely attractive young woman. Manciya found himself repulsed with indignation over and over again. Then he began to try the effect of harsh and even cruel treatment where soft measures had failed.

The wife whose dwelling Mampitizili shared had been neglected by her husband for years, and was now savagely jealous of the attentions which he paid, in her hut and before her face, to a young, good-looking woman, and she accordingly gave full vent to her spite when she saw from Manciya's changed demeanour that it was safe for her to do so. Soon Mampitizili's life became one of continuous misery. It was through little Kungaye that she suffered most severely. The child was bullied or beaten every day by the other children, who were encouraged to torment him, and all attempts at defence or retaliation on the mother's part proved to be worse than useless. The hardest drudgery fell to Mampitizili's lot, and the worst food was her scanty portion, but all this she regarded as nothing in comparison with what she had to endure in respect of the treatment to which her child was subjected.

Sometimes she would manage to steal away and carry little Kungaye over to the old kraal, there to muse miserably over the short-lived happiness that she and Sobede had enjoyed. The three huts were falling into decay, the corn-pits in the kraal were full of water, and the whole place was overgrown with weeds. But here she had at least peace; the leering, libidinous eye of Manciya no longer affronted her, and she was free from the constant nagging of his jealous, spiteful wives. Here, moreover, little Kungaye could play in peace with the little toy oxen she had made for him out of mud, free from the persecution of his malevolent cousins.

As may have been inferred, it was Manciya who had for his own purposes set afloat the rumour as to Sobede's having died at the convict station.

He knew that Sobede's return home might be expected in a few months, and he determined, therefore, to overcome Mampitizili's resistance to his amatory advances with as little further delay as possible. With this end in view he again changed his tactics, and began once more to treat her with kindness. Amongst other manifestations of this may be mentioned his buying a gaudy blanket for her at a traders, and his administration of a most unmerciful thrashing to her hut-companion--to whom, very unfairly, he had failed to notify the change in his tactics, and who inopportunely was guilty before his face of a spiteful act towards the object of his desires. Mampitizili felt grateful, but kept, nevertheless, strictly on her guard.

One day Manciya sent messages to the surrounding kraals inviting a number of his friends to a beer-drink. For some days previously every one had been kept busy grinding the "imitombo," or partly-germinated millet from which the beer is made, in large earthen pots. The banquet began early in the forenoon, and by the time the sun went down many heads had been broken, and all the revellers were extremely drunk.

Shortly after nightfall Manciya staggered into the hut in which Mampitizili dwelt. The other woman was crouching at the central hearth over some faintly-glowing embers, and her he struck brutally with one of the door-poles which he had stumbled over. The woman rushed with a yell out of the hut, and Manciya began to grope about in the darkness for Mampitizili.

Mampitizili took in the situation at once. She was crouching against the wall at the back of the hut when Manciya entered, clasping little Kungaye close to her. Manciya pa.s.sed her in his search, and she leaped to her feet and rushed out into the night with her child.

The unhappy woman at length felt that her burthen was greater than she could bear;--that she must get away from Manciya's kraal now and for ever,--even if she had to fling herself into the cold, dark, deep pool of the river just below the waterfall. But that might happen to-morrow; for to-night she would return to the old kraal, for the last time. She felt she would like to sleep once more in the hut that she and Sobede had occupied together. The season was late winter. She hurried on through the darkness with hot head and cold, bruised feet. The night was cloudless and still, and a heavy frost was settling down through the keen, crisp air. Soon the eastern sky began to whiten, and then the moon lit up the snowy ma.s.ses of the Drakensberg rising abruptly to her left. The child shivered and clung to her mutely; he had acquired the habit of mutely enduring.

At length she reached the rocky ledge upon which the three huts stood, facing down the valley. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they seemed to her like a city of refuge and peace. The largest hut was that which stood in the centre facing the entrance to the stone cattle enclosure. Mampitizili approached this hut from the back, with faltering steps, half-blinded with her tears, and shaken by sobs wrung from the depths of her despair.

A portion of the wall of the hut had fallen in at one side, and, as Mampitizili pa.s.sed the aperture thus formed, she uttered a cry and fell to the ground in terror, for a fire was alight in the centre of the hut, and a man with his back towards her lay next to it, half covered by a blanket.

_Four_.

Sobede, after his sentence, was drafted with other convicted prisoners to the convict station at Port Saint John's, on the coast of Pondoland and at the mouth of the Umzimvubu river. Here, every working day, he trundled a wheel-barrow filled with gravel at the bluff that was being broken down for the purpose, and tipped it into the lagoon which, before it was thus filled up, wound sinuously through the little village. When each day's work was done, he was marched with the other convicts to the prison, which was built of galvanised iron on the flattened top of a sand-hill overlooking the deep blue wonder of the Indian Ocean, and the lovely river-mouth with its beetling cliffs and steep forest-fringed slopes. He was well fed and comfortably housed; the work was not heavy, nor were the working hours distressingly long. The only things that troubled him much, after the first wild, desperate feeling of being trapped had pa.s.sed away, were the monotony of the life, the restraint, always so specially irksome to uncivilised man, and the longing to obtain news of his wife and child, of his father and his cattle.

The climate of Port Saint John's, the gentle haze that seems to steal into the soul and allay every irritation, the health-giving breath and the commiserating murmur of the great ocean, all brought him peace.

Thus the time pa.s.sed more quickly and less painfully than he had expected. Moreover, he obtained the remission of six weeks for each year of his sentence, such as is allowed to all well-conducted convicts whose sentences exceed a certain limit. Of the regulation authorising this he and his family had been unaware.

At length he one day found himself a free man, with a clear conscience and in perfect health. In spite of having herded with evil-doers he came out of prison a better man than he had entered it. He had endured heavy tribulation without losing hope; he had never lost hold of his past and his future; he had instinctively and insensibly acquired a healthy philosophy under the stress of his unmerited misfortune.

Now he looked forward to meeting, within a few days, the wife, child, and father whom, in spite of his black skin and his uncivilised nature, he dearly loved. Conscious of his innocence and buoyant with hope, Sobede, as he walked down the hill from the convict station after his release, held his head erect and looked every man he met straight in the face. He was probably a better man than most of those who would have felt themselves contaminated by touching him.

It is a long day's walk from Port Saint John's to Sidote's location, and the whole course lies up-hill. Sobede was, however, in perfect condition, and although he hurried on, walking all day long and half the night, he felt less and less fatigue the farther he went. The cold was severe in the higher alt.i.tudes, and he felt it considerably after his nearly three years spent at sea-level, but this he did not mind. His warm hearth, with Mampitizili and the child, who, he thought, must now be big and old enough to run about and talk, was waiting for him, and once there his troubles would all be forgotten.

Upon taking his discharge, a few shillings wherewith to buy food on his homeward journey had been given to him by the superintendent of the convict station. Of this money he spent hardly any. Natives are extremely hospitable to strangers, and all through Pondoland and the Xesibe country Sobede never lacked food to eat.

The last day of Sobede's journey dawned at last. His course now lay along a main road running over farms occupied by Europeans, so he met with hardly any people, nor did he see a single one whom he knew. Just before sundown he came to a wagon outspanned, the owner of which had just slaughtered a goat. Thinking it probable that there would be no fresh meat at his kraal, Sobede invested a shilling of his maintenance-money in goat-flesh. He cut a hole in the lump of meat, stuck his stick through it, and carried it over his shoulder.

Sobede's kraal was situated almost on the verge of the Hlangweni location, and the footpath leading to it from the main road pa.s.sed no other dwellings of men. It was sundown when he reached the point at which the footpath diverged, leading up the valley at the upper end of which the huts were built. His feet were worn and sore from the long walk, but he hurried along the steep, rugged course with firm nervous steps. It was almost dark when he began to ascend the short, steep lip of the ledge. It struck him as being strange that he had seen no signs of cattle or other animals, nor had he even heard the bark of a dog.

Perhaps, he thought, those at the kraal had gone to sleep, and the dogs crept in under shelter from the cold. Of course, he was not expected for another four months, as his family knew nothing of the good-conduct remission.

He reached the top of the ledge; there sure enough, he could see the outline of each hut in the shadow of the dark hill-side, beneath the faintly-gleaming western sky.--But what was the matter? Not only was there no sign of life, but he was surrounded by indications of desolation and decay. The weeds were growing thickly all around him.

Sobede stepped forward with faltering steps and a sinking heart and made for the largest hut. He saw that the wall had partly fallen in on one side, the door had disappeared, and a gleam of stars showed through a ragged gap in the roof. Sobede flung himself to the ground before the threshold, and sobbed like a tired and despairing child.

He lay until the keen frost chilled him to the bone. Then he arose and began to search for fuel, which he found without any difficulty. Then he drew a little of the tinder-dry gra.s.s from the roof, and by means of his flint, steel, and touchwood, soon lit a fire on the cold and barren hearth. The hut was in a fearfully dilapidated and dirty state, but with a broom extemporised out of a small bush which he plucked outside, he swept the place out. Amongst the rubbish he found several of the little clay oxen which Mampitizili had made for Kungaye, and the sight of these formed a small nucleus of hope in his mind, around which shreds of comfort began to gather. No doubt, he thought, Mampitizili and the old man had, for good and sufficient reasons, removed to Manciya's or to some other part of the location. To-morrow he would, no doubt, find them. To-night he felt far too weary, after the shock of his disappointment, to seek them even at Manciya's kraal. All the fatigues of the previous five days seemed to creep into his bones at once, and he felt, for the time being, completely crushed.

Sobede cooked a portion of the goat-flesh, ate it, and then laid himself down, wrapped in his blanket, at the side of the fire. The wind had completely died away, and the frosty night seemed tense with utter silence.

With the keen senses of his race Sobede became aware of an approaching footstep. It was not so much that he heard any sound, as that he felt a slight rhythmic tremor of the ground beneath him. The footstep drew nearer, and then the sound of sobbing could be heard. Sobede did not move; he was not in the slightest degree alarmed, and was far too weary and heartsore to feel interested in anything just then. Then he heard a cry and a sound as of some one falling heavily to the ground.

He arose, seized a burning stick from the fire, and went outside. He saw a woman crouching to the ground, with her face hidden in her hands.

Clinging to her was a little child, who gazed up at Sobede with wide, terror-strained eyes. Sobede bent down and touched the woman on the shoulder, telling her to arise and have no fear. At the sound of his voice the woman looked up quickly with a start of recognition and a cry of joy, and Sobede saw that her face was the face of Mampitizili. Then he flung down the spent firebrand, and clasped his wife and son in a long, silent embrace.

Soon the three were sitting together in the hut, where the fire was now again blazing cheerfully;--the man and the woman with hearts too full for speech, and the child looking with wonder at the big stranger who did not treat him unkindly.