The White Shield Part 23

"First look at me; Great Great One. Are we not of a royal tree, we in whom runs the same blood?"

Now the King started slightly, and I, too, marking that royal stamp which rested upon Lalusini, saw for the first time a certain degree of likeness between them.

"Of my father I cannot speak," she went on. "My mother was Laliwa, sister of Matyobane."

"_Au_!"

"A wonder!" broke from myself and the King at once. For she had named one of the inferior wives of Tshaka the Terrible. Well might we cry out in amazement. This strange beautiful woman, this sorceress of the Bakoni, whose witcheries had inspired both of us with love for her, was of the royal house of Senzangakona, was the daughter of that mighty king, the terror of whose name spread as far as it was known--and even among ourselves--the great Tshaka, from whom we had revolted and fled.

Truly indeed had she spoken when saying that she came of a stock greater than that of Umzilikazi.

"Wonderful things have we heard to-day," said the King. Then jestingly: "Say, daughter of the Lion whose roar is now silent! Here is a valiant fighter, my war-captain and councillor, Untuswa. Wouldst thou not wed with such, the gates of the _isiG.o.dhlo_ being now closed?"

Lalusini turned her eyes full upon me for the first time, and the glance expressed amus.e.m.e.nt, yet beneath it I could discern something more.

"Did I mate with any, it would indeed be with such a warrior," she said.

"But this is not the day for thoughts of such things, O son of Matyobane, for great events are maturing."

"And these events--are they for good or for ill?" said Umzilikazi.

"For good or for ill? Ha! There is a darkness over the earth, yet not the darkness of night. Lo, I see the world beneath the glow of the full moon, and it is bright as noonday, though softer. And now it is dark, and the face of the moon is wrapped in blackness until it shines forth once more. Then beware, King and founder of a new nation; for the scream of the vultures is borne upon the winds from afar, crying that a banquet awaits--yes, a banquet awaits!"

Now, Lalusini had sunk back into the state of one who dreams, and when she awakened, returning as it were to earth once more, she seemed not to know what words she had uttered, or, indeed, if she had uttered any.

But the King and I forgot them not, and often afterwards did we talk them over together.

Now Lalusini began to sing in a strange, far-distant tone, and low, but the words were in the Bakoni tongue, and were mysterious enough even to me. And the song was of a shield, and seemed to tell of battle and of blood.

"See, Great Great One," she cried, ceasing, and pointing to the white shield which the King had given me. "He who bears yonder shield must not part from it, even for a s.p.a.ce, until after the blackness of the moon. Then it may be that he will part with it forever--yet not."

Her words were dark now, yet, in the fulness of time, were they to be made plain enough. But the King, dissatisfied, pressed for an explanation.

"Seek not to look into the mysteries of my magic, son of Matyobane," she replied, utterly fearless, "for to do so is to render them evil."

"And I fear not such. No dread do I stand in of the sorcery of any.

Ask now, my sister--where is Isilwane, once head of the _iza.n.u.si_?

Where Notalwa--and others?" said Umzilikazi, frowning.

"Yet, let will be. Say, Calf of a Black Bull--was my _muti_ for good or for ill, that guided the shield now borne by Untuswa? The magic of the Bakoni is as superior to that of the Amazulu as the might in battle of these last is to that of the peoples they have made an end of."

"What now is thy story, my sister?" said the King, leaving that question. And some of her story Lalusini gave us then and there--how that she alone of all his children would Tshakathe Mighty recognise, even if there were any others who were not slain, for that King desired not children, lest, growing up, they should plot against him and depose him. Lalusini, however, he destined to some great though hidden end, and caused the land far and wide to be searched for those who could teach her the deeper and most hidden mysteries of their magic. Then it befell that the two brothers of Tshaka--Dingane and Mhlangana--rose up against the Great One and slew him, and Lalusini with her mother, Laliwa, and some others, fled afar to escape the death of the spear, and after many wanderings and perils reached the land of the Bakoni, which they deemed remote enough from Dingane. Here Tauane, the chief of that people, would have wedded her, but she would have none of him or his plans.

"_Au_! that dog who is burnt!" cried Umzilikazi. "I would he were here again, that I might make him once more taste fire. _Au_! A dog, to think to blend the branches of the royal stem of Senzangakona with the rank weeds of his jackal tribe."

"Not to no purpose had I learned the magic of the wise," went on Lalusini. "I divined your coming, Great Great One; yes, long before Untuswa's first emba.s.sy appeared in the land, and I welcomed it.

Nothing of it did I say in warning to Tauane and the People of the Blue Coloured Cattle, save darkly, and, as it were, in jest. And they mocked."

"If you welcomed our coming, my sister, why didst thou disappear into air for a s.p.a.ce thereafter?" said Umzilikazi cunningly.

"Ha! no evil lay behind that, son of Matyobane. Can two bulls of equal size dwell in one kraal? Yet Zululand is now just such a kraal, having two kings, Dingane and Mhlangana. Yet it should have but one."

"_Hau_!" cried the King. "Should that one be Dingane?"

"Not Dingane should it be, Elephant of the Amandebeli," she replied.

"Mhlangana, then?"

"Not Mhlangana, Great Great One in whom flows the blood of my mother."

"Ha! Who, then, Queen of the Bakoni _muti_?"

"Umzilikazi, the son of Matyobane."

"Ha!" broke from us both at the surpa.s.sing boldness of this declaration; and for some moments we sat staring in silence at this wonderful woman.

Then the King took snuff, and, as he did so, I well knew what was pa.s.sing in his mind. For, had but another regiment or two cleaved to us, what time the Amandebeli and we of the Umtetwa tribe, and others, fled from Zululand, no flight need we have made at all. We would have marched to Dukuza, and eaten up the whole usurping House of Senzangakona. Ofttimes had the King thus talked to me since; sorrowing even now, when it was too late, that the opportunity should have been allowed to pa.s.s. And now this woman--this sorceress of a strange tribe, yet claiming mighty descent--came thus to hold before Umzilikazi's gaze a vision of such power as, even in the fulness of his might, the great Tshaka had never wielded. To combine the warrior strength of our nation with that of the parent stock of Zululand! _Whau_! there was a destiny!

We should rule the world itself with such a power behind us. No wonder a strange light gleamed in the eyes of the King as they beheld such a vision.

"And how shall this be brought about, Lalusini?" he said; more to say something than because uncertain as to what her reply would be.

"What nation can _konza_ to two kings?" she answered. "Sooner or later its choice must be made. One or both must fall. Then is the time for him who was born to be great."

"And if but one fall?"

"Then let the other follow, and speedily. Ha! who would be great and run no risks! There are many in Zululand yet--many who are still young, as well as others--who remember how the son of Matyobane led them in battle. Many who, sitting in their huts at night, whisper, with their hands to their mouths, the name of Umzilikazi. For the foot of those of the House of Senzangakona treads heavily."

"And how know you all this, my sister?" said the King, looking sharply at her.

"Wherefore did I disappear into air for a s.p.a.ce?" was her reply, with just a shade of meaning, quoting Umzilikazi's words.

"Ha! And when the House of Senzangakona is overthrown, what wilt thou, Lalusini, thou who art of that house thyself?"

"Revenge!"

"Revenge? For the death of the Black One who begat thee?" said Umzilikazi.

"Revenge!--and one other thing, and this the King will not refuse?"

"And that is--?"

"The time to declare it is not yet, Great Great One."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

"THE PLACE OF THE THREE RIFTS."

Now, in the days which followed upon the revelation of Lalusini's birth and parentage, and the prospects and possibilities at which she more than hinted, the mind of the King seemed to contain but one thought, and that was the greatness which might be his by boldly risking all to seize it, by judgment in choosing the right time. To this end he would converse with her for a whole day at a time, and, in some wise at least, every day. Indeed, the predictions and influence of the beautiful sorceress seemed to thrust those of old Masuka quite into the background, and seldom now were his divinations required. Yet, _Nkose_, that astonishing old bag of bones seemed in nowise to resent this waning of the royal favour. His bright, keen eyes would flash forth a laugh when he met or pa.s.sed Lalusini, but in his greetings of her there was no tone of envy or of ill-will. Even the white priest the King seldom conversed with in those days; nor was this strange, for with such an immense undertaking before our eyes, involving war, and bloodshed, such as, perhaps, the Zulu nation--and certainly our own--had never seen, Umzilikazi had little desire for the conversation of one whose preaching was all of peace. _Whau_! What had we to do with peace, we who sought the overthrow of mighty Kings? But the white man cared little for this neglect. As long as he was allowed to go about the country striving to win men to his teaching, he was happy.

Now, in these conversations I also took part, I alone being in the secret, for Umzilikazi ordered that no word as to Lalusini's birth or his own schemes should leak out. Moreover, now I found opportunities of talking alone with her, such as I had dared not before seek.