



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Induna's Wife, by Bertram Mitford.

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THE INDUNA'S WIFE, BY BERTRAM MITFORD.



PROLOGUE.

Twilight was fast closing in upon the desolate site of the old Kambula
Camp, and the short, sharp thunderstorm which at the moment of
outspanning had effectually drenched the scant supply of fuel, rendering
that evening's repast, of necessity, cold commons, had left in its wake
a thin but steady downpour.  Already the line of low hills hard by was
indistinct in the growing gloom, and a far-reaching expanse of cold and
treeless plains made up a surrounding as mournful and depressing as
could be.

The waggon stood outspanned in the tall grass, which, waist high, was
about as pleasant to stand in as the drift of a river.  Just above, the
conical ridge, once crested with fort and waggon laagers, and swarming
with busy life, and the stir and hum of troops on hard active service,
now desolate and abandoned--the site, indeed, still discernible if only
by ancient tins, and much fragmentary residue of the ubiquitous British
bottle.  Below, several dark patches in the grass marked the
resting-place of hundreds of Zulu dead--fiery, intrepid warriors--mown
down in foil and sweeping rush, with lips still framing the war cry of
their king, fierce resolute hands still gripping the deadly charging
spear.  Now a silent and spectral peace rested upon this erewhile scene
of fierce and furious war, a peace that in the gathering gloom had in it
something that was weird, boding, oppressive.  Even my natives, usually
prone to laughter and cheery spirits, seemed subdued, as though loth to
pass the night upon this actual site of vast and tolerably recent
bloodshed; and the waggon leader, a smart but unimaginative lad, showed
a suspicious alacrity in driving back the span from drinking at the
adjacent water-hole.  Yes!  It is going to be a detestable night.

Hard biscuit and canned jam are but a poor substitute for fizzling
rashers and wheaten cakes, white as snow within and hot from the
gridiron; yet there is a worse one, and that is no biscuit at all.
Moreover, there is plenty of whisky, and with that and a pipe I proceed
to make myself as snug as may be within the waggon, which is not saying
much, for the tent leaks abominably.  But life in the Veldt accustoms
one to such little inconveniences, and soon, although the night is yet
young--has hardly begun, in fact--I find myself nodding, and becoming
rapidly and blissfully oblivious to cold splashes dropping incontinently
from new and unexpected quarters.

The oxen are not yet made fast to the disselboom for the night, and one
of my natives is away to collect them.  The others, rolled in their
blankets beneath the waggon, are becoming more and more drowsy in the
hum of their conversation.  Suddenly this becomes wide-awake and alert.
They are sitting up, and are, I gather from their remarks, listening to
the approach of something or somebody.  Who--what is it?  There are no
wild animals to reckon with in that part of the country, save for a
stray leopard or so, and Zulus have a wholesome shrinking from moving
abroad at night, let alone on such a night as this.  Yet on peering
forth, a few seconds reveal the approach of somebody.  A tall form
starts out of the darkness and the long wet grass, and from it the deep
bass tones of the familiar Zulu greeting: "Nkose!"

Stay!  Can it be?  I ought indeed to know that voice; yet what does its
owner here thus and at such an hour?  This last, however, is its said
owner's business exclusively.

"Greeting, Untuswa!  Welcome, old friend," I answered.  "Here is no fire
to sit by, but the inside of the waggon is fairly dry; at any rate not
so wet as outside.  And there is a dry blanket or two and a measure of
strong _tywala_ to restore warmth, likewise snuff in abundance.  So
climb up here, winner of the King's Assegai, holder of the White Shield,
and make thyself snug, for the night is vile."

Now, as this fine old warrior was in the act of climbing up into the
waggon, there came a sound of trampling and the clash of horns, causing
him to turn his head.  The waggon leader, having collected the span, was
bringing it in to attach to the yokes for the night, for it promised
soon to be pitch dark, and now the heads of the oxen looked spectral in
the mist.  One especially, a great black one, with wide branching horns
rising above the fast gathering sea of vapour, seemed to float upon the
latter--a vast head without a trunk.  The sight drew from Untuswa a
shake of the head and a few quick muttered words of wonderment.  That
was all then, but when snug out of the drizzling rain, warmed by a
measure of whisky, and squatting happy and comfortable in a dry blanket,
snuff-box in hand, he began a story, and I--well, I thought I was in
luck's way, for a wet and cheerless and lonely evening stood to lose all
its depression and discomfort if spent in listening to one of old
Untuswa's stories.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE TALE OF THE RED DEATH.

There was that about the look of your oxen just now, _Nkose_--shadowed
like black ghosts against the mist--that brought back to my old mind a
strange and wonderful time.  And the night is yet young.  Nor will that
tale take very long in telling, unless--ah, that tale is but the door
opening into a still greater one; but of that we shall see--yes, we
shall see.

I have already unfolded to you, _Nkose_, all that befell at the Place of
the Three Rifts, and how at that place we met in fierce battle and
rolled back the might of Dingane and thus saved the Amandebeli as a
nation.  Also have I told the tale of how I gained the White Shield by
saving the life of a king, and how it in turn saved the life of a
nation.  Further have I told how I took for principal wife Lalusini, the
sorceress, in whose veins ran the full blood of the House of
Senzangakona, the royal House of Zululand, and whom I had first found
making strange and powerful _muti_ among the Bakoni, that disobedient
people whom we stamped flat.

For long after these events there was peace in our land.  The arm of
Dingane was stretched out against us no more, and Umzilikazi, our king,
who had meditated moving farther northward, had decided to sit still in
the great kraal, Kwa'zingwenya, yet a little longer.  But though we had
peace from our more powerful enemies, the King would not suffer the
might of our nation to grow soft and weak for lack of practice in the
arts of war--oh, no.  The enrolling of warriors was kept up with
unabated vigour, and the young men thus armed were despatched at once to
try their strength upon tribes within striking distance, and even far
beyond the limits of the same.  Many of these were mountain tribes,
small in numbers, but brave and fierce, and gave our fiery youths just
as much fighting as they could manage ere wetting their victorious
spears in blood.

Now, although we had peace from our more formidable foes, yet the mind
of the King seemed not much easier on that account, for all fears as to
disturbance from without being removed, it seemed that Umzilikazi was
not wholly free from dread of conspiracy within.  And, indeed, I have
observed that it is ever so, _Nkose_.  When the greater troubles which
beset a man, and which he did not create, beset him no longer, does he
not at once look around to see what troubles he can create for himself?
_Whau_!  I am old.  I have seen.

So it was with Umzilikazi.  The fear of Dingane removed, the
recollection of the conspiracy of Tyuyumane and the others returned--
that conspiracy to hand over our new nation to the invading Amabuna--
that conspiracy which so nearly succeeded, and, indeed, would have
completely, but for the watchfulness and craft of the old Mosutu witch
doctor.  Wherefore, with this suspicion ever in the King's mind we,
_izinduna_, seemed to have fallen upon uneasy times.  Yet the principal
object of dislike and distrust to the Great Great One was not, in the
first place, one of ourselves.  No councillor or fighting man was it,
but a woman--and that woman Lalusini, my principal wife.

"Ha, Untuswa!" would the King say, talking dark, but his tone full of
gloomy meaning.  "Ha, Untuswa, but thine _amahlose_ [Tutelary spirits]
watch over thee well.  Tell me, now, where is there a man the might of
whose spear and the terror of whose name sweeps the world--whose
slumbers are lulled by the magic of the mighty, and who is greater even
than kings?  Tell me, Untuswa, where is such a man?"

"I think such is to be found not far hence, Great Great One.  Even in
this house," I answered easily, yet with a sinking fear of evil at
heart, for his words were plain in their meaning; my successes in war
surpassed by none; my beautiful wife, the great sorceress of the Bakoni,
the wandering daughter of Tshaka the Terrible.  And his tone--ah, that,
too, spoke.

"Even in this house!  _Yeh bo_!  Untuswa--thou sayest well," went on the
King softly, his head on one side, and peering at me with an expression
that boded no good.  "Even in this house!  Ha!  Name him, Untuswa.  Name
him."

"Who am I that I should sport with the majesty of the King's name?"  I
answered.  "Is not the son of Matyobane--the Founder of Mighty Nations--
the Elephant of the Amandebeli--such a man?  Doth not his spear rule the
world, and the terror of his name--_au_!--who would hear it and laugh?
And is not the bearer of that name greater than other kings--greater
even than the mighty one of the root of Senzangakona--whose might has
fled before the brightness of the great king's head-ring?  And again,
who sleeps within the shadow of powerful and propitious magic but the
Father and Founder of this great nation?"

"Very good, Untuswa.  Very good.  Yet it may be that the man of whom I
was speaking is no king at all--great, but no king."

"No king at all!  _Hau_!  I know not such a man, Father of the World," I
answered readily.  "There is but one who is great, and that _is_ the
King.  All others are small--small indeed."

I know not how much further this talk would have gone, _Nkose_; and
indeed of it I, for my part, was beginning to have more than enough.
For, ever now, when Umzilikazi summoned me to talk over matters of
state, would he soon lead the conversation into such channels; and,
indeed, I saw traps and pitfalls beneath every word.  But now the voice
of an _inceku_--or household attendant--was heard without singing the
words of _sibonga_, and by the way in which he praised we knew he
desired to announce news of importance.  At a sign from the King I
admitted the man.

"There are men without, O Divider of the Sun," he began--when he had
made prostration--"men from the kraals of Maqandi-ka-Mahlu, who beg the
protection of the King's wise ones.  The Red Magic has been among them
again."

"Ha!  The Red Magic!" said Umzilikazi, with a frown.  "It seems I have
heard enough of such childish tales.  Yet, let the dogs enter and whine
out their own story."

Through the door of the royal dwelling, creeping on hands and knees,
came two men.  They were not of our blood, but of a number whom the King
had spared, with their wives and children, and had located in a region
some three days to the northward as far as a swift walker could travel.
It was a wild and mountainous land--a land of black cliffs and
thunderous waterfalls--cold, and sunless, and frowning--a meet abode of
ghosts and all evil things.  Here they had been located, and, being
skilled in ironwork, were employed in forging spear-heads and axes for
our nation.  They were in charge of Maqandi-ka-Mahlu--a man of our race,
and a chief--and who, having been "smelt out" by our witch doctors, the
King had spared--yet had banished in disgrace to rule over these
iron-workers in the region of ghosts and of gloom.

Their tale now was this: The stuff which they dug from the bowels of the
earth to make the metal for our spears and axes was mostly procured in a
long, deep, gloomy valley, running right up into the heart of the
mountains.  Here they bored holes and caves for digging the stuff.  But,
for some time past, they had not been able to go there--for the place
had become a haunt of _tagati_.  A terrible ghost had taken up its abode
in the caves, and did a man wander but the shortest space of time from
his fellows, that man was never again seen.

He was seen, though, but not alive.  His body was found weltering in
blood, and ripped, not as with a spear, but as though by the horn of a
fierce and furious bull.  This had befallen several times, and had duly
been reported to the King--who would know everything--but Umzilikazi
only laughed, saying that he cared nothing that the spirits of evil
chose to devour, from time to time, such miserable prey as these slaves.
There were plenty more of them, and if the wizard animals, who dwelt in
the mountains, wanted to slay such, why, let them.

But now, the tale which these men told was serious.  They could no more
go to that place for the terror which haunted it.  They had tried
keeping together, so that none might fall a prey to the evil monster--
and, for some while, none had.  But there came a day when travelling
thus, in a body close together, through the gloom of the forest, a
sudden and frightful roaring, as of the advance of a herd of savage
bulls, burst upon them.  Some fell, half dead with fear; others, crying
out that they could see fearful shapes, with gigantic horns and flaming
eyes, moving among the trees, rushed blindly in all directions.  Of
thirty men who had entered that dreadful valley, ten only came forth,
nor of these could any be persuaded to return and see what had happened
to the remaining score.  But the seer, Gasitye, who knew no terror of
things of the other world, had ventured in.  Twenty bodies had he seen--
lying scattered--no two together--no, not anywhere two together--and all
had died the Red Death.

"And was this by day or by night?" said the King, who had been listening
with great attention to this tale.

"By day, O Ruler of the World.  While yet the sun was straight
overhead," replied the men.

"Well, I care not," said Umzilikazi, with a sneer.  "Go back now and
cause your seer, Gasitye, to charm away that _tagati_, and that soon,
lest I visit him and you with the fate of those who make witchcraft.
Shall we keep a dog who cannot guard our house?  For to what other use
can we turn such a dog?  Begone."

There was despair upon the faces of the two messengers as the meaning of
these words became plain to them--and in truth were they between two
perils, even as one who travels, and, being beset by a great fire,
fleeth before it, only to find himself stopped by a mighty and raging
river, whose flood he cannot hope to cross.  Yet the man who had spoken,
instead of immediate obedience, ventured further to urge his prayer with
the intrepidity and hopeless courage of such despair.

"Who are we that we should weary the ears of the Father of the Great?"
he went on.  "Yet, even a dog cannot entirely guard a house if he is but
a small dog, and they who would enter are many and strong.  He can but
give warning of their approach--and this is what we have done.  But the
King's magicians are many and powerful, and ours are weak.  Besides, O
Black Elephant, how shall metal be procured for the spears of the Great
Great One's warriors, when the place where it is procured is guarded by
the horns of the ghost-bulls, who slay all who go in?"

Now, I thought those slaves must indeed have touched the lowest depth of
despair and terror, that they dared to use such speech to the King.  And
upon the countenance of Umzilikazi came that look which was wont to mean
that somebody would never behold another sun to rise.

"Enough!" he said, pointing at the two messengers with his short-handled
spear.  "Return ye hence.  For the rest of you--hearken now, Untuswa.
Send one half of thy regiment of