Part 19

“The Matabele! The Matabele are on us!” cried a voice; while other voices shouted, “Fly to your walls!” and yet others, “Kill them! They are few.”

But the three men marched on unheeding till they stood before Mambo.

“Who are you, and what do you seek?” the old man asked boldly, though the fear that had taken hold of him at the sight of these strangers was evident enough, for his whole body shook.

“Surely you should know, chief of Bambatse,” answered their spokesman with a laugh, “for you have seen the like of us before. We are the children of Lobengula, the Great Elephant, the King, the Black Bull, the Father of the Amandabele, and we have a message for your ear, little Old Man, which, finding that you leave your gate open, we have walked in to deliver.”

“Speak your message then, envoys of Lobengula, in my ear and in those of my people,” said the Molimo.

“Your people! Are these all your people?” the spokesman replied contemptuously. “Why then, what need was there for the indunas of the King to send so large an impi under a great general against you, when a company of lads armed with sticks would have served the turn? We thought that these were but the sons of your house, the men of your own family, whom you had called together to eat with the white strangers.”

“Close the entrance in the wall,” cried the Molimo, stung to fury by the insult; and a voice answered:

“Father, it is already done.”

But the Matabele, who should have been frightened, only laughed again, and their spokesman said:

“See, my brothers, he thinks to trap us who are but three. Well, kill on, Old Wizard, if you will, but know that if a hand is lifted, this spear of mine goes through your heart, and that the children of Lobengula die hard. Know also that then the impi which waits not far away will destroy you every one, man and woman, youth and maiden, little ones who hold the hand and infants at the breast; none shall be left--none at all, to say, ‘Here once lived the cowardly Makalanga of Bambatse.’ Nay, be not foolish, but talk softly with us, so that perhaps we may spare your lives.”

Then the three men placed themselves back to back, in such fashion that they faced every way, and could not be smitten down from behind, and waited.

“I do not kill envoys,” said the Molimo, “but if they are foul-mouthed, I throw them out of my walls. Your message, men of the Amandabele.”

“I hear you. Hearken now to the word of Lobengula.”

Then the envoy began to speak, using the pronoun I as though it were the Matabele king himself who spoke to his vassal, the Makalanga chief: “I sent to you last year, you slave, who dare to call yourself Mambo of the Makalanga, demanding a tribute of cattle and women, and warning you that if they did not come, I would take them. They did not come, but that time I spared you. Now I send again. Hand over to my messengers fifty cows and fifty oxen, with herds to drive them, and twelve maidens to be approved by them, or I wipe you out, who have troubled the earth too long, and that before another moon has waned.

“Those are the words of Lobengula,” he concluded, and taking the horn snuff-box from the slit in his ear, helped himself, then insolently passed it to the Molimo.

So great was the old chief’s rage that, forgetting his self-control, he struck the box from the hand of his tormentor to the ground, where the snuff lay spilled.

“Just so shall the blood of your people be spilled through your rash foolishness,” said the messenger calmly, as he picked up the box, and as much of the snuff as he could save.

“Hearken,” said the Molimo, in a thin, trembling voice. “Your king demands cattle, knowing that all the cattle are gone, that scarce a cow is left to give drink to a motherless babe. He asks for maidens also, but if he took those he seeks we should have none left for our young men to marry. And why is this so? It is because the vulture, Lobengula, has picked us to the bone; yes, while we are yet alive he has torn the flesh from us. Year by year his soldiers have stolen and killed, till at last nothing is left of us. And now he seeks what we have not got to give, in order that he may force a quarrel upon us and murder us. There is nought left for us to give Lobengula. You have your answer.”

“Indeed!” replied the envoy with a sneer. “How comes it, then, that yonder I see a waggon laden with goods, and oxen in the yokes? Yes,” he repeated with meaning, “with goods whereof we have known the like at Buluwayo; for Lobengula also sometimes buys guns from white men, O! little Makalanga. Come now, give us the waggon with its load and the oxen and the horses, and though it be but a small gift, we will take it away and ask nothing more this year.”

“How can I give you the property of my guests, the white men?” asked the Molimo. “Get you gone, and do your worst, or you shall be thrown from the walls of the fortress.”

“Good, but know that very soon we shall return and make an end of you, who are tired of these long and troublesome journeys to gather so little. Go, tend your corn, dwellers in Bambatse, for this I swear in the name of Lobengula, never shall you see it ripen more.”

Now the crowd of listening Makalanga trembled at his words, but in the old Molimo they seemed only to rouse a storm of prophetic fury. For a moment he stood staring up at the blue sky, his arms outstretched as though in prayer. Then he spoke in a new voice--a clear, quiet voice, that did not seem to be his own.

“Who am I?” he said. “I am the Molimo of the Bambatse Makalanga; I am the ladder between them and Heaven; I sit on the topmost bough of the tree under which they shelter, and there in the crest of the tree Munwali speaks with me. What to you are winds, to me are voices whispering in my spirit’s ears. Once my forefathers were great kings, they were Mambos of all the land, and that is still my name and dignity. We lived in peace; we laboured, we did wrong to no man. Then you Zulu savages came upon us from the south-east and your path was red with blood. Year after year you robbed and you destroyed; you raided our cattle, you murdered our men, you took our maidens and our children to be your women and your slaves, until at length, of all this pit filled with the corn of life, there is left but a little handful. And this you say you will eat up also, lest it should fall into good ground and grow again. I tell you that I think it will not be so; but whether or no that happens, I have words for the ear of your king--a message for a message. Say to him that thus speaks the wise old Molimo of Bambatse.

“I see him hunted like a wounded hyena through the rivers, in the deep bush, and over the mountain. I see him die in pain and misery; but his grave I see not, for no man shall know it. I see the white man take his land and all his wealth; yea, to them and to no son of his shall his people give the Bayéte, the royal salute. Of his greatness and his power, this alone shall remain to him--a name accursed from generation to generation. And last of all I see peace upon the land and upon my children’s children.” He paused, then added: “For you, cruel dog that you are, this message also from the Munwali, by the lips of his Molimo. I lift no hand against you, but you shall not live to look again upon your king’s face. Begone now, and do your worst.”

For a moment the three Matabele seemed to be frightened, and Benita heard one of them say to his companions:

“The Wizard has bewitched us! He has bewitched the Great Elephant and all his people! Shall we kill him?”

But quickly shaking off his fears their spokesman laughed, and answered:

“So that is what you have brought the white people here for, old traitor--to plot against the throne of Lobengula.”