The White Hecatomb, and Other Stories

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”— Hosea VIII, 7.
“Ehea, Inkosi am. I know by the smell of it that this snuff is of the same kind as that which my grandson brought from you the other day. Well, I am thankful that before I die I taste in my nose what really is snuff. But to think that I should have had to wait all these years for it;—and now to be unable to see its colour! There, I have kissed your hand, and that is all I can do to show my gratitude.
“That one like you—one who can have as much as he likes of such snuff—should want to come here and talk to an old woman such as I, is wonderful. You cannot be old, to judge by your voice. Is it not perhaps the young women you want to talk to? But give them none of that snuff,—they are impudent children of no experience, and would not value it. Well, if it be myself that you want to talk to, my tongue is alive although my eyes are dead.
“When was I born, did you say? That I can hardly tell you. I think that none but myself are now living who saw that day. My father’s clan dwelt far from here, beyond the Tugela river. He was just a common man of the Amangwanè tribe, and he stood close, until the day of his death, to the great fighting chief Matiwanè. In the days of my childhood I saw nothing but fighting and wandering about. I do not remember when we first began to wander, but I think my mother was wandering when she bore me. Tshaka had fallen upon us, the Amangwanè, and we, in turn, fell upon the Amahlubi, whom we followed, fighting, across the Quathlamba Mountains into a land of wide plains, high mountains, and great rivers.
“When still a little girl I have often sat on a hill with the women and the other children, and looked down upon the fighting. When the villages of the Bathlokua were burnt the sun and the whole sky were hidden by smoke.
“Matiwanè was one who loved blood. He drank the gall of every chief that was slain, to make him fierce. When he fled back to the Zulu country, Dingaan filled his mouth with the liver of an ox, and told the captive Hlubis to beat him with sticks on the belly until he died. But that was long afterwards,—after much blood had flowed. Blood, blood;—the light died in my eyes many years ago, yet whenever I think of the days when I was a child, I seem to see a great redness glowing through the darkness.