Chapter Thirteen.
I kill Machenga, and am expelled from Mashonaland.
After the fall of the first victim the dreadful work proceeded quite briskly, each witch doctor seeming to feel it incumbent upon him to display his skill and zeal by providing at least as many victims as the most active and zealous of his brother practitioners. And as victim after victim fell a sacrifice to as cruel, wicked, and debasing a superstition as it is possible for the mind to conceive, so did my anger burn the more fiercely, until I felt an almost irresistible impulse impelling me to spring to my feet, and, with my pistol levelled at the king’s head, insist upon an end being put to the slaughter.
Yet all the while I knew that I could do nothing in the way of interposition; I was as utterly helpless as though I had been a thousand miles away, instead of sitting there within arm’s length of the man who was responsible for it all. For supposing that I should be crazy enough to obey that impulse, what would happen? Why, the king’s guards would be upon me in a second, and I should be hacked to pieces by their terrible bangwans in the drawing of a single breath, while probably an even worse fate would befall my hapless followers! No, of course, the idea was madness, the act an impossibility; yet when a few minutes later I saw the tall induna, Logwane—Mapela’s friend—led forth and mercilessly done to death, I could not refrain from leaning toward the king and murmuring:
“O King, your witch doctors are not infallible; they made a dreadful mistake when they smelled out that man! Among all your subjects none was more loyal and faithful than Logwane. Why did you suffer him to be slain?”
The king glowered at me for a moment, his eyes smouldering with suppressed anger. Then he answered coldly:
“White man, I believed Logwane to be all that you say. But I was mistaken, for my witch doctors cannot err; no man can hide his guilt from them: and had Logwane not harboured treachery in his heart they would not have smelled him out. Therefore I suffered him to be slain. No man may think evil of me and continue to live.”
At this moment Machenga, who seemed to have gradually sunk into a kind of trance, rose slowly to his feet, and, with fixed, glassy eyes staring straight before him, began to mutter to himself in a voice pitched so low that at first I could distinguish nothing of what he said. Then he began to glide slowly round in a very small circle, and I perceived that presently, when he faced me, he raised his head and sniffed the air strongly. This occurred three times, and upon the third occasion I detected that for an instant the fixed, glassy stare of his eyes gave place to a lightning-like glance of triumphant malignity; and then I knew that his entire pose was merely a piece of exceedingly clever acting, and that he was no more in a trance than I was. When he had completed the fourth half-circle he halted, at a distance of about ten yards from where I was sitting, and, with his back turned toward me, proceeded to sniff the air still more strongly.
“Yes,” he presently exclaimed in a voice quite loud enough for the king and me to hear, “I am not deceived, I smell him; though his skin is white his heart is black, and I smell the evil thoughts against the Great, Great One that lurk deep down in it!” And a smile of diabolical malice overspread his evil face as he shook his great spear aloft and began to dance very slowly, singing softly to himself.
So that was it—the villain was actually going to smell me out! But—“Not if I know it,” thought I; and starting to my feet as I drew a pistol from my belt and levelled it at him, I cried:
“Halt there, Machenga! Halt, I say, or thou diest! Deceiver and murderer, destroyer of the king’s most faithful friends, and giver of evil counsel to the Great, Great One, my magic tells me that in that evil heart of thine thou hast conceived the design to slay me, because when thou didst come secretly to my wagon last night I refused to give thee one of my magic fire tubes. Now I will prove thee, rascal; I will show the king that thou, his chief witch doctor forsooth, art nothing but a base pretender, a player upon his credulity. Thou dost claim to be a great and powerful magician; well, so am I. Kill me, if thou canst; and it shall be that he of us two who kills the other shall be the more powerful magician, and shall also be the one whose mouth speaks the truth.”
Meanwhile, during this interlude, brief as it was, five new victims—two of them indunas—had been smelled out and brought forward; but the king, intent only upon what was passing between Machenga and myself, had forborne to give the fatal signal to the Slayers, and thus the little
group of victims and executioners stood motionless in the centre of the arena, while every eye was turned upon the chief witch doctor and myself.
Machenga had obeyed my imperative command to halt, thus unconsciously demonstrating at once that his state of trance was merely a pretence; and when I ceased to speak he further betrayed himself by answering me.
“Au, Chia’gnosi!” he exclaimed, “so thou, too, art a magician? And thou dost threaten to kill me! Fool! no man living, magician or otherwise, can kill me, else I should have died ages before thou wert born. But I can and will kill thee, in despite of thy magic, and thus I do it!”
And, as he spoke, up went his right hand, with the great bangwan in it, his intent being evidently to transfix me by hurling the spear at me. But I guessed at his purpose, read it in his eyes; and, quick though he was, I was the quicker, and before he had time to gather his strength to cast the spear I had levelled my pistol and pulled the trigger. The good little weapon barked out as the hammer fell, and through the thin veil of powder smoke I saw Machenga spin round on his heels, flinging up his arms at the same time, and the next instant down he crashed upon his back, with a small blue hole in the very centre of his forehead, from which a thin stream of blood began to trickle slowly.
With a lightning-like movement I thrust the empty pistol into my jacket pocket, and transferred my rifle from my left hand to my right, at the same time wheeling sharply round upon the king to see what action, if any, he intended to take. I caught him in the act of springing to his feet, and at once flung up my left hand warningly.
“Nay, O Great, Great One,” I said very firmly, “rise not, I pray thee, lest evil befall. My magic is just now very strong, as thou hast seen—so strong that I can scarcely control it—and if anyone here cherishes evil designs against me he had better forget them now, this instant, lest they rise up and destroy him. So: that is well!”—as the king sank limply back into his seat. “Now,” I continued, raising my voice so that it could be heard by at least the greater part of the warriors gathered there in the great square, “the king and I are about to confer together; therefore let no man move hand or foot, or utter a single word, for the air is full of terrible magic that only I can control; and if we are disturbed it may break loose, when—!” I concluded with an expressive gesture which was meant to convey all sorts of dreadful things; and I had the satisfaction of seeing Lomalindela’s black skin turn a kind of slate colour, while his lips became a dirty blue-white.
For a few seconds the king stared stupidly at Machenga’s dead body, as though he could not believe the evidence of his own eyes; then he turned to me and said:
“Truly, Chia’gnosi, thou art well named, for thy lightning has slain him who was as we have always known him, even when the oldest living man in Mashonaland was a boy running at his mother’s heels. Why hast thou slain the chief of my witch doctors?”
“I slew him, O King,” answered I, “because he was a liar, a cheat, a betrayer, and a murderer. He lied to thee and cheated thee by pretending that he could smell out thine enemies, whereas he possessed no such power; and he smelled out and caused to be destroyed Logwane, one of the most loyal and faithful of your indunas, because, after heavily bribing Machenga for several years, in order to obtain immunity, Logwane refused to submit to further robbery. And what he has done to Logwane he has, doubtless, done to many others of Your Majesty’s loyal and faithful subjects.”
“How knowest thou all this, Chia’gnosi,” demanded the king; “and how am I to know that thy words are true?”
“Have I not proved it to thee by destroying Machenga?” retorted I. “Thinkest thou that if Machenga had been what he claimed to be I could have slain him? As to how I know it, my snake told me, and he never lies. And if thou dost still doubt me, question the indunas. Doubtless there are some among them whom thou canst trust, who will tell thee whether Logwane was true, or whether he was false to thee.”
The king frowningly considered my proposition for a little, and finally, looking up, called Mapela to approach.
“Mapela,” said Lomalindela, when the induna had drawn near and saluted, “I am perplexed, and know not what to believe. I can believe thy words, because I have proved thee, and know thee to be faithful and true. Thou didst know Logwane intimately; tell me, therefore, was he loyal to me, or was he not?”
“There was no man in all Mashonaland more faithful to thee than Logwane,” answered Mapela.
“Yet Machenga smelled him out and caused him to be slain as an enemy of mine,” the king reminded him.
“Do I not know it?” retorted the old man bitterly. “And if Machenga had smelled me out, I too should have been slain, although, as thou sayest, thou hast proved me and know me to be faithful and true! But thank thy snake, O Lomalindela, King of the Mashona, that Chia’gnosi saw the evil and falsehood that lurked in that black heart,”—pointing to the dead body of Machenga—“else would many another of thy friends—myself among the number, perchance—have died before yon sun sank behind the hills.”
The king placed his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands for several minutes, evidently overwhelmed by a sense of profound perplexity. At length, however, he looked up again, and, still addressing Mapela, asked:
“And think ye, Mapela, that all those,”—pointing to the long array of slain—“suffered unjustly?”
“Nay,” answered Mapela, “I am but a simple induna, knowing nothing save the art of warfare, and the way in which warriors should be trained in order to make good fighters of them. Who am I that I should presume to answer such a question? Ask Chia’gnosi; he is young, but he is very wise. Perhaps his wisdom may be able to answer thee. Ask him.”
The king turned to me.
“Thou hast heard my question, Chia’gnosi, and Mapela’s answer,” said he. “Canst thou tell me what I want to know?”
“Listen to my words, O King,” said I. “Last night, when the moon was so high in the heavens,”—I pointed to the approximate altitude of the planet—“Machenga came secretly and in disguise to my wagon, asking for gifts. I knew not then who he was, nor did he say; indeed, he pretended to be a messenger from Machenga: but presently I knew him for Machenga himself, although I had never before seen him, and I set forth certain gifts, which I offered him. But he refused them, demanding as a gift one of my magic fire tubes; and when I refused him he went away, threatening me that to-day I should be sorry that I had refused him. Then I knew that it was no messenger, but Machenga himself who had visited me; and I knew the man for a liar and cheat. Thou dost ask whether all those slain suffered unjustly. I answer thee that they did! I know none of them save Logwane; but send thou and ascertain the names of the other indunas who have died to-day by the hands of the Slayers, and thou shalt find that, like Logwane, they were rich men, the half of whose riches would pass to Machenga; or they were men who had incurred Machenga’s hatred. Let the smellers-out be brought before thee and questioned, and thou shalt find that it was by Machenga’s orders that they smelled out the indunas. As for the others, it was necessary that a certain number of the common people should also die, else would the choice of the indunas have been too obvious.”
“By the bones of my royal father, thy words, Chia’gnosi, are the words of wisdom, and I will do as thou sayest!” exclaimed the king. “Mapela, give orders that the smellers-out be brought before me.”
Some ten minutes later the subordinate witch doctors, or “smellers-out”, were called together and drawn up before the king, when, prompted by me, Mapela subjected the wretches to a searching cross-examination, with the result that my surmise was completely confirmed. It is not easy to shock a savage, but there could be no doubt that when the investigation was finished Lomalindela was shocked, not so much at the fact that a great deal of innocent blood had been shed, but that so many of his most loyal and devoted indunas had been removed, and could therefore no longer exercise their loyalty and fidelity on his behalf; and no one knows better than a savage autocrat the value of true loyalty and fidelity. He was distinctly perturbed at the disquieting thoughts that came crowding into his mind; and it was characteristic of him that he seemed more than half-inclined to blame me for what had happened—on the principle, I suppose, that but for me he would have known nothing about it, and would consequently have escaped the perturbation and disquiet which resulted from the revelation. At all events, when the revelation was complete, it was upon me that he turned, demanding sharply:
“And now, Chia’gnosi, having revealed the evil, reveal also the remedy.”
“That, O Great, Great One, is easy,” I replied. “Let there be no more smelling out, and there will be no more mistakes.”
“No more smelling out?” he repeated. “Then how shall those who meditate evil against me be found?”
“They will not need to be found,” I replied; “for if such there be, rest assured that they will betray themselves, even as Machenga betrayed himself to me. I repeat, let there be no more smelling out; but if any man be discovered meditating evil, let his accusers bring him before thee and bear witness against him, and if he be found guilty, let him suffer.”
The king meditated upon this proposition at considerable length, and asked a multitude of questions before he appeared able to grasp the idea fully; but finally he seemed to apprehend my plan, and graciously announced his willingness to consider it. The “smelling out” function was thus brought to a somewhat premature conclusion—to the obvious relief of everybody except perhaps Lomalindela himself—and the troops were dismissed. But when I, too hastily assuming that everything was over, rose to take my leave and return to the wagon, I was imperiously ordered to stop. Upon resuming my seat I was thanked by the king in a somewhat perfunctory, half-hearted way for what I had done; but he added that my revelations had so upset him that he found it impossible to tolerate my presence in his country any longer, and he therefore begged me so to arrange matters that I could resume my journey that same afternoon. Naturally, I remonstrated against such discourteous treatment, reminding His Majesty that although the revelation was certainly mine, the evil-doing was Machenga’s; and I wound up by saying that, so far from expecting to be expelled from the country, I had confidently reckoned upon being granted a concession to mine gold in Mashonaland. But it was all of no avail; it was through me that the upset had occurred, therefore out I must go—escorted by an impi, the induna of which would receive instructions to see that I did not unduly loiter on the way. And, as to gold, if I wanted that, the king strongly advised me to go to the Bandokolo country, far away to the north, where I would doubtless be able to obtain as much of the metal as I needed. After generously giving me this piece of valuable advice His Majesty curtly dismissed me, with the intimation that I must be prepared to start in the equivalent of two hours’ time—or take the consequences of my disobedience. Upon which I, in turn, got angry, and, having told the king one or two plain truths in distinctly undiplomatic language, bade him an abrupt farewell and hastened back to the wagon.
We were quite ready to make a start, even to the extent of having the oxen inspanned, by the time that the escorting impi put in an appearance; and when it did I was thankful to discover that it was commanded by my friend Mapela.
“Au, Chia’gnosi!” the old chap exclaimed, as the impi halted and saluted, with great heartiness; “so thou art ready. It is well; for the Great, Great One is in an evil temper, and his face is black toward thee because thou hast spoiled the festival: therefore it will be good for thee to withdraw thyself from before his eyes as soon as possible. Which way go ye—forward or backward?”
“I go forward, Mapela,” I replied. “I came to this country in the hope of obtaining gold, and gold I must have; therefore I am going forward to the country of the Bandokolo, where, so your king tells me, gold is to be obtained in great abundance.”
“Wao! ma mè! the Bandokolo!” exclaimed the old fellow in great astonishment. “Know ye aught of the Bandokolo, or where they are to be found?” he demanded.
“Nay,” answered I; “I know nothing of them, save that their country lies far to the north, and that they have much gold.”
“That is true,” returned Mapela. “Then, let us start, for delay is dangerous; and if we linger, the Great, Great One may change his mind and not suffer thee to go at all. Yonder is the way, up that valley. Give the word, Chia’gnosi. And, as we go, we can talk together; and if what I can tell thee should cause thee to change thy mind, we can take the road back on the other side of the mountains when we have passed through the valley.”
He paused and left me for a moment while the wagon was getting into motion and the impi was forming up round it; then, when we were fairly under way, he came to my side again, and remarked:
“Au, Chia’gnosi! thine arrival at Gwanda was well timed; for many are still alive who, but for thee, would have lain dead in the great square before the setting of yonder sun. Did not I say that my snake told me thou wouldst save many lives? And thou hast done so; and mark thou this, Chia’gnosi, though to-day the king’s face be black against thee, the people know what thou hast done; and henceforth thy name will be hlonipa among the Mashona.” (Hlonipa means “unmentionable”. To make a man’s name hlonipa is the highest honour that the Kafirs can render the bearer; for it indicates that the name is regarded as too sacred, too highly venerated, to be spoken. Thus I subsequently learned that after my departure from the country the Mashona never mentioned Chia’gnosi (Smiter with Lightning), but, when they referred to me, spoke of “Him who slew with thunderbolts”, or in some other more or less roundabout fashion evaded any direct use of the word lightning.)
“Well,” I replied, “to be quite candid with you, Mapela, I believe it is a very good thing for the Mashona that Machenga is dead; and I am not sorry that he compelled me to kill him. Also I am glad that the king has promised to abolish the system of ‘smelling out’, for in the first place I do not in the least believe in it, and, in the next, it is perfectly evident that an unscrupulous scoundrel like Machenga would only be too likely to use it for his own vile purposes. And now let us talk about something else. Tell me, for instance, what you know about the Bandokolo, and whereabout their country is situated.”
“Their country lies yonder,” answered Mapela, pointing a little to the west of north; “and it is a long way off. Thou wilt have to cross the Great River (Zambezi), and then travel through the wilderness for the space of a moon and a half, or, maybe, two moons, before thou wilt reach it. For myself, I have never been beyond the Great River; but many moons ago there came into Mashonaland a stranger who said that he had been one of a band accompanying a white man from afar, who, after much weary wandering, had arrived in the Bandokolo country, and had there died—how I know not. And when the white man died the Bandokolo took his followers and made slaves of them, treating them so cruelly that at last the man who told me these things resolved to escape. And after waiting many moons for an opportunity it came, and he succeeded. But when he arrived in Mashonaland he was so weak and ill with fever and starvation that, after lingering for a short time, he died.
“But before he died he told me many wonderful things about the Bandokolo. He said that they were little people, about so tall (indicating with his hand a stature of about four feet eight or nine inches). Also, that instead of being black, as I am, they are almost white; that they live in great houses dug out of the rocks of the hillside; that the men wear clothes made of small plates of gold, and carry spears, shields, and great knives made of gold; that they adorn themselves with shining stones which they dig out of the ground; and that they are all ’mkulu ’mtagati (great wizards).”
“That is a very extraordinary story, Mapela,” said I. “Did you believe it; or do you think that the man who told you had a sick brain and imagined things that were not?”
“Nay, who can say?” returned Mapela. “As I have told you, the man was very sick when he reached Mashonaland; but I think his sickness was of the body, not of the mind: and he told me these things many times before he died, therefore I believed him.”
I spent the best part of the afternoon in cross-questioning Mapela upon the exceedingly interesting and remarkable story which he had told me; but the old fellow stuck to his text so perfectly that at length I was forced to the conclusion that what he had told me was substantially what he had himself been told, and that if there was any falsehood or exaggeration in the yarn it was not he who was responsible for it. We outspanned that night at a distance of twelve good miles north-east of Gwanda, in a most beautiful valley full of lush grass, and beside the stream, now much diminished in volume, which we had been following ever since our passage of the Limpopo; and, I having shot an elephant about an hour before our arrival at the outspan, we all feasted royally that night, the impi building an enormous watch fire and squatting round it, stuffing themselves with elephant meat until they could eat no more.
Early in the forenoon of the eleventh day after our departure from Gwanda we reached the Zambezi, at a point where, by a stroke of good luck, the river chanced to be fordable; and, having got the wagon and all my other belongings safely across to the left bank, I immediately outspanned, and then proceeded to distribute liberal largesse among the subordinate officers of the impi, gave Mapela a specially handsome present, and so parted upon excellent terms from my Mashona friends, not without a qualm of regret and of wistful surmise as to my chances of ever again seeing them. Later on, after a meal and a rest, we again inspanned, and, trekking a few miles upstream, rounded the shoulder of a range of low hills and plunged into a valley stretching northward, with a small southward-flowing stream running through its centre and discharging into the Zambezi, upon which splendid river we now turned our backs. ’Mfuni, the man who had fought me by command of Lomalindela, and had afterwards attached himself to my train, exhibited some slight symptoms of regret at parting from his friends in the returning impi; but he quickly recovered from his fit of the blues, and, evidently being very fond of animals, devoted himself with zest to the task of making friends with the horses and dogs. Also the poor fellow speedily developed a most devoted attachment to myself, so arousing in Piet a feeling of profound jealousy and disgust which I only succeeded in dissipating with difficulty after the occurrence of several more or less serious quarrels between the pair.
During the three weeks that immediately followed our passage of the Zambezi, our route lay through a wilderness in which for days together we never saw a solitary human being. But this did not very greatly matter, for the country, consisting for the most part of low, rolling hills, was well watered by streams which, flowing generally in a direction more or less north and south, we were able to follow day after day, while the grass was plentiful and of very good quality. Moreover, there was not much bush, which would have been to some extent a disadvantage but for the fact that, as we advanced, the game became so tame that we had very little difficulty in stalking it through the long grass. During this particular period of our journey we encountered very few elephants or big game of any kind, but antelope of various descriptions were abundant, so that we always had plenty of buck meat in the larder. Then, one day, scouting far ahead of the wagon, accompanied by Piet, ’Mfuni, and the dogs, I discovered that we were approaching a vast open plain, where the grass was not nearly so good. I therefore rode back a few miles, and, upon meeting the wagon, gave orders for a prolonged outspan at a suitable spot, so that the oxen, which were becoming thin from constant work, might have a few days’ rest, and recover flesh in preparation for the journey across the plain.
We remained at that outspan five days, and when we resumed our journey I had every reason to regard the time as well spent; for as we pushed forward across the open plain the grass became so poor that, but for the period of rest and recuperation which I had allowed them, I am convinced that the oxen would never have accomplished the journey at all. Luckily for us, when we had lost three oxen, and the remainder had become little better than walking skeletons, we reached the other side of the plain, and once more came to good grass and water; and here we rested again for a week.
On the second day after the resumption of our trek, two mountains of almost perfect pyramidal form were sighted right ahead and apparently about fifty miles apart; and on the following day the flat, open plain gave place to undulating country, which gradually grew more rugged and park-like as we advanced, with good grass, small, detached patches of bush, and a few trees, singly or in clumps, scattered thinly here and there. But we soon noticed that, apart from the grass, the vegetation generally was new and strange, of a kind that none of us had ever before seen; the trees in particular being very curious and grotesque in shape, both as to their trunks and branches, and their foliage being of almost any other colour than green. In some cases the trees, notwithstanding their strange and abnormal configuration, were very beautiful, the large, heart-shaped leaves being of almost every conceivable tint of red, ranging from palest pink to a very deep, rich crimson, with great bunches of snow-white blossom; while at the opposite end of the scale, as it were, there occurred examples in which the trunks and branches were swollen, knotted, and twisted into the most extraordinary and uncouth shapes, while the foliage consisted of long, flat, ribbon-like streamers of a dirty brownish-grey hue, coated with an exudation the odour of which was offensive beyond the power of words to express. Fortunately for us, these last were comparatively rare, and we soon learned to give them plenty of room and to pass them to windward, where possible.
And here, too, we saw the first of several new and strange forms of animal life. As Piet and I were, as usual, riding forward some distance ahead of the wagon, we suddenly came upon a small herd of seven curious-looking animals, which we at first mistook for young giraffes; but as they stood gazing at us curiously, thus permitting us to approach within less than a hundred yards of them, we observed that while the creatures bore a certain general resemblance to giraffes, there were differences, the most important of which was that of size. For these creatures stood, at the shoulders, only about as high as an eland; the neck, although abnormally long, was not proportionately as long as that of a giraffe; the head was hornless, and of quite different shape from a giraffe’s head; and, lastly, their colour was a deep, rich, ruddy brown on the head, shading gradually away along the body and legs until, about the fetlock, it became quite a pale buff. I shot one of them, and have the skin to this day, which has been a source of great interest and also a bit of a puzzle to several naturalists who have seen it, and who all declare it to have belonged to an animal of which they had no knowledge whatever. The flesh of the creature proved to be very tender and juicy, and my “boys” ate of it freely; but after trying a mouthful I decided that I did not care for it, the meat having a very strong and peculiar musky flavour which I found much the reverse of appetising.
And then, as an appropriate wind-up to a day that had been rich in surprises, while we were looking about for a suitable spot at which to outspan for the night, we came upon the first of the Bandokolo people, or rather, she—for it was a woman—came upon us. We were, at the moment, riding through a shallow depression, about half a mile wide, bordered on either side by rising, bush-clad ground that was scarcely high enough to be worthy of the name of hills, with a narrow, shallow rivulet on our right; and we had about decided that the spot where we had reined up would answer our purpose quite well, when the two dogs, Thunder and Juno, who had been following quietly enough at our horses’ heels, suddenly ran forward a few paces and then stood pointing, uttering low, half-yelping, half-whining noises the while, as was their wont when they were puzzled. For a few moments I could see nothing to account for their excitement, and I was about to speak to them, when, looking forward, I suddenly saw something raise itself in the grass, remain visible for perhaps half a dozen seconds, and then sink down again. It was about a hundred yards from the spot where we had pulled up, and from the brief glimpse which I had obtained I almost thought that, strange as it might be, I had seen a child! To satisfy myself, therefore, I called to Piet, and, accompanied by the dogs, cantered forward toward the place where the strange apparition had appeared.