Malemba was an old man, and grizzled. He wore the ring, as well he might, for his trade was a profitable one, and he had wives and cattle galore. He had made assegais for the fighting men of Dingana and Mpande and Cetywayo, and as a skilled craftsman his repute was great. In those days his remuneration had been rendered in cattle or other kind, now it was in hard English money, and nothing else would satisfy him.
Such blades he turned out, such splendid blades, keen as razors, the fluting in perfect symmetry—broad blades for close quarter, stabbing purposes; long, tapering ones, which would bring down a buck at forty yards if well thrown, or an enemy at the same distance. Why, Dingana had commanded them more than once, indeed when a more powerful but less skilful rival had sought his destruction that king had ordered the death of that rival instead. Cetywayo had even more keenly appreciated his skilful craftsmanship, so that Malemba might safely have put up a notice over his primitive forge: “Assegai-forger to the Royal Family.”
His son, Umjozo, did the stick-making; and the binding of the blades, and the plaiting of the raw hide which should secure these within their hafts to last for all time, was a work of art in itself. By and by Birmingham-forged blades were imported, surreptitiously, by the traders; but the assegai turned out by old Malemba and his son never fell in reputation. It was to the imported article as the production of a crack firm of gun-makers would be to the cheap gun purchasable at six or seven pounds in an ironmonger’s shop. And yet it was forged mostly out of old scrap iron—cask-hoops, nuts, bolts, anything thrown away by the roadside, but carefully collected.
For years Malemba’s trade had been in abeyance, if not practically extinct. There had been occasional rumours which threatened to call it forth again, but nothing had come of them. Well, it didn’t matter. He was a rich man, in short, a successful manufacturer who had made his pile and could afford to retire. And yet—and yet—the hard English money flowed into the country, and it represented everything that should render a man’s declining years comfortable and pleasant; and further, Malemba loved his craft, and took an artist’s pride in it; wherefore even his prosperity left something further to wish for.
Then sporadic rumours began to creep about, and the atmosphere became charged. In the midst of which Malemba was sent for by a powerful chief, and offered such tempting inducements that he decided to open his forge again. And that chief was Sapazani.
For Sapazani had wielded weapons of Malemba’s manufacture with his own hand, had wielded them to considerable purpose, too. He desired nothing so much as to wield them again.
Sapazani, the ultra-conservative, had no use for assegais fabricated across the seas. He knew the balance and the temper of the home-made article to a nicety, especially that made by Mklemba. Wherefore he sent his invitation to the latter, and lo! under the noses of the civil officials and the half-dozen police who represented or carried out law and order in the district, Malemba’s forge was set up, and turned out its score of assegais per diem. But the Lumisana district was a very wide, wild and, in parts, inaccessible tract, and in one of its most remote and inaccessible ranges was Malemba’s forge set up.
“Ah, my sons,” said the old man, as he paused in his work to take snuff, while his assistants were arranging their primitive bellows. “Ah, my sons, I fear me that what I do is useless. What are these poor weapons beside the thunder and lightning wherewith the Amangisi and the Amabuna poured death upon each other from distances further than a man can see? How then will ye get near enough to use these?”
“But, my father,” answered one of the spectators, “what if the izanusi put múti upon us which render the white man’s bullets of no avail?”
The old man chuckled, and his face crinkled up.