“Yes, but it is to save them hours of cruel torment,” answered the white man quickly.
“Ah, ah!” laughed the King. “And yet, my father, you teach that nothing but torment awaits bad men after death—torment for ever and ever. Is it not so?”
Now we who listened awaited the Umfundisi’s reply with some curiosity.
“That is so, King, for it is in the word of God,” he said.
“Why, then, if that is so, Umfundisi, it will make no difference whether I order these to be slain at once or not, since, they being bad men, torment awaits them after death,” answered Dingane.
“But were they bad men, King? What was their crime?”
“Their crime was that of those who sleep when they should have been awake, Umfundisi; and I seem to remember that in the stories you teach to my people out of your sacred book such are thrown by the God whom you serve into a place of darkness and of never-ending torment. So the punishment I mete out to my people is less than the punishment your God metes out to his.”
“But His ways are not as our ways,” replied the Umfundisi, becoming angry. “He alone created life, and He alone has the right to take it. Who art thou, sinful man?” he went on, his eyes blazing with wrath, and pointing his finger at the King. “Who art thou, thou man of blood, to wreck and mangle God’s Image thus?” pointing to those upon the stakes. “Tremble and know that a judgment awaits thee—yea, a burning fiery looking-for of judgment to come. Then the torment that these undergo now shall be a bed of flowers beside such as thine, for thy part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire for ever and ever and ever.”
The eyes of the Umfundisi seemed to blaze, his hair to bristle, as he thundered out his words, shaking his finger at the King; and we—au!—we looked to see a third stake erected to receive the body of this white man, who dared to revile the majesty of the Lion of Zulu—or, at least, that he be led forth to die beneath the knobsticks of the slayers—and we gazed at the King, awaiting the word. But Dingane only laughed.
“Thou mad Umfundisi,” he said. “Had I but spoken of thy God as thy speech is to me I should have gone into torment for ever and ever according to thee and thy teachings. But I am more merciful than thy God, and thou canst go home. Yet hearken! I am god over the people of Zulu, and if a man disobeys me I order his death—whau!—a swift and easy and painless death, or at worst a few hours of torment. But thy God? Whau! for ever and ever and ever does He torment men after death, in a burning flame of fire! So, Umfundisi, I am the more merciful of the two; and I think the people of Zulu prefer the god they know to the one whom thou and such as thee would teach them to worship. Now, go home. Hamba gahle, Umfundisi! Hamba gahle!”