The Induna's Wife

by Bertram Mitford

The open space within the great kraal was densely packed, save that room was left for the wild dancing and other ceremonies employed by the izanusi. These ran up and down, mouthing and bellowing, and shaking the ornaments of their calling—bladders filled with blood, festoons of entrails of sacrificed beasts, bunches of feathers and bird’s claws, and snakes and lizards. Now and again they would halt, and pointing with their wands, tipped with giraffe tail, at some one in the crowd, would name him, calling, out a string of instances of witch dealing. This one held converse with a black baboon, that one slept all day and only moved out at night, another was reputed to eat snakes, and so forth. All so named were immediately led forth to the place of slaughter; but I noticed that among them was no person of any consequence. The witch doctors, to all appearance, were destroying them out of sheer wanton craving for blood.

Dingane was growing impatient. His brows were wrinkled into a heavy frown. Not for such a well-worn exhibition as this, surely, had the bulk of the nation been convened. If so, then indeed it would go ill with Tola and his following. This was running in the mind of the King; and I, who sat near him, could see into his thoughts.

Now the witch doctors ceased in their mouthings, and suddenly, from behind them, appeared a band of girls. There might have been three score of them, and they seemed to have been chosen from the handsomest and finest of the nation. They were arrayed in the richest beadwork, and wore wreaths of green leaves upon their heads and twined around their shapely limbs. A strange band, indeed, to spring up suddenly from the midst of those wizard-hounds of blood and of death.

They advanced, swaying to a measured dancing step, and softly singing. A deep murmur of amazement and delight arose from all; for this was a fair and goodly sight, and all welcomed it as a relief from the grim hideousness of the witch doctors. A weight of fear seemed lifted from the minds of many. These, surely, were not here to doom to death.

But as their singing rose louder and louder, as I caught the burden of their song, I, for one, felt by no means so sure. They sang of a nation cursed by an evil blight, of the counsels of strangers, of the first repulse the great Zulu power had ever known, of the presence of strangers in the ranks of the lion-cubs, of the presence of a stranger. And every time they repeated the words they would sway round so as to face me, as I sat among the izinduna at the right hand of the King.

Then, Nkose, the nerves within me seemed to tingle. Well knew I the meaning of this. I was the object of their denunciations. Any moment now I might step into the Dark Unknown. Doom had found me at last. I was being “smelt out.”

Well, indeed, could I see through it all now. This had been arranged between Tambusa, my enemy, and Tola, the head izanusi. The singing band of girls, designed to add novelty to the witch finding, as well as to please Dingane, had for its object my death. The red cloud began to surge around my brain as I sat there. Not in me was it to die tamely; and softly I reached forth for the stick which was the only approach to a weapon which custom allowed upon such an occasion, and calculated how great a spring would enable me to crush in Tambusa’s skull ere they could lay hands on me. The death of the stake would be my lot; no matter—I must slay somebody.

The band of singing-girls swayed nearer and nearer; then with a rush of their light feet they came straight for me. Now for the doom. But—not yet. Some unseen force seemed to turn them back again. They held on around the circle, not having pointed at or named me.

This happened several times, and each time I looked to hear the word of doom, each time I tightened up my muscles for my spring upon Tambusa. Each time, too, the song denunciatory of “the stranger” grew fiercer, each time only to sink and die away in their throats. Then the izanusi, as in encouragement, lifted up their deep hoarse voices, as the voices of beasts growling for blood.

Whau, Nkose! I can see it all still—for at such moments a man may seem to live a thousand lifetimes—the immense kraal, with its ringed fences and vast circles of yellow huts—the assembled multitude blackening the earth in its awed hush—the sea of expectant faces—the countenance of the King sternly set, those of the izinduna expressionless as stones—the band of singing-girls—the savage eyes of the witch doctors—and, as a background to the whole, a brooding sky, blue-black with the threatenings of its pent-up storm.