“Possibly; yet each Kaffir, I fancied, looked as if he feared the selection might fall upon himself.”
“Because they are all aware of the power of the witch-doctor. He knows more than we do,” said Tugela, with evidently a firm belief in his words. “The one he selected was the right one,” he added, “for, see, has not Anzutu recovered?”
I saw no arguments of mine would shake Tugela’s faith in the terrible superstition which gave such an awful power to the ignorant men who possessed it, so dropped the subject, and began to ask him respecting the hunt of the next morning. He told me that the footprint of a majestic elephant had been discovered some days back, and the Kaffirs were all eager to track it.
“Some days back,” I said; “will they be able to discover it again?”
“Certainly. We Kaffirs have a way so as never to forget the track of an elephant.”
He had begun to induct me into the method, when he was suddenly interrupted by a great hubbub without. He instantly started to the door, and I followed.
The bridegroom of the previous day stood outside, surrounded by a number of Kaffirs, to whom he was angrily gesticulating. Not being able to understand his harangue, I had to wait till I got it second-hand from Tugela, who told me that the bridegroom’s wives had that afternoon gone out gathering wood in the bush; but when the husband had returned, he had found all his wives at home save the youngest, whom he had paid so many cows for the previous day; while his questions respecting her whereabouts had elicited no satisfactory answers, though he had had liberal recourse to stick.
Though these people practice polygamy, giving for a cause, if asked, the necessity for keeping their huts right, getting their dinners cooked, and grounds tilled; and though, also, they treat their women not very much better than the Australian natives who regarded the softer sex but little above their dogs, yet they are extremely jealous respecting their wives’ fidelity. The chief has a regular harem, which, like in Turkey, has a special guard to watch who goes out or in. Should a wife be found unfaithful, the punishment is severe, sometimes death even.
I believe that, in the present case, the husband fancied his new wife had fled to another kraal, for he was extremely irate; but he first decided to go to the bush where the women had been, so he started off with several others, Tugela and myself among the number, and led by the boy—I mean a boy now, who had gone out with the women—not to help, be it understood, for even at an early age the male sex asserts its superiority.
Forward we went into the bush, lit up by the red glow of the setting sun, but not a sign could we discover of the lost wife. For over an hour we searched and called in vain, and the husband ordered a return, stating his resolve to visit the neighbouring kraals next morning, and demand to have his wife restored, as he felt certain she had fled to one of them. It was at this moment that a peculiar cry from one of the Kaffir’s brought all the rest to the spot.