“Nay,” answered Lomalindela, “it is a good weapon; thou hast proved it to be so at the risk of thy life, and I thank thee for the gift. Ask me now what shall I give thee in return for it? Wilt thou have gold or cattle? Thou hast but to say, and it shall be thine; for thy gift is good, and mine shall equal it.”
This answer, by good luck, afforded me the very opening that I wanted, and at once I replied:
“I thank thee, Great, Great One, and take thee at thy word. I want none of the things that thou hast named; but if thou dost really value my gift to thee I ask thee to give me in return the life of ’Mfuni, the man who fought with me and whom I conquered by the might and magic of this sword. He fought bravely and well; worthily did he uphold the finest traditions of the Mashona warriors: but against this sword he had no chance; he could not conquer me. Therefore, because it is not his fault that he has been beaten—your soldiers and indunas, to a man, will admit that—I ask you to give the man his life, free from all stigma or disgrace of defeat; and to repeal your sentence that, if conquered, he should be given to the ants.”
The silence that followed this bold request of mine was so intensely profound that when it had endured for a minute or more at its full tension I began to suspect that I had unwittingly committed some utterly unpardonable offence, and that all nature was breathlessly awaiting the fall of the avenging thunderbolt. For it was not only that every man present in that great open space seemed tongue-tied, they seemed to be not even drawing their breath; they were as absolutely motionless as so many statues; there was not even the faint sound of a man shifting his weight from one leg to the other, not even the scarcely perceptible touch of a spear-haft upon a shield, nor even the faint rustle of the warriors’ plumes in the wind, for, strangely enough, at that precise moment even the wind itself seemed to pause in its breathing: and glancing round me in vague discomfiture I perceived that every man in the square was staring blankly before him, right into space. The fact was—as I subsequently learned—that in preferring my request I had asked the king, in so many words, to break the most sacred oath known to the Mashonas, and had he risen in his wrath and plunged his bangwan through my heart, nobody would have been in the least degree surprised; that, indeed, was the logical sequence for which everybody was at that moment waiting. But my request must have touched some hitherto hidden and unsuspected chord in the king’s heart, for presently, when the tension had become almost unendurable, Lomalindela raised his head and said, in so gentle a tone of voice that it electrified everybody:
“Au, white man, you know not what you ask! I have sworn by the bones of my royal father that if that man was conquered, and survived the fight, I would give him to the ants; and that is an oath which I dare not break, for otherwise great evils would fall upon the house of Lomalindela, King of the Mashona.”
“Doubtless, O King, what thou sayest is true—under ordinary circumstances,” I replied. “But these circumstances are not ordinary; on the contrary, they are so exceptional that they will probably never again occur. The oath which you took was taken in ignorance. You did not know that, in taking that oath, you were virtually condemning a man to a dreadful death for failing to accomplish an impossibility, did you?”
“That is true, white man; I did not know it,” answered the king.
“Therefore,” I continued, with increasing confidence, “by every law of right and equity your ignorance of that important fact absolves you from your oath, and you are entitled to break it, if you please. And I ask you to break it, knowing that you may certainly do so with impunity, because, in demanding that ’Mfuni should conquer me—or, rather, the sword which I gave you—you demanded of him that which neither he nor any other warrior could possibly accomplish.”
Then ensued another tense silence, during which the king appeared to be meditating upon what I had said. Presently he beckoned to Mapela, “the Wise One”, and conferred with him in a low voice for a brief space. Then, turning to me, he said:
“I am inclined to believe that what thou hast said as to the impossibility of ’Mfuni conquering the sword is true; for Mapela informs me that he chose the man because of his reputation as the most skilled fighter in the whole Mashona army. Therefore, because of what thou hast said, I would willingly break my oath, if I could but be sure that, in so doing, I should not be bringing evil upon myself and my house. But how can I be sure?”