Doda was the first to break silence. “When,” said he, “I inquire of my own heart, one view of the case makes me on the side of the English lawgivers. We know the two principals in a murder are the murderer and the murdered. The last has left this world, so we cannot call for his evidence. The murderer denies all about it. The English say, God made man; to destroy what God made is ukwapula umsíla, to break His representative. It is clearly a case beyond the jurisdiction of man. It can only be understood and disposed of by the maker of the dead thing; and on these grounds it seems reasonable that the murderer should be sent the same path that he caused the other to go, in order that they may meet and he judged before God.”
“I see what you say,” answered Lulu, after due deliberation; “it is too strong for me. Do the English do this from such views? They can talk: they do talk—but one cannot always believe them. His argument is good. My heart is satisfied; I have heard. My heart is satisfied with your words. Nevertheless, I do not comprehend—”
And Lulu withdrew to ponder in silence on this argument.
After this, Lyle bid Doda question Zoonah on all that he had seen in his late perambulations “to and fro” upon the earth.
Zoonah complied partially, but omitted the episode of his being discovered by May, and outwitted also by the bushman.
He described the two sportsmen, and the cavalcade with which they were attended; and added, that they had retraced their steps, and had joined the bivouac at Annerley, which was known by all the Kafir scouts to be the rendezvous for the women and children of the district farmers. The scouts, of course, were in constant communication with some of the Annerley herdsmen, who, as was shown in the last chapter, were spies, ready to desert at the right moment. One of these had, some weeks previously to the open demonstrations of enmity in the frontier districts, on overhearing Mr Daveney announce to a farmer that England was sending troops, quitted the settlement, travelled 160 miles without sleep, and, after delivering his message, dropped dead at the feet of his chief. All Kafirland now was ripe for war, the tribes were gathering in the hill, and the watch-fires beginning to smoke.
Zoonah, in his turn, put manifold queries to Doda. The former said his path was uncertain; his “feet were towards Umlala’s Kraal, but his face turned away sometimes.” He asked, also, about Amani’s proceedings. Amani was his bitter foe. Lulu was bound for the settlements in the Annerley district, to look for plunder. Was Amayeka at Umlala’s Kraal? He must get cattle to offer Doda, for his daughter. He thought he should go with Lulu; he must come to Doda with full hands, to ask for Amayeka. How many bullocks would Doda want for her—the girl with the shining hair?
And then there was the usual subtle bartering argument between the two Kafirs.
Meanwhile, a thought had struck Lyle. Taking one of Zoonah’s assegais from the bundle, he scratched with his clasp-knife his name and a certain date on the blade of the weapon. Zoonah, who could elicit no decided answers from Doda, leaned over the convict’s shoulder.
He had seen books; indeed, as a boy, in a former war, he had, with others, cut them up as wadding for muskets, but could not read. Nevertheless, he knew that letters were, as he called them, “silent words.”