“Our ears are open,” said Doda, and sat down with an uneasy glance at Amani.
For Doda was peacefully inclined—that is to say, though war was in his heart, he had tasted of the blessings of civilisation. He had seen his daughter, “sitting in the sun and eating honey,” living under virtuous influences, in peace and plenty, at the mission station, and it was with inward reluctance that he had obeyed his chief in withdrawing her from thence. It would have been useless, as well as impolitic, to oppose his sentiments openly to Umlala’s inclinations, especially as of late the malcontent Dutch had been tampering with the chiefs, and some mercenary and unprincipled traders had profited by the aspect of affairs to increase their traffic.
Amani rose. He was the rain-maker, or witch doctor, of the tribe—one of those wicked magicians of the country, who, taking advantage of the Kafir belief in evil agency, manage, with extraordinary tact, to turn the very changes of the elements to bad account. By his cunning and audacity, he had made such predictions and revelations as had obtained for him paramount ascendancy over his chief, and consequently the whole tribe. Doda both despised and dreaded him. He had missed him lately for several days. Amani was supposed to be in the retirement of the hills, preparing charms and incantations for the ceremony they had assembled to witness, the induction of the young warriors into their calling. But Doda, who had his scouts ever on the watch, felt sure that the wizard had made a hurried march to some secret place of meeting with Brennard, who would have given him the last colonial news; and, armed with this, he could easily forestall Amayeka and her white confederates, since Amani could travel faster and by nearer paths than they could traverse in a body, and with Zwartz, encumbered with their contraband stores.
It was soon clear that such was the case.
Amani began his address by saying, that Umlala’s eyes were open. Amani himself had predicted mischief. He had told his chief that the great white captains were coming to speak to them with guns; but as for the red men they had now on the borders of the colony, they could be counted in a day, they were not many. He called on the sons of Congo to sound the war-cry from the highest mountain-top.
“Swear,” said he, “by the bones of Congo’s forefathers, to drive the Amglezi to the sea which spits them up. Behold, we will turn the hail-storm of their fire to water—it shall be as water poured through a broken calabash. What right has the white man to put his foot before us on our war-paths, when we choose to quarrel with the Gaikas about grass? The bad people of Gaika steal from us—he shares the plunder—then we take up arms against him—the white man comes, and tramples down our corn; he begins the war, and will not let us rest in our huts, though our fight with Gaika is no business of his. Gaika calls himself the white man’s friend; he is a liar—he hates the white man—but likes to sit where he will in the colony with his eyes open. He stretches out his hand, and the Amglezi fill it. The Amglezi are fools, and believe him. He does not steal their cattle himself, but sits still upon the hills, and sees it go by to the kloofs in the Amatolas; and quarrels with us when he finds us there waiting to share the plunder that belongs to all the land—our land—a land that will soon be dead to us, for shall we reap the corn we have planted? Gaika is a woman—he will not fight us himself, but lifts up his voice, and cries aloud to the white men, who come among us like locusts, and eat us up, and then pay Gaika in beads and buttons for his treachery to his brothers. Let the Amglezi come—let them kill the last man of us—but let not Umlala’s children put their necks under the foot of Gaika. Better to be dead lions in our own kraals, than live dogs in the Amglezi’s territory. The white man calls himself the protector of the Kafir tribes dwelling on the borders of the country he has made his own; but we are oppressed by his protection, and we will not have it; and we know, too, that some of the Amglezi are with us in heart; for they tell us we are wronged, and bring us arms and powder wherewith to regain our rights.”
Doda thought within himself, “we pay for such stores;” but the thought rested in his breast, for he dared not express it.
Amani proceeded, waving aloft an assegai, which quivered in the grasp of his muscular palm:
“Awake, sons of Congo! shout from the mountain-tops! the valleys are waiting to reply—we have sat still long enough. Behold the children of the foam will multiply, and come and drive us like monkeys into the rocks. Shall we consent to sit there in darkness? Shall our young warriors be mown down like early grass, or be driven into the sea like ashes before the wind? Shall our cattle be taken from us, to languish in new pastures? Shout, young warriors of Kafirland! shout, for the elders of the tribe are women—their hearts grow white. Our old women would laugh at the old men, whose eyes are unclosed, but that their hearts tremble as they think of the strong hand of the Umburghi. Hark! the young women of Kafirland, the daughters of Congo, call to us in our sleep. Answer them, and let the war-cry be echoed back from the Kei to the Amatolas. Let Gaika know that we are men. Then shall he be ashamed—then shall he uncover his face, and turn it towards us, and we shall have light.”
The Kafir girls, armed with assegais, and ranged in a double semicircle behind the councillors, responded to this appeal with a shrill chorus, their weapons rattling like the leaves of a forest in a gale of wind. Amani ceased speaking, but they took up the strain.