When Makalipa arose she noticed that Elijah was still asleep. Something, however, in his breathing struck her as being strange. Later, when she attempted to rouse him, she found that his mind was wandering and that he was in a burning fever.
It was a severe attack of enteric fever that had struck Elijah down. A week went by, but he became worse and worse. Noquala was still away and Makalipa became more and more alarmed. At length she made up her mind to call in a European doctor, so she dug up some money and sent Zingelagahle in with it to the Magistracy, with a message asking the District Surgeon to come and visit her son.
The District Surgeon was one who had no sympathy with and therefore did not command the confidence of the natives. Not making due allowance for the limitations of the native mind, and its consequent inability to grasp the importance of attention to detail in illness, he honestly thought that in serious cases his advice, as well as the medicines he supplied, were of little avail, and he usually said so when occasion offered.
It was a long ride from the Magistracy to Noquala’s kraal, and when the District Surgeon arrived the sun had nearly sunk. He meant to obtain a night’s lodging at a mission station a few miles away, but he was not sure of his road and was very much afraid of being benighted. Thus he was in a great hurry to get his work over and then proceed on his journey.
Elijah had just reached the crisis of his disease when the doctor arrived. The patient was lying with nothing between him and the cold, hard floor of the hut but a rush-mat and a thin cotton blanket. He appeared to be almost at the last gasp. The doctor examined him, took his temperature, and asked as to what description of nourishment the patient had been getting. The reply he received filled him with wrath and disgust. He felt that he could do nothing, and he said so. Makalipa heard with a sinking heart that her son’s hours were numbered, and that it was extremely unlikely that he would live until another sun arose. Then the doctor mounted his horse and rode away without administering any medicine, and Makalipa sat on the ground next to her son, with her heart filled with darkness, awaiting the end.
The doctor was hardly out of sight when Noquala, who had been sent for several days before, returned. He was somewhat shocked at hearing what the doctor had said, but a native never gives up hope of recovery so long as there is life in the patient. Touching Makalipa on the shoulder he beckoned to her to follow him and stepped out of the hut.
“Your European doctor has said Elijah must die, but I have seen people get better even after they have looked like that. Let us send for ’Ndakana and see what he can do.”
Makalipa nodded; then she went back to the bedside of her son.
Deep down in the mind of every human being is an elementary belief in the supernatural, and when brought face to face with some terrible, incalculable danger this is apt to rise to the surface. If this be true of those who have centuries of civilisation behind them, how much more so is it in the case of those who are only struggling to emerge from barbarism? The agitated mind of Makalipa grasped greedily at the possibility which her husband’s words suggested.
’Ndakana was a native “gqira,” or doctor, who had made for himself a considerable reputation locally. His kraal was not more than a couple of miles distant. Thus, within an hour of being sent for, he was at the bedside of the sufferer.