But the issues at stake were too great for the caprice of the “imishologu” to be risked. More ritual must be performed on the third and fifth day, and in the meantime feasting had to take place. Otherwise the “imishologu” might, as they had often been known to do, change their shadowy, if powerful minds.
Thus, as the “gqira” pronounced it to be unsafe to remove the cattle before the sixth day, the hearts of the company were lifted up with great joy, for they knew that the exigencies of the occasion demanded that unrestricted feasting should take place during the interval.
It was here that the astute ’Ndakana made his great mistake. He should have taken his reward, which would have been, under the circumstances, a most liberal one, and removed with it to a distance. But the greatest men sometimes make mistakes, and ’Ndakana proved that he was no exception to this general rule.
Chapter Twenty One.
The Disease Appears.
The circumstance of ’Ndakana’s having been so positive that the cattle would not take the rinderpest might easily puzzle those unacquainted with the methods of the native doctor, nevertheless it was quite characteristic. Although a colossal humbug, the “gqira,” to a certain extent, believes in his own powers. As is the case in other walks of life, he gets so into the habit of deceiving others that he ends by deceiving himself. Probably, however, in this case ’Ndakana may have believed the reports which just about that time were current as to the Cape Government having succeeded in staying the destroying course of the disease by erecting a fence across the continent and keeping all animals away from its vicinity. Moreover the accidental resemblance to a bull which the cloud had taken may easily have been regarded by ’Ndakana’s superstitious mind as a sign that the progress of the disease had been stayed. Superstition and fraud have in all ages gone hand in hand.
Again, it must be remembered that the reputation of a native doctor can only be made by taking risks. One lucky guess, one confident prophecy which happens to be crowned with fulfilment by the capricious Fates, and a “gqira” may be sent spinning dizzily along the road of success with such a momentum that many subsequent minor failures are condoned. Of course, the day comes at length when the luckiest “gqira” makes a mistake of such importance that he has to flee the neighbourhood and ever afterwards hide his diminished head. It is a well-known fact that under the rule of the native chiefs the “gqira” seldom died a natural death.
Three days of feasting took place at Noquala’s kraal, the neighbours from far and near being bidden to it. Noquala was so pleased at his cattle having been rendered safe from the threatened scourge that he did not mind several of his fattest oxen being slaughtered for the occasion. Just about sundown on the third day one of the herd-boys mentioned that a certain heifer did not appear to be quite well. Noquala heard the news without uneasiness; it was seldom that one got such a large herd of cattle together without some of them becoming afflicted with one or other of the major or minor ills that bovine flesh is heir to.