Kafir Stories: Seven Short Stories

by W. C. Scully

"By making some one guilty, and causing him to be sentenced by the magistrate. When he has done this, the detective gets fifteen shillings. Well, I must go to the camp. Have a drink?"

'Ntsoba came lazily in at Jim's call, and handed him a tot. This Jim took into his mouth. He rolled it round his gums, he wagged his tongue in it. He let it flow far back into his throat, and then brought it forward again. Kalaza came and stood before him, and opened his mouth wide. Into this, Jim deliberately, and with an aim so sure that not a drop was lost, squirted about half the tot. Kalaza thereupon wagged his tongue, rolled the liquor round ins gums, and then swallowed it slowly.

At the door of the canteen they parted.

"Good-bye, son of my father," said Kalaza.

"Yes, my friend," replied Jim, and walked away slowly towards the police camp.

Kalaza shouldered his stick and went off quickly in the direction of the native location.

II.

Maliwe drove home his flock at sunset, and penned them safely in the kraal, which was constructed of heavy thorn bushes. The old kapater goat, which acted as bellwether of the flock, strode proudly into the enclosure, well ahead of the others, and took his station on a rock which rose up in the middle. On this he lay down, chewing his cud and surveying the sheep which lay thickly around him. Maliwe then closed the gate, tied it securely with a reim, and pulled several large bushes against it. He then walked on to his little hut, situated only a few yards distant. He had carried in from the veldt a small number of dry sticks, and he now placed a few of the smallest of these in a little heap on the raised stone which served as fireplace. He then drew out his tinder-box from the leather bag which he always carried. This bag was simply the skin of a kid, the head of which had been cut off, and the body drawn out through the aperture at the neck thus made. He struck a spark with his flint, and when the tinder glowed, he shook out a little of it on to some dry grass, which soon blazed up, and which he then placed under the twigs. In a few minutes he had a cheerful fire, and then he untied his little three-legged pot from where it hung from one of the wattles of the roof. This pot was half full of mealies already cooked, and which he simply meant to warm for his supper. The remainder of his week's ration of meat (the skinny ribs of a goat that had died of debility down near his master's homestead) was also hanging from the roof, but with a sigh he determined to reserve that delicacy for the morrow, remembering that two days would elapse before a fresh supply was due. His dog, Sibi—a starved looking mongrel greyhound—lay at his feet and gazed up with expectant eyes, waiting for the handful of tough mealies which would be flung to him when his master had finished supper.

It was a clear starlit night in Spring. Supper over, Maliwe sat on the ground just outside the floor of the hut, and thought of Nalai, the daughter of old Dalisile, for whom he was paying lobola. In a month more, another year's service would be completed, and another cow would be his. This he meant to take as he had taken the two already earned, and deliver to his prospective father-in-law. His mother had promised him the calf of her only cow as soon as it should be weaned, and then he hoped that old Dalisile, skinflint as he was, would deliver the girl, trusting him for payment of the fifth and last beast in course of time. In two or, at the outside, three months this calf would be weaned. It was a red bull with white face and feet—he knew every mark, and one might almost say every hair on the animal, having looked at it so often. It was a remarkably fine calf, but Maliwe thought it took a strangely long time in growing up. He lit his pipe, and dreamt dreams. Soon he would be no longer alone in his hut. He loved the girl Nalai, and she seemed to love him, so the future was bright. She was tall and straight, still unbent by that toil which is the portion of the female Kafir. Her teeth gleamed very white, and her breast swelled each year more temptingly over the edge other red blanket. As boy and girl they had grown up together, and long before she was of a marriageable age, he had determined eventually to marry her. So he went away and worked for three long years; his strong, self-contained nature needing nothing but this one fixed idea to steady it. Maliwe was not what is known as a "School Kafir." He was quite uncivilised in every respect, and was utterly heathen. He could speak no word of any language except his own, and he believed implicitly in "Tikoloshe" and the "Lightning Bird."

His pipe finished, Maliwe arose and fetched a musical instrument from the hut. This consisted of a stick about three feet long, bent into a bow by a string made of twisted sinews. About eight inches from one end was fixed a small dry gourd, with a hole large enough, to admit a five shilling piece cut out of the side furthest from the point of attachment. Music is made on such an instrument by holding it so that that part of the gourd where the aperture is, is pressed against the naked breast, and then twanging on the string with a small stick. About four notes can be extracted by a skilful player. The result is not cheerful, and to the civilised ear the strains of a Jew's harp are preferable. But the twanging eased the burthen of longing which Maliwe bore, and no lute-player in passionate Andalusia ever poured out his love in melody with more genuine feeling than did this savage on his "U-hade."