Matshaka was a Pondo. A heathen and a polygamist, he had lived his fifty years without a single aspiration towards anything better than the surrounding savage conditions afforded him. A man of strong character, he had amassed considerable wealth, and attained to an influential position in his clan. From where he sat listening to the bell he could see a large herd of his cattle grazing in the valley below his kraal, which was situated about four miles from the Rodè Mission.
Pondoland, like every state under savage rule, was the scene of cruelty, oppression, and misgovernment in most forms. Exposed to the unchecked rapacity of the chiefs, the unhappy people were always in danger of death, or confiscation of their property upon some puerile pretext. The one quality which was of advantage to its possessor was cunning. Frugality and industry resulted in the amassing of wealth, and wealth excited the envy and cupidity of the rulers, who, through the agency of the witch-doctor, were never at a loss for a pretext for “eating up” the owner. Courage availed little, for what could one do against numbers? Honesty would have been ridiculously out of place; conspicuous ability minus cunning would have excited sure and fatal jealousy. Cunning combined with force of character generally enabled a man to die a natural death—even though rich; provided, of course, that he had been judiciously liberal in the right quarters, and had consistently supported the strong against the weak.
Matshaka had used strength and cunning, had used them unscrupulously, and prospered accordingly. Throughout his long life he had stood on the side of the oppressor, and shared the spoil of the oppressed. The words “right” and “wrong” had, practically speaking, no meaning for him. But quite recently, something like the first faint glimmerings of a moral sense awoke in his soul. The glaring and palpable frauds of the witch-doctor had never deceived him, his intellect was too acute and his temperament too reasonable. Lately, a vague and undefined sense of general dissatisfaction with his surroundings had gradually grown, and after this developed the conviction that everything he knew, himself included, was utterly and hopelessly bad. Thereafter the “beer-drink” knew him no more, he held aloof from the “eating up,” which had been his favourite and profitable diversion, and he begun to shun his fellow-men. Soon he became an object of suspicion.
Matshaka sat on the mountain-top and looked at the church far below him. It was built on a spur which ran out abruptly from the lower zone of the Intsiza. The bell had ceased ringing, but the beats still kept sounding in his head. Intsiza—Refuge. Yes, the mission was at least a refuge for those fortunate enough to escape from the dreadful “smelling out,” a sanctuary which had always been respected. He had, on the previous Sunday, attended church for the first time in his life, and what he heard there increased his dissatisfaction and unrest ten fold. He could not have told what it was that impelled him to go. He had, of course, often heard accounts of what was taught in churches, but the idea of an omnipotent God coming into the world in the semblance of a poor and insignificant member of a despised class, had always appeared to him as ridiculous. The son of God going out mightily to war with a blood-red banner streaming over him would have seemed appropriate to his conception of deity, but meekness and submission as attributes of Godhead were too preposterous.
Yet some of the things he had heard on the previous Sunday stuck in his memory. “Come unto Me, all ye who labour and are heavily laden,” impressed him particularly. He himself was one of the heavily laden; who and where was the God that gave relief to such? Matshaka sat thinking over this until long after the service was over, and he was still thinking of it when the faint beats of the bell, which was now sounding for afternoon service, fell upon his tense ear. As if in answer to his unspoken questions the wind swept up the one clear word: “Intsiza, Intsiza, Intsiza.”
The sun suddenly darkened, and, glancing to the westward, Matshaka saw the great bulging thunder-clouds sweeping up in a serried mass. He arose and quickly descended the mountain. He reached his dwelling just as the storm broke.
Two
The germ of unrest planted in the congenial soil of Matshaka’s mind grew and branched until it filled and dominated the man’s whole being. The result was a condition of hyperaesthesia. He seemed to be more alive than formerly; things previously unnoticed forced themselves on his attention and became significant with mysterious meanings. Everything in his environment hurt him. His wives were mere animals that he had purchased for his pleasure and use, his sons and daughters were mere savages without his force of intellect. He had hitherto held aloof from all who were Christians, and had strenuously opposed the missionaries. Now, however, he felt a pressing need for intellectual and spiritual communion, but there was not a living soul in the whole circle of his acquaintance with whom he felt he could speak of what was torturing him. His thoughts seemed to focus themselves upon the missionary at the Rodè, but he could not make up his mind to speak. What he really needed was some one to explain to him his own mental and spiritual condition, a talker rather than a listener. His longings were quite undefined, and their object utterly unintelligible even to himself; had one asked him as to the nature of his trouble he could hardly have even guessed at its nature.
During the week of suffering following the Sunday spent upon the Intsiza, one idea continually haunted Matshaka, the idea of becoming a Christian. When first this presented itself the notion was summarily dismissed, but it kept persistently recurring. Public opinion is probably a more potent coercive among savages than among civilised men, and for an intellectual savage with Matshaka’s antecedents to turn his back on the traditions of a lifetime, and cleave publicly to what his fellows held in contemptuous scorn, involved consequences that might well appal the bravest.
Next Sunday, however, found Matshaka at the Rodè Church. When he arrived there were not more than a dozen persons in the building. It was a rainy day, and the congregation was consequently small. He took his seat right at the back, in one of the corners, and from there watched the dripping worshippers as they arrived one by one. An old man named Langabuya especially attracted his attention. This man had been “smelt out” for witchcraft some seven or eight years previously, and Matshaka had assisted at his “eating up.” He had managed to gain the sanctuary of the mission, and thus to save his life. He had been a rich man, almost as rich as Matshaka, but all his possessions had been taken. Now he lived at the mission, his sole substance, as Matshaka knew, being a few goats. Yet he looked contented with his lot, and at peace with all men.