One
Sobèdè stood in the prisoners’ dock before the Circuit Court at Kokstad, between his fellow-prisoners Kwekwe and Gazile, and pleaded “Not Guilty” to the charge of having stolen four head of cattle from one Jasper Swainson, a farmer dwelling in the valley of the Indwana river, Umzimkulu district, whom he had served as a shepherd two years previously.
Sobèdè belonged to the Hlangweni tribe, whilst his companions were Gaika Kafirs from near King William’s Town. But the important difference between Sobèdè and the others lay in this: that whereas they were guilty of the crime laid to their charge, he was as innocent as was his Lordship the learned judge who, clad in a gorgeous vestment of crimson silk, was trying him.
Appearances were, however, strongly against Sobèdè. The evidence showed that the stolen cattle had been found by the farmers who followed on their spoor in the possession of the three prisoners, and were at the time being driven up one of the gorges of the steep Drakensberg range, in the direction of Basutoland, that great and grievous receptacle for stolen stock of all kinds. When Sobèdè told his story, namely, that he had casually joined the other two but a few minutes before he had been apprehended, having come from his kraal along one of the many footpaths leading through the same gorge, no one believed him, although the relation was perfectly true. His wife, Mampitizili, with her two-months-old baby slung on her back and hushing it as she spoke, gave evidence to the effect that her husband had left her after the sun was high on the same day for the purpose of fetching medicine from a native doctor for the week-old baby, which happened at the time to be ailing, whereas the cattle had been stolen thirty hours previously. His old, half-decrepit father, ’Mbopè, corroborated Mampitizili’s statement in a voice that rose to a quavering shout. The old man’s lips trembled, his eyes flashed for a moment through the blue film that had gradually overspread them during the past few years, and he held his shaking right hand with the two first fingers extended high over his head. He really afforded a very fine tragic spectacle, and suggested a kind of Bantu Lear in appearance and mien, but to judge by the behaviour of the jury the exhibition was rather comic than otherwise, for they put their heads together and laughed consumedly. They knew the dodges all these old niggers get up to, and it was quite clear that the old man had pitched it too strong for sincerity. The old man’s display evidently impressed his Lordship, but was nevertheless of no use to Sobèdè. The damning fact remained that the cattle had been stolen from a farmer in whose service he had for some time been, and when the passing flash of insight had faded from the mind of the judge, no one in court except Sobèdè’s wife and father had the slightest doubt as to Sobèdè’s guilt.
The prosecuting barrister finished his address to his own entire satisfaction, and then, sitting down, leaned back in his seat and contemplated the recently-painted ceiling, conscious of having done his duty to society. Then the judge made a few remarks of an analytic nature, inclining at the same time towards the jury-box with that well-known and well-studied air of forensic friendliness which so tends to establish a good understanding between all parties concerned; except, perhaps, the prisoner at the bar. After this the nine heads of the jurymen bent towards each other in a whispered colloquy which may perhaps have lasted for thirty seconds. Then the jurymen all stood up together, and the foreman communicated their verdict as one of “guilty” against the three prisoners.
Then the judge, pushing back the forensic friendliness stop, and drawing out that of judicial austerity, began to admonish the prisoners, and it could be seen that it was at Sobèdè his harangue was chiefly aimed. Although the address was well interpreted, Sobèdè could not follow the drift of it, his attention being divided between the wails of his child sounding faintly from the court-house yard where the witnesses were kept, and the little white tippets which waggled a silent accompaniment to his Lordship’s eloquence over the breast of his Lordship’s beautiful red silk robe. The baseness of ingratitude (it had transpired in the course of the evidence that Sobèdè had, in recognition of meritorious service, been sent away with four goats over and above his specified wages) was enlarged upon, and the ineradicable nature of the furtive bent in the average Bantu was treated from an ethnological point. Eventually Sobèdè found himself sentenced to three years’ imprisonment with hard labour, whilst his companions, who could not help smiling at the peculiarity of the situation, got off each with a year less.
After sentence, as he was being hurried through the court-house yard to the lock-up, Sobèdè caught a glimpse of old ’Mbopè crouching with bent head in a corner, and then he passed Mampitizili. She was still hushing the baby, who as yet refused to be comforted, and as her husband passed her with the horror of the prospect of three years of unmerited, painful servitude darkening his uncivilised soul, these two exchanged such looks as are never forgotten on this side of the grave.
Two
Mampitizili and ’Mbopè took two days wherein to perform the return journey to Sidotè’s location, where they dwelt. Owing to his infirmities the old man walked with great difficulty, but he kept a good heart, and endeavoured his best to comfort the miserable wife of his unhappy son, reminding her from his vantage coign of old age that three years pass very quickly and do not, after all, make much of a slice out of a lifetime. This is quite true when the lifetime is regarded from near the wrong end of it, but such philosophy is unintelligible to the young. The poor woman had only been married about a year, and the baby, a boy, was not yet three months old. It had not as yet even been given a name.