The White Hecatomb, and Other Stories

by W. C. Scully

For a time Mampitizili was left to herself, but within a few months she had come to find that all the inconvenience she had previously suffered was as nothing compared to what she now had to endure.

A rumour was set afloat to the effect that Sobèdè was dead; this at first caused her much terror, but when all efforts to trace it to its source had failed, Mampitizili ceased to give it much credence; nevertheless, it left a rankling thorn of uneasiness in her mind. Soon after this she began to see far more of Manciya than she liked, and then he commenced paying her attentions that were extremely distasteful. Among the many Jewish customs followed by the Kafirs is the one prescribed in the fifth verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, and Manciya, assuming the report as to Sobèdè’s death to be true, proposed to follow this custom in Mampitizili’s ease. She, it may be stated, was an extremely attractive young woman. Manciya found himself repulsed with indignation over and over again. Then he began to try the effect of harsh and even cruel treatment where soft measures had failed.

The wife whose dwelling Mampitizili shared had been neglected by her husband for years, and was now savagely jealous of the attentions which he paid, in her hut and before her face, to a young, good-looking woman, and she accordingly gave full vent to her spite when she saw from Manciya’s changed demeanour that it was safe for her to do so. Soon Mampitizili’s life became one of continuous misery. It was through little Kungayè that she suffered most severely. The child was bullied or beaten every day by the other children, who were encouraged to torment him, and all attempts at defence or retaliation on the mother’s part proved to be worse than useless. The hardest drudgery fell to Mampitizili’s lot, and the worst food was her scanty portion, but all this she regarded as nothing in comparison with what she had to endure in respect of the treatment to which her child was subjected.

Sometimes she would manage to steal away and carry little Kungayè over to the old kraal, there to muse miserably over the short-lived happiness that she and Sobèdè had enjoyed. The three huts were falling into decay, the corn-pits in the kraal were full of water, and the whole place was overgrown with weeds. But here she had at least peace; the leering, libidinous eye of Manciya no longer affronted her, and she was free from the constant nagging of his jealous, spiteful wives. Here, moreover, little Kungayè could play in peace with the little toy oxen she had made for him out of mud, free from the persecution of his malevolent cousins.

As may have been inferred, it was Manciya who had for his own purposes set afloat the rumour as to Sobèdè’s having died at the convict station. He knew that Sobèdè’s return home might be expected in a few months, and he determined, therefore, to overcome Mampitizili’s resistance to his amatory advances with as little further delay as possible. With this end in view he again changed his tactics, and began once more to treat her with kindness. Amongst other manifestations of this may be mentioned his buying a gaudy blanket for her at a traders, and his administration of a most unmerciful thrashing to her hut-companion—to whom, very unfairly, he had failed to notify the change in his tactics, and who inopportunely was guilty before his face of a spiteful act towards the object of his desires. Mampitizili felt grateful, but kept, nevertheless, strictly on her guard.

One day Manciya sent messages to the surrounding kraals inviting a number of his friends to a beer-drink. For some days previously every one had been kept busy grinding the “imitombo,” or partly-germinated millet from which the beer is made, in large earthen pots. The banquet began early in the forenoon, and by the time the sun went down many heads had been broken, and all the revellers were extremely drunk. Shortly after nightfall Manciya staggered into the hut in which Mampitizili dwelt. The other woman was crouching at the central hearth over some faintly-glowing embers, and her he struck brutally with one of the door-poles which he had stumbled over. The woman rushed with a yell out of the hut, and Manciya began to grope about in the darkness for Mampitizili.

Mampitizili took in the situation at once. She was crouching against the wall at the back of the hut when Manciya entered, clasping little Kungayè close to her. Manciya passed her in his search, and she leaped to her feet and rushed out into the night with her child.

The unhappy woman at length felt that her burthen was greater than she could bear;—that she must get away from Manciya’s kraal now and for ever,—even if she had to fling herself into the cold, dark, deep pool of the river just below the waterfall. But that might happen to-morrow; for to-night she would return to the old kraal, for the last time. She felt she would like to sleep once more in the hut that she and Sobèdè had occupied together. The season was late winter. She hurried on through the darkness with hot head and cold, bruised feet. The night was cloudless and still, and a heavy frost was settling down through the keen, crisp air. Soon the eastern sky began to whiten, and then the moon lit up the snowy masses of the Drakensberg rising abruptly to her left. The child shivered and clung to her mutely; he had acquired the habit of mutely enduring.

At length she reached the rocky ledge upon which the three huts stood, facing down the valley. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they seemed to her like a city of refuge and peace. The largest hut was that which stood in the centre facing the entrance to the stone cattle enclosure. Mampitizili approached this hut from the back, with faltering steps, half-blinded with her tears, and shaken by sobs wrung from the depths of her despair.

A portion of the wall of the hut had fallen in at one side, and, as Mampitizili passed the aperture thus formed, she uttered a cry and fell to the ground in terror, for a fire was alight in the centre of the hut, and a man with his back towards her lay next to it, half covered by a blanket.