Child of Storm | Page 7

true,
for the caustic had begun to bite.)
"O devil of a White Man," she went on, "you have bewitched me; you
have filled my head with fire."
Then she seized an earthenware pot and hurled it at me, saying, "Take
that for your doctor-fee. Go, crawl after Mameena like the others and
get her to doctor you."
By this time I was half through the bee-hole of the hut, my movements
being hastened by a vessel of hot water which landed on me behind.
"What is the matter, Macumazahn?" asked old Umbezi, who was
waiting outside.
"Nothing at all, friend," I answered with a sweet smile, "except that
your wife wants to see you at once. She is in pain, and wishes you to
soothe her. Go in; do not hesitate."

After a moment's pause he went in--that is, half of him went in. Then
came a fearful crash, and he emerged again with the rim of a pot about
his neck and his countenance veiled in a coating of what I took to be
honey.
"Where is Mameena?" I asked him as he sat up spluttering.
"Where I wish I was," he answered in a thick voice; "at a kraal five
hours' journey away."
Well, that was the first I heard of Mameena.
That night as I sat smoking my pipe under the flap lean-to attached to
the wagon, laughing to myself over the adventure of "the Old Cow,"
falsely described as "worn out," and wondering whether Umbezi had
got the honey out of his hair, the canvas was lifted, and a Kafir
wrapped in a kaross crept in and squatted before me.
"Who are you?" I asked, for it was too dark to see the man's face.
"Inkoosi," answered a deep voice, "I am Saduko."
"You are welcome," I answered, handing him a little gourd of snuff in
token of hospitality. Then I waited while he poured some of the snuff
into the palm of his hand and took it in the usual fashion.
"Inkoosi," he said, when he had scraped away the tears produced by the
snuff, "I have come to ask you a favour. You heard Umbezi say to-day
that he will not give me his daughter, Mameena, unless I give him a
hundred head of cows. Now, I have not got the cattle, and I cannot earn
them by work in many years. Therefore I must take them from a certain
tribe I know which is at war with the Zulus. But this I cannot do unless
I have a gun. If I had a good gun, Inkoosi--one that only goes off when
it is asked, and not of its own fancy, I who have some name could
persuade a number of men whom I know, who once were servants of
my father, or their sons, to be my companions in this venture."
"Do I understand that you wish me to give you one of my good guns

with two mouths to it (i.e. double-barrelled), a gun worth at least
twelve oxen, for nothing, O Saduko?" I asked in a cold and scandalised
voice.
"Not so, O Watcher-by-Night," he answered; "not so, O
He-who-sleeps-with-one-eye-open" (another free and difficult
rendering of my native name, Macumazahn, or more correctly,
Macumazana)--"I should never dream of offering such an insult to your
high-born intelligence." He paused and took another pinch of snuff,
then went on in a meditative voice: "Where I propose to get those
hundred cattle there are many more; I am told not less than a thousand
head in all. Now, Inkoosi," he added, looking at me sideways, "suppose
you gave me the gun I ask for, and suppose you accompanied me with
your own gun and your armed hunters, it would be fair that you should
have half the cattle, would it not?"
"That's cool," I said. "So, young man, you want to turn me into a
cow-thief and get my throat cut by Panda for breaking the peace of his
country?"
"Neither, Macumazahn, for these are my own cattle. Listen, now, and I
will tell you a story. You have heard of Matiwane, the chief of the
Amangwane?"
"Yes," I answered. "His tribe lived near the head of the Umzinyati, did
they not? Then they were beaten by the Boers or the English, and
Matiwane came under the Zulus. But afterwards Dingaan wiped him
out, with his House, and now his people are killed or scattered."
"Yes, his people are killed and scattered, but his House still lives.
Macumazahn, I am his House, I, the only son of his chief wife, for
Zikali the Wise Little One, the Ancient, who is of the Amangwane
blood, and who hated Chaka and Dingaan--yes, and Senzangakona their
father before them, but whom none of them could kill because he