Nada the Lily | Page 3

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NADA THE LILY By H. Rider Haggard

NADA THE LILY
BY

H. RIDER HAGGARD

DEDICATION
Sompseu:
For I will call you by the name that for fifty years has been honoured
by every tribe between Zambesi and Cape Agulbas,--I greet you!
Sompseu, my father, I have written a book that tells of men and matters
of which you know the most of any who still look upon the light;
therefore, I set your name within that book and, such as it is, I offer it
to you.
If you knew not Chaka, you and he have seen the same suns shine, you
knew his brother Panda and his captains, and perhaps even that very
Mopo who tells this tale, his servant, who slew him with the Princes.
You have seen the circle of the witch-doctors and the unconquerable
Zulu impis rushing to war; you have crowned their kings and shared
their counsels, and with your son's blood you have expiated a
statesman's error and a general's fault.
Sompseu, a song has been sung in my ears of how first you mastered
this people of the Zulu. Is it not true, my father, that for long hours you
sat silent and alone, while three thousand warriors shouted for your life?
And when they grew weary, did you not stand and say, pointing
towards the ocean: "Kill me if you wish, men of Cetywayo, but I tell
you that for every drop of my blood a hundred avengers shall rise from
yonder sea!"
Then, so it was told me, the regiments turned staring towards the Black
Water, as though the day of Ulundi had already come and they saw the
white slayers creeping across the plains.
Thus, Sompseu, your name became great among the people of the Zulu,
as already it was great among many another tribe, and their nobles did
you homage, and they gave you the Bayete, the royal salute, declaring

by the mouth of their Council that in you dwelt the spirit of Chaka.
Many years have gone by since then, and now you are old, my father. It
is many years even since I was a boy, and followed you when you went
up among the Boers and took their country for the Queen.
Why did you do this, my father? I will answer, who know the truth.
You did it because, had it not been done, the Zulus would have
stamped out the Boers. Were not Cetywayo's impis gathered against the
land, and was it not because it became the Queen's land that at your
word he sent them murmuring to their kraals?[1] To save bloodshed
you annexed the country beyond the Vaal. Perhaps it had been better to
leave it, since "Death chooses for himself," and after all there was
killing--of our own people, and with the killing, shame. But in those
days we did not guess what we should live to see, and of Majuba we
thought only as a little hill!
Enemies have borne false witness against you on this matter, Sompseu,
you who never erred except through over kindness. Yet what does that
avail? When you have "gone beyond" it will be forgotten, since the
sting of ingratitude passes and lies must wither like the winter veldt.
Only your name will not be forgotten; as it was heard in life so it shall
be heard in story, and I pray that, however humbly, mine may pass
down with it. Chance has taken me by another path, and I must leave
the ways of action that I love and bury myself in books, but the old
days and friends are in my mind, nor while I have memory shall I
forget them and you.
Therefore, though it be for the