The Ghost Kings | Page 4

that she
would rather be murdered by Kaffirs in due season than endure a
separation which might be lifelong. So in the end the pair of them with
their little daughter Rachel departed in a sailing ship, and their friends
and relations knew them no more.
Their subsequent history up to the date of the opening of this story may
be told in very few words. As a missionary the Reverend John Dove

was not a success. The Boers in the eastern part of the Cape Colony
where he laboured, did not appreciate his efforts to Christianise their
slaves. The slaves did not appreciate them either, inasmuch as, saint
though he might be, he quite lacked the sympathetic insight which
would enable him to understand that a native with thousands of
generations of savagery behind him is a different being from a highly
educated Christian, and one who should be judged by another law.
Their sins, amongst which he included all their most cherished
inherited customs, appalled him, as he continually proclaimed from the
housetops. Moreover, when occasionally he did snatch a brand from the
burning, and the said brand subsequently proved that it was still alight,
or worse still, replaced its original failings by those of the white man,
such as drink, theft and lying, whereof before it had been innocent, he
would openly condemn it to eternal punishment. Further, he was too
insubordinate, or, as he called it, too honest, to submit to the authority
of his local superiors in the Church, and therefore would only work for
his own hand. Finally he caused his "cup to overflow," as he described
it, or, in plain English, made the country too hot to hold him, by
becoming involved in a bitter quarrel with the Boers. Of these, on the
whole, worthy folk, he formed the worst; and in the main a very unjust
opinion, which he sent to England to be reprinted in Church papers, or
to the Home Government to be published in Blue-books. In due course
these documents reached South Africa again, where they were
translated into Dutch and became incidentally one of the causes of the
Great Trek.
The Boers were furious and threatened to shoot him as a slanderer. The
English authorities were also furious, and requested him to cease from
controversy or to leave the country. At last, stubborn as he might be,
circumstances proved too much for him, and as his conscience would
not allow him to be silent, Mr. Dove chose the latter alternative. The
only question was whither he should go. As he was well off, having
inherited a moderate fortune in addition to what he had before he left
England, his poor wife pleaded with him to return home, pointing out
that there he would be able to lay his case before the British public.
This course had attractions for him, but after a night's reflection and
prayer, he rejected it as a specious temptation sent by Satan.

What, he argued, should he return to live in luxury in England not only
unmartyred but a palpable failure, his mission quite unfulfilled? His
wife might go if she liked, and take their surviving children, Rachel and
the new-born baby boy, with her (they had buried two other little girls),
but he would stick to his post and his duty. He had seen some
Englishmen who had visited the country called Natal where white
people were beginning to settle. In that land it seemed there were no
slave-driving Boers, and the natives, according to all accounts, much
needed the guidance of the Gospel, especially a certain king of the
people called Zulus, who was named Chaka or Dingaan, he was not
sure which. This ferocious person he particularly desired to encounter,
having little doubt that in the absence of the contaminating Boer, he
would be able to induce him to see the error of his ways and change the
national customs, especially those of fighting and, worse still, of
polygamy.
His unhappy wife listened and wept, for now the martyr's crown which
she had always foreseen, seemed uncomfortably near, indeed as it were,
it glowed blood red within reach of her hand. Moreover, in her heart
she did not believe that Kaffirs could be converted, at any rate at
present. They were fighting men, as her Highland forefathers had been,
and her Scottish blood could understand the weakness, while, as for
this polygamy, she had long ago secretly concluded that the practice
was one which suited them very well, as it had suited David and
Solomon, and even Abraham. But for all this, although she was sure in
her uncanny fashion that her baby's death would come of her staying,
she refused to leave her husband as she had refused eleven years
before.
Doubtless