The White Hecatomb Part 3

The door of the hut was then securely fastened by lacing a strand of soft copper wire through the wicker-work, and round stout poles placed across the entrance, after the manner agreed upon by the conspirators, as overheard by Mamiekwa.

Old Dogolwana, his wife, and Notemba, with little Gqomisa, Mamiekwa, and her baby moved into the hut which Mahlokoza had occupied. Little Gqomisa had been kept out of the way whilst the terrible preparations described had been carried out.

The huts at the "great place" were arranged in the form of a large crescent, with the cattle kraal midway between the points. The old chief's hut had been in the middle of the curve. After his death, old Dogolwana had taken possession of the huts near the right-hand point.

Those huts towards the middle of the curve were uninhabited, being used as corn stores. Thus, no one dwelt nearer to the hut where the wretched victims lay bound awaiting their doom than the women and boys occupying the huts at the left-hand point, beyond the cattle kraal.

As soon as darkness fell, old Dogolwana and the women barred the door of the hut which they occupied securely on the inside, and sat in grim silence awaiting developments. Dogolwana sat listening close to the wicker door. After waiting thus for some hours he heard stealthy footsteps approaching, and then some one endeavoured to open the door.

Then Songoza whispered:

"Philip--Philip, open--it is I."

The women snored loudly and Dogolwana sat mute and rigid. After calling Philip's name several times in a low voice, and obtaining no answer, Songoza crept away. Going softly to the door of the other hut, he examined the fastenings, which satisfied him that Philip had performed his share of the contract. He then stole away on tip-toe until he reached the other side of the hut in which Dogolwana was. Then he sat down and pulled out a flint, steel, and tinder-box.

Old Dogolwana and the women could hear the low click, click of the steel on the flint through the "wattle and daub" wall of the hut.

The touchwood soon ignited, so Songoza placed it in the curve of a doubled wisp of dry gra.s.s, and then he ran quickly over to the hut which contained his brother, his wife, and his two sons, one being the only creature that had ever awakened a spark of love in his cold and cruel heart.

The wisp of gra.s.s quickly ignited, and with it Songoza ran around the hut, firing the overhanging eaves every few feet. He then rushed into the forest. The hut was old and as dry as tinder. The roaring flames shot up instantly, and within a quarter of an hour the glowing roof sank down with a thud between the blazing walls.

About an hour afterwards Dogolwana again heard some one trying to open the door.

"Who is there?" he called out, his voice sounding m.u.f.fled through the blanket which he had drawn over his head.

"Open the door, Philip; it is I, Songoza."

"My chief," replied Dogolwana; "Philip, with your wife and children, is sleeping in the next hut on the left."

Songoza gave one frightful shriek, and rushed forth as if driven by fiends.

CHAPTER THREE.

GQUMA; OR, THE WHITE WAIF.

"A sun-child whiter than the whitest snows Was born out of the world of sunless things That round the round earth flows and ebbs and flows!"

_Thala.s.sius_.

_One_.

The fish had been biting splendidly since midnight, and when at dawn we ran the boat into a little creek which branched from the main lagoon between steep, shelving, rocky banks overhung with forest, we counted out eleven "kabeljouws," the lightest of which must have weighed fifteen pounds, while the heaviest would certainly have turned the scale at fifty.

We laid them out, 'Nqalate and I, on the smooth, cool rock shelves. The fish more recently caught were yet quivering, and the lovely pink and purple flushes still chased each other along their s.h.i.+ning sides.

'Nqalate, like all Kafirs, hated having to touch fish; he regarded them as water-snakes with a bad smell superimposed upon the ordinary-ophidian disadvantages. After cleansing the "kabeljouws" under my directions, he washed and re-washed his hands with great vigour; but, to judge by the expression of his face when he smelt them afterwards, the result of the scrubbing was not satisfactory.

The morning was cool and bracing, and a wonderful breeze streamed in over the bar at the mouth of the lagoon, where the great ocean-rollers were thundering. A flock of wild geese arose and flew inland after their night's feeding, uttering wild screams of delight as they soared into the sunlight, which had not yet descended upon us. Seamews and curlews wheeled around with plaintive cries. A couple of ospreys swooped down and settled on a giant euphorbia only a few yards off.

Ever and anon vivid halcyons skimmed down the creek. In the forest close at hand the bush-bucks were hoa.r.s.ely barking, and the guinea-fowls uttering strident cries.

While my companion collected fuel, I took the kettle and forced my way through the bush to the bed of the creek at a spot above the reach of the salt water. On returning I found 'Nqalate blowing at the fire as only a Kafir can. Lifting his head out of the smoke, he gave a sneeze, and immediately afterwards uttered the exclamation: "Gquma 'ndincede!"

This struck me as peculiar. "Gquma," p.r.o.nounced "g (click) o-o-ma,"

means in the Kafir language, "a roar," such as the roar of a lion, or of the sea; in this instance I took it to mean the latter, and "'ndincede"

means "help me," or "give a.s.sistance." After speculating upon this strange rudimentary suggestion of the widespread habit according to which divers races of men invoke their respective deities or deified ancestors after the innocuous process of sneezing, my curiosity as to how the roar of the sea came to be invoked in an apparently a.n.a.logous sense prompted me to question 'Nqalate on the subject.

"Gquma, whom I invoked," he replied, "is not the roar of the sea, but a woman of your race who lived many years ago, and whom we, the Tshomane, look upon as the head of our tribe. You will notice that whenever a Tshomane sneezes he calls on Gquma."

"But where did Gquma come from?" I inquired, "and why was she so called?"

"Gquma," replied 'Nqalate, "was a white woman who came out of the sea when she was a child. She married our great chief 'Ndepa, and she and he together ruled our tribe. She was the great-grandmother of our chief Dalasile, who died last year."

The tide was running out swiftly, and I waited impatiently for it to turn, so that I could re-commence fis.h.i.+ng. The sun was now high, and the breeze had died down to a gentle, fragrant breath. Suddenly the water ceased running, and began to sway troublously backward and forward, lapping loudly against the rocks. Then the tide turned, up it came rus.h.i.+ng--this strange, cold, pure, bitter spirit pulsating with the ocean's strenuous life. Like a singing bird it was vocal with wonderful words that no man may understand; with joyful tidings from its habitations in the sea's most secret places were its murmurs thrilling.

We cast off the boat and let her drift with the current until a good anchorage was reached. Fis.h.i.+ng usually affords large opportunities for reflection or conversation, and on this occasion 'Nqalate related to me all he knew about Gquma, and, moreover, gave reference to certain old men of the tribe, by whom the narrative was subsequently amplified.

_Two_.

One autumn morning early in the eighteenth century, some people of the Tshomane clan, then occupying that portion of the coast country of what is now Pondoland, which lies immediately to the north-east of the mouth of the Unitati river, were astonished by an unwonted spectacle. The wind had been blowing strongly from the south-east for several days previously, and the sea was running high. Just outside the fringe of breakers an immense "thing" was rolling about helplessly in the ocean swell. This "thing" looked like a great fish, such as on rare occasions had been stranded in the neighbourhood, but it had a flat top from which thick, irregular stumps, like trunks of trees, protruded. Moreover, long strings and objects resembling immense mats were hanging over the sides and trailing in the water. As the rolling brought the flat surface into view, strange creatures resembling human beings could be seen moving about on it.

Such an object had never been seen or heard of by the oldest man of the tribe. The people a.s.sembled in crowds and watched, dumb with astonishment. Then a shudder went through them. A faint cry repeated at regular intervals pierced the booming of the surf, and a white fabric, which swelled out as it arose, was seen to ascend the tallest of the protruding stumps. The breeze was now blowing lightly off the land.

All day long the monster lay wallowing. The trailing ropes and sails were cut away, and the great East Indiaman, impelled sh.o.r.eward by the swell, was just able for a time to maintain her distance from the land.

The current sucked her slowly southward, and the crowd of natives silently followed along the sh.o.r.e. Late in the afternoon the breeze died down, and the doomed vessel rolled nearer and nearer the black rocks. Just after sundown she struck with a cras.h.i.+ng thud, and thereupon a long wail of agony arose from those on board. Then she heeled over somewhat, and it soon appeared as though she were melting away in the water. By the time night fell, strange objects which the people feared to touch had begun to wash up; these were stranded by the receding tide. Nevertheless, the outline of the dark hull could still be faintly seen when the startled people withdrew to their homes, where they talked until far into the night, over the wonderful and unprecedented events of the day.

At the first streak of dawn the people began to re-a.s.semble on the beach. The vessel was no longer to be seen, but the strand was strewn with wreckage of every description, a quant.i.ty of which had been flung high and dry by the waves. When the sun arose the people gained confidence and scattered about examining the different articles, which were distributed over an extent of several hundred yards of beach.

A shout arose, and then a rush was made to a certain spot where, in a wide cleft of the black reef, which was floored with gleaming white sand, a strange object had been discovered. Huddled against the rock on one side of the cleft lay a child, a little white girl with long yellow hair. She was clad in a light-coloured garment of a texture unknown to the natives, and around the upper part of her body were tied a number of discs of a substance resembling soft wood of little weight.

The people crowded around the spot, keeping at a distance of a few yards, and gazed with astonishment at this strange creature cast up by the sea. The night had been mild and the sun was now s.h.i.+ning warmly on the pallid child, who was breathing slowly in a swoon-like sleep. At length she opened her eyes, they were of the hue of the sky, a colour never previously seen by any of the spectators in the eyes of a human being.

The gazing crowd increased, some of the people who climbed over the rocks gaining foot-hold on the higher ledges of the steep reef, and gazing eagerly over the heads of the others who were nearer. At length an old man, Gambushe, head councillor to Sango, the chief, stepped forward and lifted the little girl in his arms. She was deathly cold, and when she felt the warmth of the old man's body she clung to him and tried to throw her arms about his neck. This, however, the discs of cork prevented her doing, so Gambushe sate her on his knee, and untied the string by which they were fastened. She then nestled her face against his shoulder. The child appeared to be quite without dread; probably she was accustomed to black faces, but in any case the terrors of the past night would, for the time being, have dulled her capacity for further fear.

The kraal of Gambushe was situated in a valley behind the adjacent forest-covered sandhills which rose abruptly almost from high-water-mark, and thither he carried the worn-out child, who had fallen asleep on his shoulder. A few of the natives followed him, but the greater number remained on the sh.o.r.e. Their curiosity had now got the better of the dread inspired by the unprecedented events just witnessed, and they began to examine and appropriate flotsam and jetsam from the wreck. Bales, boxes, clothing, and furniture--all things unknown--were eagerly examined. The bales, on being ripped open, were found to contain silk and cotton fabrics, which struck the natives with wonder and delight.

An order was sent by the chief to the effect that all the property salved was to be carried to his "great place," which was situated about five miles away, and thither long lines of laden men, women, and children wended over the sinuous footpaths.

In the afternoon dead bodies began to roll in with the curling surf, and the white, bearded faces of the drowned men struck the excited natives with fresh terror. All of the Bantu race shrink with the greatest horror from contact with a dead body, so the people drew back and gathered together in affrighted groups, to discuss the strange situation. The wind again blew freshly, and as the sea arose the dead men came in more and more thickly, some with wide-open eyes, and lips parted in a terrifying smile. Faster and faster came the bodies, until the whole beach was strewn with them. Mixed with the bodies of the Europeans were those of a number of Lascars, of whom the crew was probably largely composed.

The people left off removing the wreckage, and sent to the chief for instructions. In the meantime they retired terror-stricken to their homes.

Next morning the chief came down, accompanied by the witch-doctors and soothsayers of the tribe, who, with hardly dissembled dread, pa.s.sed along the strand from body to body. Then they withdrew for consultation, with ashen-grey faces and trembling limbs.

They came to a unanimous decision, which was communicated to a general meeting of the tribe convened next day at the "great place." The monster that had died on the rocks amidst the white water, was one of the creatures of the sea sent to bear the little white maiden to the land of the Tshomane. She, when old enough, was to be the "great wife"

of 'Ndepa, the chief's "great son," then a boy of about twelve years of age. She was a daughter of the mighty ones that dwell in the sea,--her marine nature being clearly shown by her long yellow hair, which resembled nothing but sea-weed. All the dead people strewn on the beach had been her slaves; they had now been destroyed because she no longer needed them.

The chief gave an order that no more property should be removed from the beach, and that the things taken before the was.h.i.+ng up of the bodies were to be carefully preserved for the use of the white maiden. She had come to the land of the Tshomane when the sea was raging and thundering against the black rocks, so her name, said the soothsayers, must be called "Gquma,"--"the roar of the sea."

_Three_.