The Book of Missionary Heroes Part 17

When evening came the boy Khama saw the strange white man open another box and take out a curious thing which seemed to open yet was full of hundreds and hundreds of leaves. Khama had never seen such a thing in his life and he could not understand why Livingstone opened it and kept looking at it for a long time, for he had never seen a book before and did not even know what letters were or what reading was.

It seemed wonderful to him when he heard that that book could speak to Livingstone without making any sound and that it told him about the One Infinite, Holy, Loving G.o.d, Who is Father of all men, black or brown or white, and Whose Son, Jesus Christ, came to teach us all to love G.o.d and to love one another. For the book was the Bible which Livingstone all through his heroic exploring of Africa read each day.

So Livingstone pa.s.sed on from the village; but this boy Khama never forgot him, and in time--as we shall see--other white men came and taught Khama himself to read that same book and wors.h.i.+p that same G.o.d.

_The Fight with the Lion_

Meanwhile strange adventures came to the growing young Khama. This is the story of some of them:

The leaping flames of a hunting camp-fire threw upon the dark background of thorn trees weird shadows of the men who squatted in a circle on the ground, talking.

The men were all Africans, the picked hunters from the tribe of the Bamangwato. They were out on the spoor of a great lion that had made himself the terror of the tribe. Night after night the lion had leapt among their oxen and had slain the choicest in the chief's herds.

Again and again the hunters had gone out on the trail of the ferocious beast; but always they returned empty-handed, though boasting loudly of what they would do when they should face the lion.

"To-morrow, yes, to-morrow," cried a young Bamangwato hunter rolling his eyes, "I will slay _tau e bogale_--the fierce lion."

The voices of the men rose on the night air as the whole group declared that the beast should ravage their herds no more--the whole group, except one. This young man's tense face and the keen eyes that glowed in the firelight showed his contempt for those who swaggered so much and did so little. He was Khama, the son of Sekhome, the chief.

The wild flames gleamed on him as he stood there, full six feet of tireless manhood leaning on his gun, like a superb statue carved in ebony. Those swift, spare limbs of his, that could keep pace with a galloping horse, gave him the right to his name, Khama--the Antelope.

The voices dropped, and the men, rolling themselves in the skins of wild beasts, lay down and slept--all except one, whose eyes watched in the darkness as sleeplessly as the stars. When they were asleep Khama took up his gun and went out into the starry night.

The night pa.s.sed. As the first flush of dawn paled the stars, and the men around the cold ashes of the fire sat up, they gazed in awed amazement. For they saw, striding toward them, their tall young chieftain; and over his shoulders hung the tawny skin and mane of a full-grown king lion. Alone in the night he had slain the terror of the tribe!

The men who had boasted of what they meant to do and had never performed, never heard Khama--either at that time or later--make any mention of this great feat.

It was no wonder that the great Bamangwato tribe looked at the tall, silent, resolute young chieftain and, comparing him with his crafty father Sekhome and his treacherous, cowardly younger brother Khamane, said, "Khama is our _boikanyo_--our confidence."

_The Fight with the Witch-doctors_

The years went by; and that fierce old villain Sekhome plotted and laid ambush against the life of his valiant son, Khama. Men who followed David Livingstone into Africa had come as missionaries to his tribe and had taught him the story of Jesus and given him the knowledge of reading and writing. So Khama had become a Christian, though Sekhome his father was still a heathen witch-doctor. Khama would have nothing to do with the horrible ceremonies by which the boys of the tribe were initiated into manhood; nor would he look on the heathen rain-making incantations, though his father smoked with anger against him. Under a thousand insults and threats of death Khama stood silent, never insulting nor answering again, and always treating with respect his unnatural father.

"You, as the son of a great chief, must marry other wives," said old Sekhome, whose wives could not be numbered. Young Khama firmly refused, for the Word of G.o.d which ruled his life told him that he must have but one wife. Sekhome foamed with futile rage.

"You must call in the rain-doctors to make rain," said Sekhome, as the parched earth cracked under the flaming sun. Khama knew that their wild incantations had no power to make rain, but that G.o.d alone ruled the heavens. So he refused.

Sekhome now made his last and most fearful attack. He was a witch-doctor and master of the witch-doctors whose ghoulish incantations made the Bamangwato tremble in terror of unseen devils.

One night the persecuted Khama woke at the sound of strange clas.h.i.+ng and chanting. Looking out he saw the fitful flame of a fire. Going out from his hut, he saw the _lolwapa_ or court in front of it lit up with weird flames round which the black wizards danced with horns and lions' teeth clas.h.i.+ng about their necks, and with manes of beasts'

hair waving above their horrible faces. As they danced they cast charms into the fire and chanted loathsome spells and terrible curses on Khama. As a boy he had been taught that these witch-doctors had the power to slay or to smite with foul diseases. He would have been more than human if he had not felt a s.h.i.+ver of nameless dread at this lurid and horrible dance of death.

Yet he never hesitated. He strode forward swiftly, anger and contempt on his face, scattering the witch-doctors from his path and leaping full upon their fire of charms, stamped it out and scattered its embers broadcast. The wizards fled into the darkness of the night.

_The Fight with the Kaffir Beer_

At last Khama's treacherous old father, Sekhome, died. Khama was acclaimed the supreme chief of all the Bamangwato.[46] He galloped out at the head of his hors.e.m.e.n to pursue Lobengula, the ferocious chief of the Matabele who had struck fear into the Bamangwato for many years. Even Lobengula, who to his dying day carried in his neck a bullet from Khama's gun, said of him, "The Bamangwato are dogs, but Khama is a man."

Khama had now freed his people from the terror of the lion, the tyranny of witch-doctors, and the dread of the Matabele. Yet the deadliest enemy of Khama and the most loathsome tyrant of the Bamangwato was still in power,--the strong drink which degrades the African to unspeakable depths.

Even as Khama charged at the head of his men into the breaking ranks of the Matabele, his younger brother, Khamane, whom he had put in charge of his city in his absence, said to the people: "You may brew beer again now." Many of the people did not obey, but others took the corn of the tribe and brewed beer from it.

At night the cries of beaten women rose, and the weird chants of incantations and of foul unclean dances were heard. Khamane called the older men together around his fire. Pots of beer pa.s.sed from hand to hand. As the men grew fuddled they became bolder and more boastful.

Khamane then spoke to them and said, "Why should Khama rule you?

Remember he forbids you to make and to drink beer. He has done away with the dances of the young men. He will not let you make charms or throw enchanted dice or make incantations for rain. He is a Christian.

If I ruled you, you should do all these things."

When Khama rode back again into his town he saw men and women lying drunk under the eaves of their huts and others reeling along the road.

At night the sounds of chants and drinking dances rose on the air.

His anger was terrible. For once he lost his temper. He seized a burning torch and running to the hut of Khamane set fire to the roof and burned the house down over his drunken brother's head. He ordered all the beer that had been brewed to be seized, and poured it out upon the veldt. He knew that he was fighting a fiercer enemy than the Matabele, a foe that would throttle his tribe and destroy all his people if he did not conquer it. The old men of the tribe muttered against him and plotted his death. He met them face to face. His eyes flashed.

"When I was still a lad," he said, "I used to think how I would govern my town and what kind of a kingdom it should be. One thing I determined, I would not rule over a drunken town or people. I WILL NOT HAVE DRINK IN THIS TOWN. If you must have it you must go."

_The Fight with the White Man's "Fire-water"_

Khama had conquered for the moment. But white men, Englishmen, came to the town. They set up stores. And in the stores they began to sell brandy from large casks.

The drinking of spirits has more terrible effects on the African than even on white men. Once he starts drinking, the African cannot stop and is turned into a sot. The s.h.i.+ps of the white man have been responsible to a terrible extent for sending out the "fire-water" to Africa.

Khama called the white traders in the tribe together.

"It is my desire," he said, "that no strong drink shall be sold in my town."

"We will not bring the great casks of brandy," they replied, "but we hope you will allow us to have cases of bottles as they are for medicine."

"I consent," said Khama, "but there must be no drunkenness."

"Certainly," the white men replied, "there shall be no drunkenness."

In a few days one of the white traders had locked himself into his house in drunken delirium, naked and raving. Morning after morning Khama rose before daybreak to try and get to the man when he was sober, but all the time he was drunk. Then one morning this man gathered other white men together in a house and they sat drinking and then started fighting one another.

A boy ran to Khama to tell him. The chief went to the house and strode in. The room was a wreck. The men lay senseless with their white s.h.i.+rts stained with blood.

Khama with set, stern face turned and walked to the house where he often went for counsel, the home of his friend, Mr. Hepburn, the missionary. Mr. Hepburn lay ill with fever. Khama told him what the white men had done. Hepburn burned with shame and anger that his own fellow-countrymen should so disgrace themselves. Ill as he was he rose and went out with the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as Khama said.

"I will clear them all out of my town," cried the chief.

It was Sat.u.r.day night.

_Khama's Decisive Hour_

On the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the white men to come to him. It was a cold, dreary day. The chief sat waiting in the _Kgotla_[47] while the white men came together before him. Hepburn, the missionary, sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as soon as they looked into his grim face that no will on earth could turn him from his decisions that day.

"You white men,"[48] he said to them sternly, "have insulted and despised me in my own town because I am a black man. If you despise us black men, what do you want here in the country that G.o.d has given to us? Go back to your own country."