"Yes, Zikali; how old?"

"There, there, Macumazahn, as you know, we poor Kafirs cannot count very

well. How old? Well, when I was young I came down towards the coast from

the Great River, you call it the Zambesi, I think, with Undwandwe, who

lived in the north in those days. They have forgotten it now because it

is some time ago, and if I could write I would set down the history of

that march, for we fought some great battles with the people who used to

live in this country. Afterwards I was the friend of the Father of the

Zulus, he whom they still call Inkoosi Umkulu--the mighty chief--you may

have heard tell of him. I carved that stool on which you sit for him and

he left it back to me when he died."

"Inkoosi Umkulu!" I exclaimed. "Why, they say he lived hundreds of years

ago."

"Do they, Macumazahn? If so, have I not told you that we black people

cannot count as well as you do? Really it was only the other day.

Anyhow, after his death the Zulus began to maltreat us Undwandwe and the

Quabies and the Tetwas with us--you may remember that they called us

the Amatefula, making a mock of us. So I quarrelled with the Zulus and

especially with Chaka, he whom they named 'Uhlanya' [the Mad One].

You see, Macumazahn, it pleased him to laugh at me because

I am not as other men are. He gave me a name which means

'The-thing-which-should-never-have-been-born.' I will not speak that

name, it is secret to me, it may not pass my lips. Yet at times he

sought my wisdom, and I paid him back for his names, for I gave him very

ill counsel, and he took it, and I brought him to his death, although

none ever saw my finger in that business. But when he was dead at the

hands of his brothers Dingaan and Umhlangana and of Umbopa, Umbopa who

also had a score to settle with him, and his body was cast out of the

kraal like that of an evil-doer, why I, who because I was a dwarf was

not sent with the men against Sotshangana, went and sat on it at

night and laughed thus," and he broke into one of his hideous peals of

merriment.

"I laughed thrice: once for my wives whom he had taken; once for my

children whom he had slain; and once for the mocking name that he had

given me. Then I became the counsellor of Dingaan, whom I hated worse

than I had hated Chaka, for he was Chaka again without his greatness,

and you know the end of Dingaan, for you had a share in that war, and of

Umhlangana, his brother and fellow-murderer, whom I counselled Dingaan

to slay. This I did through the lips of the old Princess Menkabayi,

Jama's daughter, Senzangakona's sister, the Oracle before whom all men

bowed, causing her to say that 'This land of the Zulus cannot be ruled

by a crimson assegai.' For, Macumazahn, it was Umhlangana who first

struck Chaka with the spear. Now Panda reigns, the last of the sons of

Senzangakona, my enemy, Panda the Fool, and I hold my hand from Panda

because he tried to save the life of a child of mine whom Chaka slew.

But Panda has sons who are as Chaka was, and against them I work as I

worked against those who went before them."




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