Child of Storm

[*--Cannon were called "by-and-byes" by the natives, because

when field-pieces first arrived in Natal inquisitive Kafirs

pestered the soldiers to show them how they were fired.

The answer given was always "By-and-bye!" Hence the name.--

EDITOR] "But, Mameena," I gasped, for this girl's titanic ambition literally

overwhelmed me, "surely you are mad! How would you do all these things?"

"I am not mad," she answered; "I am only what is called great, and you

know well enough that I can do them, not by myself, who am but a woman

and tied with the ropes that bind women, but with you to cut those ropes

and help me. I have a plan which will not fail. But, Macumazahn," she

added in a changed voice, "until I know that you will be my partner in

it I will not tell it even to you, for perhaps you might talk--in your

sleep, and then the fire in my breast would soon go out--for ever."

"I might talk now, for the matter of that, Mameena."

"No; for men like you do not tell tales of foolish girls who chance to

love them. But if that plan began to work, and you heard say that kings

or princes died, it might be otherwise. You might say, 'I think I

know where the witch lives who causes these evils'--in your sleep,

Macumazahn."

"Mameena," I said, "tell me no more. Setting your dreams on one side,

can I be false to my friend, Saduko, who talks to me day and night of

you?"

"Saduko! Piff!" she exclaimed, with that expressive gesture of her hand.

"And can I be false," I continued, seeing that Saduko was no good card

to play, "to my friend, Umbezi, your father?"

"My father!" she laughed. "Why, would it not please him to grow great

in your shadow? Only yesterday he told me to marry you, if I could, for

then he would find a stick indeed to lean on, and be rid of Saduko's

troubling."

Evidently Umbezi was a worse card even than Saduko, so I played another.

"And can I help you, Mameena, to tread a road that at the best must be

red with blood?"

"Why not," she asked, "since with or without you I am destined to tread

that road, the only difference being that with you it will lead to glory

and without you perhaps to the jackals and the vultures? Blood! Piff!

What is blood in Zululand?"

This card also having failed, I tabled my last.

"Glory or no glory, I do not wish to share it, Mameena. I will not

make war among a people who have entertained me hospitably, or plot the

downfall of their Great Ones. As you told me just now, I am nobody--just

one grain of sand upon a white shore--but I had rather be that than a

haunted rock which draws the heavens' lightnings and is drenched with

sacrifice. I seek no throne over white or black, Mameena, who walk my

own path to a quiet grave that shall perhaps not be without honour of

its own, though other than you seek. I will keep your counsel, Mameena,

but, because you are so beautiful and so wise, and because you say you

are fond of me--for which I thank you--I pray you put away these fearful

dreams of yours that in the end, whether they succeed or fail, will

send you shivering from the world to give account of them to the

Watcher-on-high."