THE BEE PROPHESIES

“‘A Daniel come to judgment’ indeed,” reflected Hadden, who had been watching this savage comedy with interest; “our love-sick friend has got more than he bargained for.  Well, that comes of appealing to Caesar,” and he turned to look at the two suppliants.

The old man, Umgona, merely started, then began to pour out sentences of conventional thanks and praise to the king for his goodness and condescension.  Cetywayo listened to his talk in silence, and when he had done answered by reminding him tersely that if Nanea did not appear at the date named, both she and he, her father, would in due course certainly decorate a cross-road in their own immediate neighbourhood.

The captain, Nahoon, afforded a more curious study.  As the fatal words crossed the king’s lips, his face took an expression of absolute astonishment, which was presently replaced by one of fury ­the just fury of a man who suddenly has suffered an unutterable wrong.  His whole frame quivered, the veins stood out in knots on his neck and forehead, and his fingers closed convulsively as though they were grasping the handle of a spear.  Presently the rage passed away ­for as well might a man be wroth with fate as with a Zulu despot ­to be succeeded by a look of the most hopeless misery.  The proud dark eyes grew dull, the copper-coloured face sank in and turned ashen, the mouth drooped, and down one corner of it there trickled a little line of blood springing from the lip bitten through in the effort to keep silence.  Lifting his hand in salute to the king, the great man rose and staggered rather than walked towards the gate.

As he reached it, the voice of Cetywayo commanded him to stop.  “Stay,” he said, “I have a service for you, Nahoon, that shall drive out of your head these thoughts of wives and marriage.  You see this white man here; he is my guest, and would hunt buffalo and big game in the bush country.  I put him in your charge; take men with you, and see that he comes to no hurt.  So also that you bring him before me within a month, or your life shall answer for it.  Let him be here at my royal kraal in the first week of the new moon ­when Nanea comes ­and then I will tell you whether or no I agree with you that she is fair.  Go now, my child, and you, White Man, go also; those who are to accompany you shall be with you at the dawn.  Farewell, but remember we meet again at the new moon, when we will settle what pay you shall receive as keeper of my guns.  Do not fail me, White Man, or I shall send after you, and my messengers are sometimes rough.”

“This means that I am a prisoner,” thought Hadden, “but it will go hard if I cannot manage to give them the slip somehow.  I don’t intend to stay in this country if war is declared, to be pounded into mouti (medicine), or have my eyes put out, or any little joke of that sort.”

Ten days had passed, and one evening Hadden and his escort were encamped in a wild stretch of mountainous country lying between the Blood and Unvunyana Rivers, not more than eight miles from that “Place of the Little Hand” which within a few weeks was to become famous throughout the world by its native name of Isandhlwana.  For three days they had been tracking the spoor of a small herd of buffalo that still inhabited the district, but as yet they had not come up with them.  The Zulu hunters had suggested that they should follow the Unvunyana down towards the sea where game was more plentiful, but this neither Hadden, nor the captain, Nahoon, had been anxious to do, for reasons which each of them kept secret to himself.  Hadden’s object was to work gradually down to the Buffalo River across which he hoped to effect a retreat into Natal.  That of Nahoon was to linger in the neighbourhood of the kraal of Umgona, which was situated not very far from their present camping place, in the vague hope that he might find an opportunity of speaking with or at least of seeing Nanea, the girl to whom he was affianced, who within a few weeks must be taken from him, and given over to the king.

A more eerie-looking spot than that where they were encamped Hadden had never seen.  Behind them lay a tract of land ­half-swamp and half-bush ­in which the buffalo were supposed to be hiding.  Beyond, in lonely grandeur, rose the mountain of Isandhlwana, while in front was an amphitheatre of the most gloomy forest, ringed round in the distance by sheer-sided hills.  Into this forest there ran a river which drained the swamp, placidly enough upon the level.  But it was not always level, for within three hundred yards of them it dashed suddenly over a precipice, of no great height but very steep, falling into a boiling rock-bound pool that the light of the sun never seemed to reach.

“What is the name of that forest, Nahoon?” asked Hadden.

“It is named Emagudu, The Home of the Dead,” the Zulu replied absently, for he was looking towards the kraal of Nanea, which was situated at an hour’s walk away over the ridge to the right.

“The Home of the Dead!  Why?”

“Because the dead live there, those whom we name the Esemkofu, the Speechless Ones, and with them other Spirits, the Amahlosi, from whom the breath of life has passed away, and who yet live on.”

“Indeed,” said Hadden, “and have you ever seen these ghosts?”

“Am I mad that I should go to look for them, White Man?  Only the dead enter that forest, and it is on the borders of it that our people make offerings to the dead.”

Followed by Nahoon, Hadden walked to the edge of the cliff and looked over it.  To the left lay the deep and dreadful-looking pool, while close to the bank of it, placed upon a narrow strip of turf between the cliff and the commencement of the forest, was a hut.

“Who lives there?” asked Hadden.

“The great Isanusi ­she who is named Inyanga or Doctoress; she who is named Inyosi (the Bee), because she gathers wisdom from the dead who grow in the forest.”

“Do you think that she could gather enough wisdom to tell me whether I am going to kill any buffalo, Nahoon?”

“Mayhap, White Man, but,” he added with a little smile, “those who visit the Bee’s hive may hear nothing, or they may hear more than they wish for.  The words of that Bee have a sting.”

“Good; I will see if she can sting me.”

“So be it,” said Nahoon; and turning, he led the way along the cliff till he reached a native path which zig-zagged down its face.

By this path they climbed till they came to the sward at the foot of the descent, and walked up it to the hut which was surrounded by a low fence of reeds, enclosing a small court-yard paved with ant-heap earth beaten hard and polished.  In this court-yard sat the Bee, her stool being placed almost at the mouth of the round opening that served as a doorway to the hut.  At first all that Hadden could see of her, crouched as she was in the shadow, was a huddled shape wrapped round with a greasy and tattered catskin kaross, above the edge of which appeared two eyes, fierce and quick as those of a leopard.  At her feet smouldered a little fire, and ranged around it in a semi-circle were a number of human skulls, placed in pairs as though they were talking together, whilst other bones, to all appearance also human, were festooned about the hut and the fence of the courtyard.

“I see that the old lady is set up with the usual properties,” thought Hadden, but he said nothing.

Nor did the witch-doctoress say anything; she only fixed her beady eyes upon his face.  Hadden returned the compliment, staring at her with all his might, till suddenly he became aware that he was vanquished in this curious duel.  His brain grew confused, and to his fancy it seemed that the woman before him had shifted shape into the likeness of colossal and horrid spider sitting at the mouth of her trap, and that these bones were the relics of her victims.

“Why do you not speak, White Man?” she said at last in a slow clear voice.  “Well, there is no need, since I can read your thoughts.  You are thinking that I who am called the Bee should be better named the Spider.  Have no fear; I did not kill these men.  What would it profit me when the dead are so many?  I suck the souls of men, not their bodies, White Man.  It is their living hearts I love to look on, for therein I read much and thereby I grow wise.  Now what would you of the Bee, White Man, the Bee that labours in this Garden of Death, and ­what brings you here, son of Zomba?  Why are you not with the Umcityu now that they doctor themselves for the great war ­the last war ­the war of the white and the black ­or if you have no stomach for fighting, why are you not at the side of Nanea the tall, Nanea the fair?”

Nahoon made no answer, but Hadden said: ­

“A small thing, mother.  I would know if I shall prosper in my hunting.”

“In your hunting, White Man; what hunting?  The hunting of game, of money, or of women?  Well, one of them, for a-hunting you must ever be; that is your nature, to hunt and be hunted.  Tell me now, how goes the wound of that trader who tasted of your steel yonder in the town of the Maboon (Boers)?  No need to answer, White Man, but what fee, Chief, for the poor witch-doctoress whose skill you seek,” she added in a whining voice.  “Surely you would not that an old woman should work without a fee?”

“I have none to offer you, mother, so I will be going,” said Hadden, who began to feel himself satisfied with this display of the Bee’s powers of observation and thought-reading.

“Nay,” she answered with an unpleasant laugh, “would you ask a question, and not wait for the answer?  I will take no fee from you at present, White Man; you shall pay me later on when we meet again,” and once more she laughed.  “Let me look in your face, let me look in your face,” she continued, rising and standing before him.

Then of a sudden Hadden felt something cold at the back of his neck, and the next instant the Bee had sprung from him, holding between her thumb and finger a curl of dark hair which she had cut from his head.  The action was so instantaneous that he had neither time to avoid nor to resent it, but stood still staring at her stupidly.

“That is all I need,” she cried, “for like my heart my magic is white.  Stay ­son of Zomba, give me also of your hair, for those who visit the Bee must listen to her humming.”

Nahoon obeyed, cutting a little lock from his head with the sharp edge of his assegai, though it was very evident that he did this not because he wished to do so, but because he feared to refuse.

Then the Bee slipped back her kaross, and stood bending over the fire before them, into which she threw herbs taken from a pouch that was bound about her middle.  She was still a finely-shaped woman, and she wore none of the abominations which Hadden had been accustomed to see upon the persons of witch-doctoresses.  About her neck, however, was a curious ornament, a small live snake, red and grey in hue, which her visitors recognised as one of the most deadly to be found in that part of the country.  It is not unusual for Bantu witch-doctors thus to decorate themselves with snakes, though whether or not their fangs have first been extracted no one seems to know.

Presently the herbs began to smoulder, and the smoke of them rose up in a thin, straight stream, that, striking upon the face of the Bee, clung about her head enveloping it as though with a strange blue veil.  Then of a sudden she stretched out her hands, and let fall the two locks of hair upon the burning herbs, where they writhed themselves to ashes like things alive.  Next she opened her mouth, and began to draw the fumes of the hair and herbs into her lungs in great gulps; while the snake, feeling the influence of the medicine, hissed and, uncoiling itself from about her neck, crept upwards and took refuge among the black saccaboola feathers of her head-dress.

Soon the vapours began to do their work; she swayed to and fro muttering, then sank back against the hut, upon the straw of which her head rested.  Now the Bee’s face was turned upwards towards the light, and it was ghastly to behold, for it had become blue in colour, and the open eyes were sunken like the eyes of one dead, whilst above her forehead the red snake wavered and hissed, reminding Hadden of the Uraeus crest on the brow of statues of Egyptian kings.  For ten seconds or more she remained thus, then she spoke in a hollow and unnatural voice: ­

“O Black Heart and body that is white and beautiful, I look into your heart, and it is black as blood, and it shall be black with blood.  Beautiful white body with black heart, you shall find your game and hunt it, and it shall lead you into the House of the Homeless, into the Home of the Dead, and it shall be shaped as a bull, it shall be shaped as a tiger, it shall be shaped as a woman whom kings and waters cannot harm.  Beautiful white body and black heart, you shall be paid your wages, money for money, and blow for blow.  Think of my word when the spotted cat purrs above your breast; think of it when the battle roars about you; think of it when you grasp your great reward, and for the last time stand face to face with the ghost of the dead in the Home of the Dead.

“O White Heart and black body, I look into your heart and it is white as milk, and the milk of innocence shall save it.  Fool, why do you strike that blow?  Let him be who is loved of the tiger, and whose love is as the love of a tiger.  Ah! what face is that in the battle?  Follow it, follow it, O swift of foot; but follow warily, for the tongue that has lied will never plead for mercy, and the hand that can betray is strong in war.  White Heart, what is death?  In death life lives, and among the dead you shall find the life you lost, for there awaits you she whom kings and waters cannot harm.”

As the Bee spoke, by degrees her voice sank lower and lower till it was almost inaudible.  Then it ceased altogether and she seemed to pass from trance to sleep.  Hadden, who had been listening to her with an amused and cynical smile, now laughed aloud.

“Why do you laugh, White Man?” asked Nahoon angrily.

“I laugh at my own folly in wasting time listening to the nonsense of that lying fraud.”

“It is no nonsense, White Man.”

“Indeed?  Then will you tell me what it means?”

“I cannot tell you what it means yet, but her words have to do with a woman and a leopard, and with your fate and my fate.”

Hadden shrugged his shoulders, not thinking the matter worth further argument, and at that moment the Bee woke up shivering, drew the red snake from her head-dress and coiling it about her throat wrapped herself again in the greasy kaross.

“Are you satisfied with my wisdom, Inkoos?” she asked of Hadden.

“I am satisfied that you are one of the cleverest cheats in Zululand, mother,” he answered coolly.  “Now, what is there to pay?”

The Bee took no offence at this rude speech, though for a second or two the look in her eyes grew strangely like that which they had seen in those of the snake when the fumes of the fire made it angry.

“If the white lord says I am a cheat, it must be so,” she answered, “for he of all men should be able to discern a cheat.  I have said that I ask no fee; ­yes, give me a little tobacco from your pouch.”

Hadden opened the bag of antelope hide and drawing some tobacco from it, gave it to her.  In taking it she clasped his hand and examined the gold ring that was upon the third finger, a ring fashioned like a snake with two little rubies set in the head to represent the eyes.

“I wear a snake about my neck, and you wear one upon your hand, Inkoos.  I should like to have this ring to wear upon my hand, so that the snake about my neck may be less lonely there.”

“Then I am afraid you will have to wait till I am dead,” said Hadden.

“Yes, yes,” she answered in a pleased voice, “it is a good word.  I will wait till you are dead and then I will take the ring, and none can say that I have stolen it, for Nahoon there will bear me witness that you gave me permission to do so.”

For the first time Hadden started, since there was something about the Bee’s tone that jarred upon him.  Had she addressed him in her professional manner, he would have thought nothing of it; but in her cupidity she had become natural, and it was evident that she spoke from conviction, believing her own words.

She saw him start, and instantly changed her note.

“Let the white lord forgive the jest of a poor old witch-doctoress,” she said in a whining voice.  “I have so much to do with Death that his name leaps to my lips,” and she glanced first at the circle of skulls about her, then towards the waterfall that fed the gloomy pool upon whose banks her hut was placed.

“Look,” she said simply.

Following the line of her outstretched hand Hadden’s eyes fell upon two withered mimosa trees which grew over the fall almost at right angles to its rocky edge.  These trees were joined together by a rude platform made of logs of wood lashed down with riems of hide.  Upon this platform stood three figures; notwithstanding the distance and the spray of the fall, he could see that they were those of two men and a girl, for their shapes stood out distinctly against the fiery red of the sunset sky.  One instant there were three, the next there were two ­for the girl had gone, and something dark rushing down the face of the fall, struck the surface of the pool with a heavy thud, while a faint and piteous cry broke upon his ear.

“What is the meaning of that?” he asked, horrified and amazed.

“Nothing,” answered the Bee with a laugh.  “Do you not know, then, that this is the place where faithless women, or girls who have loved without the leave of the king, are brought to meet their death, and with them their accomplices.  Oh! they die here thus each day, and I watch them die and keep the count of the number of them,” and drawing a tally-stick from the thatch of the hut, she took a knife and added a notch to the many that appeared upon it, looking at Nahoon the while with a half-questioning, half-warning gaze.

“Yes, yes, it is a place of death,” she muttered.  “Up yonder the quick die day by day and down there” ­and she pointed along the course of the river beyond the pool to where the forest began some two hundred yards from her hut ­“the ghosts of them have their home.  Listen!”

As she spoke, a sound reached their ears that seemed to swell from the dim skirts of the forests, a peculiar and unholy sound which it is impossible to define more accurately than by saying that it seemed beastlike, and almost inarticulate.

“Listen,” repeated the Bee, “they are merry yonder.”

“Who?” asked Hadden; “the baboons?”

“No, Inkoos, the Amatongo ­the ghosts that welcome her who has just become of their number.”

“Ghosts,” said Hadden roughly, for he was angry at his own tremors, “I should like to see those ghosts.  Do you think that I have never heard a troop of monkeys in the bush before, mother?  Come, Nahoon, let us be going while there is light to climb the cliff.  Farewell.”

“Farewell Inkoos, and doubt not that your wish will be fulfilled.  Go in peace Inkoos ­to sleep in peace.”