I listened to this amazing message in silence, then asked if Mameena was alone.
“No, Baas; Umbelazi and some soldiers were with her, but they did not hear her words, for she stepped aside to speak with me. Then she returned to them, and they walked away swiftly, and were swallowed up in the night.”
“Very good, Sikauli,” I said. “Make me some coffee, and make it strong.”
I dressed and drank several cups of the coffee, all the while “thinking with my head,” as the Zulus say. Then I walked up to the kraal to see Umbezi, whom I found just coming out of his hut, yawning.
“Why do you look so black upon this beautiful morning, Macumazahn?” asked the genial old scamp. “Have you lost your best cow, or what?”
“No, my friend,” I answered; “but you and another have lost your best cow.” And word for word I repeated to him Mameena’s message. When I had finished really I thought that Umbezi was about to faint.
“Curses be on the head of this Mameena!” he exclaimed. “Surely some evil spirit must have been her father, not I, and well was she called Child of Storm.* What shall I do now, Macumazahn? Thanks be to my Spirit,” he added, with an air of relief, “she is too far gone for me to try to catch her; also, if I did, Umbelazi and his soldiers would kill me.”
[*–That, if I have not said so already, was the meaning which the Zulus gave to the word “Mameena”, although as I know the language I cannot get any such interpretation out of the name, I believe that it was given to her, however, because she was born just before a terrible tempest, when the wind wailing round the but made a sound like the word “Ma-mee-na”. –A. Q.]
“And what will Saduko do if you don’t?” I asked.
“Oh, of course he will be angry, for no doubt he is fond of her. But, after all, I am used to that. You remember how he went mad when she married Masapo. At least, he cannot say that I made her run away with Umbelazi. After all, it is a matter which they must settle between them.”
“I think it may mean great trouble,” I said, “at a time when trouble is not needed.”
“Oh, why so, Macumazahn? My daughter did not get on with the Princess Nandie–we could all see that–for they would scarcely speak to each other. And if Saduko is fond of her–well, after all, there are other beautiful women in Zululand. I know one or two of them myself whom I will mention to Saduko–or rather to Nandie. Really, as things were, I am not sure but that he is well rid of her.”
“But what do you think of the matter as her father?” I asked, for I wanted to see to what length his accommodating morality would stretch.
“As her father–well, of course, Macumazahn, as her father I am sorry, because it will mean talk, will it not, as the Masapo business did? Still, there is this to be said for Mameena,” he added, with a brightening face, “she always runs away up the tree, not down. When she got rid of Masapo–I mean when Masapo was killed for his witchcraft–she married Saduko, who was a bigger man–Saduko, whom she would not marry when Masapo was the bigger man. And now, when she has got rid of Saduko, she enters the hut of Umbelazi, who will one day be King of the Zulus, the biggest man in all the world, which means that she will be the biggest woman, for remember, Macumazahn, she will walk round and round that great Umbelazi till whatever way he looks he will see her and no one else. Oh, she will grow great, and carry up her poor old father in the blanket on her back. Oh, the sun still shines behind the cloud, Macumazahn, so let us make the best of the cloud, since we know that it will break out presently.”
“Yes, Umbezi; but other things besides the sun break out from clouds sometimes–lightning, for instance; lightning which kills.”