Читать книгу By Veldt and Kopje - W. C. Scully - Страница 9

The Wizard’s Rock derives its name from the circumstance that in the old days—before the advent of civilised government—it was the place of execution of those hapless creatures who were condemned for the supposed practice of witchcraft.

Before the rule of the European in South Africa there was, among the natives, a strong recrudescence from time to time of the lamentable belief that the land was full of malevolent wizards and witches, who spent most of their time in weaving deadly spells against man and beast. The consequences were terrible; men and women were put to death upon the flimsiest suspicion; torture of the most horrible kind was freely resorted to, and the wildest confession wrung from the agonised lips of some was taken as absolute confirmation of the most preposterous apprehensions.

Not more than thirty years ago many a dolorous procession wended its way up to this jutting peak, from the base of which, hundreds of feet below, a slope, covered with noble forest, fell away to a deep and rapid river. The doomed wretch would be blindfolded and placed, standing, at the edge of the precipice. Then the executioner would deal him a smashing blow on the side of the head with a heavily knobbed stick, and thus hurl him into the abyss.

Among the broken rocks below, the curious may, even at this late day, find fragments of human bones. The place has an evil reputation; no native boy cares to go near it; no bribe would induce one to visit it alone. Now and then a few of the bolder spirits, finding themselves in the forest, make an excursion to the foot of the great rock, but they steal along breathlessly from tree to tree and from stone to stone, taking cover at each and listening fearfully lest the restless “imishologu”—the spirits of the wicked ones who have died violently—should be unseasonably awake. Then the fall of a dead bough, the rush of a troop of monkeys through the branches, the slightest unfamiliar echo from the beetling crag, will send them flying toward the open in speechless terror, with ashen-grey faces and staring eyes. Afterward they will boast loudly to their friends of the bravery evinced in the visit, omitting, of course, all reference to the invariable panic.

The day following the assembling of the lepers at the Magistracy died splendidly. To seaward the milk-white thunderclouds which marked the track of the monsoon towered into the deep azure, and when the sun began to sink behind the great mountain range to westward, every stately vapour-turret took on a changing glory, while in the inky vaults between incessant lightnings played.

Since early in the afternoon the poor lepers had been laboriously ascending the mountain by the different footpaths. Many were hardly able to hobble, but these were assisted by others whose legs were not so badly affected. Mangèlè bore upon his broad back an old man whose feet had completely crumbled away. Leaving this poor creature at the summit, he returned and helped the weaker among the others to ascend. The sun was still some little distance above the horizon when the last of the self-doomed band sank panting at the edge of the cliff. Of the four-and-twenty who had come to the Residency to interview the Magistrate, twenty had assembled at the Rock. The others, three women and a man, had felt their courage fail them, so had decided to accept their less violent, though dreaded, fate and go to Emjanyana.

’Mpofu, the oldest of the men, dragged his shapeless frame to a stone, against which he leant, supporting himself by his stick at the same time. He trembled violently and made several attempts before he succeeded in speaking. Then his voice came in a husky quaver. The others turned toward him with an air of expectancy.

“It is,” he said, “a long time since I last stood on this spot. I was then hardly a man; Hintza was Chief. We came here to look upon the killing of Gungubèlè, who was ‘smelt out’ for having bewitched his elder brother. I leant my head over the edge of the rock and listened for the thud of his body as it struck the stones, far down. I thought the wind had borne it away, but at length it struck me like a club. Many seasons have since passed, but that sound has ever since been in my ears. And now—when my body falls—”

A shudder passed through the crouching creatures; one or two of the women began to whimper and a few near the verge drew back with looks of terror. Mangèlè sprang to his feet.

“What is this?” he cried in an angry voice; “has ‘the sickness’ filled your heart as well as your bones with water, O ’Mpofu, my father? Is yours the voice that calls dogs thirsty for death back from the fountain? Was it not your word that made me the leader of this army of dead men who are yet alive—and will you now turn them back on the day of battle? Shame on you. Listen to me, oh, my brothers, and not to this old man whose heart shrinks because of a sound he heard on a day before we were born. I am young, and death is more bitter to the young than to the old. My kraal is full of cattle; the dowry has been paid for my bride, yet I stand here to-day and am not afraid to die. Listen now to a new word in a strange tongue, but a word which you nevertheless may understand if you will:

“For a long time I have known that my sickness was like your own—the sickness that no doctor can cure. Through the long nights, when others slept, I have sat alone under the stars, and the voices of the darkness have taught me many things. Now, the greatest and strangest of these things was this: that I loved you who have suffered through your long lives what I am but beginning to suffer, and it is out of that love that I have brought you here to-day to put an end to your pain. Out of the darkness came another strange word—a word which has taught me how to die, to die with my eyes open; but I could not bear to die and leave you helpless in the pain you have endured so long. All this is the wisdom which I have learned from those voices of which the darkness is full.”

When Mangèlè ceased speaking his hearers broke out into loud wailing. One of the women crept shrinkingly to the verge of the precipice, glanced over the edge, and drew back with a shriek. Then she covered her face with her blanket and lay upon the ground, grovelling. The others, who had silently watched her, broke into renewed and terror-stricken wails as she drew back. Mangèlè once more began to speak, a note of thunder in his voice; all at once shrank into silence.

“This will I do for the sake of the love I bear you, and for that ye know not your own minds, nor what is good for you; this will I do because my heart is strong where yours is weak: I will hurl you one by one over the rock and then follow you myself. Look your last upon the sun, oh my brothers and sisters whom I love, for you are about to die.”

At this the wretched creatures grovelled about Mangèlè’s feet, beseeching him to spare their lives. They would, they said, go to Emjanyana and live peacefully like cattle in the kraal of their father, the Government. Their hearts were full of water; they were old and weak. They would not have minded death by shooting, at the Residency, but this was an evil place which bore a bad name from the most ancient days. The House of Death was cold and the road to it, over the steep cliff and the sharp stone beneath, painful. Even though they were sick they still could feel the warmth of the sun. If he loved them, let Mangèlè leave them until Death came of his own accord and sought them out.

Mangèlè stood with bent head in the middle of the prostrate crowd and listened to their piteous pleadings. When at length he lifted his face a change had come over it—a wistful, transfiguring gentleness had taken the place of the look of stern indignation it had borne when he last spoke. Silencing the wailing creatures with a gesture, he said:

“Peace, peace; your words have made me weak. Live, then, since you fear to die.”

Mangèlè stepped from among the crouching throng and took his stand on the very verge of the cliff. The sun was just about to disappear; its last level beams swept across the world and seemed to search out and reveal every noble curve and graceful line in the ebon limbs and trunk of the splendidly proportioned man who was about to destroy his beauty to save it from loathsome decay—they lit the noble face and head until these took on a sublime look of leonine anguish and the sombre eyes seemed to glare a tremendous indictment against Nature and Fate.

“Farewell, brothers and sisters who have not been taught how to die. Tell the girl Nosèmbè that my thoughts were of her as I sped to the sharp rocks.”

As he spoke the last word Mangèlè sprang backward over the cliff. Old ’Mpofu and a woman shut their eyes and bent their heads sideways toward the verge. A few seconds afterward a heavy thud from below smote on the ears of all. A low groan broke from their lips—

A sound of approaching footsteps and laboured breathing was heard, and just afterward a tall young woman stepped in among the huddled throng. It was Nosèmbè, who, having heard a rumour of the impending tragedy, hastened to join the man she loved and die with him.

“Ho, ye who are here,” she said, after her eye had swept around the circle, “how is it then that your leader has not come? But there is his blanket and his stick; speak; where is Mangèlè, my lover?”

No one dared to answer; all sank their faces to the earth.

“Ha!” Nosèmbè cried, “I see the truth ye dare not speak—he is dead and ye are not ashamed to be alive … He waits for me … I take him his unborn child.”

Then, with a long, shrill call upon her lover’s name, Nosèmbè leaped into the abyss.

Shortly after these events, on a day that was a dream of beauty, a couple of wagons drawn by long teams of oxen crossed the Lunda Divide by the road to Emjanyana. In the wagons were seated those of the lepers who were unable to walk. Hobbling after them came the rest, a dreary band, their heads bent, their whole appearance suggestive of stolid and hopeless misery. None attempted to turn back. They had attained the calm of consent.

When the top of the divide was reached the drivers called a halt for the purpose of breathing the oxen. The poor lepers gazed back long and lovingly at the valleys wherein they had dwelt all their lives and which they never more would see.

No tear was shed; not a word was spoken; not a sigh or a groan broke the silence. The police who formed the escort had dismounted for a space at the side of the road.

After a few minutes Sergeant Galada signed to the drivers to proceed, and the wagons rumbled heavily down the slope. The lepers sat on the ground, still gazing backward, and seemingly unconscious that the wagons had gone forward.

Then the policemen came up and gently—very gently—urged the exiled and disinherited creatures to continue their journey.

Note 1. The dowry paid by the bridegroom to the bride’s father after the manner of the ancient Spartans.