The Ghost Kings by H. Rider Haggard (novels to read in english txt) 📕

"Well, brother, if you are sure, we had better be starting back, lest there should be trouble with the white people. Dingaan will be satisfied when we show him the moocha, and sleep in peace henceforth. She must really have been tagati (uncanny), that little Noie, for otherwise, although it is true she was pretty, why should Dingaan who has all Zululand to choose from, have fallen in love with her, and why should she have refused to enter his house, and persuaded all her kraal to run away? For my part, I don't believe that she is dead now, notwithstanding the moocha. I think that she is a witch, and has changed into something else--a bird or a snake, perhaps. Well, the rest of them will never change into anything, except black mould. Let us see. We have killed every one; all the common people, the mother of Noie, the dwarf-wizard Seyapi her father, and her other mothers, four of them, and her brothers and sisters, twelve in all."

At these words Noie again trembled beneath her seaweed, so that the water shook all about her.

"There is a fish there," said the first Kaffir, "I saw it rise. It is a small pool, shall we try to catch it?"

"No, brother," answered the other, "only coast people eat fish. I am hungry, but I will wait for man's food. Take that, fish!" and he threw a stone into the pool which struck Rachel on the side, and caused her fair hair to float about among the yellow seaweed.

Then the two of them got up and went away, walking arm-in-arm like friends and amiable men, as they were in their own fashion.

For a long time the girls remained beneath their seaweed, fearing lest the men or others should return, until at length they could bear the cold of the water no longer, and crept out of it to the brink of the little pool, where, still wreathed in seaweed, they sat and warmed themselves in the hot sunlight. Now Noie seemed to be half dead; indeed Rachel thought that she would die.

"Awake," she said, "life is still before you."

"Would that it were behind me, Lady," moaned the poor girl. "You understand our tongue--did you not hear? My father, my own mother, my other mothers, my brothers and sisters, all killed, all killed for my sake, and I left living. Oh! you meant kindly, but why did you not let Bomba pass his spear through me? It would have been quickly over, and now I should sleep with the rest."

Rachel made no answer, for she saw that talking was useless in such a case. Only she took Noie's hand and pressed it in silent sympathy, until at length the poor girl, utterly outworn with agony and the fatigue of her long flight, fell asleep, there in the sunshine. Rachel let her sleep, knowing that she would take no harm in that warmth. Quietly she sat at her side for hour after hour while the fierce sun, from which she protected her head with seaweed, dried her garments. At length the shadows told her that midday was past, and the sea water which began to trickle over the surrounding rocks that the tide was approaching its full. They could stop there no longer unless they wished to be drowned.

"Come," she said to Noie, "the Zulus have gone, and the sea is here. We must swim to the shore and go back to my father's camp."

"What place have I in your kraal, Lady?" asked the girl when her senses had returned to her.

"I will find you a place," Rachel answered; "you are mine now."

"Yes, Lady, that is true," said Noie heavily, "I am yours and no one else's," and taking Rachel's hand she pressed it to her forehead.

Then together once more they swam the pool, and not too soon, for the tide was pouring into it. Reaching the shore in safety, no easy task for Rachel, who must hold the heavy gun above her head, Noie tied Rachel's towel about her middle to take the place of her moocha, and very cautiously they crept up the kloof, fearing lest some of the Zulus might still be lurking in the neighbourhood.

At length they came to the pool into which they had thrown the soldier Bomba, and saw two crocodiles doubtless those that had eaten him, lying asleep in the sun upon flat rocks at its edge. Here they were obliged to leave the kloof both because they feared to pass the crocodiles, and for the reason that their road to the camp ran another way. So they climbed up the cliff and looked about, but could see only a pair of oribe bucks, one lying down under a tree, and one eating grass quite close to its mate.

"The Zulus have gone or there would be no buck here," said Rachel. "Come, now, hold the shield before you and the spear in your hand, to hide that you are a woman, and let us go on boldly."

So they went till they reached the crest of the next rise, and then sprang back behind it, for lying here and there they saw people who seemed to be asleep.

"The Zulus resting!" exclaimed Rachel.

"Nay," answered the girl with a sigh. "My people, dead! See the vultures gathered round them."

Rachel looked again, and saw that it was so. Without a word they walked forward, and as they passed each body Noie gave it its name. Here lay a brother, there a sister, yonder four folk of her father's kraal. They came to a tall and handsome woman of middle age, and she shivered as she had done in the pool and said in an icy voice:

"The mother who bore me!"

A few more steps and in a patch of high grass that grew round an ant-heap, they found two Zulu soldiers, each pierced through with a spear. Seated against the ant-heap also, as though he were but resting, was a light-coloured man, a dwarf in stature, spare of frame, and with sharp features. His dress, if he wore any, seemed to have been removed from him, for he was almost naked, and Rachel noticed that no wound could be seen on him.

"Behold my father!" said Noie in the same icy voice.

"But," whispered Rachel, "he only sleeps. No spear has touched him."

"Not so, he is dead, dead by the White Death after the fashion of his people."

Now Rachel wondered what this White Death might be, and of which people the man was one. That he was not a Zulu who had been stunted in his growth she could see for herself, nor had she ever met a native who at all resembled him. Still she could ask no questions at that time; the thing was too awful. Moreover Noie had knelt down before the body, and with her arms thrown around its neck, was whispering into its ear. For a full minute she whispered thus, then set her own ear to the cold stirless lips, and for another minute or more, seemed to listen intently, nodding her head from time to time. Never before had Rachel witnessed anything so uncanny, and oddly enough, the fact that this scene was enacted in the bright sunlight added to its terrors. She stood paralysed, forgetting the Zulus, forgetting everything except that to all appearance the living was holding converse with the dead.

At length Noie rose, and turning to her companion said:

"My Spirit has been good to me; I thank my Spirit, which brought me here before it was too late for us to talk together. Now I have the message."

"The message! Oh! what message?" gasped Rachel.

An inscrutable look gathered on the face of the beautiful native girl.

"It is to me alone," she answered, "but this I may say, much of it was of you, Inkosazana-y-Zoola."

"Who told you that was my native name?" asked Rachel, springing back.

"It was in the message, O thou before whom kings shall bow."

"Nonsense," exclaimed Rachel, "you have heard it from our people."

"So be it, Lady; I have heard it from your people whom I have never seen. Now let us go, your father is troubled for you."

Again Rachel looked at her sideways, and Noie went on:

"Lady, from henceforth I am your servant, am I not? and that service will not be light."

"She thinks I shall make her dig," thought Rachel to herself, as the girl continued in her low, soft voice:

"Now I ask you one thing--when I tell you my story, let it be for your breast alone. Say only that I am a common girl whom you saved from the soldier."

"Why not?" answered Rachel. "That is all I have to tell."

Then once more they went on, Rachel wondering if she dreamed, the girl Noie walking at her side, stern and cold-faced as a statue.

They reached the crest of the last rise, and there, facing them on the slope of the opposite wave of land, stood the waggon, surrounded by the thorn fence, within which the cattle and horses were still enclosed, doubtless for fear of the Zulus. Nothing could be more peaceful than the aspect of that camp. To look at it no one would have believed that within a few hundred yards a hideous massacre had just taken place. Presently, however, voices began to shout, and heads to bob up over the fence. Then it occurred to Rachel that they must think she was a prisoner in the charge of a Zulu, and she told Noie to lower the shield which she still held in front of her. The next instant some thorns were torn out, and her father, a gun in his hand, appeared striding towards them.

"Thank God that you are safe," he said as they met. "I have suffered great anxiety, although I hoped that the white man Israel--no, Ishmael--had rescued you. He came here to warn us," he added in explanation, "very early this morning, then galloped off to find you. Indeed his after-rider, whose horse he took, is still here. Where on earth have you been, Rachel, and"--suddenly becoming aware of Noie, who, arrayed only in a towel, a shield, and a stabbing spear, presented a curious if an impressive spectacle--"who is this young person?"

"She is a native girl I saved from the massacre," replied Rachel, answering the last question first. "It is a long story, but I shot the man who was going to kill her, and we hid in a pool. Are you all safe, and where is mother?"

"Shot the man! Shed human blood! Hid in a pool!" ejaculated Mr. Dove, overcome. "Really, Rachel, you are a most trying daughter. Why should you go out before daybreak and do such things?"

"I don't know, I am sure, father; predestination, I suppose--to save her life, you know."

Again he contemplated the beautiful Noie, then, murmuring something about a blanket, ran back to the camp. By this time Mrs. Dove had climbed out of the waggon, and arrived with the Kaffirs.

"I knew you would be safe, Rachel," she said in her gentle voice, "because nothing can hurt