CHAPTER IV
ISHMAEL
It may he doubted whether any well-born young English lady ever had astranger bringing-up than that which fell to the lot of Rachel Dove. Tobegin with, she had absolutely no associates, male or female, of her ownage and station, for at that period in its history such people did notexist in the country where she dwelt. Practically her only companions wereher father, a religious enthusiast, and her mother, a half broken-heartedwoman, who never for a single hour could forget the children she had lost,and whose constitutional mysticism increased upon her continually until attimes it seemed as though she had added some new quality to her normalhuman nature.
Then there were the natives, amongst whom from the beginning Rachel was asort of queen. In those first days of settlement they had never seenanybody in the least like her, no one so beautiful--for she grew upbeautiful--so fearless, or so kind. The tale of that adventure of hers asa child upon the island in the midst of the flooded torrent spread allthrough the country with many fabulous additions. Thus the Kaffirs saidthat she was a "Heaven-herd," that is, a magical person who can ward offor direct the lightnings, which she was supposed to have done upon thisnight; also that she could walk upon the waters, for otherwise how did sheescape the flood? And, lastly, that the wild beasts were her servants, forhad not the driver Tom and the natives seen the spoor of great lions rightat the mouth of the cave where she and her companion sheltered, and hadthey not heard that she called these lions into the cave to protect herand him from the other creatures? Therefore, as has been said, they gaveher a name, a very long name that meant Chieftainess, or Lady of Heaven,_Inkosazana-y-Zoola;_ for Zulu or Zoola, which we know as the title ofthat people, means Heaven, and _Udade-y-Silwana,_ or Sister of wildbeasts. As these appellations proved too lengthy for general use, evenamong the Bantu races, who have plenty of time for talking, ultimately itwas shortened to Zoola alone, so that throughout that part ofSouth-Eastern Africa Rachel came to enjoy the lofty title of "Heaven," thefirst girl, probably, who was ever so called.
With all natives from her childhood up, Rachel was on the best of terms.She was never familiar with them indeed, for that is not the way for awhite person to win the affection, or even the respect of a Kaffir. Butshe was intimate in the sense that she could enter into their thoughts andnature, a very rare gift. We whites are apt to consider ourselves thesuperior of such folk, whereas we are only different. In fact, takenaltogether, it is quite a question whether the higher sections of theBantu peoples are not our equals. Of course, we have learned more things,and our best men are their betters. But, on the other hand, among themthere is nothing so low as the inhabitants of our slums, nor have they anyvices which can surpass our vices. Is an assegai so much more savage thana shell? Is there any great gulf fixed between a Chaka and a Napoleon? Atleast they are not hypocrites, and they are not vulgar; that is theprivilege of civilised nations.
Well, with these folk Rachel was intimate. She could talk to the warriorof his wars, to the woman of her garden and her children to the childrenof that wonder world which surrounds childhood throughout the universe.And yet there was never a one of these but lifted the hand to her insalute when her shadow fell upon them. To them all she was the Inkosazana,the Great Lady. They would laugh at her father and mimic him behind hisback, but Rachel they never laughed at or mimicked. Of her mother also,although she kept herself apart from them, much the same may be said. Forher they had a curious name which they would not, or were unable toexplain. They called her "Flower-that-grows-on-a-grave." For Mr. Dovetheir appellation was less poetical. It was"Shouter-about-Things-he-does-not-understand," or, more briefly, "TheShouter," a name that he had acquired from his habit of raising his voicewhen he grew moved in speaking to them. The things that he did notunderstand, it may be explained, were not to their minds his religiousviews, which, although they considered them remarkable, were evidently hisown affair, but their private customs. Especially their family customsthat he was never weary of denouncing to the bewilderment of these poorheathens, who for their part were not greatly impressed by those of thefew white people with whom they came in contact. Therefore, with nativepoliteness, they concluded that he spoke thus rudely because he did notunderstand. Hence his name.
But Rachel had other friends. In truth she was Nature's child, if in abetter and a purer sense than Byron uses that description. The sea, theveld, the sky, the forest and the river, these were her companions, foramong them she dwelt solitary. Their denizens, too, knew her well, forunless she were driven to it, never would she lift her hand againstanything that drew the breath of life. The buck would let her pass quiteclose to them, nor at her coming did the birds stir from off their trees.Often she stood and watched the great elephants feeding or at rest, andeven dared to wander among the herds of savage buffalo. Of only two livingthings was she afraid--the snake and the crocodile, that are cursed aboveall cattle, and above every beast of the field, because being cursed theyhave no sympathy or gentleness. She feared nothing else, she who wasalways fearless, nor brute or bird, did they fear her.
After Rachel's adventure in the flooded river she and her parents pursuedtheir journey by slow and tedious marches, and at length, though in thosedays this was strange enough, reached Natal unharmed. At first they wentto live where the city of Durban now stands, which at that time had butjust received its name. It was inhabited by a few rough men, who made aliving by trading and hunting, and surrounded themselves with natives,refugees for the most part from the Zulu country. Amongst these people andtheir servants Mr. Dove commenced his labours, but ere long a bitterquarrel grew up between him and them.
These dwellers in the midst of barbarism led strange lives, and Mr. Dove,who rightly held it to be his duty to denounce wrong-doing of every sort,attacked them and their vices in no measured terms, and upon alloccasions. For long years he kept up the fight, until at length he foundhimself ostracised. If they could avoid it, no white men would speak tohim, nor would they allow him to instruct their Kaffirs. Thus his workcame to an end in Durban as it had done in other places. Now, again, hiswife and daughter hoped that he would leave South Africa for good, andreturn home. But it was not to be, for once more he announced that it waslaid upon him to follow the example of his divine Master, and that theSpirit drove him into the wilderness. So, with a few attendants, theytrekked away from Durban.
On this occasion it was his wild design to settle in Zululand--whereChaka, the great king, being dead, Dingaan, his brother and murderer,ruled in his place--and there devote himself to the conversion of theZulus. Indeed, it is probable that he would have carried out this plan hadhe not been prevented by an accident. One night when they were about fortymiles from Durban they camped on a stream, a tributary of the TugelaRiver, which ran close by, and formed the boundary of the Zulu country. Itwas a singularly beautiful spot, for to the east of them, about a mileaway, stretched the placid Indian Ocean, while to the west, overshadowingthem almost, rose a towering cliff, over which the stream poured itself,looking like a line of smoke against its rocky face. They had outspannedupon a rising hillock at the foot of which this little river wound awaylike a silver snake till it joined the great Tugela. In its general aspectthe country was like an English park, dotted here and there with timber,around which grazed or rested great elands and other buck, and amongstthem a huge rhinoceros.
When the waggon had creaked to the top of the rise, for, of course, therewas no road, and the Kaffirs were beginning to unyoke the hungry oxen,Rachel, who was riding with her father, sprang from her horse and ran toit to help her mother to descend. She was now a tall young woman, full ofhealth and vigour, strong and straightly shaped. Mrs. Dove, frail,delicate, grey-haired, placed her foot upon the disselboom and hesitated,for to her the ground seemed far off, and the heels of the cattle verynear.
"Jump," said Rachel in her clear, laughing voice, as she smacked the nearafter-ox to make it turn round, which it did obediently, for all the teamknew her. "I'll catch you."
But he
r mother still hesitated, so thrusting her way between the ox andthe front wheel Rachel stretched out her arms and lifted her bodily to theground.
"How strong you are, my love!" said her mother, with a sort of wonderingadmiration and a sad little smile; "it seems strange to think that I evercarried you."
"One had need to be in this country, dear," replied Rachel cheerfully."Come and walk a little way, you must be stiff with sitting in that horridwaggon," and she led her quite to the top of the knoll. "There," sheadded, "isn't the view lovely? I never saw such a pretty place in allAfrica. And oh! look at those buck, and yes--that is a rhinoceros. I hopeit won't charge us."
Mrs. Dove obeyed, gazing first at the glorious sea, then at the plain andthe trees, and lastly behind her at the towering cliff steeped inshadow--for the sun was westering--down the face of which the waterfallseemed to hang like a silver rope.
As her eyes fell upon this cliff Mrs. Dove's face changed.
"I know this spot," she said in a hurried voice. "I have seen it before."
"Nonsense, mother," answered Rachel. "We have never trekked here, so howcould you?"
"I can't say, love, but I have. I remember that cliff and the waterfall;yes, and those three trees, and the buck standing under them."
"One often feels like that, about having seen places, I mean, mother, butof course it is all nonsense, because it is impossible, unless one dreamsof them first."
"Yes, love, unless one dreams. Well, I think that I must have dreamt. Whatwas the dream now? Rachel weeping--Rachel weeping--my love, I think thatwe are going to live here, and I think--I think----"
"All right," broke in her daughter quickly, with a shade of anxiety in hervoice as though she did not wish to learn what her mother thought. "Idon't mind, I am sure. I don't want to go to Zululand, and see this horridDingaan, who is always killing people, and I am quite sure that fatherwould never convert him, the wicked monster. It is like the Garden ofEden, isn't it, with the sea thrown in. There are all the animals, andthat green tree with the fruit on it might be the Tree of Life, and--oh,my goodness, there is Adam!"
Mrs. Dove followed the line of her daughter's outstretched hand, andperceived three or four hundred yards away, as in that sparklingatmosphere it was easy to do, a white man apparently clad in skins. He wasengaged in crawling up a little rise of ground with the obvious intentionof shooting at some blesbuck which stood in a hollow beyond with quaggasand other animals, while behind him was a mounted Kaffir who held hismaster's horse.
"I see," said Mrs. Dove, mildly interested. "But he looks more likeRobinson Crusoe without his umbrella. Adam did not kill the animals in theGarden, my dear."
"He must have lived on something besides forbidden apples," remarkedRachel, "unless perhaps he was a vegetarian as father wants to be.There--he has fired!"
As she spoke a cloud of smoke arose above the man, and presently the loudreport of a _roer_ reached their ears. One of the buck rolled over and laystruggling on the ground, while the rest, together with many others at adistance, turned and galloped off this way and that, frightened by thisnew and terrible noise. The old rhinoceros under the tree rose snorting,sniffed the air, then thundered away up wind towards the man, its pig-liketail held straight above its back.
"Adam has spoilt our Eden; I hope the rhinoceros will catch him," saidRachel viciously. "Look, he has seen it and is running to his horse."
Rachel was right. Adam--or whatever his name might be--was running withremarkable swiftness. Reaching the horse just as the rhinoceros appearedwithin forty yards of him, he bounded to the saddle, and with his servantgalloped off to the right. The rhinoceros came to a standstill for a fewmoments as though it were wondering whether it dared attack these strangecreatures, then making up its mind in the negative, rushed on andvanished. When it was gone, the white man and the Kaffir, who had pulledup their horses at a distance, returned to the fallen buck, cut itsthroat, and lifted it on to the Kaffir's horse, then rode slowly towardsthe waggon.
"They are coming to call," said Rachel. "How should one receive agentleman in skins?"
Apparently some misgivings as to the effect that might be produced by hisappearance occurred to the hunter. At any rate, he looked first at the twowhite women standing on the brow, and next at his own peculiar attire,which appeared to consist chiefly of the pelt of a lion, plus a verystriking pair of trousers manufactured from the hide of a zebra, andhalted about sixty yards away, staring at them. Rachel, whose sight wasexceedingly keen, could see his face well, for the light of the settingsun fell on it, and he wore no head covering. It was a dark, handsome faceof a man about thirty-five years of age, with strongly-marked features,black eyes and beard, and long black hair that fell down on to hisshoulders. They gazed at each other for a while, then the man turned tohis after-rider, gave him an order in a clear, strong voice, and rode awayinland. The after-rider, on the contrary, directed his horse up the riseuntil he was within a few yards of them, then sprang to the ground andsaluted.
"What is it?" asked Rachel in Zulu, a language which she now spokeperfectly.
"Inkosikaas" (that is--Lady), answered the man, "my master thinks that youmay be hungry and sends you a present of this buck," and, as he spoke, heloosed the riem or hide rope by which it was fastened behind his saddle,and let the animal fall to the ground.
Rachel turned her eyes from it, for it was covered with blood, andunpleasant to look at, then replied:
"My father and my mother thank your master. How is he named, and wheredoes he dwell?"
"Lady, among us black people he is named Ibubesi (lion), but his whitename is Hishmel."
"Hishmel, Hishmel?" said Rachel. "Oh! I know, he means Ishmael. There,mother, I told you he was something biblical, and of course Ishmael dweltin the wilderness, didn't he, after his father had behaved so badly topoor Hagar, and was a wild man whose hand was against every man's."
"Rachel, Rachel," said her mother suppressing a little smile. "Your fatherwould be very angry if he heard you. You should not speak lightly of holypersons."
"Well, mother, Abraham may have been a holy person, but we should thinkhim a mean old thing nowadays, almost as mean as Sarah. You know they weremost of them mean, so what is the use of pretending they were not?"
Then without waiting for an answer she asked the Kaffir again: "Where doesthe Inkoos Ishmael dwell?"
"In the wilderness," answered the man appropriately. "Now his kraal isyonder, two hours' ride away. It is called Mafooti," and he pointed overthe top of the precipice, adding: "he is a hunter and trades with theZulus."
"Is he Dutch?" asked Rachel, whose curiosity was excited.
The Kaffir shook his head. "No, he hates the Dutch; he is of the people ofGeorge."
"The people of George? Why, he must mean a subject of King George--anEnglishman."
"Yes, yes, Lady, an Englishman, like you," and he grinned at her. "Haveyou any message for the Inkoos Hishmel?"
"Yes. Say to the Inkoos Ishmael or Lion-who-dwells-in-the-wilderness,hates the Dutch and wears zebra-skin trousers, that my father and mymother thank him very much for his present, and hope that his health isgood. Go. That is all."
The man grinned again, suspecting a joke, for the Zulus have a sense ofhumour, then repeated the message word for word, trying to pronounceIshmael as Rachel did, saluted, mounted his horse, and galloped off afterhis master.
"Perhaps you should have kept that Kaffir until your father came,"suggested Mrs. Dove doubtfully.
"What was the good?" said Rachel. "He would only have asked Mr. Ishmael tocall in order that he might find out his religious opinions, and I don'twant to see any more of the man."
"Why not, Rachel?"
"Because I don't like him, mother. I think he is worse than any of therest down there, too bad to stop among them probably, and--" she addedwith conviction, "I think we shall have more of his company than we wantbefore all is done. Oh! it is no good to say that I am prejudiced--I do,and what is more, he came into our Garden of Eden and shot
the buck. Ihope he will meet that rhinoceros on the way home. There!"
Although she disapproved, or tried to think that she did, of such strongopinions so strongly expressed, Mrs. Dove offered no further opposition tothem. The fact was that her daughter's bodily and mental vigourovershadowed her, as they did her husband also. Indeed, it seemed curiousthat this girl, so powerful in body and in mind, should have sprung fromsuch a pair, a wrong-headed, narrow-viewed saint whose right place in theworld would have been in a cell in the monastery or one of the stricterorders, and a gentle, uncomplaining, high-bred woman with a minddistinguished by its affectionate and mystical nature, a mind so unusualand refined that it seemed to be, and in truth was, open to influenceswhereof, mercifully enough, the majority of us never feel the subtle,secret power.
Of her father there was absolutely no trace in Rachel, except a certainphysical resemblance--so far as he was concerned she must have thrown backto some earlier progenitor. Even their intellects and moral outlook werequite different. She had, it is true, something of his scholarly power;thus, notwithstanding her wild upbringing, as has been said, she couldread the Greek Testament almost as well as he could, or even Homer, whichshe liked because the old, bloodthirsty heroes reminded her of the Zulus.He had taught her this and other knowledge, and she was an apt pupil. Butthere the resemblance stopped. Whereas his intelligence was narrow andenslaved by the priestly tradition, hers was wide and human. She searchedand she criticised; she believed in God as he did, but she saw His purposeworking in the evil as in the good. In her own thought she often comparedthese forces to the Day and Night, and believed both of them to benecessary to the human world. For her, savagery had virtues as well ascivilisation, although it is true of the latter she knew but little.
From her mother Rachel had inherited more, for instance her grace ofspeech and bearing, and her intuition, or foresight. Only in her case thiscurious gift did not dominate her, her other forces held it in check. Shefelt and she knew, but feeling and knowledge did not frighten or make herweak, any more than the strength of her frame or of her spirit made herunwomanly. She accepted these things as part of her mental equipment, thatwas all, being aware that to her a door was opened which is shut firmlyenough in the faces of most folk, but not on that account in the leastafraid of looking through it as her mother was.
Thus when she saw the man called Ishmael, she knew well enough that he wasdestined to bring great evil upon her and hers, as when as a child she metthe boy Richard Darrien, she had known other things. But she did not,therefore, fear the man and his attendant evil. She only shrank from thefirst and looked through the second, onward and outward to the ultimategood which she was convinced lay at the end of everything, and meanwhile,being young and merry, she found his zebra-skin trousers very ridiculous.
Just as Rachel and her mother finished their conversation about Mr.Ishmael, Mr. Dove arrived from a little Kloof, where he had been engagedwith the Kaffirs in cutting bushes to make a thorn fence round their campas a protection against lions and hyenas. He looked older than when welast met him, and save for a fringe of white hair, which increased hismonkish appearance, was quite bald. His face, too, was even thinner andmore eager, and his grey eyes were more far-away than formerly; also hehad grown a long white beard.
"Where did that buck come from?" he asked, looking at the dead creature.
Rachel told him the story with the result that, as her mother hadexpected, he was very indignant with her. It was most unkind, and indeed,un-Christian, he said, not to have asked this very courteous gentlemaninto the camp, as he would much have liked to converse with him. He hadoften reproved her habit of judging by external, and in the veld, lion andzebra skins furnish a very suitable covering. She should remember thatsuch were given to our first parents.
"Oh! I know, father," broke in Rachel, "when the climate grew too cold forleaf petticoats and the rest. Now don't begin to scold me, because I mustgo to cook the dinner. I didn't like the look of the man; besides, he rodeoff. Then it wasn't my business to ask him here, but mother's, who stoodstaring at him and never said a single word. If you want to see him somuch, you can go to call upon him to-morrow, only don't take me, please.And now will you send Tom to skin the buck?"
Mr. Dove answered that Tom was busy with the fence, and, ceasing fromargument which he felt to be useless with Rachel, suggested doubtfullythat he had better be his own butcher.
"No, no," she replied, "you know you hate that sort of thing, as I do. Letit be till the Kaffirs have time. We have the cold meat left for supper,and I will boil some mealies. Go and help with the fence, father while Ilight the fire."
Usually Rachel was the best of sleepers. So soon as she laid her head uponwhatever happened to serve her for a pillow, generally a saddle, her eyesshut to open no more till daylight came. On this night, however, it wasnot so. She had her bed in a little flap tent which hooked on to the sideof the waggon that was occupied by her parents. Here she lay wide awakefor a long while, listening to the Kaffirs who, having partaken heartilyof the buck, were now making themselves drunk by smoking _dakka_, orIndian hemp, a habit of which Mr. Dove had tried in vain to break them. Atlength the fire around which they sat near the thorn fence on the furtherside of the waggon, grew low, and their incoherent talk ended in silence,punctuated by snores. Rachel began to dose but was awakened by thelaughing cries of the hyenas quite close to her. The brutes had scentedthe dead buck and were wandering round the fence in hope of a midnightmeal. Rachel rose, and taking the gun that lay at her side, threw a cloakover her shoulders and left the tent.
The moon was shining brightly and by its light she saw the hyenas, two ofthem, wolves as they are called in South Africa, long grey creatures thatprowled round the thorn fence hungrily, causing the oxen that were tied tothe trek tow and the horses picketed on the other side of the waggon, tolow and whinny in an uneasy fashion. The hyenas saw her also, for her headrose above the rough fence, and being cowardly beasts, slunk away. Shecould have shot them had she chose, but did not, first because she hatedkilling anything unnecessarily, even a wolf, and secondly because it wouldhave aroused the camp. So she contented herself by throwing more dry woodon to the fire, stepping over the Kaffirs, who slept like logs, in orderto do so. Then, resting upon her gun like some Amazon on guard, she gazeda while at the lovely moonlit sea, and the long line of game trekkingsilently to their drinking place, until seeing no more of the wolves orother dangerous beasts, she turned and sought her bed again.
She was thinking of Mr. Ishmael and his zebra-skin trousers; wondering whythe man should have filled her with such an unreasoning dislike. If shehad disliked him at a distance of fifty paces, how she would hate him whenhe was near! And yet he was probably only one of those broken soldiers offortune of whom she had met several, who took to the wilderness as a lastresource, and by degrees sank to the level of the savages among whom theylived, a person who was not worth a second thought. So she tried to puthim from her mind, and by way of an antidote, since still she could notsleep, filled it with her recollections of Richard Darrien. Some years hadgone by since they had met, and from that time to this she had never hearda word of him in which she could put the slightest faith. She did not evenknow whether he were alive or dead, only she believed that if he were deadshe would be aware of it. No, she had never heard of him, and it seemedprobable that she never would hear of him again. Yet she did not believethat either. Had she done so her happiness--for on the whole Rachel was ahappy girl--would have departed from her, since this once seen lad neverleft her heart, nor had she forgotten their farewell kiss.
Reflecting thus, at length Rachel fell off to sleep and began to dream,still of Richard Darrien. It was a long dream whereof afterwards she couldremember but little, but in it there were shoutings, and black faces, andthe flashing of spears; also the white man Ishmael was present there. Onepart, however, she did remember; Richard Darrien, grown taller, changedand yet the same, leaning over her, warning her of danger to come, warningher against this man Ish
mael.
She awoke suddenly to see that the light of dawn was creeping into hertent, that low, soft light which is so beautiful in Southern Africa.Rachel was disturbed, she felt the need of action, of anything that wouldchange the current of her thoughts. No one was about yet. What should shedo? She knew; the sea was not more than a mile away, she would go down toit and bathe, and be back before the rest of them were awake.
The Ghost Kings Page 4
