章节正文
When all was ready, the king came out, followed by his indunas and by
me. As he appeared, wrapped in the kaross of tiger-skins and towering
a head higher than any man there, all the multitude--and it was many
as the game on the hills--cast themselves to earth, and from every lip
sharp and sudden went up the royal salute of Bayete. But Chaka took no
note; his brow was cloudy as a mountain-top. He cast one glance at the
people and one at the slayers, and wherever his eye fell men turned
grey with fear. Then he stalked on, and sat himself upon a stool to
the north of the great ring looking toward the open space.
For awhile there was silence; then from the gates of the women's
quarters came a band of maidens arrayed in their beaded dancing-
dresses, and carrying green branches in their hands. As they came,
they clapped their hands and sang softly:--
We are the heralds of the king's feast. Ai! Ai!
Vultures shall eat it. Ah! Ah!
It is good--it is good to die for the king!
They ceased, and ranged themselves in a body behind us. Then Chaka
held up his hand, and there was a patter of running feet. Presently
from behind the royal huts appeared the great company of the Abangoma,
the witch-doctors--men to the right and women to the left. In the left
hand of each was the tail of a vilderbeeste, in the right a bundle of
assegais and a little shield. They were awful to see, and the bones
about them rattled as they ran, the bladders and the snake-skins
floated in the air behind them, their faces shone with the fat of
anointing, their eyes started like the eyes of fishes, and their lips
twitched hungrily as they glared round the death-ring. Ha! ha! little
did those evil children guess who should be the slayers and who should
be the slain before that sun sank!
On they came, like a grey company of the dead. On they came in silence
broken only by the patter of their feet and the dry rattling of their
bony necklets, till they stood in long ranks before the Black One.
Awhile they stood thus, then suddenly every one of them thrust forward
the little shield in his hand, and with a single voice they cried,
"Hail, Father!"
"Hail, my children!" answered Chaka.
"What seekest thou, Father?" they cried again. "Blood?"
"The blood of the guilty," he answered.
They turned and spoke each to each; the company of the men spoke to
the company of the women.
"The Lion of the Zulu seeks blood."
"He shall be fed!" screamed the women.
"The Lion of the Zulu smells blood."
"He shall see it!" screamed the women.
"His eyes search out the wizards."
"He shall count their dead!" screamed the women.
"Peace!" cried Chaka. "Waste not the hours in talk, but to the work.
Hearken! Wizards have bewitched me! Wizards have dared to smite blood
upon the gateways of the king. Dig in the burrows of the earth and
find them, ye rats! Fly through the paths of the air and find them, ye
vultures! Smell at the gates of the people and name them, ye jackals!
ye hunters in the night! Drag them from the caves if they be hidden,
from the distance if they be fled, from the graves if they be dead. To
the work! to the work! Show them to me truly, and your gifts shall be
great; and for them, if they be a nation, they shall be slain. Now
begin. Begin by companies of ten, for you are many, and all must be
finished ere the sun sink."
"It shall be finished, Father," they answered.
Then ten of the women stood forward, and at their head was the most
famous witch-doctress of that day--an aged woman named Nobela, a woman
to whose eyes the darkness was no evil, whose scent was keen as a
dog's, who heard the voices of the dead as they cried in the night,
and spoke truly of what she heard. All the other Isanusis, male and
female, sat down in a half-moon facing the king, but this woman drew
forward, and with her came nine of her sisterhood. They turned east
and west, north and south, searching the heavens; they turned east and
west, north and south, searching the earth; they turned east and west,
north and south, searching the hears of men. Then they crept round and
round the great ring like cats; then they threw themselves upon the
earth and smelt it. And all the time there was silence, silence deep
as midnight, and in it men hearkened to the beating of their hearts;
only now and again the vultures shrieked in the trees.
At length Nobela spoke:--
"Do you smell him, sisters?"
"We smell him," they answered.
"Does he sit in the east, sisters?"
"He sits in the east," they answered.
"Is he the son of a stranger, sisters?"
"He is the son of a stranger."
Then they crept nearer, crept on their hands and knees, till they were
within ten paces of where I sat among the indunas near to the king.
The indunas looked on each other and grew grey with fear; and for me,
my father, my knees were loosened and my marrow turned to water in my
bones. For I knew well who was that son of a stranger of whom they
spoke. It was I, my father, I who was about to be smelt out; and if I
was smelt out I should be killed with all my house, for the king's
oath would scarcely avail me against the witch-doctors. I looked at
the fierce faces of the Isanusis before me, as they crept, crept like
snakes. I glanced behind and saw the slayers grasping their kerries
for the deed of death, and I say I felt like one for whom the
bitterness is overpast. Then I remembered the words which the king and
I had whispered together of the cause for which this Ingomboco was
set, and hope crept back to me like the first gleam of the dawn upon a
stormy night. Still I did not hope overmuch, for it well might happen
that the king had but set a trap to catch me.
Now they were quite near and halted.
"Have we dreamed falsely, sisters?" asked Nobela, the aged.
"What we dreamed in the night we see in the day," they answered.
"Shall I whisper his name in your ears, sisters?"
They lifted their heads from the ground like snakes and nodded, and as
they nodded the necklets of bones rattled on their skinny necks. Then
they drew their heads to a circle, and Nobela thrust hers into the
centre of the circle and said a word.
"Ha! ha!" they laughed, "we hear you! His is the name. Let him be
named by it in the face of Heaven, him and all his house; then let him
hear no other name forever!"
And suddenly they sprang up and rushed towards me, Nobela, the aged
Isanusi, at their head. They leaped at me, pointing to me with the
tails of the vilderbeestes in their hands. Then Nobela switched me in
the face with the tail of the beast, and cried aloud:--
"Greeting, Mopo, son of Makedama! Thou art the man who smotest blood
on the door-posts of the king to bewitch the king. Let thy house be
stamped flat!"
I saw her come, I felt the blow on my face as a man feels in a dream.
I heard the feet of the slayers as they bounded forward to hale me to
the dreadful death, but my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth--I
could not say a word. I glanced at the king, and, as I did so, I
thought that I heard him mutter: "Near the mark, not in it."
Then he held up his spear, and all was silence. The slayers stopped in
their stride, the witch-doctors stood with outstretched arms, the
world of men was as though it had been frozen into sleep.
"Hold!" he said. "Stand aside, son of Makedama, who art named an
evildoer! Stand aside, thou, Nobela, and those with thee who have
named him evildoer! What? Shall I be satisfied with the life of one
dog? Smell on, ye vultures, company by company, smell on! For the day
the labour, at night the feast!"
I rose, astonished, and stood on one side. The witch-doctresses also
stood on one side, wonderstruck, since no such smelling out as this
had been seen in the land. For till this hour, when a man was swept
with the gnu's tail of the Isanusi that was the instant of his death.
Why, then, men asked in their hearts, was the death delayed? The
witch-doctors asked it also, and looked to the king for light, as men
look to a thunder-cloud for the flash. But from the Black One there
came no word.
So we stood on one side, and a second party of the Isanusi women began
their rites. As the others had done, so they did, and yet they worked
otherwise, for this is the fashion of the Isanusis, that no two of
them smell out in the same way. And this party swept the faces of
certain of the king's councillors, naming them guilty of the witch-
work.
"Stand ye on one side!" said the king to those who had been smelt out;
"and ye who have hunted out their wickedness, stand ye with those who
named Mopo, son of Makedama. It well may be that all are guilty."
So these stood on one side also, and a third party took up the tale.
And they named certain of the great generals, and were in turn bidden
to stand on one side together with those whom they had named.
So it went on through all the day. Company by company the women doomed
their victims, till there were no more left in their number, and were
commanded to stand aside together with those whom they had doomed.
Then the male Isanusis began, and I could see well that by this time
their hearts were fearful, for they smelt a snare. Yet the king's
bidding must be done, and though their magic failed them here, victims
must be found. So they smelt out this man and that man till we were a
great company of the doomed, who sat in silence on the ground looking
at each other with sad eyes and watching the sun, which we deemed our
last, climb slowly down the sky. And ever as the day waned those who
were left untried of the witch-doctors grew madder and more fierce.
They leaped into the air, they ground their teeth, and rolled upon the
ground. They drew forth snakes and devoured them alive, they shrieked
out to the spirits and called upon the names of ancient kings.
At length it drew on to evening, and the last company of the witch-
doctors did their work, smelling out some of the keepers of the
Emposeni, the house of the women. But there was one man of their
company, a young man and a tall, who held back and took no share in
the work, but stood by himself in the centre of the great circle,
fixing his eyes on the heavens.
And when this company had been ordered to stand aside also together
with those whom they had smelt out, the king called aloud to the last
of the witch-doctors, asking him of his name and tribe, and why he
alone did not do his office.
"My name is Indabazimbi, the son of Arpi, O king," he answered, "and I
am of the tribe of the Maquilisini. Does the king bid me to smell out
him of whom the spirits have spoken to me as the worker of this deed?"
"I bid thee," said the king.
Then the young man Indabazimbi stepped straight forward across the
ring, making no cries or gestures, but as one who walks from his gate
to the cattle kraal, and suddenly he struck the king in the face with
the tail in his hand, saying, "I smell out the Heavens above me!"[2]
[2] A Zulu title for the king.--ED.
Now a great gasp of wonder went up from the multitude, and all looked
to see this fool killed by torture. But Chaka rose and laughed aloud.
"Thou hast said it," he cried, "and thou alone! Listen, ye people! I
did the deed! I smote blood upon the gateways of my kraal; with my own
hand I smote it, that I might learn who were the true doctors and who
were the false! Now it seems that in the land of the Zulu there is one
true doctor--this young man--and of the false, look at them and count
them, they are like the leaves. See! there they stand, and by them
stand those whom they have doomed--the innocent whom, with their wives
and children, they have doomed to the death of the dog. Now I ask you,
my people, what reward shall be given to them?"
Then a great roar went up from all the multitude, "Let them die, O
king!"
"Ay!" he answered. "Let them die as liars should!"
Now the Isanusis, men and women, screamed aloud in fear, and cried for
mercy, tearing themselves with their nails, for least of all things
did they desire to taste of their own medicine of death. But the king
only laughed the more.
"Hearken ye!" he said, pointing to the crowd of us who had been smelt
out. "Ye were doomed to death by these false prophets. Now glut
yourselves upon them. Slay them, my children! slay them all! wipe them
away! stamp them out!--all! all, save this young man!"
Then we bounded from the ground, for our hearts were fierce with hate
me. As he appeared, wrapped in the kaross of tiger-skins and towering
a head higher than any man there, all the multitude--and it was many
as the game on the hills--cast themselves to earth, and from every lip
sharp and sudden went up the royal salute of Bayete. But Chaka took no
note; his brow was cloudy as a mountain-top. He cast one glance at the
people and one at the slayers, and wherever his eye fell men turned
grey with fear. Then he stalked on, and sat himself upon a stool to
the north of the great ring looking toward the open space.
For awhile there was silence; then from the gates of the women's
quarters came a band of maidens arrayed in their beaded dancing-
dresses, and carrying green branches in their hands. As they came,
they clapped their hands and sang softly:--
We are the heralds of the king's feast. Ai! Ai!
Vultures shall eat it. Ah! Ah!
It is good--it is good to die for the king!
They ceased, and ranged themselves in a body behind us. Then Chaka
held up his hand, and there was a patter of running feet. Presently
from behind the royal huts appeared the great company of the Abangoma,
the witch-doctors--men to the right and women to the left. In the left
hand of each was the tail of a vilderbeeste, in the right a bundle of
assegais and a little shield. They were awful to see, and the bones
about them rattled as they ran, the bladders and the snake-skins
floated in the air behind them, their faces shone with the fat of
anointing, their eyes started like the eyes of fishes, and their lips
twitched hungrily as they glared round the death-ring. Ha! ha! little
did those evil children guess who should be the slayers and who should
be the slain before that sun sank!
On they came, like a grey company of the dead. On they came in silence
broken only by the patter of their feet and the dry rattling of their
bony necklets, till they stood in long ranks before the Black One.
Awhile they stood thus, then suddenly every one of them thrust forward
the little shield in his hand, and with a single voice they cried,
"Hail, Father!"
"Hail, my children!" answered Chaka.
"What seekest thou, Father?" they cried again. "Blood?"
"The blood of the guilty," he answered.
They turned and spoke each to each; the company of the men spoke to
the company of the women.
"The Lion of the Zulu seeks blood."
"He shall be fed!" screamed the women.
"The Lion of the Zulu smells blood."
"He shall see it!" screamed the women.
"His eyes search out the wizards."
"He shall count their dead!" screamed the women.
"Peace!" cried Chaka. "Waste not the hours in talk, but to the work.
Hearken! Wizards have bewitched me! Wizards have dared to smite blood
upon the gateways of the king. Dig in the burrows of the earth and
find them, ye rats! Fly through the paths of the air and find them, ye
vultures! Smell at the gates of the people and name them, ye jackals!
ye hunters in the night! Drag them from the caves if they be hidden,
from the distance if they be fled, from the graves if they be dead. To
the work! to the work! Show them to me truly, and your gifts shall be
great; and for them, if they be a nation, they shall be slain. Now
begin. Begin by companies of ten, for you are many, and all must be
finished ere the sun sink."
"It shall be finished, Father," they answered.
Then ten of the women stood forward, and at their head was the most
famous witch-doctress of that day--an aged woman named Nobela, a woman
to whose eyes the darkness was no evil, whose scent was keen as a
dog's, who heard the voices of the dead as they cried in the night,
and spoke truly of what she heard. All the other Isanusis, male and
female, sat down in a half-moon facing the king, but this woman drew
forward, and with her came nine of her sisterhood. They turned east
and west, north and south, searching the heavens; they turned east and
west, north and south, searching the earth; they turned east and west,
north and south, searching the hears of men. Then they crept round and
round the great ring like cats; then they threw themselves upon the
earth and smelt it. And all the time there was silence, silence deep
as midnight, and in it men hearkened to the beating of their hearts;
only now and again the vultures shrieked in the trees.
At length Nobela spoke:--
"Do you smell him, sisters?"
"We smell him," they answered.
"Does he sit in the east, sisters?"
"He sits in the east," they answered.
"Is he the son of a stranger, sisters?"
"He is the son of a stranger."
Then they crept nearer, crept on their hands and knees, till they were
within ten paces of where I sat among the indunas near to the king.
The indunas looked on each other and grew grey with fear; and for me,
my father, my knees were loosened and my marrow turned to water in my
bones. For I knew well who was that son of a stranger of whom they
spoke. It was I, my father, I who was about to be smelt out; and if I
was smelt out I should be killed with all my house, for the king's
oath would scarcely avail me against the witch-doctors. I looked at
the fierce faces of the Isanusis before me, as they crept, crept like
snakes. I glanced behind and saw the slayers grasping their kerries
for the deed of death, and I say I felt like one for whom the
bitterness is overpast. Then I remembered the words which the king and
I had whispered together of the cause for which this Ingomboco was
set, and hope crept back to me like the first gleam of the dawn upon a
stormy night. Still I did not hope overmuch, for it well might happen
that the king had but set a trap to catch me.
Now they were quite near and halted.
"Have we dreamed falsely, sisters?" asked Nobela, the aged.
"What we dreamed in the night we see in the day," they answered.
"Shall I whisper his name in your ears, sisters?"
They lifted their heads from the ground like snakes and nodded, and as
they nodded the necklets of bones rattled on their skinny necks. Then
they drew their heads to a circle, and Nobela thrust hers into the
centre of the circle and said a word.
"Ha! ha!" they laughed, "we hear you! His is the name. Let him be
named by it in the face of Heaven, him and all his house; then let him
hear no other name forever!"
And suddenly they sprang up and rushed towards me, Nobela, the aged
Isanusi, at their head. They leaped at me, pointing to me with the
tails of the vilderbeestes in their hands. Then Nobela switched me in
the face with the tail of the beast, and cried aloud:--
"Greeting, Mopo, son of Makedama! Thou art the man who smotest blood
on the door-posts of the king to bewitch the king. Let thy house be
stamped flat!"
I saw her come, I felt the blow on my face as a man feels in a dream.
I heard the feet of the slayers as they bounded forward to hale me to
the dreadful death, but my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth--I
could not say a word. I glanced at the king, and, as I did so, I
thought that I heard him mutter: "Near the mark, not in it."
Then he held up his spear, and all was silence. The slayers stopped in
their stride, the witch-doctors stood with outstretched arms, the
world of men was as though it had been frozen into sleep.
"Hold!" he said. "Stand aside, son of Makedama, who art named an
evildoer! Stand aside, thou, Nobela, and those with thee who have
named him evildoer! What? Shall I be satisfied with the life of one
dog? Smell on, ye vultures, company by company, smell on! For the day
the labour, at night the feast!"
I rose, astonished, and stood on one side. The witch-doctresses also
stood on one side, wonderstruck, since no such smelling out as this
had been seen in the land. For till this hour, when a man was swept
with the gnu's tail of the Isanusi that was the instant of his death.
Why, then, men asked in their hearts, was the death delayed? The
witch-doctors asked it also, and looked to the king for light, as men
look to a thunder-cloud for the flash. But from the Black One there
came no word.
So we stood on one side, and a second party of the Isanusi women began
their rites. As the others had done, so they did, and yet they worked
otherwise, for this is the fashion of the Isanusis, that no two of
them smell out in the same way. And this party swept the faces of
certain of the king's councillors, naming them guilty of the witch-
work.
"Stand ye on one side!" said the king to those who had been smelt out;
"and ye who have hunted out their wickedness, stand ye with those who
named Mopo, son of Makedama. It well may be that all are guilty."
So these stood on one side also, and a third party took up the tale.
And they named certain of the great generals, and were in turn bidden
to stand on one side together with those whom they had named.
So it went on through all the day. Company by company the women doomed
their victims, till there were no more left in their number, and were
commanded to stand aside together with those whom they had doomed.
Then the male Isanusis began, and I could see well that by this time
their hearts were fearful, for they smelt a snare. Yet the king's
bidding must be done, and though their magic failed them here, victims
must be found. So they smelt out this man and that man till we were a
great company of the doomed, who sat in silence on the ground looking
at each other with sad eyes and watching the sun, which we deemed our
last, climb slowly down the sky. And ever as the day waned those who
were left untried of the witch-doctors grew madder and more fierce.
They leaped into the air, they ground their teeth, and rolled upon the
ground. They drew forth snakes and devoured them alive, they shrieked
out to the spirits and called upon the names of ancient kings.
At length it drew on to evening, and the last company of the witch-
doctors did their work, smelling out some of the keepers of the
Emposeni, the house of the women. But there was one man of their
company, a young man and a tall, who held back and took no share in
the work, but stood by himself in the centre of the great circle,
fixing his eyes on the heavens.
And when this company had been ordered to stand aside also together
with those whom they had smelt out, the king called aloud to the last
of the witch-doctors, asking him of his name and tribe, and why he
alone did not do his office.
"My name is Indabazimbi, the son of Arpi, O king," he answered, "and I
am of the tribe of the Maquilisini. Does the king bid me to smell out
him of whom the spirits have spoken to me as the worker of this deed?"
"I bid thee," said the king.
Then the young man Indabazimbi stepped straight forward across the
ring, making no cries or gestures, but as one who walks from his gate
to the cattle kraal, and suddenly he struck the king in the face with
the tail in his hand, saying, "I smell out the Heavens above me!"[2]
[2] A Zulu title for the king.--ED.
Now a great gasp of wonder went up from the multitude, and all looked
to see this fool killed by torture. But Chaka rose and laughed aloud.
"Thou hast said it," he cried, "and thou alone! Listen, ye people! I
did the deed! I smote blood upon the gateways of my kraal; with my own
hand I smote it, that I might learn who were the true doctors and who
were the false! Now it seems that in the land of the Zulu there is one
true doctor--this young man--and of the false, look at them and count
them, they are like the leaves. See! there they stand, and by them
stand those whom they have doomed--the innocent whom, with their wives
and children, they have doomed to the death of the dog. Now I ask you,
my people, what reward shall be given to them?"
Then a great roar went up from all the multitude, "Let them die, O
king!"
"Ay!" he answered. "Let them die as liars should!"
Now the Isanusis, men and women, screamed aloud in fear, and cried for
mercy, tearing themselves with their nails, for least of all things
did they desire to taste of their own medicine of death. But the king
only laughed the more.
"Hearken ye!" he said, pointing to the crowd of us who had been smelt
out. "Ye were doomed to death by these false prophets. Now glut
yourselves upon them. Slay them, my children! slay them all! wipe them
away! stamp them out!--all! all, save this young man!"
Then we bounded from the ground, for our hearts were fierce with hate
- salute [sə´lu:t]
n.&v.招呼；行礼；敬礼 (初中英语单词) - wherever [weər´evə] conj.无论在哪里 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- bundle [´bʌndl] n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词)
- shield [ʃi:ld] n.盾牌；防御 v.保护 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- mutter [´mʌtə] v.&n.咕哝；嘀咕 (初中英语单词)
- frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- guilty [´gilti] a.有罪的；心虚的 (初中英语单词)
- fearful [´fiəfəl] a.可怕的；担心的 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- worker [´wə:kə] n.工人；劳动者；工作者 (初中英语单词)
- multitude [´mʌltitju:d] n.大群(批)；众多 (初中英语单词)
- torture [´tɔ:tʃə] n.&vt.折磨；痛苦；拷问 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- reward [ri´wɔ:d] n.&v.报答；报酬；奖赏 (初中英语单词)
- stride [straid] n.进展 v.跨过；骑 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- patter [´pætə] n.行话 v.喋喋不休 (英语四级单词)
- bewitch [´bi´witʃ] vt.蛊惑；使着迷 (英语四级单词)
- beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
- marrow [´mærəu] n.(骨)髓；精华；活力 (英语六级单词)
- outstretched [,aut´stretʃt] a.扩张的；伸长的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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