MAMEENA CLAIMS THE KISS

When I reached Nodwengu I was taken ill and laid up in my wagon for about a fortnight.  What my exact sickness was I do not know, for I had no doctor at hand to tell me, as even the missionaries had fled the country.  Fever resulting from fatigue, exposure and excitement, and complicated with fearful headache—­caused, I presume, by the blow which I received in the battle—­were its principal symptoms.

When I began to get better, Scowl and some Zulu friends who came to see me informed me that the whole land was in a fearful state of disorder, and that Umbelazi’s adherents, the Isigqosa, were still being hunted out and killed.  It seems that it was even suggested by some of the Usutu that I should share their fate, but on this point Panda was firm.  Indeed, he appears to have said publicly that whoever lifted a spear against me, his friend and guest, lifted it against him, and would be the cause of a new war.  So the Usutu left me alone, perhaps because they were satisfied with fighting for a while, and thought it wisest to be content with what they had won.

Indeed, they had won everything, for Cetewayo was now supreme—­by right of the assegai—­and his father but a cipher.  Although he remained the “Head” of the nation, Cetewayo was publicly declared to be its “Feet,” and strength was in these active “Feet,” not in the bowed and sleeping “Head.”  In fact, so little power was left to Panda that he could not protect his own household.  Thus one day I heard a great tumult and shouting proceeding apparently from the Isigodhlo, or royal enclosure, and on inquiring what it was afterwards, was told that Cetewayo had come from the Amangwe kraal and denounced Nomantshali, the King’s wife, as “umtakati”, or a witch.  More, in spite of his father’s prayers and tears, he had caused her to be put to death before his eyes—­a dreadful and a savage deed.  At this distance of time I cannot remember whether Nomantshali was the mother of Umbelazi or of one of the other fallen princes.*

[*—­On re-reading this history it comes back to me that she was the mother of M’tonga, who was much younger than Umbelazi. —­A.  Q.]

A few days later, when I was up and about again, although I had not ventured into the kraal, Panda sent a messenger to me with a present of an ox.  On his behalf this man congratulated me on my recovery, and told me that, whatever might have happened to others, I was to have no fear for my own safety.  He added that Cetewayo had sworn to the King that not a hair of my head should be harmed, in these words: 

“Had I wished to kill Watcher-by-Night because he fought against me, I could have done so down at Endondakusuka; but then I ought to kill you also, my father, since you sent him thither against his will with your own regiment.  But I like him well, who is brave and who brought me good tidings that the Prince, my enemy, was dead of a broken heart.  Moreover, I wish to have no quarrel with the White House [the English] on account of Macumazahn, so tell him that he may sleep in peace.”