[*--Cannon were called "by-and-byes" by the natives, because
when field-pieces first arrived in Natal inquisitive Kafirs
pestered the soldiers to show them how they were fired.
The answer given was always "By-and-bye!" Hence the name.--
EDITOR] "But, Mameena," I gasped, for this girl's titanic ambition literally
overwhelmed me, "surely you are mad! How would you do all these things?"
"I am not mad," she answered; "I am only what is called great, and you
know well enough that I can do them, not by myself, who am but a woman
and tied with the ropes that bind women, but with you to cut those ropes
and help me. I have a plan which will not fail. But, Macumazahn," she
added in a changed voice, "until I know that you will be my partner in
it I will not tell it even to you, for perhaps you might talk--in your
sleep, and then the fire in my breast would soon go out--for ever."
"I might talk now, for the matter of that, Mameena."
"No; for men like you do not tell tales of foolish girls who chance to
love them. But if that plan began to work, and you heard say that kings
or princes died, it might be otherwise. You might say, 'I think I
know where the witch lives who causes these evils'--in your sleep,
Macumazahn."
"Mameena," I said, "tell me no more. Setting your dreams on one side,
can I be false to my friend, Saduko, who talks to me day and night of
you?"
"Saduko! Piff!" she exclaimed, with that expressive gesture of her hand.
"And can I be false," I continued, seeing that Saduko was no good card
to play, "to my friend, Umbezi, your father?"
"My father!" she laughed. "Why, would it not please him to grow great
in your shadow? Only yesterday he told me to marry you, if I could, for
then he would find a stick indeed to lean on, and be rid of Saduko's
troubling."
Evidently Umbezi was a worse card even than Saduko, so I played another.
"And can I help you, Mameena, to tread a road that at the best must be
red with blood?"
"Why not," she asked, "since with or without you I am destined to tread
that road, the only difference being that with you it will lead to glory
and without you perhaps to the jackals and the vultures? Blood! Piff!
What is blood in Zululand?"
This card also having failed, I tabled my last.
"Glory or no glory, I do not wish to share it, Mameena. I will not
make war among a people who have entertained me hospitably, or plot the
downfall of their Great Ones. As you told me just now, I am nobody--just
one grain of sand upon a white shore--but I had rather be that than a
haunted rock which draws the heavens' lightnings and is drenched with
sacrifice. I seek no throne over white or black, Mameena, who walk my
own path to a quiet grave that shall perhaps not be without honour of
its own, though other than you seek. I will keep your counsel, Mameena,
but, because you are so beautiful and so wise, and because you say you
are fond of me--for which I thank you--I pray you put away these fearful
dreams of yours that in the end, whether they succeed or fail, will
send you shivering from the world to give account of them to the
Watcher-on-high."