The White Witch of the Matabele, etc

Front matter

THE WHITE WITCH UMKOPO LET FLY THE LONGER OF HIS TWO ASSEGAIS. Frontispiece. See page 43. THE WHITE WITCH OF THE MATABELE BY FRED. WHISHAW AUTHOR OF "THE ADVENTURES OF A STOWAWAY" '' GUBBINS MINOR " UA BOYAR OF THE TERRIBLE" "THE EMPEROR'S ENGLISHMAN ETC. etc. ILLUSTRATED BY A. W. COOPER GRIFFITH FARRAN BROWNE & CO. LIMITED 35 BOW STREET, COVENT GARDEN LONDON CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE WITCH IS BORN ...... 7 II. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT ...... 16 III. THE CHILD WITCH AT HOME . . . . .24 IV. UMKOPO SEES A VISION ...... 33 V. UMKOPO MAKES A FRIEND ...... 42 VI. AMONG ELEPHANTS ....... 52 VII. THE YOUNG EAGLE RETURNS TO HIS NEST . . .62 VIII. A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE ...... 72 IX. THE WHITE WITCH BEGINS TO QUALIFY AS SUCH . . 82 X. MORE WITCHERY ....... 92 XI. M'LIMO MAKES MISCHIEF ...... IOI XII. UMGANI IN TROUBLE . . .. . . no XIII.

HOW THE WHITE WITCH BEWITCHED A REGIMENT . . 119 XIV. THE WHITE WITCH WOUNDED ..... 129 XV. THE END OF UMGANI ...... 138 XVI. UMKOPO UNDERTAKES A PIOUS DUTY .... 147 XVII. EXCITING NEWS ....... 157 XVIII. THE WHITE WITCH BEARDS THE BLACK KING . . . 166 XIX. UMKOPO SHOT ....... 176 XX. LOBENGULA IN TROUBLE ...... 186 XXI. THE WHITE WITCH COMES NEAR TO DROWNING . . 195 XXII. THE WHITE WITCH IN TRIBULATION .... 205 XXIII. THE WHITE WITCH GROWS SICK OF HIS OFFICE. . . 216 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XXIV. SIR ARTHUR FURNIVAL RECEIVES A SHOCK . . 226 XXV. UMKOPO TO THE RESCUE ...... 236 XXVI. THE WHITE WITCH RECEIVES A NEW NAME . . . 245 XXVII. A WITCH IN LOVE ....... 254 XXVIII. BESIEGED ........ 263 XXIX. A "SPITTING DEVIL" ...... 273 XXX. THE WHITE WITCH FIGHTS A DUEL .... 282 XXXI. FLIGHT ........ 291 XXXII.

UMKOPO PLAYS THE FOOL ...... 3OO XXXIII. ONE TO FIVE HUNDRED ...... 309 XXXIV. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ..... 319 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS page' UMKOPO LET FLY the LONGER OF HIS TWO ASSEGAIS . . Frontispiece UMKOPO SUDDENLY TRIPPED OVER A ROOT . . . .62 THE GREAT BEAST CAME STALKING ALONG .... 98 HE FOUND THE LION DEAD ....... 136 ONE OF THE LIONS ROARED. ..... 153 "DO YOU FEEL BAD, CHAPPIE?" ...... 186 "IN WITH YOU, I SAY" ....... 243 OFF SUDDENLY BLAZED THE "SPITTING DEVIL" ....

Chapter I The Witch Is Born Lieutenant Arthur Furnival

of the Madras Staff Corps married very young. To marry upon one's pay as lieutenant, even of the Indian Staff Corps, is a rash, if not an impossible thing to do ; but, fortunately for him, Furnival did not depend altogether upon his income as lieutenant for the support of, besides his somewhat extravagant self, a wife and possible children ; and therefore, when he proposed to Grace Porter, at Simla, her father, Colonel Porter, knowing that young Furnival had lately inherited some five hundred a year from a relative, and was, besides, heir to an English baronetcy, placed no difficulties in the way of the union, and the young people were duly married. Presently a son appeared, and was christened, like his father, Arthur ; and it was when this child was about two years of age, that Furnival's turn for long leave came round, and he — having reasons for not being specially desirous of spending his furlough in England — determined to put into execution a long cherished desire to visit South Africa and to make personal acquaintance with a sport hitherto un familiar to him, though familiarity with almost every kind of big-game shooting was, in India, a byword in connection with his name ; for Furnival was well known throughout the country as " Tiger Furnival," by reason of his love for and notorious success in the pursuit of those great creatures who had given to him their name.

Now, great shikari as he was when tigers were to be hunted, Furnival had never killed — nay, had never so much as seen a lion (outside the Zoo), and this was a circumstance which weighed upon the young sportsman as a kind of reproach ; accordingly, he had quite determined that, rather than spend his years of leave in England, where he was not upon the best of terms with his brother, the head of the family, he would devote his time and his energies to South Africa and the lions. Mrs. Furnival and the baby were to accompany him at least as far as Natal, where it would be decided, according to the accommodation there found at the disposal of travellers into the interior, whether they should extend their journey, or remain at Natal while the head of the family pursued his projects and his lions without them.

Mrs. Furnival was, however, quite determined to accompany her husband, in spite of all his arguments as to the discomforts, and even dangers, of such an enter prise ; she had, indeed, an answer to all he found to say upon the subject, which answer was — ex pressed shortly — that, for discomforts, she did not mind them ; and as to danger, why, if there was danger, she would rather share it than live in con tinual anxiety for her husband's safety. Now, when a lady, especially if she happens to be a young wife, has made up her mind as to any course with respect to which the mind of her husband remains open, the gentleman frequently comes round to her way of thinking ; so, at least, philosophers tell me ; and so, as it happens, matters fell out on this occasion ; for when Furnival had completed his arrangements for his trip up country, into the " Veldt," as they called it in those parts, and had purchased a light waggon with a fine team of " salted," i.e. acclima tised, oxen, and had engaged the services of two or three Kaffirs as drivers and hunters, it was found that the arrangements included accommoda tion for Mrs. Furnival and her little hopeful as well as for the great shikari himself, the father and lord of the flock.

Up through Natal and through the Boer country the party slowly trekked their way, and quite possibly they passed over the very spot, or near it, upon which now stands the great mushroom city of Johannesburg, of which there was no trace at that time ; and up into the no-man's-land beyond, the country of the Matabeles, into which few Europeans penetrated at that day, nearly a quarter of a century ago, though the country is full, at the time I write, of British farms and farmers, of English and American prospectors and adventurers and fortune - hunters generally ; and the capital, Buluwayo, is no longer the filthy and foul-smelling kraal of the native king, but a growing city full of English men and women and children, and stores and hotels, and boasting even telegraphic con nection with the rest of the civilised world, while it lives in the sanguine hope that, before many months have gone by, the virgin veldt may be astounded by the shriek of the locomotive and the whirr and thunder of the well-filled express from Cape Town.

But assuredly Furnival and his party no more dreamed of such things now, as they trekked their way northwards, with many halts for hunting purposes, than they had indulged in prophetic foreknowledge, while still crossing the Transvaal territory, that they trod upon ground containing sufficient wealth in gems and gold to buy up a European continent, with its cities and its churches and its banks, and all that in them was ! And it was at some point not very far from Buluwayo that a certain incident happened which — though sufficiently agitating at the time — was not of itself of the first importance, except for its bearing upon suture events. Furnival, with the hunter Gubulu, was engaged — it might be a mile away and it might be ten — in the pursuit of a herd of antelopes. He was, as a matter of fact, hunting for the family dinner, while Grace his wife and Arthur his son remained behind, encamped upon the banks of the Khami River.

The Kaffir driver was fast asleep in the shade, lying on his back and snoring after his own graceful and favourite fashion. Mrs. Furnival herself was busily occupied with household duties, having left that independent-minded youth of two and a half, Arthur Furnival junior, to amuse himself as best he could, toddling about in the long grass, chasing gaudy butterflies, and rolling to his heart's content in the soft undergrowth whenever he tripped and fell, which was every other second. Presently a lizard crawled from beneath a stump or twig close to Arthur's foot, and inspected that member for a moment before proceeding upon its journey. Perhaps the baby-foot appeared to it an alarming apparition; at anyrate, it "took to its heels," if lizards have heels, and went away at its best pace. Arthur, with a laugh of delight, toddled after it, every other moment making a clumsy dive at it, hoping to grab, but always missing it, and falling over upon his nose.

Still, the going was bad from a lizard's point of view, and the creature did not gain much upon the clumsy little human, who contrived to keep it in sight in spite of many upsets ; and eventually pursuer and pursued found themselves some thirty yards away from the spot whence the chase had started, and for the sixth time, or so, the child made a grab at the little scudding thing with many legs — and fell. Now, there happened to be a witness of these proceedings ; a witness who had followed the party ever since yesterday afternoon, and had howled and yelped all night because he had been unable to gather sufficient courage to come into the camp and forage for something to eat — enraging, thereby, Furnival senior and others, whose rest he had disturbed, and who would assuredly have shot him if he had ventured into the firelight.

Discretion was thus proved to have been the better part of valour in the case of this individual, who happened to be a hyena, and who, though he starved, at least remained alive. Besides, his long night's vigil had given him all the better appetite for a meal this morning, supposing that he should be fortunate enough, by patience and longsuffering, to raise one to his comfort. When little Arthur came out to play, that hyena realised that his prospects of a meal had taken a turn for the better. He watched the child hungrily from his hiding-place in the long grass ; and when he observed that the chase led the unsuspecting little human gradually away from its natural pro tectors, his courage rose with his hopes. He joined the chase ; that is, he kept pace with the child at a distance of five or six yards, creeping stealthily on his stomach, with his eyes aglare and his ears cocked, looking the picture of a sneak.

Several times he was on the point of making his rush, but each time his courage failed him, for hyenas are not the bravest of the brave. But when the hunt had extended, at baby-pace, to thirty yards from the camp, and the child fell a sixth or seventh time, and was in the act of recover ing its footing, after the inimitable fashion of children of that age, the hyena suddenly determined, in an access of courage, to rush in and venture all for a dinner. With a yelp and a spring it was upon the helpless little human in a moment, and, seizing it by the shoulder, sneaked away with its prize. Arthur yelled for all his lungs were worth, and his lungs were a fine pair of organs, and did their work, on emergency, thoroughly well. He yelled in a manner which admitted no doubt as to the serious nature of his grief, and his mother's ear was quick to detect the ring of distress and pain in his voice.

Grace Furnival was never without her revolver ; her husband had made this a sine qua tion in the negotiations as to her inclusion in the hunting expedition or remaining behind at Natal, and her first act in this emergency was to draw the weapon from her pocket and to fire a couple of barrels into the air as she started to run in the direction fr-wn whence came the cries of her little son. The Kaffir, at the sound, gave a last final snore, and leapt to his feet. Then, being a really useful fellow in emergencies, he gave vent to a very loud yell, and rushed away in the wrong direction, scratching his head with one hand and his leg with the other. But Mrs. Furnival's action had, as it happened, brought about the desired effect, which was to terrify the child's assailant. The two reports of her revolver frightened that hyena out of his senses.

At the first he dropped the boy, and jumped round with a yelp to face the new danger. At the second he turned again and dashed away for dear life, giving a succession of short yelps that sounded like a hysterical laugh of frenzied terror, and disappeared, leaving his little victim yelling in rage and fear upon the ground, where his mother found him the next instant, herself in the extremity of horror and fright. Arthur, though considerably hurt in arm and shoulder by the sharp teeth of the brute, was soon comforted and appeased at his mother's bosom ; but it was longer before Mrs. Furnival's condition approached calmness, and she was still pale and agitated when her husband returned from his shoot ing expedition, and remarked upon it. "Why, what's the matter, wife?" he said; " have you seen a ghost ?

" " I've had a fright, Arthur," said his wife, smiling ; " the child " — "What of him? Where is he?" the father interrupted quickly, looking about ; he was devoted to the baby. "In the waggon, and quite safe ; but he might have been— Oh, Arthur ! " To Furnival's astonishment, his wife burst into tears, and for a little while her sobs interfered with the recital of her story, which she nevertheless continued to give, as the reader has heard it, in spite of interruptions.

Chapter II Crime And Punishment When

the tale was done, Furnival heaved a sigh of relief. " Well," he said, " we may thank God it was no worse." " Thank God, thank God indeed ! " echoed his wife. "And what of the wounds?" continued Furni val ; " did you treat them ? are they deep ? " " One rather nasty gash in the upper arm ; I sucked it well first, and washed it, and then applied the medicated lint," said Grace; "and he seems to sleep quietly, and without any signs of fever." When the child's hurts were attended to at night, however, and Furnival saw the extent of the damage, he was somewhat struck by the depth of one of the wounds. " Poor little chap ! " he said ; " by George, this one must have hurt him a good bit, wife! He'll carry the mark of it, I guess, for many a year ! " " It doesn't matter for a man, luckily ! " replied Mrs. Furnival, smiling ; " if he had been a girl, it would have been awkward for evening dress !

" "Worse than vaccination!" laughed Furnival ; " however, the scar will be useful if ever we require to identify the young rascal ! " Grace joined in the laugh at this remark, for indeed it appeared a sufficiently laughable matter to think that it should ever come to identifying their own son, or that such an unmistakable chip of the old block should need identification by means of a scar, or anything else besides his own ridiculous likeness to his father ; for, as the mother had often remarked, comparing the faces of man and child, they were " as like as two stone ginger-beer bottles," allowing for difference of age. Within a fortnight Arthur the younger had quite recovered from his wounds ; he had suffered but little, and his restlessness, even at first, scarcely amounted to feverish ness.

The large gash had healed wonderfully, but his father's prognostications as to the scar that would remain to remind the child of his adventure seemed likely to prove true enough. And now there occurred a more serious adventure; a tragic episode, destined to lead to results which constitute, in fact, this eventful history. It very frequently happened that when the little English party passed within hail of a kraal or village inhabited by the natives of the country, a number of children, and sometimes even grown men and girls, followed them for a considerable distance, partly out of curiosity to see what the white men did in these parts, but principally in the hope of obtaining a share of the food with which they found that the travellers were amply supplied, and which they were ever generously ready to distribute among those who desired it.

One day a large body of villagers followed the waggon down to the banks of a river, which, at the spot chosen by Furnival for his camping-ground, appeared to be tenanted by a flourishing family of hippopotamuses.1 " Look here, Grace ! " cried her husband; " there's a sight for you — let the kid see them ! " The " kid " had observed them already, and was crowing with delight. " I'll shoot a young one for these people," con tinued Furnival. " You watch their faces — probably not one of them has ever seen a gun before." He fired, with the words, at a fine young hippopotamus floating serenely in mid-current in utter disregard of the arrival of strangers. The creature sent up two jets of water, snorted, dived, and reappeared in a moment floating down with the current, as dead as any log. The natives, who had fallen to the ground in the first terror of the noise of the explosion, now jumped to their feet, and commenced to jabber and make 1 I apologise for hippopotamuses, but what else is one to say ? it would seem pedantic to use Greek plurals, and the word is not Latin ! faces in a manner that looked supremely ridiculous to Furnival, who did not understand their remarks.

" What do they say, Gubulu?" he laughed; "are they frightened ? " " Little frighten, but big angry ! " said Gubulu, showing his white teeth in a broad grin. "Angry? why angry ?" asked Furnival, surprised. " Hippopotamus dead," said Gubulu laconically. " Well, what of that ? don't they eat hippopotamus ? it isn't so bad, you can tell them ! " " He god-beast ! " exclaimed Gubulu ; " when him dead, no rain come, corn all die." Had Furnival been aware of this superstition, he would, of course, have respected it Now, how ever, since he had committed the error, he must, he knew, make the best of it " Tell them there are plenty left to bring the rain," he said, " and they'd best eat this fellow in case the corn doesn't grow." Gubulu said something, which may have been a translation of Furnival's speech, and may not ; but at anyrate it did not appear to satisfy the natives, who retired without making any effort to secure the good meat placed at their disposal by Furnival, and shaking their heads and jabbering unceasingly until their voices were lost in the distance.

Furnival thought little of the matter, and went upon his way the following day ; in a week he had forgotten all about it, and when he returned, upwards of a month later, upon his homeward journey, it so happened that he came back almost in his old tracks, and passed through the same kraal in which dwelt those subjects of the Matabele king who had witnessed the slaughter of the hippopotamus. Now, though Furnival had forgotten all about that episode, these good folks had not. They had, on the con trary, been all the way to Buluwayo to report the affair to the king, and to ask his advice in case they should see these impious white men again. " Kill them, if you do ! " said the king ; " wipe them off the face of the earth, and bring their waggon and oxen into my kraal here ; you shall be rewarded.

Do not touch the sire-sticks which you say they carry, lest they spit fire upon you by the way. Lay an ambush, and jump out upon them, either as they pass, or at night as they sleep." Hence it was that one dark night, as the little party lay about the camp fire (the men folk), while the mother and child slept quietly within the roomy waggon, a score of dark forms stole upon them as they slept. They fell simultaneously upon the Kaffirs and upon Furnival, assegaing all three as they lay. The Kaffirs were killed on the spot, but the native who should have murdered the English man, whether rendered nervous by the sight of the weapon which lay beside him, or unnerved by the magnitude of the task entrusted to him, missed his aim, and the spear which should have pierced his heart entered his shoulder instead.

At the same instant, Mrs. Furnival, hearing the commotion, sprang out of the waggon, just as half a dozen dusky creatures sprang into it at the other side. With a couple of shots from her revolver, she put to flight the whole posse of warriors, though she wounded none of them, and as they disappeared, she caught sight of her husband lying on his back, pinned to the earth with an assegai through the top of his arm, and utterly unconscious, having fainted with the sudden shock and pain of the blow, which awoke him from sleep only to throw him into the deeper insensibility of the swoon. Grace Furnival drew forth the spear, and fetched water from the river, and with this she soon revived the wounded man. Then she glanced at the Kaffirs in turn, and found that both were dead. Then she climbed into the waggon to fetch brandy for her husband, and a moment after a shriek from within the vehicle brought poor Furnival to his feet, and staggering towards the waggon, rifle in hand.

His wife met him. " Oh, Arthur, Arthur ! " she cried,—" the child ! " " What of him ? Good God ! they've not hurt him, Grace ? — they've never " — " Gone — he's gone ! they've carried him away ! " poor Grace shrieked, frenziedly tearing at the breast of her dress. " The villains ! " said Furnival hoarsely; "if I find they have hurt the child, I will never spare a native — I will " — " Oh, don't let us think of revenge ! " sobbed the mother ; "let us take torches and seek him ! maybe they have dropped him in their fright. Oh, Arthur, let us be up and seeking the child, my poor darling ! " But though the bereaved parents searched for the rest of the night, far and near, and searched all through the following day, till the mother's limbs nearly collapsed for fatigue, and Arthur's wounded arm ached and throbbed so that he could scarcely bear the anguish of it, they found no trace of the child.

Weapons in hand, they entered, next day, the kraal which they remembered to lie close to the river at this place ; but they found it empty, and burned it to the ground, suspecting rightly, by the fact of their flight, that the late inhabitants had been the guilty persons. It was well that Furnival had taken with him both his Express rifle and his smaller weapon, which his wife carried, and plenty of cartridges for both ; for when they returned to camp after their fruitless search, they found that the waggon, with all it contained, and the oxen had been made away with during their absence. Then for many days the poor parents wandered to every point of the compass, ever hoping to find some native who could or would give them news of their beloved ; and the weeks lengthened out to a month, and that again to a second, and still they were without a trace of the child, and, alas ! one at least of them without hope also of ever hearing of him in this world ; for when Grace Furnival, ever hoping, or trying to hope, said that perhaps, during the next leave, if they returned with waggons and a party, and systematically searched the country from end to end, they might even yet hear news of the child, Furnival said — " No, wife ; it is best to face the worst : we shall never see our sweet boy again."

" But he is alive, oh, he is alive, Arthur! I am sure of it ; something tells me so ! " sobbed the mother. Arthur shook his head. "He may be alive," he said, "and God grant he is ; but how can we hope to find him? Africa is too huge a place to find one little child in. We will not hope, wife ; though to God's mercy all things are possible." " Then in God's mercy let us trust ! " said Grace, smiling through her tears ; " and if you do not call that hoping, you may call it by another name. As for me, I think it the better kind of hope."

Chapter III The Child Witch At Home If

those poor bereaved parents could, by some mysterious means, have become aware of the proceedings of those into whose hands had fallen the destiny of their little son, they might have felt some comfort. Young Arthur was, as a matter of fact, in clover. So far from being, as might have been the case, murdered out of hand, and his poor little body cast into the veldt at the mercy of hyenas and vultures ; so far, even, from being in any way ill-treated by his captors, the little fellow was, on the contrary, regarded from the first as treasure trove of a rare and valuable kind. Had he been found and taken by one of the common herd of Matabele warriors by whom the party had been surprised and treacherously attacked, his fate would probably have been very different ; but it so fell out that his actual captor was an induna, or chief, of great age and wisdom, who saw in his prize certain possibilities of future profit and advan tage to himself, and therefore brought him with great care to his own kraal and there set him with pride before the women of the place.

By these little Arthur was received with rejoicing, combined with much petting and display of native affection, which soon changed his yelling and bellowing for his mother into a wondering acquiescence in things as they were, which, indeed, did not seem so bad after all, since no one appeared in the least anxious to do him an injury. So the women laughed and chattered over the child, and put out funny black fingers to touch his little chubby face and limbs, and laughed again, and showed him to their own children, who gravely stared in their turn, and presently tentatively started a game with the new arrival. " Feed him well, women, and look carefully after him," said Umgani the induna, "for these white folk are wise and strong, and know many arts, and there is more in their heads than in ours, and maybe one day he shall teach us many things that we do not dream of, and — who knows — he may become a great king for us, and a rain-maker and god for the people such as the great Zulu races have not known before, and will lead us down into the south where his own people dwell, and we shall drive them out, and have their cattle for our own, as well as their fire-sticks.

But let no word of him come to the ears of the king, for if the king hears that we have spared the child of those who slew his river-horses, do you think he will spare us? Moreover, it is not wise to repeat for the king to hear all this which I have said ; therefore let the child grow up among our own, and if the king ask where are now the white people who slew his river cattle, let it be said that all perished — every one." So little Arthur was adopted by Umgani's people, and in a very short time became used to their habits, and forgot that he had ever been accustomed to any other way of life : he became absorbed by the Matabele among whom he lived, and grew up like them — with a difference ; and adopted their ideas — with a difference also ; and was, in fact, a Matabele child, and yet always with a difference ; a difference of which he was generally unconscious, but of which he was nevertheless at times aware.

As for his parents — well, I'm afraid it must be said that he forgot them : he cried for his mother at first bitterly and inconsolably, but presently with less bitterness ; and doubtless, after a while, if he cried for her at all, he did so without any very clear idea as to what he was bewailing, since there were several women in the kraal ready and delighted at all times to be good mothers to him, and he did not lack for maternal care and kindness. Doubtless, at any time during the first year or so of his new existence, if his own mother had suddenly appeared before him, he would have recognised her, and all the old-life would very soon have come back to him ; but it is probable that after a year of the new regime, with no one to remind him of that which had been and of those who had loved him, the past became altogether swallowed up in the present, and his poor mother, who never ceased to mourn him and to pray to God for his safety and well-being, was by him as utterly forgotten as though she had never existed.