Forging the Blades Part 19

"Very much so, except when I could get hold of some black chap for a guide," answered Denham, easily again. "I suppose, though, in the light of your discovery I must consider myself jolly lucky to have come through with a whole skin."

The ease and tactfulness of the answer saved the situation. The tension relaxed. Stride had been having a little too much whisky, was the consensus of opinion. But, by a strange instinct, one, or even two there present were not prepared to swear to themselves that there could be nothing in it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

FORGING THE BLADES.

Malemba, the a.s.segai-maker, sat plying his trade busily. Around him, interestedly watching the process, squatted several young Zulus.

Malemba was an old man, and grizzled. He wore the ring, as well he might, for his trade was a profitable one, and he had wives and cattle galore. He had made a.s.segais for the fighting men of Dingana and Mpande and Cetywayo, and as a skilled craftsman his repute was great. In those days his remuneration had been rendered in cattle or other kind, now it was in hard English money, and nothing else would satisfy him.

Such blades he turned out, such splendid blades, keen as razors, the fluting in perfect symmetry--broad blades for close quarter, stabbing purposes; long, tapering ones, which would bring down a buck at forty yards if well thrown, or an enemy at the same distance. Why, Dingana had commanded them more than once, indeed when a more powerful but less skilful rival had sought his destruction that king had ordered the death of that rival instead. Cetywayo had even more keenly appreciated his skilful craftsmans.h.i.+p, so that Malemba might safely have put up a notice over his primitive forge: "a.s.segai-forger to the Royal Family."

His son, Umjozo, did the stick-making; and the binding of the blades, and the plaiting of the raw hide which should secure these within their hafts to last for all time, was a work of art in itself. By and by Birmingham-forged blades were imported, surrept.i.tiously, by the traders; but the a.s.segai turned out by old Malemba and his son never fell in reputation. It was to the imported article as the production of a crack firm of gun-makers would be to the cheap gun purchasable at six or seven pounds in an ironmonger's shop. And yet it was forged mostly out of old sc.r.a.p iron--cask-hoops, nuts, bolts, anything thrown away by the roadside, but carefully collected.

For years Malemba's trade had been in abeyance, if not practically extinct. There had been occasional rumours which threatened to call it forth again, but nothing had come of them. Well, it didn't matter. He was a rich man, in short, a successful manufacturer who had made his pile and could afford to retire. And yet--and yet--the hard English money flowed into the country, and it represented everything that should render a man's declining years comfortable and pleasant; and further, Malemba loved his craft, and took an artist's pride in it; wherefore even his prosperity left something further to wish for.

Then sporadic rumours began to creep about, and the atmosphere became charged. In the midst of which Malemba was sent for by a powerful chief, and offered such tempting inducements that he decided to open his forge again. And that chief was Sapazani.

For Sapazani had wielded weapons of Malemba's manufacture with his own hand, had wielded them to considerable purpose, too. He desired nothing so much as to wield them again.

Sapazani, the ultra-conservative, had no use for a.s.segais fabricated across the seas. He knew the balance and the temper of the home-made article to a nicety, especially that made by Mklemba. Wherefore he sent his invitation to the latter, and lo! under the noses of the civil officials and the half-dozen police who represented or carried out law and order in the district, Malemba's forge was set up, and turned out its score of a.s.segais _per diem_. But the Lumisana district was a very wide, wild and, in parts, inaccessible tract, and in one of its most remote and inaccessible ranges was Malemba's forge set up.

"Ah, my sons," said the old man, as he paused in his work to take snuff, while his a.s.sistants were arranging their primitive bellows. "Ah, my sons, I fear me that what I do is useless. What are these poor weapons beside the thunder and lightning wherewith the Amangisi and the Amabuna poured death upon each other from distances further than a man can see?

How then will ye get near enough to use these?"

"But, my father," answered one of the spectators, "what if the _iza.n.u.si_ put _muti_ upon us which render the white man's bullets of no avail?"

The old man chuckled, and his face crinkled up.

"Will the _iza.n.u.si_ doctor themselves and then stand up and let themselves be shot at?" he answered. "Will they do this? _Ou_!"

This was a puzzler. His hearers were pretty sure they would do no such thing, yet so ingrained is this stale and flimsy superst.i.tion, that notwithstanding the numbers of times its utter fallacy had been proved, there is no getting it out of the native system.

"I made blades for that Elephant who fell by 'the stroke of Sopuza,'

when your fathers were children," went on the old man, "Dingana, who scourged the Amabuna as a whip-lash scourges an ox, until he had to take flight when our nation was divided. But then the guns of the Amabuna shot but feebly and there was opportunity to run in and make an end.

But now, when the white man's bullets fall thick as the stones in the fiercest hail storm, what chance have ye with these?" pointing to a row of blades which awaited the binding. Whereby it will be seen that Malemba was progressive.

Even this argument did not impress the group. They were inclined to make very light of it.

"We will not allow them time to fire their bullets at all, my father,"

laughed another of them. "We shall eat them up while they sleep."

"But will they sleep?" said the old man, his head on one side.

"Will they not? They are asleep even now," came the answer. "We need not even wait until night. They are scattered. We can take them at any time--when 'the word' is given."

"When 'the word' is given! Ah! ah! When the word is given." And the old man chuckled darkly.

"What means our father?"

"What I mean? What if 'the word' is given too late? Or worse still-- too soon? _Ou_!"

"That will not be, my father. The chain is now forged, even as these blades. And the whites are scattered--scattered. They lie in our hands."

"Let them not lie there too long, or perchance they may spring out,"

returned Malemba quizzically. "Well, I have nought to do with it, I who am old. I can but make you the weapons, it is for yourselves to wield them. And most of you have never learned the art. You were born too late."

A laugh went up at this. The old a.s.segai-maker was looked upon with the greatest veneration. His wisdom was recognised and appreciated. But to these young bloods, fed up of late on conspiracy, and yearning to prove themselves worthy of their warrior ancestors, mere wisdom was at a slump just then.

"I can but make you a.s.segais," repeated the old man. "I am too old to wield them."

And he resumed his work, crooning, to the strokes of the hammer, a s.n.a.t.c.h from an old war-song--

"Nantsi 'ndaba-- Indaba yemkonto!

Ji-jji! Ji-jji!"

["That is the talk. The talk of the a.s.segais." "Ji-jji" is the stabbing hiss.]

"These whites, they are not so powerful as we are told," said one of the group. "I have been among them--have worked for them, where they dig the gold, the gold that is turned into round money that makes them rich--and us. _Whau_! They will do anything for money! Ha!"

An evil laugh went round among his listeners.

"Their women," echoed another. "When 'the word' goes forth we shall take their women, when the rest are dead. It will make a pleasant change."

But the old a.s.segai-maker went on crooning his old and appropriate war-song--

"Nantsi 'ndaba-- Indaba yemkonto."

"That is not much change, except for the worse," said another. "Their women. A set of hut poles!" Whereat a great laugh went up from the gathering. "Sons of my father, I would not pay half a calf in _lobola_ for one white woman I have ever seen."

"Half a calf! _Au_! What of Izibu?" This, it will be remembered, was Verna Halse's name.

"Izibu?" returned the first speaker. "She is for one greater than we."

A gurgle of ba.s.s laughter ran through the group.

"There are others at Ezulwini," went on the one who had worked at the Rand. "Also at Malimati and Nongoma. It will be great to obtain wives we have paid no _lobola_ for. White wives! Ha! That will be a change indeed."

"You have got to get them first, my sons," said the old a.s.segai-maker.

"I remember in the days of Dingana, when I was young, wives were plentiful even without paying _lobola_. That king had an open hand, and after an impi had returned from raiding the Amaswazi, or the Basutu, he would distribute the captive women with a free hand. _Whau_! I not only made a.s.segais in those days, I wielded them."

"_Baba_!" [Father.]

"_Ye-bo_! Twice did Dingana send me a wife, for he said that a man who could make a.s.segais like mine deserved a share of what those a.s.segais could procure. But that is now all a thing of bygone years. It is dead, dead and buried. We are the white man's dogs to-day, and always shall be."