Kafir Stories Part 10

"Now tell him that if he speaks and tells the whole truth, he will only be shot, but if he does not speak, he will be burnt alive."

This was interpreted, but the threat had no apparent effect. So Whitson seized Ghamba and dragged him to the fire, where he flung him down on the very edge of the glowing embers.

"Now," said Whitson, holding him down with his foot, so that he got severely scorched, "for the last time, will you speak?"

"Take me away from the fire, and I will speak," said Ghamba, in English.

So they lifted him, and set him again with his back to the rock.

"Now," said Whitson, "go ahead, and no nonsense."

"If I tell the whole truth," said Ghamba, still speaking English, and with a fair accent, "will you swear not to burn me, but to shoot me, so that I shall die at once?"

"I will," said Whitson.

"You too must swear," said Ghamba, looking at Langley.

"Yes, I swear."

"Very well," said Ghamba, "I will tell you everything, but you must both remember what you have sworn to."

"Yes, all right," said Whitson. Ghamba then looked at Langley, who repeated the words.

"I will tell you," said Ghamba, "all I can remember, and you can ask questions, which I shall answer truly. You have heard of Umdava, who used to eat men in Natal long ago, after the wars of Tshaka--well, he was my uncle. After Umdava had been killed and his people scattered, my father, with a few followers, came to live amongst these mountains. But we found that after having eaten human flesh we could enjoy no other food, so we caught people and ate them. These two men lying dead are my sons, and that woman is my daughter. My four wives were here to-night.

They are very old women. Have you not seen them?" he asked, looking at Whitson.

"They are in there; I shot them," said Whitson, pointing to the cave.

"I had other children," continued Ghamba, quite unmoved, "but we ate them when food was scarce."

"Have you always lived, all these years, on human flesh?" asked Whitson.

"No, not always; but whenever we could obtain it we did so. There is other food in these mountains. Honey, ants' eggs, roots, and fruit; besides game, which is, however, not very easy to catch. But we have often all had to go away and work when times have been bad. Besides, I have a herd of cattle at a Basuto kraal, and I have been in the habit of taking some of these now and then, and exchanging them for corn, which the women then went to fetch. But we have always tried to get people to eat, because we could enjoy no other kind of food. Sometimes we got them easily; and when we were very fortunate we used to dry part of the meat by hanging it up and lighting a fire underneath, with green wood, so as to make plenty of smoke."

"Have you killed many white people?" asked Whitson.

"Yes, a good number; but not, of course, as many as black. Lately we have always tried to catch whites, because when you have eaten while flesh for some time, the flesh of a native no longer satisfies you."

"Why not?"

"The flavour is not so strong."

"Did you induce the other two policemen to come up by means of the story about Umhlonhlo?"

"Yes, they came up just as you did, and my sons caught them with the thongs. Umhlonhlo has brought us plenty of food."

"Were you able to take the cartridges out of their revolvers as you did out of mine?"

"No, I had no opportunity; but it was not necessary, because my sons were so expert at throwing the thongs that they could always catch people over the arms, and thus render them unable to shoot."

"How did they manage to become so expert?"

"By continued practice, I used to walk up the path over and over again, and let them throw the thong over me. Then the woman was always there with the club, so that if one of the thongs missed, she was ready to strike. I, also, was usually ready to help in case of necessity."

"Why did you think it necessary to take the cartridges out of my revolver?"

"Because I feared you from the first, and were it not that he," baring his teeth, and glancing at Langley, who shuddered, "looked so nice, and that we wanted fresh meat so badly, I would not have risked bringing you. But it would have been all right if I had only let your revolver alone."

"You say Umhlonhlo has brought you plenty of food; did you ever get any one besides ourselves and the other two policemen to come up here by telling them that story?"

"Yes, two others--one a man who was searching for gold on the Free State side of the mountains, and the other a trader whom I met at Maseru. But these each came alone."

"I see the buckle of a woman's belt in there! Whom did that belong to?

You surely never got a white woman up here?"

"Yes, we did," said Ghamba, with a horrible half smile which bared the gums high above the sockets of his tusks. "She was a young girl who strayed from a waggon pa.s.sing over the mountain by the Ladysmith road, only a day's walk from here. I pretended to show her the shortest way to her waggon, and thus brought her as far as she could walk in this direction. I then killed her, and came up here and fetched my sons. We carried her up in the night. She was very young and plump, and I have never eaten anything that I enjoyed so much." (Whitson turned cold with horror. He remembered the girl's mysterious disappearance, and the fruitless searches undertaken in consequence.) "His flesh" (glancing again at Langley) "looks something like hers did, and I am sure it would taste just as nice. There was still a little of her left when I went away last week. If you will go in there and look where the rock is split on the right-hand side, you will----" But he did not finish the sentence, for a bullet from Whitson's revolver crashed through his brain, and he tumbled forward on his face into the fire.

It was only after tremendous difficulty that Whitson and Langley succeeded in escaping from the mountains. However, on the evening of the third day after their adventure in the cave, they came in sight of the police camp, Whitson sat down on a stone, and motioned his companion to do the same.

"See here, Sonny," he said, "I want to have a short talk with you. I am a bit cross with you as the cause of my having been sucked in by that d.a.m.ned, murdering old walrus. You ought to know the inhabitants of this country better than a simple stranger like me, and so I took your lead.

Now, another thing, you nearly bust us both by your blasted foolishness in going to sleep that day; but let that pa.s.s, because perhaps it would have been worse if we had not been put on our guard; not but that it would take a d.a.m.ned smart cannibal to eat Hiram Whitson. But this is what I am coming to: you my boy are a darned sight too fond of hearing your own tongue clack. Now, lake a warning from me, and don't let a word of what has happened since we left Camp--for Pietermaritzburg-- pa.s.s your lips. I did all the shooting, and I'm not a bit ashamed of it; but, by the eternal G.o.d, if you open your lips to a soul, I'll shoot you like a dog or a cannibal. Remember that, Sonny, and say it quietly over to yourself the first time you fee that you want to blab.

Now shake hands."

This was probably the longest speech that Whitson had ever made.

About two years after the events narrated, Whitson took his discharge and returned to America. He left behind him a sealed packet addressed to his Commanding Officer, and which was not to be delivered for twelve months after his departure.

Owing, however, to a strange combination of fortuitous circ.u.mstances, this packet never reached its proper destination; its wrapper, bearing the address, having been scorched off in a fire which took place in the house where it was left.

NOTE.

Many people have heard or read of the cannibals of Natal, who turned large tracts of country into a shambles in the early part of this century, after Tshaka's impis had swept off all the cattle, and then kept the miserable people continually on the move, so that they were unable to cultivate. One Umdava originated the practice of eating human flesh. Gathering together the fragments of four scattered tribes, he trained them to hunt human beings as others hunted game. This gang was a greater scourge to the country surrounding the present site of Pietermaritzburg than even Tshaka's murdering hordes. It was broken up in or about the year 1824 when the Europeans first came to the country, and the remnants of many scattered tribes returned and settled under their protection.

All this is history with which most people in South Africa are familiar, but many do not know that some of the cannibals fled to Basutoland where, amongst almost inaccessible mountains, they carried on their horrible practices for many years.

It is a well-known fact that when men once surrender themselves to any unnatural and brutal vice, the gratification of the abnormal instinct thus acquired becomes the most imperative need of their nature. The Falkland Islands case, as bearing specially upon the foregoing narrative, may be mentioned. Some convicts escaped from the Falkland Islands convict station, and succeeded in reaching the coast of Patagonia. They then endeavoured to make their way to Monte Video, but, having to keep along the sh.o.r.e so as to avoid the natives who would have killed them had they ventured inland, were easily intercepted by the Government cutter which was always dispatched in cases of the kind to head off fugitives upon their only possible course. Of the party, only one man was found alive. In their dreadful need the men had cast lots as to who should be killed and eaten by the others, and this went on until only the one man remained. His sufferings had been so horrible that he was let off any further punishment, and simply brought back to the Island to complete the term of his sentence. Some months after, this man induced another to escape with him in a boat, and when the boat was overtaken it was found he had killed his companion for the purpose of eating the latter's flesh. This was apparent from the fact that the supply of food which the fugitives had taken with them was not exhausted.

UKUSHWAMA.

"No ghosts, they say.

What is a ghost?-- Nay, what are thoughts and stars and winds?

They cannot tell--they show at most Those formal swathes the pedant binds Across clear eyes, the while he plugs The apertures of liberal lugs."

s.h.a.gBAG on Dogmatism.

I.

I had been for two days endeavouring to frame a workable quarantine scheme in respect of an outbreak of lung sickness amongst the natives'

cattle in several of those deep valleys which cleave the Xomlenzi range from the Northern bank of the Tina River, and it was late in afternoon when I reached the kraal of my friend Numjala, Headman over a section of the Baca tribe of Kafirs. The mounted policeman who had accompanied me let his tired horse fall in a particularly bad drift, thus laming the animal, and had had to remain behind in consequence. Thus I was alone, but this circ.u.mstance did not trouble me, because my horse was fresh, and I knew the country well.