Between Sun and Sand Part 18

Noquala did not oppose actively his son's becoming educated. He would have preferred him to have followed the calling of a peasant, such as he himself was. The second son, an astute youth named Zingelagahle, was more after his father's heart. He did not care about book-learning, and was quite content to look after the cattle, knowing that the largest share of them would eventually fall to him.

The educated young native is almost invariably a prig, and cannot help showing his uncivilised relations that he feels himself to be far superior to them. As a rule this superiority is a.s.sumed by both parties; thus not much friction results.

Elijah, to do him bare justice, was perfectly sincere in his faith and in what he believed to be his vocation for the ministry. He thus felt himself to be far superior to all the others at his paternal kraal. His mother, of course, was a Christian--nominally, at least, but for years past she had taken little interest in anything but her son's education and her money-making. She did not even belong to any church. Once, when it was decided by the local Christians to erect a chapel, Noquala had been applied to for a subscription, and he had referred the applicant to his wife, stating that she had money whereas he had none.

This was a literal fact. One of his peculiarities was never to own any money. Whenever taxes had to be paid or purchases had to be made, Noquala would sell to the nearest trader just sufficient sheep for the purpose, and immediately make a point of spending the last penny thus realised.

When Makalipa was applied to she had just paid her son's half-yearly fees at the seminary, and she flatly refused to contribute a sixpence towards the new building. This caused remonstrance, which was followed by recrimination. The matter ended by Makalipa withdrawing from connection with local religious enterprise. Representatives of the rival churches made advances towards this erring sheep with the heavy fleece, but without any result. Religion meant spending money, and so long, at all events, as she was paying her son's fees at the seminary she felt she was doing enough and to spare for the Kingdom of Heaven.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

ELIJAH.

It was late in the afternoon when Elijah arrived, somewhat tired from his long walk. He was a spare, loosely built youth with heavy features and a gloomy expression of countenance. His mother greeted him with much tenderness, and his father tried to be genial. But conversation between this father and son was extremely difficult. The involuntary mutual foundation of feeling was contempt, and the superstructure of conventional tolerance which formed their plane of communication was not conducive to geniality. They had thus got into the habit of having as little to say to each other as possible, and Noquala usually felt it necessary to start on one of his rounds of inspection of his "ngqoma"

cattle within a few days of his son's return for the holidays.

On the present occasion the cordiality which usually was maintained between the mother and son as soon as the father's back was turned was somewhat impaired. There was a strong restraint on the son's side, which the mother found it hard to combat. When, however, Elijah had been at home for a week the cause was made clear in the following conversation:--"Mother," said Elijah, after an awkward interval, "when were you at church last?"

Makalipa flashed her keen eyes upon her son's gloomy face for an instant before she answered--

"You know quite well how it is that I do not go to church."

"Yes, mother, but I want you to go. Think what people must say about me, a man who wants to be a minister, and who has a mother who, although she is a Christian, does not go to church."

"Elijah, my son, I do not go to church, it is true, but I can read my Bible, and I don't remember the chapter in which it teaches that a son should instruct the mother who bore him. Of course, when you are a minister it will be different. Then I will go and hear you preach. So you had better make haste and have a church of your own if you want to save my soul."

Elijah walked away without replying. The day was warm, so he went and threw himself down upon his mat in the big hut in which his father and mother also slept. His mother, remorseful of having snubbed him, brought him some food a short time afterwards, but he refused to eat and said that he only wanted to sleep. Makalipa put this down to the sulks--a complaint to which Elijah had been subject to from earliest childhood--so she set the food aside and went down to the fields to superintend the harvesting of the grain.

When she returned the sun was down. Elijah was still lying on his mat, apparently asleep. His mother tried to arouse him, but he at once relapsed into a doze, after just murmuring that he had a bad headache.

So Makalipa, after placing some food next to him, retired to bed and slept soundly until dawn.

When Makalipa arose she noticed that Elijah was still asleep.

Something, however, in his breathing struck her as being strange.

Later, when she attempted to rouse him, she found that his mind was wandering and that he was in a burning fever.

It was a severe attack of enteric fever that had struck Elijah down. A week went by, but he became worse and worse. Noquala was still away and Makalipa became more and more alarmed. At length she made up her mind to call in a European doctor, so she dug up some money and sent Zingelagahle in with it to the Magistracy, with a message asking the District Surgeon to come and visit her son.

The District Surgeon was one who had no sympathy with and therefore did not command the confidence of the natives. Not making due allowance for the limitations of the native mind, and its consequent inability to grasp the importance of attention to detail in illness, he honestly thought that in serious cases his advice, as well as the medicines he supplied, were of little avail, and he usually said so when occasion offered.

It was a long ride from the Magistracy to Noquala's kraal, and when the District Surgeon arrived the sun had nearly sunk. He meant to obtain a night's lodging at a mission station a few miles away, but he was not sure of his road and was very much afraid of being benighted. Thus he was in a great hurry to get his work over and then proceed on his journey.

Elijah had just reached the crisis of his disease when the doctor arrived. The patient was lying with nothing between him and the cold, hard floor of the hut but a rush-mat and a thin cotton blanket. He appeared to be almost at the last gasp. The doctor examined him, took his temperature, and asked as to what description of nourishment the patient had been getting. The reply he received filled him with wrath and disgust. He felt that he could do nothing, and he said so.

Makalipa heard with a sinking heart that her son's hours were numbered, and that it was extremely unlikely that he would live until another sun arose. Then the doctor mounted his horse and rode away without administering any medicine, and Makalipa sat on the ground next to her son, with her heart filled with darkness, awaiting the end.

The doctor was hardly out of sight when Noquala, who had been sent for several days before, returned. He was somewhat shocked at hearing what the doctor had said, but a native never gives up hope of recovery so long as there is life in the patient. Touching Makalipa on the shoulder he beckoned to her to follow him and stepped out of the hut.

"Your European doctor has said Elijah must die, but I have seen people get better even after they have looked like that. Let us send for 'Ndakana and see what he can do."

Makalipa nodded; then she went back to the bedside of her son.

Deep down in the mind of every human being is an elementary belief in the supernatural, and when brought face to face with some terrible, incalculable danger this is apt to rise to the surface. If this be true of those who have centuries of civilisation behind them, how much more so is it in the case of those who are only struggling to emerge from barbarism? The agitated mind of Makalipa grasped greedily at the possibility which her husband's words suggested.

'Ndakana was a native "gqira," or doctor, who had made for himself a considerable reputation locally. His kraal was not more than a couple of miles distant. Thus, within an hour of being sent for, he was at the bedside of the sufferer.

The first step in his treatment was the causing of an ox to be slaughtered. The blood of this animal was sprinkled over the hut, inside and outside, the patient coming in for a share. Then with a sharpened stick he made small incisions at different parts of Elijah's body and limbs, and into these he rubbed some powder which he took from the horn of an antelope. After this he danced, violently but silently, around the hut, coming in every now and then, in a state of copious perspiration, to inquire as to how the patient was.

Soon after this Elijah was reported to be a little better. He had asked for and drunk a little sweet milk. Then 'Ndakana went home, saying that he had driven away the evil spirits, and that if the patient were kept on a milk diet for a week he would surely recover. The "gqira's" words came true. Elijah improved rapidly, and before the week was over began to complain bitterly at being allowed nothing but milk to stay his biting hunger. 'Ndakana was made happy by a fee which took the form of two of Noquala's best cattle.

Elijah was by no means grateful for the means which had been undertaken towards his recovery. That he, a Christian and a candidate for the ministry, should have been practised upon by a magician--one of a cla.s.s which formed the greatest obstacle to the spread, of Christianity among the people--was a bitter reflection. Having been more or less unconscious throughout his illness, he did not know how bad he had been, and was thus firmly convinced that he would have recovered without 'Ndakana's a.s.sistance.

The mother, however, thought differently. She remembered the sinking of the heart with which she had heard the European doctor condemn her son to death, and how the patient had immediately taken a change for the better when 'Ndakana's treatment once commenced. Thus arose another cause of estrangement between mother and son.

Elijah was still weak when he decided to return to the seminary, not wis.h.i.+ng to lose the opening of the session. His father lent him a horse for the occasion, and sent Zingelagahle on foot after him to bring the animal back.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE TEMPTER.

An ominous whisper sounded over the land. Far to the north, it was said, a new and terrible disease had broken out among cattle. The herds of Khama, the Christian chief of the Bamangwato, had, so it was said, been swept utterly away. Like a wayward wind, it was reported, the disease swept hither and thither, leaving nothing but bleaching skeletons to mark its track. Even the wild game of the forest and the plain went down before the might of the plague. When British Bechua.n.a.land was swept and the pestilence reached the herds of the Basuto, it was felt that the danger was indeed at the door of every owner of cattle in South Africa.

The Cape Government selected natives of reputed skill as cattle doctors, and sent them up to where the rinderpest was raging, so as to give them an opportunity of testing their remedies where the appliances of the profoundest science had failed. Upon the return of these men to their homes meetings of natives were called, and addresses embodying an account of the observed ravages of the pest were made to them. Thus the native mind became familiarised with the danger, and familiarity bred contempt. Magistrates urged upon their people the extreme danger of keeping all their wealth locked up in such a dangerously threatened item as cattle, and tried to induce them to make use of the market which existed at Johannesburg for the purpose of realising at all events a portion of their stock; but all in vain. "The 'red-water' came," they said; "we have had war, drought, lung-sickness, and other misfortunes.

We will, no doubt, lose many cattle, but with what remains we will again get rich. Of what use is money to us?"

Nearer and nearer came the plague; closer and closer were drawn in the coils of that deadly chain, the links of which were flung over the desolated earth in white heaps. The demand for meat became greater and greater at Johannesburg, and agents were sent down by the different butchering firms to endeavour to purchase slaughter stock. A few sheep they managed to obtain, but no cattle.

Makalipa tried hard to persuade her husband to sell at all events some of his "ngqoma" cattle, but not a single head would he dispose of. A local trader persuaded him of what was partly true, namely--that his flock of sheep, which had increased considerably during the past few years, and of which Makalipa was joint owner, was damaging the pasturage which he required for his cattle. It was, therefore, not difficult to persuade Noquala to dispose of the sheep, which he did, much to Makalipa's dissatisfaction.

The money remained in the trader's hands, Noquala fearing to bring it home lest his wife should get hold of it. He meant to give her her share of it, but the largest portion he intended to reinvest in cattle as soon as the rinderpest danger should be at an end.

A few days later Noquala had occasion to visit the shop of another trader who lived some miles away. This man had heard of the sheep transaction and had laid his plans accordingly.

Soon after Noquala arrived a herd of cattle was driven up and shown to him. Among this herd were several most beautiful dun-coloured cows--dun being a colour in cattle which Noquala was particularly partial to.

After hesitating for a few minutes he asked the trader whether the cattle were for sale or not. The trader, feigning reluctance, consented to discuss the matter. Eventually a bargain was struck. The trader, having ascertained how much of a balance lay to Noquala's credit at the other shop, drew out an order for it in his own favour, to which doc.u.ment Noquala affixed his mark in the presence of witnesses. Then Noquala drove home to his kraal the dun-coloured cows which, with several other cattle slightly inferior, although of fairly good quality, had now become his property.

Makalipa fell into a rage when she learnt what her husband had done.

The rinderpest danger was very imminent to her, and she felt, rightly, that her husband had been guilty of stark madness in investing money in more cattle. She felt this the more keenly as the sheep had been disposed of against her strongest wishes.

"And you have even spent that portion of the money which belonged to me in buying beasts that will disappear like burning gra.s.s when the sickness comes!" she said, almost in tears.

"Whatever is the good of money to you?" he replied. "Cows have calves, but the money you bury in the earth brings nothing forth."

"The money I bury in the earth will not get the rinderpest. After the sickness has swept over the land and your kraal has been emptied, my money will still be there."

"Sickness--you are always talking about this sickness! Has not the sickness been here before, and is not my kraal still full? What does a woman know about things?"