Now I turned my head and spoke towards the hut, "Chief," I said, "your Ehlose is kind to you to-night, for he has given you a maid fair as the Lily of the Halakazi"--here Nada glanced up wildly. "Come, then, and take the girl."Now Nada turned to snatch up the assegai from the ground, but whether to kill me, or the chief she feared so much, or herself, I do not know, and as she turned, in her woe she called upon the name of Umslopogaas. She found the assegai, and straightened herself again.
And lo! there before her stood a tall chief leaning on an axe; but the old man who threatened her was gone--not very far, in truth, but round the corner of the hut.
Now Nada the Lily looked, then rubbed her eyes, and looked again.
"Surely I dream?" she said at last. "But now I spoke to an old man, and in his place there stands before me the shape of one whom I desire to see.""I thought, Maiden, that the voice of a certain Nada called upon one Umslopogaas," said he who leaned upon the axe.
"Ay, I called: but where is the old man who treated me so scurvily?
Nay, what does it matter?--where he is, there let him stop. At least, you are Umslopogaas, my brother, or should be by your greatness and the axe. To the man I cannot altogether swear in this light; but to the axe I can swear, for once it passed so very near my eyes."Thus she spoke on, gaining time, and all the while she watched Umslopogaas till she was sure that it was he and no other. Then she ceased talking, and, flinging herself on him, she kissed him.
"Now I trust that Zinita sleeps sound," murmured Umslopogaas, for suddenly he remembered that Nada was no sister of his, as she thought.
Nevertheless, he took her by the hand and said, "Enter, sister. Of all maidens in the world you are the most welcome here, for know Ibelieved you dead."
But I, Mopo, ran into the hut before her, and when she entered she found me sitting by the fire.
"Now, here, my brother," said Nada, pointing at me with her finger, "here is that old umfagozan, that low fellow, who, unless I dream, but a very little while ago brought shame upon me--ay, my brother, he struck me, a maid, with his kerrie, and that only because I said that I would stab him for his insolence, and he did worse: he swore that he would drag me to some old chief of his to be a gift to him, and this he was about to do, had you not come. Will you suffer these things to go unpunished, my brother?"Now Umslopogaas smiled grimly, and I answered:--"What was it that you called me just now, Nada, when you prayed me to protect you? Father, was it not?" and I turned my face towards the blaze of the fire, so that the full light fell upon it.
"Yes, I called you father, old man. It is not strange, for a homeless wanderer must find fathers where she can--and yet! no, it cannot be--so changed--and that white hand? And yet, oh! who are you? Once there was a man named Mopo, and he had a little daughter, and she was called Nada--Oh! my father, my father, I know you now!""Ay, Nada, and I knew you from the first; through all your man's wrappings I knew you after these many years."So the Lily fell upon my neck and sobbed there, and I remember that Ialso wept.
Now when she had sobbed her fill of joy, Umslopogaas brought Nada the Lily mass to eat and mealie porridge. She ate the curdled milk, but the porridge she would not eat, saying that she was too weary.
Then she told us all the tale of her wanderings since she had fled away from the side of Umslopogaas at the stronghold of the Halakazi, and it was long, so long that I will not repeat it, for it is a story by itself. This I will say only: that Nada was captured by robbers, and for awhile passed herself off among them as a youth. But, in the end, they found her out and would have given her as a wife to their chief, only she persuaded them to kill the chief and make her their ruler. They did this because of that medicine of the eyes which Nada had only among women, for as she ruled the Halakazi so she ruled the robbers. But, at the last, they all loved her, and she gave it out that she would wed the strongest. Then some of them fell to fighting, and while they killed each other--for it came about that Nada brought death upon the robbers as on all others--she escaped, for she said that she did not wish to look upon their struggle but would await the upshot in a place apart.