United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Well, Numjala, tell me the story about the Ghoda bush, for I am sure there is a story." "I will tell it if you stay here to-night." "But I must go home." "Well then, I will make a bargain with you. You have already passed the Ghoda, and therefore you know the footpath leading to the drift." "Yes, I know it well. I traveled it only the day before yesterday." "Very well.
The Ghoda is about a mile from Numjala's kraal, and just beyond it is the drift over the stream. "What has the Moon to do with it?" I asked. "That is a hard question. I only know that no horse can be ridden past the Ghoda after sundown when the Moon is new." "Look here, Numjala," I said reprovingly, "a man of your intelligence ought to be ashamed of even pretending to believe such a thing.
The Ghoda bush is a narrow strip of forest running down the side of a steep mountain which forms one side of a valley, the other side being formed of a perpendicular cliff, at the foot of which a stream brawls. The strip of forest does not quite reach the stream, a grassy glade, about twenty-five yards in width, lying between. Over this glade the footpath leads.
Xolilizwe dwelt with his uncle Kwababana a very old man over the hill at the back of the cliff facing the Ghoda. He was a few years older than Nomalie, and he often used to stay for weeks at a time here at my kraal. Xolilizwe was all that a young man should be, except that he was poor, and his uncle, old Kwababana, could give him nothing.
I woke just at sundown, and went quickly down to the Ghoda, expecting to find my daughter there. But she was not to be found, neither was the body where I had seen it lying. Just afterwards, however, I found a heap of stones that appeared to have been just before piled over a mound of freshly turned earth.
He went along at a quick amble, and as I neared the fateful spot, I freshened up my courage with the thought that in a few moments I would have crossed the drift, and then the Ghoda and its ghost would be well behind me.
"You say you are going by the footpath past the Ghoda bush?" "Yes." "Unless your horse leads well, you will never get him past the Ghoda to-night, this being the night of the New Moon. You will certainly never ride him past."
"She took my hand and silently drew me after her, and thus we walked down the footpath to the drift on the other side of the Ghoda, which you meant to have passed to-night. We crossed the stream, and she led me to the edge of the bush and pointed to something lying just inside the outer fringe of brushwood. I looked, and saw the headless body of Xolilizwe. "I recognised the body at once.
So I ceased searching, thinking that she would be sure to return, sooner or later. "Three days after, a little boy told me that something strange was lying in the pool just above the Ghoda drift. I went down at once to see what it was. The pool is quite shallow, it would hardly drown a man if he were to sit down in it.
My course led down the hillside, and then along the level bottom of the valley on the left-hand side of which is the Ghoda Bush. The stream was on my right, and the pathway on which I was riding ran parallel with it, distant about twenty yards. As I drew near the Ghoda I felt somewhat creepy. My horse was a steady old stager, not at all given to shying.
Word Of The Day