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Nongkause hurried to tell her uncle Umhlakaza, and, he helped to proclaim the visions. To him and to others they were, no doubt, expected, and certainly they were welcome. For what was their message? Nongkause had it from the council of spirits, sitting under the water, a corner of which lifted to allow of communication.
To them, it denoted the rising power of the white, before whom all black men would be driven out. These fears were magnetised into a great upheaval, at the word of a young Kaffir girl turned prophetess. She uprose, a dark but comely Maid of Orleans, a Messiah to her people and her message swept Kaffraria like a wind. As any maiden might have done, Nongkause went to fetch a pitcher of water.
Finally, those who were to bring the lustrous Kaffraria would march before a giant army. By it, the white would be driven into the sea, and Kaffir rule would direct a Kaffir land. It was a queen's speech, indeed, that Nongkause put forth; yet there were conditions attached. Before anything could happen, the Kaffirs must destroy their own cattle, grain, and other belongings, to the uttermost.
Most maidens, when they filled the pitcher, would have seen the shadow of a sweetheart in the eddies. Nongkause saw more. Strange beings, such as were not then in Kaffraria, were about her, and strange sounds fell upon her ears. The remote ancestors of the Kaffirs were revealing themselves; their spirits were consulting on the affairs of men.
It was in Sir George's mind that Nongkause, by a queer irony, was the one member of her family who survived the visitation. It touches the imagination to have a dark Africa put forward as light for a Bible scene; namely, that where Jacob, instructed by Rebekah, obtains the blessing which the blind Isaac thinks himself to be conferring on his eldest son Esau.
I made it a rule always, and in all things, only to take a step after the most careful and mature thought; but once it had been taken, never to go back upon it. It's a very bad business when you begin to retreat. Nothing happened in the manner Nongkause and the wily Umhlakaza had foretold, unless the destruction of Kaffir stock and grain.
It was weary to wait and starve, with a Governor on the flank, plucking all guidance out of an insurrection. If the gods of Nongkause had excited a less perfect trust, there might have been a rush on Cape Colony. As it was, the belief lived long enough in the Kaffirs to defeat its own purpose.
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