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Updated: June 6, 2025
For a few seconds the king stared stupidly at Machenga's dead body, as though he could not believe the evidence of his own eyes; then he turned to me and said: "Truly, Chia'gnosi, thou art well named, for thy lightning has slain him who was as we have always known him, even when the oldest living man in Mashonaland was a boy running at his mother's heels.
I learned, further, that while the king put the most implicit faith in the infallibility of the witch doctors, and especially in that of Machenga, the head or chief of them, a few of the indunas who were then talking to me held rather strongly to the opinion that the selection of victims was not so much the result of supernatural guidance and wisdom vouchsafed to the witch doctors, as it was at least in the case of the more important and distinguished victims governed rather by Machenga's personal hatred, or his cupidity; a few of the shrewder observers having noticed, each year, that the chosen victims invariably included certain men toward whom the head witch doctor was well known to cherish a feeling of strong enmity, while other victims comprised those chiefs who were numbered among the richest men in the community the law being that, while the property of the alleged traitors was forfeited to the king, half of it was surrendered to the head witch doctor, as his fee for the detection of the criminals.
I know none of them save Logwane; but send thou and ascertain the names of the other indunas who have died to-day by the hands of the Slayers, and thou shalt find that, like Logwane, they were rich men, the half of whose riches would pass to Machenga; or they were men who had incurred Machenga's hatred.
Naturally, I remonstrated against such discourteous treatment, reminding His Majesty that although the revelation was certainly mine, the evil-doing was Machenga's; and I wound up by saying that, so far from expecting to be expelled from the country, I had confidently reckoned upon being granted a concession to mine gold in Mashonaland.
"And are the victims killed there and then, on the spot?" demanded I. "Have they no chance given them to appeal against Machenga's judgment, no opportunity to produce proof of their innocence?" "None," answered Mapela. "They are dragged forth; the executioners take them; and they die! You will see; for the king has bidden you to be present to-morrow."
Let the smellers-out be brought before thee and questioned, and thou shalt find that it was by Machenga's orders that they smelled out the indunas. As for the others, it was necessary that a certain number of the common people should also die, else would the choice of the indunas have been too obvious."
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