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Updated: May 10, 2025
The princes also departed to muster their adherents, Cetewayo establishing himself among the Mandhlakazi that he commanded, and Umbelazi returning to the kraal of Umbezi, which happened to stand almost in the centre of that part of the nation which adhered to him. Whether he took Mameena with him there I am not certain.
"No, I think you three will be enough, with a guard of soldiers from the People of the Axe, for you will meet with fighting and a ghost or two. Umslopogaas has always one at his elbow named Nada, and perhaps you have several. For instance, there was a certain Mameena whom I always seem to feel about me when you are near, Macumazahn.
Then this strange man drew the back of his hand across his eyes, from which I saw the tears were running, and, muttering, "If you would have good fortune remember my prayer," turned and left me before I could answer a single word. As for me, I sat down upon an ant-heap and whistled a whole hymn tune that my mother had taught me before I could think at all. To be left the guardian of Mameena!
"You shall pay for this," roared Umbezi after him, turning almost green with rage, for Masapo still lay upon his broad back, speechless, "you who dare to insult my guest in my own house." "Somebody must pay," cried back Saduko from the gate, "but who it is only the unborn moons will see." "Mameena," I said as I followed him, "you have set fire to the grass, and men will be burned in it."
Thirdly, that she was a witch, who had enmeshed Umbelazi in the web of her sorceries and thereby caused him to aspire to the succession to the throne, to which he had no right, and made the isililo, or cry of mourning for the dead, to be heard in every kraal in Zululand. "With three such pitfalls in her narrow path, Mameena will have to walk carefully if she would escape them all," I said.
Oh, I thank you, Macumazahn; you are indeed the prop of my hut, and it and all in it are yours. Farewell, farewell, Macumazahn, if you must go. But why why did you not run away with Mameena, and save me all this fear and trouble?" So I and that old humbug, Umbezi, "Eater-up-of-Elephants," parted for a while, and never did I know him in a more chastened frame of mind, except once, as I shall tell.
"You mean that you leave me in Mameena's keeping," I began, but already he was crawling through the hole in the hut. Well, Mameena kept me very comfortably. She was always in evidence, yet not too much so. Heedless of her malice and abuse, she headed off the "Worn-out-old-Cow," whom she knew I detested, from my presence.
It was that of the woman called Mameena who brought about the war, and the wrapping which covered it was of the hair that once grew upon her head. "The words are Zikali's," I said, returning her the knife, "but why do you call yourself the child of one who is too old to be a father?" "The Master says that my great-grandmother was his daughter and that therefore I am his child.
I remembered how he had brought Mameena to her death, when he thought that it would serve him, and since then filled the land with stories concerning her and me, which met me whatever way I turned. I remembered that for years he had plotted to bring about the destruction of the Zulus, and to further his dark ends, was now engaged in causing a fearful war which would cost the lives of thousands.
Sinking to her knees for we were quite alone in the big hut and there was no one else about, all the other women being engaged on rural or domestic tasks, for which Mameena declared she had no time, as her business was to look after me she rested her shapely head upon my knees and began to talk in a low, sweet voice that sometimes broke into a sob.
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