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Updated: May 10, 2025
To kick or shake her would undoubtedly be rude and, if it chanced to be the person who had played Mameena, would certainly provoke remarks that I should not care to face. There seemed to be only one resource, to sit down and wait till she woke up.
Then came a fearful crash, and he emerged again with the rim of a pot about his neck and his countenance veiled in a coating of what I took to be honey. "Where is Mameena?" I asked him as he sat up spluttering. "Where I wish I was," he answered in a thick voice; "at a kraal five hours' journey away." Well, that was the first I heard of Mameena.
Apparently Mameena continued to be the recipient of information which she found it necessary to communicate in private to the prince. At any rate, on sundry subsequent evenings the dullness of my vigil on the wagon-box was relieved by the sight of her graceful figure gliding home from the kloof that Umbelazi seemed to find a very suitable spot for reflection after sunset.
I remember now, she was called Mameena, was she not, a name taken from the wailing of the wind? Hark! It is wailing now." I listened; it was, and I shivered to hear it, since but a minute before the night had been quite still. Yes, the wind moaned and wailed about the rocks of the Black Kloof. "Well, enough of her. Why trouble about the dead when there are so many to be sent to join them?
"Now," she said, "let women come and search me and my garments, and see if there is any poison hid there." Two old crones stepped forward though I do not know who sent them and carried out a very thorough examination, finally reporting that they had found nothing. Thereon Mameena, with a shrug of her shoulders, resumed such clothes as she wore, and returned to her place.
Saduko uncovered his eyes. "Make 'the-thing-that-burns' brighter," he gasped, "for I do not perceive him so clearly when it is bright. Oh! Macumazahn, he is looking at you and whispering. To whom is he whispering? I see! to Mameena, who also looks at you and smiles. They are talking. Be silent. I must listen."
I have nothing more to say, and therefore I pray you not to ask me any further questions about Mameena of whose name I grow weary." At this point Zikali seemed to wake out of his indifference, or his torpor, for he looked up and said darkly "It is strange that the cleverest are always those who first fall into the trap.
"He answered that he thought she had better run away with another man, if there were one whom she did not hate out of Zululand, of course," she replied, looking first at me and then at my wagon and the two horses that were tied to it. "Is that all he said, Mameena?" "No. Have I not told you that I cannot hide one grain of the truth from you?
I have that to tell which you would perhaps do well to hear, since news sometimes reaches the ears of humble women that escapes those of the men, our masters." He bowed his head in assent, whereon, taking a hint which Mameena gave me with her eyes, I muttered something about business and made myself scarce. I may add that Mameena must have had a great deal to tell Umbelazi.
Straight she came towards me, like a thrown spear, and I knew her for a certain royal and savage woman who on earth was named Mameena, or "Wind-that-wailed." Moreover she divined me, though see me she could not. "Art there, Watcher-in-the-Night, watching in the light?" she said or thought, I know not which, but the words came to me in the Zulu tongue.
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