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Updated: June 10, 2025
"If it is the spirit of Mameena, he will come," whispered Cetewayo to Umnyamana. "Yes, yes," answered the Prime Minister, "for the rope of his love will draw him. He who has once kissed Mameena, must kiss her again when she asks." Hearing this I grew furiously indignant and was about to break into explanations, when to my horror I found myself rising from that stool.
Can you not remember it now when I would speak with the white chief, Watcher-by-Night, who has been so good as to take the trouble to come to see me?" On hearing these words Mameena leapt up in a rage, and I must say I never saw her look more lovely. "You insult me, daughter of Panda, as you always try to do, because you are jealous of me." "Your pardon, sister," replied Nandie.
"You speak ill-omened words, Macumazahn; words that take away my appetite, which is generally excellent at this hour. Well, if Mameena is bad it is not my fault, for I brought her up to be good. After all," he added with an outburst of petulance, "why do you scold me when it is your fault? If you had run away with the girl when you might have done so, there would have been none of this trouble."
But here is the kraal, and before we enter it I wish to thank you for trying to protect that unlucky husband of mine, Masapo." "I only did so, Mameena, because I thought him innocent." "I know, Macumazahn; and so did I, although, as I always told you, I hated him, the man with whom my father forced me to marry. But I am afraid, from what I have learned since, that he was not altogether innocent.
Only yesterday he told me to marry you, if I could, for then he would find a stick indeed to lean on, and be rid of Saduko's troubling." Evidently Umbezi was a worse card even than Saduko, so I played another. "And can I help you, Mameena, to tread a road that at the best must be red with blood?"
"Oh, I can guess your business here, Masapo, and you can guess mine," and he glanced towards Mameena. "Tell me, Umbezi, is this little chief of the Amansomi your daughter's accepted suitor?" "Nay, nay, Saduko," said Umbezi; "no one is her accepted suitor. Will you not sit down and take food with us? Tell us where you have been, and why you return here thus suddenly, and uninvited?"
Only afterwards I regretted very much that I had not found an opportunity to ask her whether or no she had masqueraded as Mameena in the Valley of Bones. Now it is too late. We buried poor Nombe decently in her own little hut where she used to practise her incantations.
Be pleased to send for Mameena, for I would talk with her." "Yes, yes, Saduko, I understand that you would talk with Mameena; but" and he looked round him desperately "I fear that she is still asleep. As you know, Mameena was always a late riser, and, what is more, she hates to be disturbed. Don't you think that you could come back, say, to-morrow morning?
"Yes," I answered, "she looks pretty against the red sky, does she not?" By now we were drawing near to Mameena, and I greeted her, asking if she wanted anything. "Nothing, Macumazahn," she answered in her delicate, modest way, for never did I know anyone who could seem quite so modest as Mameena, and with a swift glance of her shy eyes at the tall and splendid Umbelazi, "nothing.
"Now, O Macumazana," said Panda to me, "if you still think that yonder man is innocent, will you drink this milk?" "I do not like milk, O King," I answered, shaking my head, whereon all who heard me laughed. "Will Mameena, his wife, drink it, then?" asked Panda. She also shook her head, saying: "O King, I drink no milk that is mixed with dust."
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