United States or Djibouti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Cold shall this heart be and stiff this hand, empty shall this head be of thoughts and these eyes of sight, before shame or death shall touch the swift wings of yonder Swallow who stained her breast for me. Remember this always, you whom she loves, that while I live, I, Sihamba Ngenyanga, Sihamba the walker by moonlight, she shall live, and if she dies I will die also."
That evening her child cried piteously; and the nurse took it to the stream in the middle of the night, singing: "It is crying, it is crying, The child of Sihamba Ngenyanga; It is crying, it will not be pacified." The mother thereupon came out of the water, and wailed this song as she put the child to her breast: "It is crying, it is crying, The child of the walker by moonlight.
Nothing, but I shall win that kiss yet, yes, and before very long." Now in a valley of the hills, something over an hour's ride from the farm, and not far from the road that ran to Swart Piet's place, lived the little Kaffir witch-doctoress, Sihamba Ngenyanga.
Now the man to whom he spoke, that same man with whom the boy Zinti had heard him plot our murder in the Tiger Kloof, shrugged his shoulders and answered: "I think there is one who will guess." "Who is that, fool?" "She about whose neck I once set a rope at your bidding, Bull-Head, and whose life was bought by those lips," and he pointed to Suzanne, "Sihamba Ngenyanga."
"Who are these?" asked Sigwe of the council. The old man looked at them and answered: "Of the white lady we can say nothing except that she is very beautiful; but, unless our eyes deceive us, she whom she holds by the hand is Sihamba Ngenyanga, who was our chieftainess, and who left us because she was angry." "She is Sihamba and no one else," said Sigwe.
"Madman," I exclaimed, "how can the lad speak while you are choking him?" Then Jan shifted his grip and Gaasha began to cry for pity. "The name, the name," said Jan. "Why should I hide it? Have I not told it? Baas, it is Sihamba Ngenyanga."
"I am Sihamba Ngenyanga, the doctoress, of whom you may have heard," she answered; and some of the people said, "We have heard of her; she is a great doctoress." "To what people do you belong, Sihamba?" asked the captain again.
Her name was Sihamba Ngenyanga, the Wanderer-by-Moonlight, which name was given her when she was little, because of her habit of walking in the dark alone, and she was the only child of our late chief's inkosikaas, a princess of the Swazis, the father of that lord, Koraanu, who lies dead of the small-pox.
Indeed, it is certain that no one whom I ever knew had so great a gift of insight into the omens of the weather at all seasons of the year, as this strange Sihamba Ngenyanga, a name that she got, by the way, because of her habit of wandering about in the moonlight to gather the herbs and the medicine roots which she used in her trade.
Hand over to me your ruler, Sihamba Ngenyanga, and with her the white woman named Swallow, and you yourselves shall go free, everyone of you; more, although I will take this stronghold of yours to live in myself, I will give back to you the half of the cattle. Now, answer.
Word Of The Day