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When I had said this, she flung herself to the ground on her face, and wept as though she would die. "Next day, Lukwazi's messengers came for Nomalie, but I told them they could not have her. Afterwards Lukwazi himself came with ten men armed, and said he would take his wife by force.
Besides, no girl would want to marry such a man no matter how much she liked him for she would always be known as the woman for whom no dowry had been paid, and this would be a reproach to her and all her relations. "Nomalie was very young, and I was so fond of her that I did not want to force her to marry against her will.
The pick was stuck into the soft ground next to it, so I inferred that Nomalie had buried the body of her husband and gone home. "I went up to Kwababana's kraal, but Nomalie was not there. Old Kwababana was healthy in body for so old a man, but he was very childish, and just then the loss of his cow had quite upset him.
He came here and asked me to give him Nomalie as his wife, offering the cattle he had stolen as an installment of the dowry, the balance of which he would pay later on, when able to do so. I consented, as I wanted to make up to the girl for any previous hardness, so she went as the wife of Xolilizwe to the kraal of his uncle, old Kwababana.
Then I comforted myself with the thought that when she came back after the fifth day, driving the ox for the marriage feast, she would not look so miserable. "In the middle of the second night after Nomalie had gone I was sleeping in my hut, and I heard some one trying to open the door. I said, 'My child, what is this thing? but she did not speak.
There was not much of a marriage feast, for I still feared the anger of Lukwazi, and did not want to annoy him further. I warned Xolilizwe to be careful, as I felt sure Lukwazi would try and be revenged on some of us and most probably on him through the witchdoctor. In fact I strongly advised him to take Nomalie away quietly, and go and dwell with our people on the Umzimkulu.
He was a very big man, of a wrathful temper, and they said that though he loved the smell of other men's blood, he feared to smell his own. "Well, one day Lukwazi called here in passing, and saw Nomalie. About a week afterwards two of his messengers came and said that he wanted her as his wife. I was both glad and sorry.
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