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Updated: May 25, 2025
And because the history of Nada the Lily and of those with whom her life was intertwined moved him strangely, and in many ways, he has done more, he has printed it that others may judge of it. And now his part is played. Let him who was named Zweete, but who had another name, take up the story.
No man knows whither they have gone, or whether they live or are now but hides and bones. Yet at the kraal yonder," and he pointed to some huts about two miles away on the hillside, "lives a witch doctor named Zweete. He is old very old but he has wisdom, and he can tell you where the oxen are if any man may, my father." "Stuff!" answered the White Man.
"Still, as the kraal cannot be colder than this wagon, we will go and ask Zweete. Bring a bottle of squareface and some snuff with you for presents." An hour later he stood in the hut of Zweete. Before him was a very ancient man, a mere bag of bones, with sightless eyes, and one hand his left white and shrivelled. "What do you seek of Zweete, my white father?" asked the old man in a thin voice.
But none were here who had lived in the kraal Duguza, none knew, in Zweete the blind old witch-doctor, that Mopo who stabbed Chaka, the Lion of the Zulu. None know it now. You have heard the tale, and you alone, my father. Do not tell it again till I am dead. Umslopogaas?
I ask no fee! I do not work wonders for reward. Why should I? I am rich." Now the White Man scoffed. But in the end, so great is the power of superstition, he sent. And here it may be stated that on the eleventh day of his sojourn at the kraal of Zweete, those whom he sent returned with the oxen, except the three only. After that he scoffed no more.
Those eleven days he spent in a hut of the old man's kraal, and every afternoon he came and talked with him, sitting far into the night. On the third day he asked Zweete how it was that his left hand was white and shrivelled, and who were Umslopogaas and Nada, of whom he had let fall some words. Then the old man told him the tale that is set out here.
The words he had said and the vision that my mother had seen were beginning to come true. By the help of the Umtetwas he had taken the place of his father Senzangacona; he had driven out the tribe of the Amaquabe; now he made war on Zweete, chief of the Endwande, and he had sworn that he would stamp the Endwande flat, so that nobody could find them any more.
It was the past that spoke to his listener, telling of deeds long forgotten, of deeds that are no more known. Yet as he best may, the White Man has set down the substance of the story of Zweete in the spirit in which Zweete told it.
See! he died bravely: he killed three of the Zulu devils before he himself was dead. Then they caught me, and killed my children, and stabbed me till they thought that I was dead. Afterwards, they went away. I don't know why they came, but I think it was because our chief would not send men to help Chaka against Zweete." She stopped, gave a great cry, and died.
Strengthen your heart, my father, for I have much to say that is sorrowful, and even now, when I think of Nada the tears creep through the horn that shuts out my old eyes from light. Do you know who I am, my father? You do not know. You think that I am an old, old witch-doctor named Zweete. So men have thought for many years, but that is not my name.
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