Little Suns (19 page)

So Mthwakazi just kept quiet as Saraband galloped into Qumbu.

The troubles had reached this town already. Malangana could see some sporadic damage that had happened in some places, mostly houses set on fire. When they passed the general dealer’s store looting was in progress. Though Malangana knew he was already late there was no way he could pass without taking part. While most people were focusing on the store itself and were taking groceries and blankets from the shelves, Malangana went to the back of the building, to the residential house where the servants were cowering in the kitchen, begging not to be killed. The trader and his wife were at that moment attending Mhlontlo’s meeting at the courthouse, the maid said. They had been routed out in the morning by armed horsemen who frogmarched them to the courthouse.

While Mthwakazi remained outside holding Saraband’s reins Malangana went to the bedroom to look for something interesting as a gift for Mthwakazi. He found a purple satin dressing gown which he liked for himself; he did not know it was meant for a woman. For Mthwakazi he found gold earrings and a silk red-and-white floral dress.

Mthwakazi giggled as she dressed up in the silk dress on top of the red ochre that covered her body. She also wore the gold earrings. The dress was too big for her so it formed a train behind her, which occasionally she had to lift up and put over her shoulder and then hold the hem with both her hands.

Malangana wore the dressing gown, which was too tight for him.

‘At least they won’t know who we are. It is a good disguise,’ he said as they got back on their way. Saraband knew the road home and galloped straight there without much egging on. He stopped right in front of The Residency. The place was still intact though it didn’t look as though there was anyone around. Malangana dismounted and helped Mthwakazi down. They tied the horse to a tree trunk and were about to leave it there when a man appeared at the door.

‘I am Mr Mqikela. What do you want?’ he said.

A black Mister was bound to be one of
amakhumsha
who were teachers or clerks.

‘We brought Saraband,’ said Malangana.

‘I don’t know what to do with this horse. You take it, you murderers of the magistrate,’ he said, his voice shaking with emotion.

‘Mhlontlo said we should bring it back,’ said Malangana. ‘It’s up to his wife what you do with it.’

‘Mhlontlo’s word means nothing,’ said the servant. ‘We are just waiting for him to come here and kill us all. He had promised all our white masters would be safe, but just this morning he has captured the whole of Qumbu and your people are burning and destroying. Yes, you can come and kill us. You call us amaMfengu. Come and kill us and be done with it.’

Malangana spat in his face and said, ‘You’re too old to waste my assegai on.’

He then grabbed Mthwakazi by the arm and led her away. He walked towards the courthouse with Mthwakazi following him, dragging her big silk dress.

‘You don’t say things like that to an old person,’ said Mthwakazi. ‘And you don’t spit at people.’

‘You say them and you spit too if you have been whipped by Hamilton Hope with his
kati
on two occasions and thrown into prison and abused by amaMfengu guards,’ said Malangana.

Mthwakazi found this rather funny and sniggered.

‘I am told that
kati
really ripped your buttocks to shreds. That story made you famous. I knew you long before I met you.’

More people were walking in the same direction. They said they were all going to see the white people of Qumbu who had been arrested by Mhlontlo. It seemed that’s what all those horsemen were doing the whole morning; rounding up white people from their houses and their general dealers’ stores and even right up to Shawbury Mission Station where Mhlontlo’s own son Charles was a student. They were all gathered outside the courthouse and people were going to see the spectacle of white people as Mhlontlo’s prisoners.

Malangana became excited. No wonder people were looting and burning down the general dealer’s store. Mhlontlo had finally done the right thing and had taken the white people prisoner. The best thing to do would be to kill them before any rescue attempt by the Red Coats. He wanted to increase his pace in order to feast his eyes on the prisoners, but his companion was burdened by a dress.

‘As soon as I am done with what Mhlontlo wants me to do we’ll walk back to the river and do what you want us to do,’ he said to Mthwakazi who was still giggling.

‘But I left my drum at Sulenkama. I cannot go without my drum.’

‘Yesterday the problem was
tsikiza
, now it is the drum. What will it be next?’

‘It is not my fault that you want to marry a diviner.’

‘You’re not yet a diviner from what I hear. You’re an acolyte,’ Malangana said in a belittling or even mocking manner.

She sat down on the ground and refused to move.

‘I am not going without my drum.’

He walked on without her. She did not follow. He stopped and looked back.

‘It is fine, we’ll go to Sulenkama first and pick it up, and then proceed to the river,’ he yelled.

Only then did she stand up, put the train of her dress on her shoulder and skip after him. They proceeded to the courthouse.

Malangana pushed his way through the excited crowd. And there in the centre were the white people, about fifteen of them. Most of them were from Shawbury, although two or three were traders from Qumbu. They were surrounded by a circle of Mhlontlo’s soldiers, fully armed with assegais, guns and rifles. Mhlontlo was sitting on Gcazimbane as Hope had been sitting on Saraband the day he was killed. Next to him was Alfred Davis – the Sunduza of amaMpondomise – interpreting for him in a shaky voice. Among the white people was his brother, the Reverend William Davis, on whose account Sunduza’s life was spared.

Mhlontlo was in the middle of his speech: ‘I assure all of you that amaMpondomise mean no harm to the white people. You can carry on with your lives in peace among us. Traders can carry on with their trade and missionaries can carry on with their work. Our quarrel is not with you but with the Government and the magistrates.’

Malangana was crestfallen. These people were guests, not prisoners.

A white woman spotted Mthwakazi in the crowd trying to push her way to the front in order to get a better view of the so-called white prisoners.

‘Mr Umhlonhlo! Mr Umhlonhlo!’ the white woman started screaming and pointing at Mthwakazi. ‘That girl is wearing my dress! And my gold earrings too!’

All heads, including Mthwakazi’s, turned in the direction in which she was pointing.

‘You promised we would be safe and our property would be protected. Our house must have been looted.’

At that moment a white man spotted Malangana.

‘And that man is wearing your nightgown, dear,’ he said.

‘Malangana!’ shouted Mhlontlo.

‘
Botha
,
Nkosi!
’ responded Malangana.
Your Majesty!

‘Why are you only arriving now? A simple thing like taking the magistrate’s horse to his house takes you the whole day? We delayed our proceedings waiting for you. You know I always want you to help Sunduza with interpreting for me.’

The white couple was getting frantic for it was obvious to them that their home had been looted. The other white people were trying to calm them down lest the armed natives became agitated and changed their minds about peaceful coexistence and started mowing them down.

‘I will deal with you when I finish with these men and women whose ears reflect the rays of the sun,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘What I am saying is it is Government that we are fighting, not the missionaries, not the traders. Government has treated us very harshly. We came under Government in order to gain peace and quietude. Instead we have been in a state of unending unrest because of the harsh treatment we have received. The magistrates have broken faith with us. Our cattle are being branded and now our arms are being taken away. And our children are to be taken away by Government across the great waters to the land of the white man. We can only take so much. Now we have decided to fight back. We know they are going to send their Red Coats here. We are going to stand our ground and defend our land and our people. I shall not be taken alive. A man can die only once.’

These last words moved Malangana and he vowed that he would be with Mhlontlo wherever he died. Still, he did not agree with sparing the lives of these white people. If only like-minded people like Mahlangeni were here. The elders were too accommodating.

The meeting was over. Mhlontlo asked the white people to return to their homes, and those who were afraid would be given guards to accompany them. The biggest group was going to Shawbury and would be accompanied by a troop of horsemen.

The Davis brothers wanted to confer with Mhlontlo before leaving. Malangana had to be part of that. But first Mhlontlo called him aside to admonish him about his lack of responsibility which was the result of his bachelorhood. It surely was high time he settled down so that he could focus more on national issues.

‘I don’t understand why you say white people must not be harmed,’ said Malangana instead of addressing the issue of his indiscipline. ‘Not after what Government has done to us.’

‘They are not Government,’ said Mhlontlo.

‘Government will return through them,’ argued Malangana. ‘We should be killing everyone whilst we have the chance. They will call other white people who will make war on us. There is a machine there in that building that they use to talk to other white people far away in other countries. The telegraph, it’s called. That’s where we should have started.’

‘Let’s destroy the machine and not the people,’ said Mhlontlo. ‘I was assured the wires were cut last night. I was told that machine works through wires. I instructed that their poles should also be set on fire. First let’s hear what Sunduza and his brother want.’

The Reverend Davis was making a request that he and his Methodist Church be allowed to bury the mutilated bodies of Hope, Warren and Henman, which were still lying out in the veld in Sulenkama. ‘
Siyacela Nkosi-e-Nkulu yaMampondomise
, it is an unChristian thing for their bodies to be lying there unburied,’ said William Davis.
We beg you, Paramount Chief of amaMpondomise.

‘You are a man of compassion, William Davis,’ said Mhlontlo, ‘as was your father before you. Both you and your father worked well with our people. And of course your brother Sunduza here who is a person of Government is a good man too. Even my son Charles stays with you at your school. I would like to show you similar compassion on this matter. But I can’t. The customs and practices of my people do not allow me. Those are bodies of fallen enemies and must remain in the veld and be carrion for the birds and scavenging animals of the wild. Their bones must scatter in the winds; otherwise the medicines made from their parts will have no potency.’

The Davis brothers left downhearted. As they were walking away, heads bowed, to join the wagon ferrying families to the mission station, their hopes were raised a bit when Mhlontlo called Sunduza’s name. But all he was saying was: ‘I have just been told there has been some looting and burning of some houses and stores. I am very sorry about it. It was not meant to be.’

As the horses and Scotch carts and wagons of the white people and Mhlontlo’s soldiers accompanying them back to Shawbury disappeared on the winding path, the praise poet performed a clownish dance in front of the king and then shouted: ‘
Diliiikaaa weee ntaaba! Idilikil’intaba namhlanje!
’
The mountain has fallen today
. Dilikintaba, Hamilton Hope’s praise-name, means ‘falling or demolished mountain’.

This was the glorious moment Malangana had been waiting for. He was the leader here. Even the king was going to follow his direction. About two hundred soldiers took their guns and their shields and spears and fell into line. And into song. The kind of song that men sang when they came back from a successful hunt with a sizeable kill. A buffalo, perhaps. Or a rhinoceros. Malangana’s ancestors were reputed to kill rhinoceros with their bare hands.

While the praise poet led the king into the House of Trials Malangana led a few men to the Telegraph Office to make sure the machine was destroyed. The machine was not there, the poles destroyed and wires cut. But they found a lot of guns that were stockpiled in the room. These had come from Butterworth and had arrived in Qumbu after Hamilton Hope had already left for Sulenkama. The papers indicated that there were 265 Snider rifles and 15,750 rounds of Snider ball cartridges. Mhlontlo’s army would be well armed. Malangana selected one of the rifles as his own and took it with him. He left the men to guard the loot and proceeded to the House of Trials for the glorious moment.

Inside the courtroom Mhlontlo was sitting at the bench. He was Hamilton Hope the magistrate. Malangana was the interpreter, sitting at the interpreter’s table next to the witness box. Various amaMpondomise soldiers had taken roles as officials of the court, ranging from prosecutors to lawyers to clerks of the court and sundry mandarins whose roles were undetermined. They were quite a sight in a Western courtroom in their isiMpondomise military regalia of animal skins and shields and ostrich feathers, with guns and assegais on their shoulders.

Mhlontlo opened the big book on the magistrate’s bench that recorded the names of accused persons, their crimes, the verdicts and the sentences – the Great Book of Causes, as Mhlontlo called it – and read from it words that no one could understand in the nasal accent of the English, while paging the big leaves of the book. Malangana translated the words into isiMpondomise.

A soldier was hurled into the witness stand by other soldiers who played the role of policemen. Mhlontlo read from the Great Book of Causes. Malangana interpreted: ‘You, Gatyeni, son of Ndlebendlovu, you are charged with the crime of owing Government tax for each one of your five huts for four years. Are you guilty or not guilty?’

‘I am not guilty, Dilikintaba! Why should I pay Government taxes for my houses in the land of amaMpondomise?’