E. Phillips Oppenheim - "The Great Secret "

Elisabeth Woodbridge - "More Jonathan Papers"

Jean Mace - "The History of a Mouthful of Bread"

Mary Hallock Foote - "In Exile and Other Stories"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Ghost Kings

H >> H. Rider Haggard >> The Ghost Kings




With Dingaan and his Council the three dwarfs did not seem to trouble
themselves, but at Rachel they peered earnestly. Then one of them made a
sign and muttered something, whereon a soldier of the escort stepped
forward with a fourth umbrella, which he opened over the heads of Rachel,
and of Noie who stood at her side.

"Why does he do that?" asked Dingaan. "The Inkosazana is not a bat that
she fears the sun."

"He does it," answered Noie, "that the Inkosazana may sit in the shade of
the wisdom of the Ghost-people, and that her heart which is hot with many
wrongs, may grow cool in the shade."

"What does he know about the Inkosazana and her wrongs?" asked Dingaan
again, but Noie only shrugged her shoulders and made no answer.

Now one of the dwarfs made another sign, whereon more guards advanced,
carrying small bowls of polished wood. These bowls they set upon the
ground before the three dwarfs, one before each of them, filling them to
the brim with water from a gourd.

"If your people are thirsty, Noie," exclaimed the King, "I have beer for
them to drink, for at least the locusts have left me that. Bid them throw
away the water, and I will give them beer."

"It is not water, King," she answered, "but dew gathered from certain
trees before sunrise, and it is their spirits that are thirsty for
knowledge, not their bodies, for in this dew they read the truth."

"Then the Inkosazana must be of their family, Noie, for she read of the
coming of the white chief Dario in water, or so they say."

"Perhaps, O King, if it is so these prophets will know it and acknowledge
her."

Now for a long while there was silence, so long a while indeed that
Dingaan and his Councillors began to move uneasily, for they felt as
though the dwarf men were fingering their heart-strings. At length the
three dwarfs lifted their wrinkled faces that were bleached to the colour
of half-ripe corn, and gazed at each other with their round, owl-like
eyes; then as though with one accord they said to each other:

"What seest thou, Priest?" and at same sign from them Noie translated the
words into Zulu.

Now the first of them, he who had cursed the soldier, spoke in his low
hissing voice, a voice like to the whisper of leaves in the wind, Noie
rendering his words.

"I see two maidens standing by a house that moves when cattle draw it. One
of them is dark-skinned, it is she," and he pointed to Noie, "the other is
fair-skinned, it is she," and he pointed to Rachel. "They cast, each of
them, a hair from her head into the air. The black hair falls to the
ground, but a spirit catches the hair of gold and bears it northward. It
is the spirit of Seyapi whom the Zulus slew. Northwards he bears it, and
lays it in the hand of the Mother of the Trees, and with it a message."

"Yes, with it a message," repeated the other two nodding their heads.

Then one of them drew a little package wrapped in leaves from his robe,
and motioned to Noie that she should give it to Rachel. Noie obeyed, and
the man said:

"Let us see if she has vision. Tell us, thou White One, what lies within
the leaves."

Rachel, who had been sitting like a person in a dream, took the packet,
and, without looking at it, answered:

"Many other leaves, and within the last of them a hair from this head of
mine. I see it, but three knots have been tied therein. They are three
great troubles."

"Open," said the dwarf to Noie, who cut the fibre binding the packet, and
unfolded many layers of leaves. Within the last leaf was a golden hair,
and in it were tied three knots.

Noie laid the hair upon the head of Rachel--it was hers. Then she showed
it to the King and his Council, who stared at the knots not knowing what
to say, and after they had looked at it, refolded it in the leaves and
returned the packet to the dwarf.

Now the dwarf who had read the picture in his bowl turned to him who sat
nearest and asked:

"What seest thou, Priest?"

The man stared at the limpid water and answered:

"I see this place at night. I see yonder King and his Councillors talking
to a white man with evil eyes and the face of a hawk, who has been wounded
on the head and foot. I read their lips. They bargain together; it is of
the bringing of an old prophet and his wife hither by force. I see the
prophet and his wife in a house, and with them Zulus. By the command of
the white man with the evil eyes the Zulus kill the prophet whose head is
bald, and his wife dies upon the bed. Before they kill the prophet he
slays one of the Zulus with smoke that comes from an iron tube."

When he heard all this Dingaan groaned, but the dwarf who had spoken,
taking no heed of him, said to the third dwarf:

"What seest thou, Priest?" to which that dwarf answered:

"I see the White One yonder standing on a hut, but her Spirit has fled
from her, it has fled from her to haunt the Trees. In her hand is a spear,
and below is the white man with, the evil eyes, held by Zulus. I read her
words: she says that there is blood," and he shivered as he said the word,
"yes, blood between her Spirit and the people of the Zulus. She prophesies
evil to them. I see the ill; I see many burnt in a great fire. I see many
drowned in an angry river. I see the demons of sickness lay hold of many.
I see her Spirit call up the locusts from the coast land. I see it bring
disaster on their arms; I see it scatter plague among their cattle; I see
a dim shape that it summons striding towards this land. It travels fast
over a winter veld, and the head of it is the head of a skull, and the
name of it is Famine."

As he ended his words the three dwarfs bent forward, and with one movement
seized their bowls and emptied them on to the ground, saying:

"Earth, Earth, drink, drink and bear record of these visions!"

Now the Council was much disturbed, for, although there were great witch
doctors among them, none had known magic like to this. Only Dingaan stared
down brooding. Then he looked up, and his fat body shook with hoarse
laughter.

"You play pretty tricks, little men," he said, "with your giants and your
boughs and your huts that open, and your bowls of water. But for all that
they are only tricks, since Noie, or others have told you of these things
that happened in the past. Now if you are wizards indeed, read me the
riddle of the words of the Inkosazana that she spoke before her Spirit
left her because of the evil acts of the wolf, Ibubesi. Show me the answer
to them in your bowls of water, little men, or be driven hence as cheats
and liars. Also tell us your names by which we may know you."

When Noie had translated this speech the three dwarfs gathered themselves
under one umbrella, and spoke to each other; then they slid back to their
places, and the first of them, he who had cursed the soldier, said:

"King of the Zulus, I am Eddo, this on my right is Pani, and that on my
left is Hana. We are children of the Mother of the Trees; we are
high-priests of the Grey-people, the Dream-people, who rule by dreams and
wisdom, not by spears as thou dost, O King. We are the Ghost-kings whom
the ghosts obey, we are the masters of the dead, and the readers of
hearts. Those are our names and titles, O King. We have travelled hither
because thou sentest a messenger of our own blood who whispered a strange
tale in the ear of the Mother of the Trees, a tale of one of whom we knew
already but desired to see," and all three of them nodded towards Rachel
seated on her stool. "We will read thy riddle, O King, but first thou must
fix the fee."

"What do you demand, Ghost-people?" asked Dingaan. "Cattle are somewhat
scarce here just now, and wives, I think, would be of little use to you.
What is there, then, that you desire, and I can give?"

They looked at each other, then Eddo said, pointing with his thin hand
upon which the nails grew long:

"We ask for the White One who sits there. We think that her Spirit dwells
with us already, and we ask her body that we may join it to the Spirit
again."

Now the Council murmured, but Dingaan replied:

"Once we sought to keep her in whom dwelt the Inkosazana of the Zulus. But
things have gone amiss, and she brings curses on us. If shape and spirit
were joined together again, mayhap the curses would be taken off our
heads. Yet we dare not give her to you, unless she gives herself of her
own will. Moreover, first the divination, then the pay. Is that enough?"

"It is enough," they answered, speaking all together. "Set out the matter,
King of the Zulus, and we will see what we can do."

Then Dingaan beckoned to a man with a withered hand who sat close to him,
listening and noting all things, but saying nothing, and said:

"Stand forth, thou Mopo, and tell the tale."

So Mopo rose and began his story. He told how he alone among the people of
the Zulus had thrice seen the spirit of the Inkosazana in the days of the
"Black-One-who-was-gone." He told how many moons ago the white man,
Ibubesi, had come to the Great Place speaking of a beautiful white maiden
who was known by the name of the Inkosazana-y-Zoola, a maiden who ruled
the lightning, and was not as other maidens are, and how he had been sent
to see her, and found that as was the Spirit of the Inkosazana which he
knew, so was this maiden.

"_Wow_!" he added, "save that the one walked on air and the other on
earth, they are the same."

Moreover, as a spirit she seemed wise. He told of the trapping of Noie,
and of the decoying of Rachel into Zululand, and of the interview between
her and the King by moonlight when she smelt out Noie. Now he was going on
to speak of the question put by Dingaan to the Inkosazana, and the answer
that she gave to him, when one of the little men who all this while sat as
though they were asleep, blinking their eyes in the light--it was
Eddo--said:

"Surely thou forgettest something. Tongue of the King, thou who are named
Mopo, or Umbopa, Son of Makedama; thou forgettest certain words which the
Inkosazana whispered to thee when she threw her cloak about thy head ere
thou fleddest away from the Council of the King. Of course, we do not know
the words, but why dost thou not repeat them, Tongue of the King?"

Mopo stared at them, and his teeth chattered, then he answered:

"Because they have nothing to do with the story, Ghost-men; because they
were of my own death, which is a little matter."

The three dwarfs turned their heads towards each other and said, each to
the other:

"Hearest thou, Priest, and hearest thou, Priest, and hearest thou, Priest?
He says that the words were of his own death and have nothing to do with
the story," and they smiled and nodded, and appeared to go to sleep again.

Now Mopo went on with his tale. He told of the question of the King, how
he had asked the Inkosazana whether he should fall upon the Boers or let
them be; of how she had searched the Heavens with her eyes; of how the
meteor had travelled before them, and burst over the kraal, Umgugundhlovu,
that star which she said was thrown by the hand of the Great-Great, the
Umkulunkulu, and of how she had sworn that she also heard the feet of a
people travelling over plain and mountain, and saw the rivers behind them
running red with blood. Lastly, he told of how she had refused to add to
or take from her words, or to set out their meaning.

Then Mopo sat himself down again in the circle of the Councillors, and
watched and hearkened like a hungry wolf.

"Ye have heard, Ghost-men," said the King. "Now, if ye are really wise,
interpret to us the meaning of this saying of the Inkosazana, and of the
running star which none can read."

The priests awoke and consulted with each other, then Eddo said:

"This matter is too high for us, King of the Zulus."

Dingaan heard, and laughed angrily.

"I thought it, I thought it!" he cried. "Ye are but cheats after all who,
like any common doctor, repeat the gossip that ye have heard, and pretend
that it is a message from Heaven. Now why should I not whip you from my
town with rods till ye see that red blood which ye so greatly fear?"

At the mention of the word blood, the little men seemed to curl up like
cut grass before fire; then Eddo smiled, a sickly smile, and answered:

"Be gentle, King, walk softly, King. We are but poor cheats, yet we will
do our best, we, or another for us. A new bowl, a big bowl, a red bowl for
the red King, and fill it to the brink with dew."

As he piped out the words a man from among their company appeared with a
vessel much larger than those into which they had gazed, and made of
beautiful, polished, blood-hued wood that gleamed in the sunlight. Eddo
took it in his hand and another slave filled it with water from the gourd;
the last drop of the water filled it to the brim. Then the three of them
muttered invocations over it, and Eddo, beckoning to Noie, bade her bear
it to the Inkosazana that she might gaze therein.

Rachel received it and looked; as she looked all the emptiness left her
eyes which grew quick and active and full of horror.

"Thou seest something, Maiden?" queried Eddo.

"Aye," answered Rachel, "I see much. Must I speak?"

"Nay, nay! Breathe on the water thrice and fix the visions. Now bear the
bowl to yonder King and let him look. Perchance he also will see
something."

Rachel breathed on the water thrice, rose like one in a trance, and
advancing to Dingaan placed the brimming bowl upon his knees.

"Look, King, look," cried Eddo, "and tell us if in what thou seest lies an
answer to the oracle of the Inkosazana."

Dingaan stared at the water, angrily at first, as one who smells a trick.
Then his face changed.

"By the head of the Black One," he said, "I see people fighting in this
kraal, white men and Zulus, and the white men are mastered and the Zulus
drag them out to death. The Zulus conquer, O my people. It is as I thought
that it would be--that is the meaning of the riddle of the Inkosazana."

"Good, good," said the Council. "Doubtless it shall come to pass."

But the dwarf Eddo only smiled again and waved his hand.

"Look once more, King," he said in his low, hissing voice, and Dingaan
looked.

Now his face darkened. "I see fire," he said. "Yes, in this kraal.
Umgugundhlovu burns, my royal House burns, and yonder come the white men
riding upon horses. Oh! they are gone."

Eddo waved his hand, saying:

"Look again and tell us what thou seest, King."

Unwillingly enough, but as though he could not resist, Dingaan looked and
said:

"I see a mountain whereof the top is like the shape of a woman, and
between her knees is the mouth of a cave. Beneath the floor of that cave I
see bodies, the body of a great man and the body of a girl; she must have
been fair, that girl."

Now when he heard this the Councillor who was named Mopo, he with the
withered hand, started up, then sat down again, but all were so intent
upon listening to Dingaan that none noticed his movements save Noie and
the priests of the ghosts.

"I see a man, a fat man come out of the cave," went on Dingaan. "He seems
to be wounded and weary, also his stomach is sunken as though with hunger.
Two other men seize him, a tall warrior with muscles that stand out on his
legs, and another that is thin and short. They drag him up the mountain to
a great cleft that is between the breasts of her who sits thereon. They
speak with him, but I cannot see their faces, for they are wrapped in
mist, or the face of the fat man, for that also is wrapped in mist. They
hale him to the edge of the cleft, they hurl him over, he falls headlong,
and the mist is swept from his face. Ah! _it is my own face!_" [Footnote:
See "Nada the Lily," CHAPTER XXXV.]

"Priest," whispered each of the little men to his fellow in the dead
silence that followed, "Priest, this King says that he sees his own face.
Priest, tell me now, has not the spirit of the Inkosazana interpreted the
oracle of the Inkosazana? Will not yonder King be hurled down this cleft?
Is _he_ not the star that falls?"

And they nodded and smiled at each other.

But Dingaan leapt up in his rage and terror, and with him leapt up the
Councillors and witch doctors, all save he who was named Mopo, son of
Makedama, who sat still gazing at the ground. Dingaan leapt up, and
seizing the bowl hurled it from him so that the water in it fell over
Rachel like rain from the clouds. He leapt up, and he cursed the
Ghost-priests as evil wizards, bidding them begone from his land. He raved
at them, he threatened them, he cursed them again and again. The little
men sat still and smiled till he grew weary and ceased. Then they spoke to
each other, saying:

"He has sprinkled the White One with the dew of out Trees, and henceforth
she belongs to the Trees. Is it not so, Priest?"

They nodded in assent, and Eddo rose and addressed the King in a new
voice, a shrill commanding voice, saying:

"O man, thou that art called a King and causest much blood to flow, thou
are but a bubble on a river of blood, thou slayer that shalt be slain,
thou thrower of spears upon whom the spear shall fall, thou who shalt look
upon the Face of Stone that knows not pity, thou whom the earth shall
swallow, thou who shalt perish at the hands of--"

"The faces of the slayers were veiled, Priest," broke in the other two
dwarfs, peeping up at him from beneath the shadow of their umbrellas;
"surely the faces of those slayers were veiled, O Priest."

"Thou who shalt perish at the hands of avengers whose faces are veiled,
thy riddle is read for thee as the Mother of the Trees decreed that it
should be read. It is well read, it is truly read, it shall befall in its
season. Now give to thy servants their reward and let them depart in
peace. Give to them, that White One whose lost Spirit spoke to thee from
the water."

"Take her," roared Dingaan, "take her and begone, for to the Zulus she and
Noie, the witch, bring naught but ill."

But one of the Council cried:

"The Inkosazana cannot be sent away with these magicians unless it is her
will to go."

Then the little men nodded to Noie, and Noie whispered in the ear of
Rachel.

Rachel listened and answered: "Whither thou goest, Noie, thither I go with
thee, I who seek my Spirit."

So Noie took Rachel by the hand and led her from the Council-place of the
King, and as she went, followed by the Ghost-priests and their escort, for
the last time all the Councillors rose up and gave to her the royal
salute. Only Dingaan sat upon the ground and beat it with his fists in
fury.

Thus did the Inkosazana-y-Zoola depart from the Great Place of the King of
the Zulus, and Mopo, the son of Makedama, shading his eyes with his hand,
watched her go from between his withered fingers.



CHAPTER XIX

RACHEL FINDS HER SPIRIT


Northward, ever northward, journeyed Rachel with the Ghost-priests; for
days and weeks they journeyed, slowly, and for the most part at night,
since these people dreaded the glare of the sun. Sometimes she was borne
along in a litter with Noie upon the shoulders of the huge slaves, but
more often she walked between the litters in the midst of a guard of
soldiers, for now she was so strong that she never seemed to weary, nor
even in the fever swamps where many fell ill, did any sickness touch her.
Also this labour of the body seemed to soothe her wandering and tormented
mind, as did the touch of Noie's hand and the sound of Noie's voice. At
times, however, her madness got hold of her and she broke out into those
bursts of wild laughter which had scared the Zulus. Then Eddo would
descend from his litter and lay his long fingers on her forehead and look
into her eyes in such a fashion that she went to sleep and was at peace.
But if Noie spoke to her in these sleeps, she answered her questions, and
even talked reasonably as she had done before the people of Mafooti laid
the body of Richard at her feet, and she stood upon the roof of the hut
which Ishmael strove to climb.

Thus it was that Noie came to learn all that had happened to her since
they parted, for though she had gathered much from them, the Zulus could
not, or would not tell her everything. In past days she had heard from
Rachel of the lad, Richard Darrien, who had been her companion years
before through that night of storm on the island in the river, and now she
understood that her lady loved this Richard, and that it was because of
his murder by the wild brute, Ibubesi, that she had become mad.

Yes, she was mad, and for that reason Noie rejoiced that the dwarf people
were taking her to their home, since if she could be cured at all, they
were able to heal her, they the great doctors. Moreover, if these priests
and the Zulus would have let her go, whither else could she have gone
whose parents and lover were dead, except to the white people on the
coast, who did not reverence the insane, as do all black folk, but would
have locked her up in a house with others like her until she died. No
although she knew that there were dangers before them, many and great
dangers, Noie rejoiced that things had befallen thus.

Also in her tender care already Rachel improved much, and Noie believed
that one day she would be herself again. Only she wished that she and her
lady were alone together; that there were no priests with them, and above
all no Eddo. For Eddo as she knew well was jealous of her authority over
Rachel; jealous too of the love that they bore one to the other. He wished
to use this crazed white chieftainess who had been accepted as their
Inkosazana by the great Zulu people, for his own purposes. This had been
clear from the beginning, and that was why when he first heard of her he
had consented to go on the embassy to Dingaan, since by his magic he could
foresee much of the future that was dark to Noie, whose blood was mixed
and who had not all the gifts of the Ghost-kings.

Moreover, the Mother of the Trees was Noie's great aunt, being the sister
of her grandfather, or of his father, Noie was not sure which, for she had
dwelt among them but a few days, and never thought to inquire of the
matter. But of one thing she was sure, that Eddo the first priest, hated
this Mother of the Trees, who was named Nya, and desired that "when her
tree fell" the next mother should be his servant, which Nya was not.
Perhaps, reflected Noie, it was in his mind that her lady would fill this
part, and being mad, obey him in all things.

Still she kept a watch upon her words, and even on her thoughts, for Eddo
and his fellow-priests, Pani and Hana, were able to peer into human
hearts, and read their secrets. Also she protected Rachel from him as much
as she was able, never leaving her side for a moment, however weary she
might be, for she feared lest he should become the master of her will.
Only when the fits of madness fell upon her mistress, she was forced to
allow Eddo to quell them with his touch and eye, since herself she lacked
this power, nor dared she call the others to her help, for they were under
the hand of Eddo.

Northward, ever northward. First they passed through the Zulus and their
subject tribes who knew of them and of the Inkosazana. All of these were
suffering from the curse that lay upon the land because, as they believed,
there was blood between the Inkosazana and her people. The locusts
devoured their crops and the plague ravaged their cattle, so that they
were terrified of her, and of the little Grey-folk with whom she
travelled, the wizards who had shown fearful things to Dingaan and left
him sick with dread. They fled at their approach, only leaving a few of
their old people to prostrate themselves before this Inkosazana who
wandered in search of her own Spirit, and the Dream-men who dwelt with the
ghosts in the heart of a forest, and to pray her and them to lift this
cloud of evil from the land, bringing gifts of such things as were left to
them.

At length all the Zulus were passed, and they entered into the territories
of other tribes, wild, wandering tribes.

But even these knew of the Ghost-kings, and attempted nothing against
them, as they had attempted nothing against Noie and her escort when she
travelled through this land on her embassy to the People of the Trees.
Indeed, some of their doctors would visit them at their camps and ask an
oracle, or an interpretation of dreams, or a charm against their enemies,
or a deadly poison, offering great gifts in return. At times Eddo and his
fellow-priests would listen, and the giants would bring a tiny bowl filled
with dew into which they gazed, telling them the pictures they saw there,
though this they did but seldom, as the supply of dew which they had
brought with them from their own country ran low, and since it could not
be used twice they kept it for their own purposes.

Next they came to a country of vast swamps, where dwelt few men and many
wild beasts, a country full of fevers and reeds and pools, in which lived
snakes and crocodiles. Yet no harm came to them from these things, for the
Ghost-priests had medicines that warded off sickness, and charms that
protected them from all evil creatures, and in their bowls they read what
road to take and how dangers could be avoided. So they passed the swamps
safely; only here that slave whom Eddo had cursed at the kraal of Dingaan,
and who from that day onward had wasted till he seemed to be nothing but a
great skeleton, sickened and died.

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