Langalula was a great chief. The people he ruled were numerous and warlike: his assegais were ten thousand: his tribe had many cattle. So the Missionary at his kraal was glad indeed when he felt he had touched Langalula’s heart; for it meant the conversion of a whole heathen nation.
When the king goes over, the people soon follow him.
Langalula said, ‘I am convinced; baptize me.’
But the ways of white men, are they not incomprehensible? Though the Missionary had been preaching that very thing for months, yet when Langalula gave in he answered, ‘Conviction alone is not enough. You must wait a while till I feel that your life shows forth works meet for repentance.’ Langalula grumbled. He was little accustomed to such contradiction. But he knew it was hard arguing with these priestly white men, who will baptize a starving slave every bit as soon as a great chief; so he held his peace, and, though he chafed at it, waited the Missionary’s pleasure.
By and by, one day, the Missionary came to him. ‘Langalula,’ he said condescendingly, ‘I have watched you close for many weeks now, and I think I can baptize you.’
‘Then all my sins will be forgiven?’ asked Langalula.
‘All your sins will be forgiven,’ the Missionary answered.
‘But I must put away my wives?’ Langalula asked once more.
‘All save one,’ answered the Missionary. It was a point of doctrine, or at least of discipline.
‘Then I think,’ Langalula said, ‘I will wait for a week — so as to make up my mind which one of them is dearest to me.’
But he said this deceitfully, knowing in his own heart that all his sins were going to be forgiven, and determining in the interval to marry another wife, whom he would keep as his companion when he put away the others. For there was a young girl coming on, black but comely, the daughter of Khamsua, a neighbouring chief, whom Langalula had seen, and whom he wished to purchase. And since the last love is always (for the moment) the greatest, the chief cared very little whether he must put away all his other wives or not, if only he could keep Malali. She had driven out the rest of them. He had watched the girl growing up at Khamsua’s for years, and had said to himself always, ‘Whenever Malali is of marriageable age, see if I do not buy her and marry her.’
In pursuance of this plan, as soon as the Missionary was gone, Langalula rose up, and took the fighting men of his tribe with him (that there might be no dispute), and marched into the country of Malali’s father, whose name, as I said, was Khamsua. When Khamsua heard Langalula was on his way to his land with five thousand assegais, not to speak of Winchester rifles, he went out to meet him with a great retinue.
Khamsua cringed. Langalula said to him, ‘I am come to ask for Malali.’
The moment Khamsua heard that saying, he was unspeakably terrified, and flung himself down on his face, and clasped Langalula’s knees. For Khamsua was only a small chief in the country compared with Langalula.
‘O my king,’ Khamsua said, ‘O lion of the people, how could I know so great a monarch as you had set his eyes on Malali? and before you asked — woe, woe! — Montelo’s people came, and offered oxen on Montelo’s behalf for Malali. And I sold her to them, because I was afraid of Montelo, and could not have believed so great a chief as you had ever looked upon her.’
Langalula smiled at that. ‘Oh, as for Montelo,’ he said, ‘I can easily take her from him; and then I can get the Missionary to marry us.’
Khamsua, however, answered like a fool. ‘It cannot be. The Christians are so strait-laced. Montelo is a Christian now; he was baptized a week ago; and Malali was married to him in Christian fashion. Even if you were to kill Montelo and take her to your kraal, I don’t believe the Missionary would marry you.’
Langalula turned to his men. ‘Kill him,’ he said simply. And they killed him with an assegai.
As soon as that was finished, Langalula marched on into Montelo’s country. When he arrived there, Montelo crept out to meet him and tried to parley with him. But Langalula would not parley with the man who had deprived him of Malali. ‘We will fight for it,’ he said angrily. And they fought for it, then and there. The upshot of it all was that Langalula’s men conquered in the battle, and drove Montelo’s men (who had no Winchesters) back to their king’s kraal; and then they killed Montelo himself, and carried his head on an assegai.
By the very same evening they occupied the kraal that had once been Montelo’s, and Langalula’s men brought out Malali to their own leader. Langalula looked hard at her. She was a glossy-black girl, very smooth-skinned and lithe, and clean of limb. The great chief stared long at her. Malali hung her head and drooped her arms before him. ‘Why did you go with Montelo,’ he asked at last, ‘when Langalula would have taken you?’
The girl trembled with fear. ’Twas no fault of hers. How could she help it? A woman, there, is no free agent. ‘My father sold me,’ she answered, whimpering; ‘Montelo paid him a great many oxen. I had no choice but to go. O King, O mighty lion, I did not know you wanted me.’
With that she flung herself at his feet in terror, and held his knees, imploring him.
‘Take her to the hut that was once Montelo’s,’ said the great chief, smiling; ‘I will follow her there.’
They seized her arms and dragged her to the hut, crying and shrieking as she went. They dragged her roughly. Langalula remained behind, superintending the slaughter of Montelo’s warriors. As soon as he was tired he returned to the hut that had once been Montelo’s; for he wished to see Malali, whether she was really as beautiful as he believed, even though the Missionary would never marry him to her.
Malali, when she saw him, outside the hut, thought all was well, and that Langalula loved her. So she left off crying, and tried every art a woman knows to please and charm him. But Langalula was a very great king, and his anger was aroused. A king’s anger is terrible. He smiled to himself to see with what simple tricks the woman thought she could appease a mighty warrior.
‘Go into my hut!’ he said. And he followed her.
The next morning came, and the great king cried to himself with annoyance and vexation that Montelo and Khamsua — and the Missionary as well — should have done him, between them, out of so beautiful a woman. If the Missionary had been a black man, Langalula would have compelled him to baptize him outright, and then to marry him properly to Malali, with book and ring, in the Christian fashion. But he knew by experience it is no use threatening these white men with tortures; for, threaten how you may, they will not obey you; and, besides, the Governor would send up troops from Cape Town; and ’tis ill fighting with the men of the Governor. So he arose from his bed in the morning in a white heat of passion. ‘Malali,’ he said, gazing at her with an ugly smile, ‘I like you better than any woman I ever yet saw. You please me in everything. But you went off with Montelo, and the Missionary will not marry me to you now I have speared him. I have also speared your father, Khamsua, because he sold you for oxen to Montelo. I want a real queen, who shall be married to me white-fashion. I am becoming a Christian now, and can have only one wife. But it must not be you, because you were sold to Montelo, whom I have slain in the battle, and they will not marry us. So I will keep my own first wife, the earliest married, though she is old and lean, and discard the other ones. Come out of the hut, Malali, and stand in front of my warriors.’
Malali was afraid at that, and would have skulked in the corner if she dared; but she dared not, because she was frightened of Langalula. So out she came as he bid her, trembling in all her limbs, and crouching with terror; her knees hardly bore her. Langalula turned to his men; he looked at her with regret. She was sleek and beautiful.
‘Pin her through the body to the ground with an assegai,’ he said, pointing at her.
And they pinned her through with an assegai.
‘Pin her arms and her legs,’ said the great chief.
And his followers pinned them. The woman fainted.
‘Now leave her to die in the sun,’ said Langalula.
So they left her to die there.
After that, Langalula marched back grimly with his men to his own country. As soon as he reached his kraal he went to see the Missionary. He was very submissive.
‘I repent of all my sins,’ he said. ‘I have come to be baptized. Teacher, I will put away all my wives save one; and even for that one I will retain the earliest.’
And that is how Langalula became a Christian.