On the morrow Owen baptised the king, many of his councillors, andsome twenty others whom he considered fit to receive the rite. Also hedespatched his first convert John, with other messengers, on a threemonths' journey to the coast, giving them letters acquainting thebishop and others with his marvellous success, and praying thatmissionaries might be sent to assist him in his labours.
Now day by day the Church grew till it numbered hundreds of souls, andthousands more hovered on its threshold. From dawn to dark Owentoiled, preaching, exhorting, confessing, gathering in his harvest;and from dark to midnight he pored over his translation of theScriptures, teaching Nodwengo and a few others how to read and writethem. But although his efforts were crowned with so signal andextraordinary a triumph, he was well aware of the dangers thatthreatened the life of the infant Church. Many accepted it indeed, andstill more tolerated it; but there remained multitudes who regardedthe new religion with suspicion and veiled hatred. Nor was thisstrange, seeing that the hearts of men are not changed in an hour ortheir ancient customs easily overset.
On one point, indeed, Owen had to give way. The Amasuka were apolygamous people; all their law and traditions were interwoven withpolygamy, and to abolish that institution suddenly and with violencewould have brought their social fabric to the ground. Now, as he knewwell, the missionary Church declares in effect that no man can be botha Christian and a polygamist; therefore among the followers of thatcustom the missionary Church makes but little progress. Not withoutmany qualms and hesitations, Owen, having only the Scriptures toconsult, came to a compromise with his converts. If a man alreadymarried to more than one wife wished to become a Christian, hepermitted him to do so upon the condition that he took no more wives;while a man unmarried at the time of his conversion might take onewife only. This decree, liberal as it was, caused greatdissatisfaction among both men and women. But it was as nothingcompared to the feeling that was evoked by Owen's preaching againstall war not undertaken in self-defence, and against the strict lawswhich he prevailed upon the king to pass, suppressing the practice ofwizardry, and declaring the chief or doctor who caused a man to be"smelt out" and killed upon charges of witchcraft to be guilty ofmurder.
At first whenever Owen went abroad he was surrounded by thousands ofpeople who followed him in the expectation that he would workmiracles, which, after his exploits with the lightning, they were wellpersuaded that he could do if he chose. But he worked no moremiracles; he only preached to them a doctrine adverse to their customsand foreign to their thoughts.
So it came about that in time, when the novelty was gone off and thestory of his victory over the Fire-god had grown stale, although thework of conversion went on steadily, many of the people grew weary ofthe white man and his doctrines. Soon this weariness found expressionin various ways, and in none more markedly than by the constantdesertions from the ranks of the king's regiments. At first, by Owen'sadvice, the king tolerated these desertions; but at length, havingobtained information that an entire regiment purposed absconding atdawn, he caused it to be surrounded and seized by night. Next morninghe addressed that regiment, saying:--"Soldiers, you think that because I have become a Christian and willnot permit unnecessary bloodshed, I am also become a fool. I willteach you otherwise. One man in every twenty of you shall be killed,and henceforth any soldier who attempts to desert will be killedalso!"The order was carried out, for Owen could not find a word to sayagainst it, with the result that desertions almost ceased, though notbefore the king had lost some eight or nine thousand of his bestsoldiers. Worst of all, these soldiers had gone to join Hafela in hismountain fastnesses; and the rumour grew that ere long they wouldappear again, to claim the crown for him or to take it by force ofarms.
Now too a fresh complication arose. The old king sickened of his lastillness, and soon it became known that he must die. A month later diehe did, passing away peacefully in Owen's arms, and with his lastbreath exhorting his people to cling to the Christian religion; totake Nodwengo for their king and to be faithful to him.
The king died, and that same day was buried by Owen in the gloomyresting-place of the blood-royal of the People of Fire, where aChristian priest now set foot for the first time.
On the morrow Nodwengo was proclaimed king with much ceremony in faceof the people and of all the army that remained to him. One captainraised a cry for Hafela his brother. Nodwengo caused him to be seizedand brought before him.
"Man," he said, "on this my coronation day I will not stain my handwith blood. Listen. You cry upon Hafela, and to Hafela you shall go,taking him this message. Tell him that I, Nodwengo, have succeeded tothe crown of Umsuka, my father, by his will and the will of thepeople. Tell him it is true that I have become a Christian, and thatChristians follow not after war but peace. Tell him, however, thatthough I am a Christian I have not forgotten how to fight or how torule. It has reached my ears that it is his purpose to attack me witha great force which he is gathering, and to possess himself of mythrone. If he should choose to come, I shall be ready to meet him; butI counsel him against coming, for it will be to find his death. Lethim stay where he is in peace, and be my subject; or let him go afarwith those that cleave to him, and set up a kingdom of his own, forthen I shall not follow him; but let him not dare to lift a spearagainst me, his sovereign, since if he does so he shall be treated asa rebel and find the doom of a rebel. Begone, and show your face hereno more!"The man crept away crestfallen; but all who heard that speech brokeinto cheering, which, as its purport was repeated from rank to rank,spread far and wide; for now the army learned that in becoming aChristian, Nodwengo had not become a woman. Of this indeed he soongave them ample proof. The old king's grip upon things had been lax,that of Nodwengo was like iron. He practised no cruelties, and didinjustice to none; but his discipline was severe, and soon theregiments were brought to a greater pitch of proficiency than they hadever reached before, although they were now allowed to marry when theypleased, a boon that hitherto had been denied to them. Moreover, byOwen's help, he designed an entirely new system of fortification ofthe kraal and surrounding hills, which would, it was thought, make theplace impregnable. These and many other acts, equally vigorous andfar-seeing, put new heart into the nation. Also the report of them putfear into Hafela, who, it was rumoured, had now given up all idea ofattack.
Some there were, however, who looked upon these changes with littlelove, and Hokosa was one of them. After his defeat in the duel byfire, for a while his spirit was crushed. Hitherto he had more or lessbeen a believer in the protecting influence of his own god or fetish,who would, as he thought, hold his priests scatheless from thelightning. Often and often had he stood in past days upon that plainwhile the great tempests broke around his head, and returned thenceunharmed, attributing to sorcery a safety that was really due tochance. From time to time indeed a priest was killed; but, so hiscompanions held, the misfortune resulted invariably from the man'sneglect of some rite, or was a mark of the anger of the heavens.
Now Hokosa had lived to see all these convictions shattered: he hadseen the lightning, which he pretended to be able to control, rollback upon him from the foot of the Christian cross, reducing his godto nothingness and his companions to corpses.
At first Hokosa was dismayed, but as time went on hope came back tohim. Stripped of his offices and power, and from the greatest in thenation, after the king, become one of small account, still no harm orviolence was attempted towards him. He was left wealthy and in peace,and living thus he watched and listened with open eyes and ears,waiting till the tide should turn. It seemed that he would not havelong to wait, for reasons that have been told.
"Why do you sit here like a vulture on a rock," asked the girl Noma,whom he had taken to wife, "when you might be yonder with Hafela,preparing him by your wisdom for the coming war?""Because I am a king-vulture, and I wait for the sick bull to die," heanswered, pointing to the Great Place beneath him. "Say, why should Ibring Hafela to prey upon a carcase I have marked down for my own?""Now you speak well," said Noma; "the bull suffers from a strangedisease, and when he is dead another must lead the herd.""That is so," answered her husband, "and, therefore, I am patient."It was shortly after this conversation that the old king died, withresults very different from those which Hokosa had anticipated.
Although he was a Christian, to his surprise Nodwengo showed that hewas also a strong ruler, and that there was little chance of thesceptre slipping from his hand--none indeed while the white teacherwas there to guide him.
"What will you do now, Hokosa?" asked Noma his wife upon a certainday. "Will you turn to Hafela after all?""No," answered Hokosa; "I will consult my ancient lore. Listen.
Whatever else is false, this is true: that magic exists, and I am itsmaster. For a while it seemed to me that the white man was greater atthe art than I am; but of late I have watched him and listened to hisdoctrines, and I believe that this is not so. It is true that in thebeginning he read my plans in a dream, or otherwise; it is true thathe hurled the lightning back upon my head; but I hold that thesethings were accidents. Again and again he has told us that he is not awizard; and if this be so, he can be overcome.""How, husband?""How? By wizardry. This very night, Noma, with your help I willconsult the dead, as I have done in bygone time, and learn the futurefrom their lips which cannot lie.""So be it; though the task is hateful to me, and I hate you who forceme to it."Noma answered thus with passion, but her eyes shone as she spoke: forthose who have once tasted the cup of magic are ever drawn to drink ofit again, even when they fear the draught.
****It was midnight, and Hokosa with his wife stood in the burying-groundof the kings of the Amasuka. Before Owen came upon his mission it wasdeath to visit this spot except upon the occasion of the laying torest of one of the royal blood, or to offer the annual sacrifice tothe spirits of the dead. Even beneath the bright moon that shone uponit the place seemed terrible. Here in the bosom of the hills was anamphitheatre, surrounded by walls of rock varying from five hundred toa thousand feet in height. In this amphitheatre grew great mimosathorns, and above them towered pillars of granite, set there not bythe hand of man but by nature. It would seem that the Amasuka, led bysome fine instinct, had chosen these columns as fitting memorials oftheir kings, at the least a departed monarch lay at the foot of eachof them.
The smallest of these unhewn obelisks--it was about fifty feet high--marked the resting-place of Umsuka; and deep into its granite Owenwith his own hand had cut the dead king's name and date of death,surmounting his inscription with a symbol of the cross.
Towards this pillar Hokosa made his way through the wet grass,followed by Noma his wife. Presently they were there, standing oneupon each side of a little mound of earth more like an ant-heap than agrave; for, after the custom of his people, Umsuka had been buriedsitting. At the foot of each of the pillars rose a heap of similarshape, but many times as large. The kings who slept there wereaccompanied to their resting-places by numbers of their wives andservants, who had been slain in solemn sacrifice that they mightattend their Lord whithersoever ............