The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nada the Lily, by H. Rider Haggard

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Title: Nada the Lily

Author: H. Rider Haggard

Posting Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #1207]
Release Date: January 28, 2007

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NADA THE LILY ***

Produced by John Bickers

NADA THE LILY

By H. Rider Haggard

DEDICATION

Sompseu:

For I will call you by the name that for fifty years has been honoured
by every tribe between Zambesi and Cape Agulbas,--I greet you!

Sompseu, my father, I have written a book that tells of men and matters
of which you know the most of any who still look upon the light;
therefore, I set your name within that book and, such as it is, I offer
it to you.

If you knew not Chaka, you and he have seen the same suns shine, you
knew his brother Panda and his captains, and perhaps even that very Mopo
who tells this tale, his servant, who slew him with the Princes. You
have seen the circle of the witch-doctors and the unconquerable Zulu
impis rushing to war; you have crowned their kings and shared their
counsels, and with your son's blood you have expiated a statesman's
error and a general's fault.

Sompseu, a song has been sung in my ears of how first you mastered this
people of the Zulu. Is it not true, my father, that for long hours you
sat silent and alone, while three thousand warriors shouted for your
life? And when they grew weary, did you not stand and say, pointing
towards the ocean: "Kill me if you wish, men of Cetywayo, but I tell
you that for every drop of my blood a hundred avengers shall rise from
yonder sea!"

Then, so it was told me, the regiments turned staring towards the Black
Water, as though the day of Ulundi had already come and they saw the
white slayers creeping across the plains.

Thus, Sompseu, your name became great among the people of the Zulu, as
already it was great among many another tribe, and their nobles did you
homage, and they gave you the Bayete, the royal salute, declaring by the
mouth of their Council that in you dwelt the spirit of Chaka.

Many years have gone by since then, and now you are old, my father. It
is many