Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗
"I regret that you are not seeing Comrade Minister Zebiwe at his best," Peter told the white man. "He has lost a great deal of weight, but not here-, With the UP of the swagger stick Peter Fungabera lifted the heavy black bunch of Tungata's naked genitalia.
"Have you ever seen anything like that?" he asked, using the swagger-stick with the same dexterity as a chopstick.
Bound to the stake, Tungata could not pull away. it was the ultimate degradation, this arrogant mauling and examination of his private parts.
"Enough for three ordinary men," Peter estimated with mock admiration, and Tungata glared at him wordlessly.
The Russian made an impatient gesture and Peter nodded.
"You are right. We are wasting time." He Rlanced at his wrist-watch and then turned to the captain who was close by, waiting with his squad.
"Bring the prisoner up to the fort." They had to carry Tungata.
eter Fungabera's quarters in the blockhouse on the central rock kopje were spartanly furnished, but the dirt floor had been freshly swept and sprinkled with water. He and the Russian sat on one side of the trestle, table that served as a desk. There was a wooden bench on the opposite side, facing them.
The guards helped Tungata to the bench. He pushed their hands away and sat upright, glaring silently at the two men opposite him. Peter said something to the captain in Shana, and they brought a cheap grey blanket and draped it over Tungata's shoulders. Another order, and the captain carried in a trot' on which stood a bottle of vodka and another of whisky, two glasses, an ice-bucket and a pitcher of water.
Tungata did not look at the water. It took all his selfcontrol, but he kept his eyes on Peter Fungabera's face.
"Now, this is much more civilized," Peter said. "The Comrade Minister Zebiwe speaks no Shana, only the primitive Sindebele dialect, so we will use the language common to all of us English." He poured vodka and whisky and as the ice clinked into the glasses Tungata winced, but kept his gaze fixed on Peter Fungabera.
"This is a briefing," Peter explained. "Our guest," he indicated the old white man, "is a student of African history. He has read, and remembered, everything ever written about this country. While you, my dear Tungata, are a sprig of the house of Kurnalo, the old robber chiefs of the Matabele, who for a hundred years raided and terrorized the legitimate owners of this land, the Mashona people.
Therefore both of you might already know something of what I am about to relate. If that is so, I beg your indulgence." He sipped his whisky, and neither of the other two moved or spoke.
"We must go back a hundred and fifty years," said Peter, to when a young field commander of the Zulu King Chaka, a man who was the king's favourite, failed to render up to Chaka the spoils of war. This man's name was Mzilikazi, son of Mashobane of the Kumalo sub tribe of Zulu, and he was to become the first Matabele. In passing, it is interesting to note that he set a precedent for the tribe which he was to found. Firstly, he was a master of rapine and plunder, a famous killer. Then he was a thief. He stole from his own sovereign. He failed to render to Chaka the king's share of the spoils. Then Mzilikazi was a coward, for when Chaka sent for him to face retribution, he fled." Peter smiled at Tungata. "Killer, thief and coward that was Mzilikazi, father of the Matabele, and that description fits every member of the tribe from then until the present day.
Killer! Thief! Coward!" He repeated the insults with relish, and Tungata watched his face with eyes that glowed.
"So this paragon of manly virtues, taking with him his regiment of renegade Zulu warriors, fled northwards. He fell upon the weaker tribes in his path, and took their herds and their young women. This was the Umfecane, the great killing. It is said that one million defenceless souls perished under the Matabele assegais. Certainly Mzilikazi left behind him an empty land, a land of bleached skulls and burned-out villages.
"He blazed this path of destruction across the continent until he met, coming from the south-west, a foe more bloodthirsty, more avaricious even than he, the white men, the Boers. They shot down Mzilikazi's vaunted killers like rabid dogs. So Mzilikazi, the coward, ran again. Northwards again." Peter gently agitated the ice cubes in his glass, a soft tinkling that made Tungata. blink, but he did not look down at the glass.
"Bold Mzilikazi crossed the Limpopo river and found a pleasant land of sweet grass and clear waters. It was inhabited by a gentle, pastoral people, descendants of a race who had built great cities of stone, a comely people whom Mzilikazi contemptuously named the "eaters of dirt" and referred to as his cattle. He treated them like cattle, killing them for sport, or husbanding them to provide his indolent warriors with slaves. The young women of Mashona, if they were nubile, were mounted for pleasure and used as breeding-stock to provide more warriors for his murderous imp is but then you know all this."
"The broad facts, yes," the old white man nodded. "But not your interpretation of them. Which proves that history is merely propaganda written by the victors." Peter laughed. J leadn't heard it put that way before.
However, it's true. Now, we, the Shana, are the ultimate victors, so it is our right to redraft history."
"Go on," the white man invited.
"I find this instructive."
"Very well. In the year 1868, as white men measure time, Mzilikazi, this great fat debauched and diseased killer, died. It is amusing to recall that his followers kept his corpse fifty-six days in the heat of Matabeleland before committing it to burial, so he stank in death as powerfully as he did in life. Another endearing Matabele trait." He waited for Tungata. to protest, and when he did not, went on.
"One of his sons succeeded him, Lobengula, "the one who drives like the wind", as fat and devious and bloodthirsty as his illustrious father. However, at almost the Iran same time as he took the chieftainship of the Matabele, two seeds were sown that would soon grow into great creeping vines that would choke and finally bring the fat bull of Kumalo crashing to earth." He paused for effect, likea practised storyteller, and then held up one finger. "Firstly, far to the south of his plundered domains, the white men had found on a desolate kopie in the veld, a little shiny pebble, and secondly from a dismal island far to the north, a sickly young white man embarked on a ship, seeking clean dry air for his weak lungs.
