"Black Heart and White Heart and other stories"
The volumein which this story was read contains the title story, "Elissa: Or, the Doom of Zimbabwe", and "The Wizard".
"Black Heart and White Heart"
The title character is Philip Hadden, a gentleman born, but one who has become a trader and transport rider in Natal, to escape from various errors in his past. In order to escape arrest for assault, he decides to sojourn in Zululand, shooting elephants. He visits the King (Cetywayo) at Ulundi, in 1878, but decides that its not safe there, as the war clouds are building up. Furthermore, the king wants him to stay, as a mender of rifles. But he gets permission to hunt, and in the meanwhile is a virtual prisoner.
Nahoon, son of Zomba, is a captain of the Umcityu regiment. He asks the king for permission to marry Nanea, daughter of Umgona, who is Nahoon’s uncle. Nahoon’s request is turned down, and Nanea is to become one of the king’s women instead.
Nahoon, to keep him out of mischief, is sent to escort Hadden on his hunting – to make sure he doesn’t run for the border, which is only a short distance away. When hunting they come to kraal of a witch-doctress, which is adjacent to the Emagudu forest (Home of the Dead), where reside the Amahlosi (ordinary ghosts) and Esemkofu (speechless ones). The witch-doctress, the Bee (Inyosi) gives Nahoon the name White Heart, and Hadden that of Black Heart (or Inhlizin-mgama, as rendered by Nahoon). The Bee prophesises doom for Hadden, which he doesn’t believe, though he is disconcerted at the end of the interview. The Bee asked for his ring as a payment for her prophecy, and he replied "I am afraid you will have to wait till I am dead". She responded in a pleased tone "Yes, yes".
They follow a wounded buffalo into the forest, though Nahoon is loath to go into the haunted forest. Hadden is about to shoot Nahoon to escape over the border when he is jumped by a leopard. Nahoon kills it with his kerrie, "the brains oozing from its shattered skull". Hadden is injured, and is cared for at Umgona’s krall, which is nearby.
Hadden proposes to Nanea, who is nursing him, so he persuades her to flee with Nahoon and Umgona into Natal. He of course plans to double-cross them, and keep Nanea for himself. He betrays the plot to chief Maputa, warden of the Crocodile Drift, who was a rival for the affections of Nanea. Maputa in turn betrays Hadden, seizing the four of them as they approach the border. Umgona is cast into the Doom pool, which is adjacent to the forest, and is the favourite place of executions. Nanea follows, throwing herself well out into the air. Before he goes, Nahoon goes mad, and then bound and taken away – for the "fire from heaven has fallen on his brain", and it would be unlucky to kill him. Hadden was to be taken back to Ulundi, there to be "pounded into medicine", or pegged over an ant-heap, for having tried to escape, and having plotted with the others.
In the confusion Hadden manages to escape, shooting Maputa as he does so. He reaches Natal, where his previous escapades have been forgotten, or overlooked, in face of the greater emergency of the coming war. He is hired by the government as a interpreter and transport rider, along with his two wagons.
Nanea survived the 50 foot fall into the Doom pool, because she was far enough out to miss the rocks at the bottom, and is swept downstream into the forest. She takes refuge in a hollow tree, then sees that she thinks initially are Esomkofu, but who are merely Bushmen. She lives here for several months, eating the food left at the edge of the forest as offerings for the spirits.
Hadden is attached to No 3 column, under the command of Lord Chelmsford, and finds himself at Isandhlwana in January 1879. He manages to escape towards Fugitives Drift, but is pursued by Nahoon, who had rejoined his old regiment, the Umcityu, with the specific intention of finding and killing Hadden. They find themselves at the Bee’s kraal. Nahoon, who was already wounded, is shot in the arm by Hadden, so that neither can prevail over the other – Hadden being naturally weaker than Nahoon. But Hadden is then stabbed to Nanea, who has emerged from the forest. The Bee takes the ring she was promised.
This is a simple enough story - almost painfully simple in its imagery. The theme is of course that the colour or race of a man does not tell us whether he is good or bad; this is inside one. The idea of the noble savage is one which is out of favour, and indeed Haggard dodn't subscribe to it. Men were neither good nor bad simply because of their race or upbringing. There were heroic and gentlemenly blacks just as there were such men among Europeans. Hadden was one of the bad men, just as was Don Antonio Pereira (the "Yellow Devil") in "The People of the Mist". Nahoon was one of the good, like Brother John, in "The Holy Flower". It is in the African veneer which Haggard skillfully adds to the story that the real interest lies. This involves both the tragic events leading up to the Zulu war and the massacre at Isandhlwana, and the then still vibrant witchcraft and idolotry of the natives. Haggard was writing of a people who were already in the course of assimilation and civilisation, perhaps to their ultimate disadvantage. For while the skin of the Zulu might be clothed in European clothes might not his heart turn black, as Hadden? The history of the African continent since Haggard wrote "Black Heart" does little to instill confidence for the future of the dark continent. Haggard himself would no doubt be appalled at the way in which the continent has developed.