THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY.
The next few days were spent by the Ba-gcatya in dancing and
ceremonial--and by Laurence Stanninghame in trying to find out all he
could about the Ba-gcatya. He laid himself out to make friends with
them, and this was easy, for the natural suspiciousness wherewith the
savage invariably regards a new acquaintance, once fairly laid to rest,
the Ba-gcatya proved as chatty and genial a race of people as those of
the original Zulu stock. But on one point the lips of old and young
alike were sealed, and that was the fate of Lutali. No word would they
ever by any chance let fall as to this; but the awed silence wherewith
they would treat all mention of it, and their hurried efforts to change
the subject, added not a little to the impression the last glimpse of
his Arab confederate had made upon Laurence. What awesome, devilish
mystery did not those hideous beings represent?
For the rest, he learned that these people were of Zulu stock, and
having opposed the accession of Tshaka, when that potentate usurped the
royal seat of Dingiswayo, had deemed it advisable to flee. They had
migrated northward, even as Umzilikazi and his followers had done,
though some years prior to the flight of that chieftain. But they were
nothing if not conservative, and so intent was the king on preserving
the pure Zulu blood, that he was chary of allowing any slaves among
them. As it was, the issue of all slaves had no rights, and could under
no circumstances whatever rise above the condition of slavery. And
Laurence, noting the grand physique, and even the handsome appearance,
of the sons and daughters of this splendid race, had no doubt as to the
wisdom of such a restriction.
Now, as the days went by, there began to grow upon Laurence a sort of
restfulness. The terrible conflict and merciless massacre of his friends
and followers had impressed him but momentarily, accustomed as he was to
scenes of horror and of blood--and indeed in direct contrast to such did
he the more readily welcome the peaceful tranquillity of his present
life. For the dreaded Ba-gcatya at home were a quiet and pastoral
race--owning extensive herds of cattle--also goats and a strange kind of
large-tailed sheep--though, true to their origin, horned cattle formed
the staple of their possessions, and the land around the king's great
palace was dappled with grazing stock, and the air was musical with the
singing of women hoeing the millet and maize gardens.
Then again, the surrounding country swarmed with game, large and small,
from the colossal elephant to the tiny dinkerbuck. To Laurence,
passionately fond of sport, this alone was sufficient to reconcile him
to his strange captivity--for a time. He would be the life and soul of
the Ba-gcatya hunting parties, and skill and success, together with his
untiring energy and philosophical acceptance of the hardships and
vicissitudes of the chase, went straight to the hearts of these fine,
fearless barbarians. He became quite a favourite with the nation.
The female side of the latter, too, looked upon him with kindly eyes. He
would chaff the girls, when he came upon them wandering in bevies, as
was their wont, and tell them strange stories of other conditions of
life, until they fairly screamed with laughter, or brought their hands
to their mouths in mute wonder.
"_Whau_, Nyonyoba, why do you not _lobola_ for some of these?" said
Silawayo one day, coming upon him thus engaged. "Then you could dwell
among us as one of ourselves."
"One might do worse, induna of the king," he returned tranquilly, with a
glance at the group of bright-faced, merry, and extremely well-shaped
damsels, whom he had been convulsing with laughter.
"_Yau!_ Listen to our father," they cried. "He is joking, indeed. _Yau!_
Farewell, Nyonyoba. Fare thee well." And they sped away, still screaming
with laughter.
The old induna looked quizzically after them, then at Laurence. Then he
took snuff.
"One might do worse, Silawayo," repeated Laurence. "I have known worse
times than those I have already undergone here. But all I possess I have
lost. My slaves your people have killed, and my ivory and goods the king
has taken, leaving me nothing but my arms and ammunition. Tell me, then,
do the Ba-gcatya give their daughters for nothing, or how shall a man
who is so poor think to set up a kraal of his own?"
The induna laughed dryly.
"We are all poor that way, for all we own belongs to the king. Yet the
Great Great One is open handed. He might return some of your goods,
Nyonyoba."
This, by the way, was Laurence's sobriquet among these people, bestowed
upon him by reason of his skill and craft in stalking wild game.
It was even as he had said. This raid had gone far towards undoing the
results of their lawless and perilous enterprise--a portion of his gains
were safe, but this last blow was of crippling force. And only a day or
so prior to it he had been revelling in the prospect of a speedy return
to civilized life, to the enjoyment of wealth for the remainder of his
allotted span. He recalled the misgivings uttered by Holmes, that wealth
thus gained would bring them no good, for the curse of blood that lay
upon it. Poor Holmes! The prophecy seemed to have come true as regarded
the prophet--but for himself? well, the loss reconciled him still more
to his life among the Ba-gcatya.
Of Tyisandhlu he had seen but little. Now and then the king would send
for him and talk for a time upon things in general, and all the while
Laurence would feel that the shrewd, keen eyes of this barbarian ruler
were reading him like a book. Tyisandhlu, moreover, had expressed a wish
that a body of picked men should be armed with the rifles taken from the
slavers, and instructed in their use; and to this Laurence had readily
consented.
"Yet consider, Ndabezita,"[2] he had said, "is it well to teach them
reliance on any weapon rather than the broad spear? For had your army
possessed fire-weapons, never would it have eaten up our camp out
yonder. It would have spent all its time and energy shooting, and that
to little purpose. It would have had time to think, and then the
warriors would have brought but half a heart to the last fierce charge."
"There is much in what you say, Nyonyoba," replied the king; "yet, I
would try the experiment."
So the indunas were required to select the men, and about three hundred
were organized, and Laurence, having spent much care in their
instruction, soon turned out a very fair corps of sharp-shooters. No
scruple had he in thus increasing the fighting strength of this already
fierce and formidable fighting race, to which he had taken a great
liking. He even began to contemplate the contingency of ending his life
among them, for of any return to civilization there seemed not the
remotest prospect; and, indeed, rather than return without the wealth
for which he had risked so much, he preferred not to return at all.
Even the memory of Lilith brought with it pain rather than solace. After
all this time--years indeed, now--would not his memory have faded? The
life he had led tended to foster such memory in himself, but with her it
was otherwise. All the conditions of her daily life tended rather to dim
it. That sweet, short, passionate episode had been all entrancing while
it lasted; yet was it not counterpoised by the certainty that with women
of her temperament such episodes are but episodes? All the bitter side
of his philosophy cried aloud in the affirmative.
He had now been several months among the Ba-gcatya; and had long since
ceased to feel any misgiving as to his personal safety at their hands.
But his sense of security was destined to receive a rude shock, and it
came about in this way.
Returning one day from a hunt, at some distance from Imvungayo, he had
marched on ahead of his companions, and, the afternoon being hot, had
lain down in the shade of a cluster of trees for a brief nap. From this
the buzz of muttering voices awakened him.
At first he paid no attention, reckoning that the remainder of the party
had come up. But soon a remark which was let fall started him very wide
awake indeed, and at the same time he recognized that the voices were
not those of his present companions, but of strangers. From a certain
quaver or hesitancy in the tones, he judged them to be the voices of old
men.
"_Whau!_ The spider must be growing hungry again. It is long since he
has drunk blood."
"Not since the son of Tondusa assumed the head-ring," answered the
other.
"And now a greater is about to assume the head-ring," went on the first
speaker, "even Ncute, the son of Nondwana."
"The brother of the Great Great One?"
"The same," asserted the first speaker, in that sing-song hum in which
natives, when among themselves, will carry on a conversation for hours.
Now the listener was interested indeed. On the mysterious subject of
"The Spider" the Ba-gcatya had been close as death. No hint or
indication tending to throw light upon it would they let fall in reply
to any question, direct or indirect. Now he was going to hear something.
These men, unaware of his presence, and talking freely among themselves,
would certainly afford more than a clew to it. Nondwana, the king's
brother, he suspected of being not over favourably disposed towards
himself, possibly through jealousy.
"That will be when the second moon is at full?" continued one of the
talkers.
"It will. Ha! The Spider will receive a brave offering. Yet how shall it
devour one who bears its Sign?"
"It may not," rejoined the other. "_Hau!_ that will in truth be a
test--if the sign is real."
_One who bears its Sign!_ The listener felt every drop of blood within
him turn cold, freeze from head to foot. What sort of devil-god could it
be from which this nation derived its name, and which these were talking
about as one that devoured men?
_He that bears its Sign!_ The words could apply to none other than
himself. He had deduced that, although the Ba-gcatya held cannibalism in
abhorrence, yet from time to time human sacrifices of very awesome and
mysterious nature took place, and that on certain momentous
occasions--the accession or death of a king, of an heir to any branch of
the royal house, or such a one as this now under discussion--the
admission to full privileges of manhood of a scion of the same. And the
sacrifice on this occasion was to consist of himself? To this end he had
been spared--even honoured.
"It will in truth be a test, for some doubt that the Sign as worn by
this stranger hath any magic at all," continued one of the talkers. "If
he comes out unharmed--_hau_! that will be a marvel, indeed--a marvel,
indeed."
"_E-he!_" they assented. Then they fell to talking of other things, and
soon the concealed listener heard them rise up and depart.
Laurence decided to wait no more for his companions. He wanted to be
alone and think this matter out. So when the voices of the talkers had
fairly faded beyond earshot he left the cluster of trees on the farther
side and took his way down the mountain slope.
A ghastly fear was upon him. The horror and mystery of the thing got
upon even his iron nerves--the suddenness of it too, just when he had
lulled himself into a complete sense of security. Had he learned in like
fashion that he was to be slain in an ordinary way at a given time it
would not have shaken him beyond the ordinary. But this thing--there was
something so devilish about it. What did it mean? Was it some grotesque
idol worked by mechanism, even as in the old pagan temples--to which
human sacrifices were offered? Or--for he could not candidly discredit
all the weird and marvellous tales and traditions of some of these
up-country tribes, degraded and man-eating as they were--was it some
unknown and terrifying monster inhabiting the dens and caves of the
earth? Whatever it was, he knew too well, of course, that the
coincidence which had so miraculously resulted in the sparing of his
life at the hands of the victorious Ba-gcatya, reeking with slaughter,
would stand him in nowhere here. He remembered the mystery hanging over
the fate of Lutali, and those horrible beings who had hauled the Arab to
his doom, whatever it was, who indeed might well constitute the
priesthood of the unknown devil-god.
Surely never indeed had earth presented a fairer scene than this upon
which the adventurer's eyes rested, as he made his way down the
mountain-side. The calm, peaceful beauty of the day, the golden sunlight
flooding the plain beneath, the great circle of Imvungayo, and the--by
contrast--tiny circles of lesser kraals scattered about the valley or
crowning some mountain spur, and, mellow upon the stillness, the distant
low of cattle--the singing of women at work mingling with the soft
voices of a multitude of doves in cornlands and the surrounding
forest-trees. Yet now in the white peaks towering to the cloudless
heavens, in the black and craggy rifts, in the wide, rolling,
partially-wooded plains--the hunter's paradise--this man saw only a
gloomy wizard circle, inclosing some horrible inferno, the throne of the
frightful demon-god of this extraordinary race.
Then it occurred to Laurence that he had better not let this thing get
too much upon his nerves. It was the result of inaction, he told
himself. Several months of rest and tranquillity had begun to turn him
soft. That would not do. He had got to look matters in the face fairly
and squarely. The ceremony which was to bring him to what would almost
certainly be a fearful fate was set for the fall of the second moon, the
talkers had said--but of this he had been already aware, for the chief
Nondwana and his son were both well known to him. That would give him a
little over six weeks. Escape? Nothing short of a miracle could effect
that, he told himself, remembering the immense tract of desolate country
surrounding the fastnesses of the Ba-gcatya, and the ferocious cannibal
hordes which lay beyond these, and who indeed would wreak a vengeance of
the most barbarous kind upon their old enemy and scourge, the
slaver-chief, did they find him alone, and to that extent no longer
formidable, in their midst.
The friendship of the king? No. That was based on superstition, even as
the friendship of the entire nation. Even it was assumed for an end.
Again, should he boldly challenge the pretensions of the demon-god,
whatever it might be, and asserting himself to be the real one, offer to
slay the horror in open conflict? Not a moment's reflection was needed,
however, to convince him of the utter impracticability of this scheme.
The cherished superstition of a great nation was not to be uprooted in
any such rough-and-ready fashion. The only way of escape left open to
him was that of death--death swift and sudden--the death of the
suicide--to escape the greater horror. But from this he shrank. The grim
hardness of his recent training had nerved him rather to face peril
than to avoid it. He did not care to contemplate such a way out of the
dilemma. He was cornered. There was no way of escape.
And then, as he walked thus, thinking, and thinking hard, in the fierce,
desperate, clearheadedness of a strong, cool-nerved man face to face
with despair, a voice--a female voice, lifted in song--sounded across
his path, nearer and nearer. And now a wave of hope, of relief, surged
through Laurence Stanninghame's heart, for there flooded in upon him, as
with an inspiration, a way out of the situation. For he knew both the
voice and the singer, and at that moment a turn in the bushes brought
the latter and himself face to face.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] A term of deference frequently used in addressing one of the royal
family.