HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND.
Now, if Laurence Stanninghame's prospects were brightening, and his
lines beginning to fall in pleasant places,--relatively speaking, that
is, for everything is relative in the conditions of life,--the same held
not good as regards the other twain of our trio of adventurers. Both
were kept prisoners in Nondwana's kraal, and, save that they were not
ill-treated, no especial consideration was shown them. They were allowed
to wander about the open space outside, but watchful eyes were ever upon
them, and did they venture beyond certain limits, they were speedily
made aware of the fact. No such distractions as joining in the hunting
parties, or coming and going at will such as their more fortunate
comrade enjoyed, were allowed them, and against the deadly monotony of
the life--in conjunction with a boding suspense as to their ultimate
fate--did Holmes' restless spirit mightily chafe; indeed, at times he
felt sore and resentful towards Laurence. At such times Hazon's
judicious counsel would step in.
"Shall we never make a philosopher of you, Holmes?" he would say. "Do
you think, for instance, that Stanninghame, faring no better than
ourselves, would improve our own lot any? No; rely upon it, his standing
in with the king and the rest of them is doing us no harm in the long
run."
"I suppose you're right, Hazon; and it's beastly selfish of one to look
upon it any other way," poor Holmes would reply wearily. "But, O Lord,
this is deadly work. Is there no way of getting away from here?"
"Not any at present. Yet you don't suppose I'm keeping my eyes or ears
shut, do you? We must watch our chances, and see and hear all we can. I
believe Tyisandhlu is a decent fellow all round, and mind, you do come
across plenty of pretty good fellows even among savages, whatever bosh
some men may talk to the contrary. But I don't care for Nondwana. I
believe he'd make short work of us if he dared. Possibly the king may be
watching his opportunity of smuggling us out of the country. At any
rate, I don't think he means us any harm, if only by reason of the
astonishing fancy he seems to have taken to Stanninghame!"
This, as we know, was very near the truth, though far more so than the
speakers guessed. For Laurence, moved both by inclination and
expediency, had rigidly adhered to his promise of secrecy. If it seemed
hard that he should be compelled to shut his companions out of his
entire confidence, he consoled himself with the certainty that their
admission into it, though it might encourage them mentally, could in no
wise benefit them materially--very much the reverse, indeed, for it
would probably bring about their destruction.
"Well, if anything is going to be done, it had better be soon or not at
all. It wouldn't take much to send me clean off my chump," said Holmes
dejectedly. "Every day I feel more inclined to break out--to run amuck
in a crowd, if only for the sake of a little excitement. Anything for a
little excitement!"
The two were strolling up and down outside Nondwana's kraal. It was a
still, hot morning; oppressive as though a storm were brooding. A filmy
haze lay upon the lower valley bottom, and the ground gave forth a
shimmer of heat. Even the amphitheatre of dazzling snow-peaks omitted to
look cool against the cloudless blue, while the coppery-terraced cliffs
seemed actually to glow as though red hot.
"I hate this," growled Holmes, looking around upon as magnificent a
scene of nature's grandeur as the earth could show, "positively hate it.
I shall never be able to stand the sight of a mountain again as long as
I live--once we are out of this. Oh, Heavens, look! What a brute!"
His accents of shuddering disgust were explained. Something was moving
among the stones in front--something with great, hairy, shoggling legs,
and a body the size of a thrush and much the same colour. A spider,
could it be, of such enormous size? Yet it was; and as truly repulsive
and horrible-looking a monster as ever made human flesh creep at
beholding.
Whack! The stone flung by Holmes struck the ground beside the creature;
struck it hard.
"Hold, you infernal fool," half snarled, half yelled Hazon. But before
he could arrest the other's arm, whack!--went a second stone. The aim
was true, the grisly beast, crushed and maimed, lay contracting and
unfolding its horrible legs in the muscular writhings of its death
throes.
"What's the row, eh?" grumbled Holmes, staring open-mouthed, under the
impression that his comrade had gone mad, and at first sight not without
reason, for Hazon's face had gone a swarthy white, and his eyes seemed
to glare forth from it like blazing coals.
"Row? You fool, you've signed our death-warrant, that's all. Here,
quick, pretend to be throwing stones on to it, as if we were playing at
some game. Don't you see? The name of this tribe--People of the Spider!
They venerate the beast. If we have been seen, nothing can save us."
"Oh, Heavens!" cried Holmes, aghast as the whole ugly truth dawned upon
him, setting to with a will to pile stones upon the remains of the slain
and shattered monster.
"Too late!" growled Hazon. "We have been seen! Look."
Several women were running stealthily and in alarm towards the gate, and
immediately a frightful uproar arose from within. Armed with sticks and
spears, the warriors came pouring forth, and in a moment had surrounded
the two--a howling, infuriated, threatening mob.
Although expecting nothing less than instant death, with the emergency
Hazon's coolness had returned. He stood in the midst of the appalling
uproar, apparently unmoved. Holmes, on the other hand, looked wildly
around, but less in fear than in desperation. He was calculating his
chances of being able to snatch a weapon from one of them, and to lay
about him in the last fierce battle for life. "Anything for a little
excitement!" he had said. In very truth his aspiration was realized.
There was excitement enough in the brandished spears and blazing
eyeballs, in the infuriated demoniacal faces, in the deafening, roaring
clamour.
"This is no matter for you," cried Hazon in firm, ringing tones. "Take
us to the king. We can explain. The affair was an accident."
At this the ferocious tumult redoubled. An accident! They had lifted
their hand against the great tutelary Spider that guarded Nondwana's
house! An accident!
"Hold! To the king let them be taken!" interposed a strong, deep voice.
And extending his hands, as though to arrest the uplifted weapons,
Nondwana himself stalked into the circle.
There was no gainsaying the mandate of one so great. Weapons were
lowered, but still vociferating horrible threats, the crowd, with the
two offenders in its midst, moved in the direction of Imvungayo.
But it seemed as though the wild, pealing shouts of rage and
consternation were a very tocsin; for now from every kraal, near and
far, the inhabitants came surging forth, streaming down the hillsides
over the face of the plain like swarming ants--and before they reached
Imvungayo the two whites seemed to move in the midst of a huge sea of
gibing, infuriated faces, as the dark crowd, gathering volume, poured
onward, rending the air with deafening shouts of execration and menace.
But the royal guards barred the gate, suffering no entrance save on the
part of the two white men, together with Nondwana and a few of the
greater among the people.
"This is the tightest place we have been in yet," murmured Hazon. "To
tread on the superstitions of any race is to thrust one's head into the
jaws of a starved lion."
"D---- their filthy superstition," said Holmes, savagely desperate.
"Well, I did the thing, so I suppose I shall be the one to suffer."
The other said nothing. He had a shrewd suspicion that more than one
life would be required in atonement. But he and death had stared each
other in the face so frequently that once more or less did not greatly
matter.
On learning the cause of the tumult, Tyisandhlu had come forth, and now
sat, as he frequently did, to administer justice at the head of the
great central space. When the shouts of "_bonga!_" which greeted his
presence had subsided, he ordered that the two whites should be brought
forward.
This was the first time the latter had seen the king, and now, as they
beheld his stately, commanding bearing, calm and judicial, both of them,
Holmes especially, began to hope. They would explain the matter, and
offer ample apologies. The owner of that fine, intellectual countenance,
savage though he might be called, he, surely, had a soul above the
debased superstitions of his subjects. Hitherto he had spared their
lives--surely now he would not sacrifice them to the clamour of a mob.
Yet, as Hazon had said, to tread on the superstitions of any race was
the most fatal thing on earth.
"What is this that has been done?" spoke the king, when he had heard all
that the accusers had to say. "Surely no such deed has been wrought
among us since the Ba-gcatya have been a nation."
There was a sternness, a menace even, in the full, deep voice, that
dispelled all hope in the minds of the two thus under judgment. They had
committed the one unpardonable sin. In vain Hazon elaborately explained
the whole affair, diplomatically setting forth that the act being
accidental, and done by strangers and white people, in ignorance, no
ill-luck need befall the nation, as might be the case were the symbol of
its veneration offended by its own people. The voice of the king was
more stern than before--almost jeering.
"Accidental!" he repeated. "Even though it be so, accidents often bring
greater evil in their results than the most deliberate wrong-doing--for
such is the rule of life."
"That is so!" buzzed the indunas grouped on either side of the king.
"_Au!_ hear the wisdom of the Burning North Wind!"
"Well, then, in this matter atonement must be made. It appears that one
only was concerned in it, and that one is Nomtyeketye."
This was the somewhat uncomplimentary nick-name by which Holmes was
known, bestowed upon him on account of his talkative tendencies as
contrasted with the laconic sententiousness of Hazon.
"I rule, therefore," went on the king, "that Nomtyeketye _be taken hence
to where atonement is offered_. The other may depart from among us to
his own land."
A shout of approval rose from the vast crowd without as the decision
became known. Some there were who clamoured for two victims--but the
king's decision was not lightly to be questioned. And before the shout
had died into a murmur the whole multitude of hideous black figures in
their weird disguise came bounding across the open space to seize their
victim. But before they could surround the latter an unlooked-for
interruption occurred.
"Hold!" cried a loud voice. "I have a favour to ask the king. I, who
bear the Sign!" And Laurence, who in the midst of one of the listening
groups had been unseen hitherto, now came forward, none hindering, and
stood before the king.
A deep silence was upon all. Every head was bent forward. The frightful
priesthood of the demon paused, with staring eyes, to wait on what new
turn events would take.
"Say on, Nyonyoba," said Tyisandhlu shortly, looking anything but
pleased at the interruption.
"It is this, O Burning Wind. Let Nomtyeketye return to his own people. I
will take his place."
"You?" exclaimed the king, as a gasp of amazement shivered through the
listeners.
"Yes, I. Hearken, Ndabezita. I it was who brought him hither. He is
young, and his life is all before him. Mine is all behind me, and has
been no great gain at that. I will proceed with these"--with a glance in
the direction of the blackly horrible group--"to where atonement is
offered. But let the two return together to their own land."
"Pause, Nyonyoba! Pause and think!" said the king, speaking in a deep
and solemn voice. "That which awaits you, if I grant your request, is
of no light order. Men have sought their own death rather than face it.
Pause, I say." Then rapidly, and speaking very low: "Even I cannot save
you there. It may be that the Sign itself cannot."
Now, what moved him to an act of heroic self-sacrifice, Laurence
Stanninghame hardly knew himself. It may have been that he did not
appreciate its magnitude. It may have been that he held more than a
lingering belief that the king would find some secret means for his
deliverance, whereas to his younger comrade no such way of escape lay
open. Or was it that at this moment certain words, spoken long ago in
warning, now stood forth clear and in flaming letters upon his brain:
"_Other men have gone up country with Hazon, but not one of them has
ever returned!_" He himself, abiding henceforward among the Ba-gcatya,
and Holmes consigned to the mysterious doom, would not those warning
words be carried out in all their fell fatality? But that after these
years of hardening in the lurid school of bloodshed and ruthlessness he
should be capable of sacrificing himself for another, through motives of
impulsive generosity, Laurence could not have brought himself to
believe. Indeed, he could not have defined his own motives.
"Give me your word, Great Great One, in the sight of the whole nation,"
he said in a loud voice, "that these two shall be suffered to depart
unharmed--now, at once--and I will take the place of Nomtyeketye."
"That will I readily do, Nyonyoba, for I have no need of strangers here
such as these," answered Tyisandhlu. Then, sadly, "And--you are
resolved?"
"I am."
"Then it must be. For ye two, go in peace;--enough shall be given you
for your journey."
Holmes, who understood the language very imperfectly, had no clear
notion, even then, of what had taken place. But when he saw the gigantic
forms in their black disguise bounding forward to surround Laurence, he,
being otherwise unarmed, instinctively threw himself into a boxing
attitude, which was, under the circumstances, ridiculous, if natural.
"Keep cool, you young idiot," snarled Hazon. "We're out of this mess
better than we deserve."
"Why, what's happened?"
"Stanninghame is acting substitute for you, and we are to be fired out
of the country, which is good news to you, I take it."
"But I can't allow it!" cried Holmes bewilderedly, as the truth began to
dawn upon him. "No, hang it, I can't,--tell the king, I----"
"No good! Keep your hair on! and remember, too, it's more than probable
he won't come to any harm. He stands in with them too well."
Holmes, more than half reassured, suffered himself to be
persuaded--especially as he was powerless to do anything at all. But
whether Hazon believed or not in what he had just advanced must remain
forever locked up as a mystery in the breast of that inscrutable
individual. One thing, however, he did not believe in, and that was in
he himself suffering for the foolishness of other people.
Meanwhile Laurence, in the midst of his disguised executioners, was
pursued by the howling and execrations of the crowds, which parted
eagerly to make way for their passage. Outside on the open plain a vast
mob of women had collected, yelling shrilly at him--and even pelting him
with earth and sticks. One of the latter, thrown at close quarters,
hurling over the heads of his guards, struck him on the shoulder,
painfully and hard. He looked up. It had been hurled by the hand of
Lindela; and as he met her eyes full, the face which he had last looked
upon softening and glowing with the wondrous light of love, was now
wreathed into a horrible grin of hate and savagery.
"_Yau!_ The Spider is hungry! Fare thee well, Umtagati,"[6] jeered the
chief's daughter shrilly.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] Doer of witchcraft.