The huge granite pile loomed forth overhead, grim, frowning, indistinct.
Then, as the faint streak in the blackness of the eastern horizon
banded into red width, the outlines of the great natural mausoleum stood
forth clearer and clearer.
Blachland's pulses beat hard, as he stood gazing. At last he had
reached the goal of his undertaking--at last he stood upon the forbidden
ground. The uneasy consciousness that discovery meant Death--death,
moreover, in some barbarous and lingering form--was hardly calculated to
still his bounding pulses. He stood there alone. Hlangulu had come as
near as he dared, and, with the minutest instructions as to the nearest
and safest approach, had hidden to await his return.
How they had eluded the vigilance of the pickets our explorer hardly
knew. He called to mind, however, a moment which, if not the most
exciting moment of his life, at any rate brought him within as grim a
handshaking proximity to certain death as he had ever yet attained.
For, at the said moment, Hlangulu had drawn him within a rock cleft--and
that with a quick muscular movement which there was neither time nor
opportunity to resist, but which, a second later, there was no
inclination to, as he beheld--they both beheld--a body of Matabele
warriors, fully armed, and seeming to rise out of nowhere, pass right
over the very spot just occupied by themselves. He could see the
markings of the hide shields, could even make out the whites of rolling
eyeballs in the starlight, as the savages flitted by and were gone.
But would they return? Had the sound of strange footsteps reached their
ears, and started them in search? Assuredly, if Hilary Blachland stood
in need of a new and intense excitement, he had got it now. But a
barely breathed inquiry met for some time with no response from his
guide, who at length rose up and declared that they must push on.
And now here he stood alone. Before him two massive granite faces
arose, leaning forward, as it were, until their overhanging brows nearly
met the topmost boughs of a solitary _Kafferboen_ which grew out of the
ground fronting the entrance at a distance of some yards. Over the
angle formed by these an immense boulder was balanced, in such wise as
to form a huge natural porch; but in continuation of the angle was a
deft, a tall narrow deft, the entrance to which was roughly built up
with stones. This, then, was the King's grave.
The dawn was rapidly lightening. There was no time to lose. He must
enter at once, and there remain throughout the entire day. Only in the
darkness could he enter, only in the darkness could he leave it.
As he climbed up on the embankment of stones, one, loosened by his
tread, dislodged another. Heavens! what a clatter they made, or seemed
to make, in the dead stillness. Then he set his teeth hard, stifling a
groan. The falling stone had struck his ankle, bruising it sharply and
causing intense pain. For a moment he paused. Could he climb any
further? It seemed to have lamed him. Then somehow there came back to
him old Pemberton's words: "There's no luck meddling with such places--
no, none." Well, there seemed something in it, and if his ill-luck
began here what was awaiting him when he should have effected his
purpose? But he had professed himself above such puerile superstitions,
and now was the time to make good his professions. Besides, it was too
late to draw back. If he were not under concealment within a moment or
so, his peril would be of a more real and material order. So, summoning
all his coolness and resolution, exercising the greatest care, he
climbed over the remaining stones and dropped down within the cleft.
And now he forgot the pain of his contused ankle, as, full of interest
he stood within this wonderful tomb. But for a very slight trend the
cleft ran inward straight to a depth of some forty or fifty feet, its
sides, straight and smooth, rising to nearly the same height; and at the
further end, which narrowed somewhat, ere terminating abruptly in the
meeting of the two Titanic boulders which caused it, he could make out
something which looked like a heap, an indefinable heap, of old clothes.
Blachland paused. Here, then, was the object of his exploration. Here,
then, lay the mouldering remains of the dead King, and here lay the
buried gold. Drawing his flask from his pocket, he took a nip to steady
his nerves before beginning his search. Before beginning it, however,
some impulse moved him to glance forth once more upon the outside world.
The sun had not yet risen, but the land lay revealed in the pearly dawn.
There was the rough, long, boulder-strewn ridge, continuing away from
this great natural tumulus which dominated it. Away over the valley,
the bushy outline of the Intaba Inyoka stood humped against the
suffusing sky; but what drew and held his gaze was a kind of natural
platform, immediately below, part rock, part soil. This, however, lay
black amid the surrounding green--black as though through the action of
fire; but its blackness was strangely relieved, chequered, by patches of
white. He recognised it for the spot described by Sybrandt and also by
Hlangulu--the place where cattle were sacrificed at intervals to the
shades of the departed King.
Something else caught his eye, something moving overhead. Heavens! the
great boulder, overhanging like a penthouse, was falling--falling over!
In a moment he would be shut in, buried alive in this ghastly tomb.
Appalled, he gazed upwards, his eyes straining on it, and then he could
have laughed aloud, for the solution was simple. A light breeze had
sprung and up, the topmost boughs of the _Kafferboen_, swaying to its
movement, were meeting the boulder, then swinging away again, producing
just that curious and eerie effect to one in a state of nervous tension.
He stood watching this optical delusion, and laughed again. Decidedly
his nerves were overstrung. Well, this would not do. Facing once more
within the cave, he concluded to start upon his research without further
delay.
It was lighter now--indeed, but for the chastened gloom of the interior,
nearly as light as it ever would be. He approached the farther end.
Mouldering old blankets crumbled under his tread. He could see the
whole of the interior, and again he laughed to himself--recalling the
legend of the King's Snake. There was no recess that would hide so much
as a mouse. He scattered the fragments of old clothing with the stock
of his rifle, laying bare layers of crumbling matting. More eagerly
still he parted these when he came to the central heap. Layer by layer,
he tore away the stuff-ancient hide wrappings, ornamented with worn
bead-work--beneath the mats of woven grass; then something white
appeared--white, and smooth, and round. Eagerly, yet carefully, he
parted the wrappings; and lo, protruding from them--not lying, but in a
bolt-upright position--a great grinning skull!
He stepped back a pace or two, and stood gazing at this with intense
interest, not unmixed with awe. Here, then, sat the dead King--
Umzilikazi, the mighty; the founder of a great and martial nation; the
scourge, the devastator of a vast region,--here he sat, the warrior
King, before whose frown tens of thousands had trembled, a mere
framework of fleshless bones, seated upon his last throne, here, within
the heart of this vast silent rock-tomb: and the upright position of the
skull, caused by the sitting attitude in which Zulus are buried, seemed
to lend to the Death's head something of the majesty which it had worn
in life when its cavity had enclosed the indomitable and far-seeing
brain, when those eye-sockets had framed the relentless, terrible eyes.
For some moments he stood gazing upon the grim face staring at him from
its sightless sockets, and then, not in mockery, but moved by certain
poetic instincts underlying a highly imaginative temperament, he raised
his right hand, and uttered softly--
"Kumalo!"
Yes, even as he would have saluted the living, so he saluted the remains
of the dead King. Yet he had already violated and was here to plunder
the dead King's grave.
What was this? Something glistening among the rotting heap of wrappings
caught his eye. Bending down, he raised it eagerly. It was a large
bead about the size of a marble. Two more lay beside them, the remnant
of the leather lanyard on which they had been threaded, crumbling to his
touch. Gold, were they? They were of solid weight. But a quick close
examination convinced him that they were merely brass. Anyway, they
would make valuable curios, and he slipped them into his pocket
accordingly. Again he could not restrain a start as he raised his eyes.
The skull when last he beheld it, of a dull, yellowy white in the deep
shadows of the gloomy place was now shining like fire as it glowered at
him, suffused as with a reddening incandescent glow. A wave of
superstitious awe thrilled him from head to heel. What on earth did it
mean? And then the real reason of this startling metamorphosis came
home to him.
The sun had risen. High above through a chink between the huge boulders
right over the entrance of the cleft, one single spear-like beam found
entrance, and, piercing the gloomy shadows of the tomb, struck full upon
the fleshless countenance of the dead King, illuminating it with a
well-nigh supernatural glow; and with the clearing up of the mystery,
the spectator was lost in admiration of the ingenuity that had contrived
that the first ray of the rising sun should illuminate the countenance
of the Great Great One, whom while living they hailed, among other
titles of honour, as "Light of the Sun." Then he remembered that the
coincidence was purely accidental, for he himself had uncovered the
skull and exposed it to view, and the illusion vanished. And as he
gazed, the beam was withdrawn, leaving the Death's head in its former
shadow.
Leaning back against the rock wall, Blachland began to attune himself to
the situation. At last he had explored the King's grave, he, all by
himself. What a laugh he would have over Sybrandt and Pemberton
bye-and-bye--they who had scouted the feat as utterly impossible. Well,
he had done it, he alone, had done what no white man had ever done
before him--what possibly no white man would ever do again. And--it was
intensely interesting.
And now, what about the buried treasure? He had all through been
sceptical as to the existence of this, but had not insisted on his
scepticism to Hlangulu, lest he might cool that acquisitive savage off
the undertaking. The latter's reply to his question as to how it was
that others were not now in the know as well as he--that the matter was
_hlonipa_, i.e. veiled, forbidden of mention--had not struck him as
satisfactory. Well, as he was here he might as well take a thorough
look round and make sure.
Acting upon this idea he once more approached the skeleton of the dead
King, but a careful search all around it revealed nothing. All around
it? Not quite, for he had not tried behind it. There was a dark recess
extending perhaps three or four yards behind it--to where the cleft
ended, and this too, seemed spread with old and mouldering wrappings.
These he began, as with the others, raking aside with the butt of his
rifle. Then, suddenly his foothold began to tremble--then to move
violently from under him. Was there no end to the weird surprises of
this uncanny place, was the thought that flashed lightning-like through
his mind; and then, as with a superlative effort he just managed to keep
his footing--while staggering back a few paces, there befel something so
appalling that his blood seemed to run ice within him, and the very hair
of his head to stand up.