Immediately before them rose a conspicuous mound, which they believed to
be the ruins marked on the map, and though, from the fires still
smouldering near, they knew the Zulus had camped there, they rapidly
determined it was the best position for them to hold. Quickly,
therefore, they struck across and found themselves under a broken
bush-covered wall, which surrounded an irregular mass of masonry, out of
which rose a crown of foliage. They walked round seeking for an inlet,
and stepped off the circumference at one hundred and fifty yards. On
the south, where the wall was intact, it rose to a height of ten feet,
and appeared to be of great thickness, and, though at other points it
was lower, there was a continuous natural fence of stiff brushwood,
showing no entrance anywhere. They saw, too, from the ring of fires,
that the Zulus had camped quite a hundred yards from the ruins at a spot
where a spring of clear water bubbled from a belt of rushes.
"It would not be safe to camp out here," said Webster; "and if there is
no inlet to this place there is no reason why we should not climb over
the outer wall." He very quickly mounted to the top, and, springing
down, disappeared. "Come on," he cried presently; "there is good
shelter in here and a clean floor, in the very centre of winding
passages."
Very soon they were all on the wall, and Webster led them along a narrow
passage, which coiled round and round between heavy walls to an inner
chamber, whose floor was covered with sand.
It seemed so retired, was so silent, that in security they placed no
guard, they made no fire, neither did they talk; but stretched
themselves on the sand and slept, and the sky was blue above them when
they opened their eyes again.
Yet weariness weighed upon their lids, their limbs were heavy, and the
morning air was charged with a sweet odour that seemed to lull the
senses.
Slowly they opened their eyes, blinked at the strong light, closed them
again, without any feeling of surprise that they had slept so long, then
remained still, listening idly. They heard, afar off, the drowsy
war-song of the Zulu warriors; but it was a sound detached from their
surroundings that no longer moved them. They did not ask themselves
where they were nor why. A strange relaxation of mind and body had
overcome them--the reaction possibly from the fierce impulse which had
impelled them on in face of all danger. Constant anxiety, want of
sleep, and poor food had worn them out. Was that the explanation of
their stupor, or did it arise from some other source--that faint and
subtle odour that recalled to Laura, at least, the swinging of a censer
in some dimly-lighted aisle? She saw the shadowy figures of priests
moving softly to and fro, the forms of women kneeling, and involuntarily
there broke from her lips, in a tremulous whisper, the petition, "Ave
Maria."
Webster stirred, and muttered with a yawn:
"Eight bells, and my watch; a calm sea, and a bright night."
"Eh!" said Hume; "what's the matter with my eyes? I cannot open them."
"We're bewitched!" shouted Klaas.
They sat up, and then with a cry of fear and amazement looked at each
other. They were bound hand and foot!
Bound with the very rheims which they had used to secure their packs,
their weapons removed, and all their belongings. And yet not one of
them had felt the slightest touch, or heard the faintest movement of
their enemies, neither was there anyone visible beyond themselves.
The room was about ten feet square, its roof opened to the sky, the
walls covered with the shining leaves and twisted tendrils of the wild
vine.
"What is the matter?" asked Hume, struggling wildly to free his hands.
"Heaven knows!" muttered Webster, staring helplessly at his bonds.
"And to be bound like this!" cried Hume, in fierce and bitter despair.
"Sirayo, what do you say?"
There were beads of sweat on the chief's forehead, for his bruised arm
had been torn from the sling and tightly bound, while his fingers
trembled with the pain.
"It is true, we have been bewitched," he said hoarsely, "for I felt no
one touch me, even though they bound my wounded arm."
"Laura, are you also bound?"
"Yes," she whispered.
Webster struggled to free himself, then rolled over until with his
fingers he could touch her cold hand.
"This is awful," muttered Hume. "Can't you see any spoor?"
"No," growled Webster; "the sand has been kicked up, but I can see no
footmarks."
For many minutes they stared at each other with wild eyes, then making a
frantic effort, Webster rose to his feet, swayed about a moment, then,
in a series of jumps, reached the opening, where he steadied himself.
"Good heavens!" he gasped.
They all heard his cry with a feeling of something terrible impending.
"What now?" cried Hume.
"Nothing," came the faint reply, "but the tightening of the ropes;" but
when he turned, his face was ghastly white, and there was a look of
horror in his eyes.
Slowly he shuffled to his former place, then turned his head to watch
the opening, while his breath came quickly.
"You have seen something," she whispered, with her eyes fixed on the
opening.
"No," he said; "there is no one there. Laura, can you move up against
the far end of the wall? You will be in the shade there. Try, please."
She slowly crept to the wall, then Hume was asked to join her, and, with
a deep groan at his weakness, he did so. Then Webster, with a sigh of
relief, sat with his back to them, and his face to the opening, and
there came into his eyes that same look of horror. The two warriors saw
his fixed gaze, caught, too, the fear in it, and their eyes were
fastened on the opening.
"Why don't you talk," said Hume, "and tell me what you see; the size of
the room, its appearance, anything to relieve this darkness and
suspense."
"Be still," muttered Webster, in hollow tones.
Hume suppressed the fierce retort that rose to his lips, and the others
sat staring at the opening, finding in this new suggestion of unknown
danger a fear which quenched the speculation about the mysterious nature
of their bondage. So they sat on, while from beyond there came to them
a confused sound of shouting, while the sunlight streamed in in a white
light, and the broad leaves of the vine rustled softly, and imagination
working on their fears kept their senses on the rack. The air grew
closer, their lips were parched, and the sweet odour in the heavy air
oppressed their breathing.
"Speak," whispered Laura, moistening her lips.
"Yes, for God's sake break this silence! It is worse than death;" and
Hume rolled impatiently from side to side.
"Yes," muttered Webster; "it is terrible, this waiting. Shall we talk
of the Golden Rock?"
"No, no," she cried, with a shudder.
"I remember once," he resumed slowly, "when on the sea--shall I ever
feel the touch of the salt breeze again?--the look-out reported the
sea-serpent ahead, and, sure enough, we saw the gleaming curves of his
body. I recall well how we all grouped forward till the captain gruffly
dusted us for a lot of swabs, though he himself had kept his eye glued
to his glass. The sea-serpent proved to be a floating mast with a
trailing mass of rope and a dead body caught in the raffle."
Laura laughed hysterically.
"A pleasant story," said Hume savagely.
"Man, I can't think of a joke; my brain revolts from the effort. Why
were serpents created footless, stealthy, lidless, implacable--the
living embodiment of cunning, their very presence--" He stopped short,
and the hairs of his moustache bristled. "It comes," he whispered.
"There! there!"
Spellbound, they gazed at something that flickered in the opening at a
height of about three feet from the ground, something strange, black,
supple, that quivered in the air like a thin flame of fire,
insignificant in size, yet suggestive in its lightning play of something
terrible. Scarcely breathing, they waited for what was to follow, and
in a moment found themselves looking into the unwinking eyes of a huge
serpent. The long head and about two feet of the muscular neck alone
showed, held high above the ground, and remaining there fixed as if cast
in bronze. The sunlight pouring on the large scales made them glow like
bits of burnished metal in tints of blue and yellow, while a greenish
light smouldered in the unwinking eyes. In the actual size of the head
there was nothing alarming. It was no bigger than a man's hand, with
the thumb bent in, the fingers extended, and the knuckles arched, while
the neck was no thicker than a man's wrist. A strong man might grasp it
by the neck and strangle it--so Webster thought--but the eyes--ah! in
their fixed, impenetrable stare, there was the suggestion of unknown
power and mysterious force. Suddenly the forked tongue darted out from
the aperture in the grim jaws, quivered rapidly, and then the head was
withdrawn.
"Thank God!" murmured Webster.
With a faint cry, Laura fainted away, and was mercifully spared the
fresh trial.
"Ah! heavens! Again!" whispered Webster, while, with an awful cry, the
Gaika wriggled back to the far end of the room, and turned his face to
the wall.
Suddenly the snake darted its head along the floor, and the body poured
in with a swift and silent motion, the muscles standing out in a ridge
along its swelling bulk. Half-way it reached across the floor in that
swift dart; then its head and neck curved back, and the body was bent
like a huge S to permit the fatal strike at its destined victim.
"I can feel there is something awful in the room," said Hume, in hollow
tones; "tell me what!"
Webster gulped down a lump in his throat. "A snake!" he gasped, and his
eyes, wild and starting, were held as in a spell. He was the nearer,
for Sirayo had shrunk against the wall at the side. This thing he felt
could only take one. He was to be that one. Well, all right; he would
not see Laura die.
Then he went through an ordeal that nearly shook his reason. The snake
moved its head from side to side, and his head moved also. The tongue
darted out, and his lips quivered. The head was suddenly uplifted, and
he staggered to his feet. He began to laugh--foolishly--and his
features twitched horribly. His body swayed to and fro, and, with an
inarticulate cry he fell forward, his outstretched hands striking
against the cold scales. With a loud hiss the reptile darted forward
till its head rested on Laura's insensible body, and its coils gathered
upon Webster's. So it remained a minute, then the head was reared
against the wall, the leaves rustled to the strange, flowing movement of
the heavy coils, the tail presently slithered over the sand, went up the
wall, and disappeared.
Sirayo followed it with bloodshot eyes, looked a moment at the entrance
to see if some new horror were in store, looked at the motionless
figures about him, then shouted in Zulu: "It is gone; wake up!"
As if in response to his shout, a low music broke out, thin and
monotonous, the strains from a native bow, and gradually, as each one of
the helpless band revived, they listened with intense relief to these
signs of human presence. In the grim silence of that room they had
begun to think that there was something magical in the manner of their
capture, and they would have welcomed any foe in human form rather than
think of another visit from the python.
The monotonous strain rose and fell on the heavy air, a sickly vapour
sifted in through the cracks in the wall, suspense gave way before the
torture of thirst which suddenly assailed them, and Klaas shouted out to
the unseen foes to come and kill him. The music rose to a wail as if in
mockery, then receded, grew fainter, died away, was heard again from
another point, grew nearer, retreated again, until even Sirayo's iron
nerves broke down under the irritation as he shouted hoarsely.
Suddenly, without sound or notice, the passage was darkened by the form
of an old woman, black and withered. She looked at the prostrate
captives with a mingling of fear and rage, but they looked not at her,
but at a calabash poised on her head, on which glittered a few precious
drops of water. Was this to be another mode of torture? No, she moved
timidly forward, lifted her calabash from her head, while they followed
her movements with glittering eyes, then shot a cooling stream into each
mouth gaping wide to receive it. Then the old witch stood there talking
passionately, stretching her skinny arms, pointing now to the passage,
then at the broad trail of the python.
"Silence," said Sirayo, "bring someone here who can listen as well as
talk."
She shook her lean hand in his face until the bones cracked, then
shuffled out, still shrilly grumbling.
"I am past all feeling of curiosity," groaned Webster, as his eyes
shifted uneasily round the room; "but I should like to know two things:
why that old woman has been cursing us after giving us water, and what
became of the snake." He turned his head to scan the wall. "I have a
strange feeling in my bones," he said with a shudder, "that those evil
eyes are still fixed upon me!"
Laura shuddered, too, violently, and her dark eyes, looking unnaturally
large and bright, glanced about restlessly. "I hope this will soon
end," she whispered.
"Good God!" groaned Hume; "if I could only see!"
They lapsed once more into silence, and listened again to the wailing of
the native instrument, heard a sudden outbreak, the sharp crack of
rifles, the shouts of men, the wild din of battle.