Every eye was bent upon the new arrival. With a quick, instinctive
movement the savages closed around the foolhardy Englishman. There was
a scowl of deadly import upon each grim face. Hundreds of assegais were
poised with a quiver of suppressed eagerness. The man's life seemed not
worth a moment's purchase.
"Out of my way, you _schepsels_!" he cried roughly, urging his horse
through the sullen and threatening crowd, as though so many hundreds of
armed and excited barbarians worked up to the highest pitch of
blood-thirstiness were just that number of cowering and subservient
slaves. "Out of my way, do you hear? Where is Nteya? I want Nteya,
the chief. Where is he?"
"Here I am, _umlungu_ [White man]. What do you want with me?" answered
Nteya--making a rapid and peremptory signal to restrain the imminent
resentment of his followers. "Am I not always here, that you should
break in upon me in this violent manner? Do _I_ go to _your_ house, and
ride up to the door and shout for you as though you were stricken with
sudden deafness?"
The chief's rebuke, quiet and dignified, might have carried some tinge
of humiliation to any man less overbearing and hot-headed than Tom
Carhayes, even as the low growl of hardly contained exasperation which
arose from the throng might have conveyed an ominous warning. But upon
this man both were alike thrown away. Yet it may be that the very
insanity of his fool-hardiness constituted his safety. Had he quailed
but a moment his doom was sealed.
"I didn't come here to hold an _indaba_," [Talk--palaver] he shouted.
"I want my sheep. Look here, Nteya. You have put me off very cleverly
time after time with one excuse or another. But this time you are
_pagadi_ [Cornered]. I've run you to earth--or rather some of those
_schepsels_ of yours. That young villain Goniwe has driven off
thirty-seven of my sheep, and two of your fellows have helped him. I've
spoored them right into your location as straight as a line. Now?"
"When was this, Umlilwane?" said Nteya, imperturbably.
"When? When? To-night, man. This very night, do you hear?" roared the
other.
"_Hau_! The white man has the eyes of twenty vultures that he can see
to follow the spoor of thirty-seven sheep on a dark night," cried a
mocking voice--and a great shout of derisive laughter went up from the
whole savage crowd. The old chief, however, preserved his dignified and
calm demeanour.
"You are excited, Umlilwane," he said--a faint smile lurking round the
corners of his mouth. "Had you not better go home and return in the
morning and talk things over quietly? Surely you would not forget
yourself like a boy or a quarrelsome old woman."
If a soft answer turneth away wrath, assuredly an injunction to keep
cool to an angry man conduceth to a precisely opposite result. If
Carhayes had been enraged before, his fury now rose to white heat.
"You infernal old scoundrel!" he roared. "Don't I tell you I have
spoored the sheep right bang into your kraal? They are here now, I tell
you; here now. And you try to put me off with your usual Kafir lies and
shuffling." And shaking with fury he darted forth his hand, which still
held the heavy rhinoceros hide _sjambok_, as though he would have struck
the chief then and there. But Nteya did not move.
"_Hau_!" cried Hlangani, who had been a silent but attentive witness to
this scene. "_Hau_! Thus it is that the chiefs of the Amaxosa are
trampled on by these _abelungu_ (whites). Are we men, I say? Are we
men?" And the eyes of the savage flashed with terrible meaning as he
waved his hand in the direction of the foolhardy Englishman.
Thus was the spark applied to the dry tinder. The crowd surged forward.
A dozen sinewy hands gripped the bridle, and in a moment Carhayes was
flung violently to the earth.
Stunned, half-senseless he lay. Assegais flashed in the firelight. It
seemed that the unfortunate settler's hours were numbered. Another
moment and a score of bright blades would be buried in his body.
But a stern and peremptory mandate from the chief arrested each
impending stroke.
"Stop, my children!" cried Nteya, standing over the prostrate man and
extending his arms as though to ward off the deadly blows. "Stop, my
children! I, your chief; I, your father, command it. Would you play
into the hands of your enemies? Be wise, I say. Be wise in time."
Sullenly the crowd fell back. With weapons still uplifted, with eyes
hanging hungrily upon their chief's face, like tigers balked momentarily
of their prey, the warriors paused. And the dull, brooding glare of the
signal fire flashing aloft upon the hilltop fell redly upon that fierce
and threatening sea of figures standing over the prostrate body of their
hated and now helpless enemy. But the word of a Kafir chief is law to
his followers. There was no disputing that decisive mandate.
"Rise, Umlilwane," went on Nteya. "Rise, and go in peace. In the
evening, when the blood is heated, it is not well to provoke strife by
angry words. In the morning, when heads are cool, return here and talk.
If your sheep are here, they shall be restored to you. Now go, while
it is yet safe."
Carhayes, still half-stunned by the violence of his fall, staggered to
his feet.
"If they are here!" he repeated sullenly. "Damn it, they _are_ here!"
he blazed forth in a fresh access of wrath. Then catching the
malevolent glance of Hlangani, and becoming alive to the very sinister
and menacing expression on the countenances of the other Kafirs, even he
began to realise that some degree of prudence was desirable, not to say
essential. "Well, well, it's the old trick again, but I suppose our
turn will come soon," he growled, as he proceeded to mount his horse.
The crowd parted to make way for him, and amid ominous mutterings and an
unpleasantly suggestive shaking of weapons towards him, he rode away as
he had come. None followed him. The chief's eye was upon his receding
figure. The chief's "word" had been given. But even protected by that
safe conduct, he would be wise to put as much space as possible between
himself and that sullen and warlike gathering, and that, too, with the
greatest despatch.
None followed him--at the moment. But Hlangani mixed unperceived among
the crowd, whispering a word here and a word there. And soon, by twos
and threes, a number of armed savages stole silently forth into the
night, moving swiftly upon the retreating horseman's track.