When Eustace Milne fell from his saddle to the earth, the savage who had
stabbed him, and who was about to follow up the blow, started back with
a loud shout of astonishment and dismay.
It arrested the others. They paused as they stood. It arrested assegai
blades quivering to bury themselves in the fallen man's body. It
arrested murderous knob-kerries whistling in the air ready to descend
and crash out the fallen man's brains. They stood, those maddened,
bloodthirsty barbarians, paralysed, petrified, as they took up with one
voice their compatriot's dismayed shout.
"_Au! Umtagati! Mawo_!" [Ha! Witchcraft! A wonder!]
They crowded round the prostrate body, but none would touch it. The
blow had been dealt hard and fair, by a hand which had dealt more than
one such blow before, and always with deadly effect. Yet the wound did
not bleed.
The dealer of it stood, contemplating his assegai, with looks of
amazement, of alarm. Instead of driving its great broad blade up to the
hilt in the yielding body of his victim, and feeling the warm blood gush
forth upon his hand, the point had encountered something hard, with the
effect of administering quite a shock to wrist and arm, so great was the
force of the blow and the resistance. And the point of the spear blade
had snapped off by at least an inch.
"Witchcraft!" they cried again. "He is dead, and yet he does not bleed.
_Mawo_!"
He was. Not a movement stirred his limbs; not a breath heaved his chest
ever so faintly. The lips, slightly parted, were as livid as the
features.
For a few moments they stood contemplating their victim in speechless
amazement. Then one, more daring or less credulous than his fellows,
reached forward as if about to plunge his assegai into the motionless
body. The rest hung breathlessly watching the result of the experiment.
But before it could be carried into effect the deep tones of a
peremptory voice suspended the uplifted weapon. Every head turned, and
the circle parted to make way for the new arrival.
He was a tall, muscular Kafir, as straight as a dart, and carried his
head with an air of command which, with the marked deference shown him,
bespoke him a man of considerable rank. His bronzed and sinewy
proportions were plentifully adorned with fantastic ornaments of
beadwork and cow-tails, and he wore a headpiece of monkey skin
surmounted by the long waving plumes of the blue crane.
Without a word he advanced, and, bending over the prostrate body,
scrutinised the dead man's features. A slight start and exclamation of
astonishment escaped him, then, recovering himself, he carefully
examined, without touching it, the place where the assegai had struck.
There it was, visible to all, a clean cut in the cord jacket--yet no
sign of blood.
"_Au_! He does not bleed! He does not bleed!" ejaculated the crowd
again.
By this time the numbers of the latter had augmented. Having given up
the chase of the other two whites, or leaving it to their advance
guards, the Kafirs swarmed back by twos and threes to where the
gathering crowd showed that something unusual was going on.
The chief drew a knife from his girdle and bent once more over the
prostrate form. But his purpose was not at present a bloodthirsty one,
for he only held the broad blade across the livid lips. Then raising it
he scrutinised it keenly. The bright steel was ever so slightly dimmed.
"Ha!" he exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction, rising to his feet after
repeating the operation. Then he issued his orders, with the result
that poor Eustace was lifted on to a stout blanket, and four men,
advancing, shouldered a corner apiece and thus, with their living burden
in their midst, the whole band moved away down the kloof.
After about two hours' marching, during which the country grew wilder
and more wooded, they halted at a water-hole--one of a chain of several
in the otherwise dried-up bed of a stream. Eustace was gently lowered
to the ground, and, squatting around him, his bearers began to watch him
with a great and gathering curiosity, for he was beginning to show signs
of returning life.
At a rapid signal from the chief, water was fetched from the hole and
his brow and face bathed. A tremor ran through his frame and a sigh
escaped him. Then he opened his eyes.
"_Hau_!" exclaimed the Kafirs, bending eagerly forward.
At sight of the ring of dark faces gazing upon him in the gathering
dusk, Eustace raised his head with a slight start. Then, as
recollection returned to him, he sank wearily back. His head was
aching, too, as if it would split. He would be fortunate if the blow
which had deprived him of consciousness did not end in concussion of the
brain.
With the return of consciousness came a feeling of intense gratification
that he was still alive. This may seem a superfluous statement, yet
not. Many a man waking to the consciousness that he was a helpless
captive in the power of fierce and ruthless barbarians, has prayed with
all his soul for the mercy of a swift and certain death, and has done so
with a grim and terrible earnestness. Not so, however, Eustace Milne.
He had something to live for now. While there was life there was hope.
He was not going to throw away a single chance.
To this end, then, he lay perfectly still, closing his eyes again, for
he wanted to think, to clear his terribly aching and beclouded brain.
And while thus lying, seemingly unconscious, his ears caught the subdued
hum of his captors' conversation--caught the whispered burden of their
superstitious misgivings, and he resolved to turn them to account.
"It is a powerful `charm,'" one of them was saying. "We ought to find
it--to take it away from him."
"We had better not meddle with it," was the reply. "Wait and see. It
may not be too powerful for Ngcenika, or it may. We shall see."
"Ha! Ngcenika--the great prophetess. _Ewa, ewa_!" [Yes--yes]
exclaimed several.
A powerful charm? Ngcenika, the prophetess? What did they mean. Then
it dawned upon him as in a flash. The uplifted assegai, the great
leaping barbarian, grinning in bloodthirsty glee as the weapon quivered
in his sinewy grasp: then the blow--straight at his heart. It all came
back lo him now.
Yet how had he escaped? The stroke had been straight, strong, and
surely directed. He had felt the contact. Checking an impulse to raise
his hand to his heart, he expanded his chest ever so slightly. No
sharp, pricking pang, as of a stab or cut. He was unwounded. But how?
And then as the truth burst upon him, such a thrill of new-born hope
radiated throughout his being that he could hardly refrain from leaping
to his feet then and there. The silver box--Eanswyth's gift at
parting--this was what had interposed between him and certain death!
The silver box--with its contents, the representation of that sweet
face, those last lines, tear stained, "warm from her hand and heart," as
she herself had put it--this was what had turned the deadly stroke which
should have cleft his heart in twain. What an omen!
A "charm," they had called it--a powerful "charm." Ha! that must be his
cue. Would it prove too potent for Ngcenika? they had conjectured. The
name was familiar to him as owned by Kreli's principal witch-doctress, a
shadowy personage withal, and known to few, if any, of the whites, and
therefore credited with powers above the average. Certain it was that
her influence at that time was great.
More than ever now had he his cue, for he could guess his destination.
They were taking him to the hiding place of the Paramount Chief, and
with the thorough knowledge he possessed of his captors, the chance of
some opportunity presenting itself seemed a fairly good one. But, above
all, he must keep up his character for invulnerability. Neither peril
nor pain must wring from him the faintest indication of weakness.
In furtherance of this idea--the racking, splitting pain in his head
notwithstanding--he sat up and looked deliberately around as though just
awakening from an ordinary sleep. He noticed a start run round the
circle of swarthy, wondering countenances. As he did so, his glance
fell upon one that was familiar to him.
"_Hau_, Ixeshane!" cried its owner, stepping forth from the circle.
"You have come a long way to visit us!" and the ghost of a mocking smile
lurked round the speaker's mouth.
"That is so, Hlangani. Here--tell one of them to dip that half-full of
water at the hole." He had drawn a flask from his pocket and held out
the metal cup. One of the Kafirs took it and proceeded to execute his
request without a word. Then, adding some spirit to the water, he drank
it off, and half-filling the cup again--with raw brandy--he handed it to
the chief. Hlangani drained it at a single gulp.
"_Silungile_!" [Good] he said briefly, then stood wailing as if to see
what the other would say next. Calmly Eustace returned the flask to his
pocket. But he said nothing.
After about an hour's halt the band arose, and, gathering up their
weapons and such scanty _impedimenta_ as they possessed, the Kafirs
prepared to start.
"Can you walk, Ixeshane?" said the chief.
"Certainly," was the reply. His head was splitting and it was all he
could do to keep on his feet at all. Still his new character must be
kept up, and the night air was cool and invigorating. But just as he
was about to step forth with the others, his arms were suddenly forced
behind him and quickly and securely bound. There was no time for
resistance, even had he entertained the idea of offering any, which he
had not.
"Am I a fool, Hlangani?" he said. "Do I imagine that I, unarmed and
alone, can escape from about two hundred armed warriors, think you?
Why, then, this precaution?"
"It is night," replied the chief laconically.
It was night, but it was bright moonlight. The Kafirs were marching in
no particular order, very much at ease in fact, and as he walked,
surrounded by a strong body guard, he could form some idea of the
strength of the band. This numbered at least a couple of hundred, he
estimated; but the full strength of the party which had so disastrously
surprised them must have consisted of nearly twice that number. Then he
questioned them concerning the fate of his comrades. For answer they
grinned significantly, going through a pantomimic form of slaying a
prostrate enemy with assegais.
"All killed?" said Eustace, incredulously.
"No. Only the one who is with you," was the answer. "But the other two
will be dead by this time. Their horses were used up, and our people
are sure to have overtaken them long before they got to the river. _Au
umlungu_!" went on the speaker, "Were you all mad, you four poor whites,
that you thought to come into the country of the Great Chief, Sarili,
the Chief Paramount, and eat the cattle of his children?"
"But this is not his country. It belongs to Moni, the chief of the
Amabomvane."
"Not his country. Ha!" echoed the listeners, wagging their heads in
disdain. "Not his country! The white man's `charm' may be potent, but
it has rendered him mad."
"Ho, Sarili--father!" chorused the warriors, launching out into an
impromptu song in honour of the might and virtues of their chief.
"Sarili--lord! The Great, Great One! The deadly snake! The mighty
buffalo bull, scattering the enemy's hosts with the thunder of his
charge! The fierce tiger, lying in wait to spring! Give us thy white
enemies that we may devour them alive. Ha--ah!"
The last ejaculation was thundered out in a prolonged, unanimous roar,
and inspired by the fierce rhythm of the chant, the warriors with one
accord formed up into columns, and the dark serried ranks, marching
through the night, swelling the wild war-song, beating time with sticks,
the quivering rattle of assegai hafts mingling with the thunderous tread
of hundreds of feet, and the gleam of the moonlight upon weapons and
rolling eyeballs, went to form a picture of indescribable grandeur and
awe.
Again and again surged forth the weird rhythm:
Ho, Sarili, son of Hintza!
Great Chief of the House of Gcaleka!
Great Father of the children of Xosa!
Strong lion, devourer of the whites!
Great serpent, striking dead thine enemies!
Give us thy white enemies
that we may hew them into small pieces.
Ha--Ah! Great Chief! whose kraals overflow with fatness!
Great Chief! whose cornfields wave to feed a people!
Warrior of warriors,
whom weapons surround like the trees of a forest!
We return to thee drunk with the blood of thine enemies.
"Ha--ha--ha!"
With each wild roar, shouted in unison at the end of each of these
impromptu strophes, the barbarians immediately surrounding him would
turn to Eustace and flash their blades in his face, brandishing their
weapons in pantomimic representation of carving him to pieces. This to
one less versed in their habits and character would have been to the
last degree terrifying, bound and at their mercy as he was. But it
inspired in him but little alarm. They were merely letting off steam.
Whatever his fate might eventually be, his time had not yet come, and
this he knew.
After a great deal more of this sort of thing, they began to get tired
of their martial display. The chanting ceased and the singers subsided
once more into their normal state of free and easy jollity. They
laughed and poked fun among themselves, and let off a good deal of chaff
at the expense of their prisoner. And this metamorphosis was not a
little curious. The fierce, ruthless expression, blazing with racial
antipathy, depicted on each dark countenance during that wild and
headlong chase for blood, had disappeared, giving way to one that was
actually pleasing, the normal light-hearted demeanour of a keen-witted
and kindly natured people. Yet the chances of the prisoner's life being
eventually spared were infinitesimal.