Throughout the night their march continued. Towards dawn, however, a
short halt was made, to no one more welcome than to the captive himself;
the fact being that poor Eustace was deadly tired, and, but for the
expediency of keeping up his character for invulnerability, would have
requested the chief, as a favour, to allow him some rest before then.
As it was, however, he was glad of the opportunity; but, although he had
not tasted food since the previous midday, he could not eat. He felt
feverish and ill.
Day was breaking as the party resumed its way. And now the features of
the country had undergone an entire change. The wide, sweeping,
mimosa-dotted dales had been left behind--had given place to wild forest
country, whose rugged grandeur of desolation increased with every step.
Great rocks overhung each dark ravine, and the trunks of hoary
yellow-wood trees, from whose gigantic and spreading limbs depended
lichens and monkey ropes, showed through the cool semi-gloom like the
massive columns of cathedral aisles. An undergrowth of dense bush
hemmed in the narrow, winding path they were pursuing, and its tangled
depths were ever and anon resonant with the piping whistle of birds, and
the shrill, startled chatter of monkeys swinging aloft among the
tree-tops, skipping away from bough to bough with marvellous alacrity.
Once a sharp hiss was heard in front, causing the foremost of the party
to halt abruptly, with a volley of excited ejaculations, as a _huge
rinkhaals_, lying in the middle of the narrow track, slowly unwound his
black coils, and, with hood inflated, raised his head in the air as if
challenging his human foes. But these, by dint of shouting and beating
the ground with sticks, induced him to move off--for, chiefly from
motives of superstition, Kafirs will not kill a snake if they can
possibly help it--and the hideous reptile was heard lazily rustling his
way through the jungle in his retreat.
They had been toiling up the steep, rugged side of a ravine. Suddenly
an exclamation of astonishment from those in front, who had already
gained the ridge, brought up the rest of the party at redoubled speed.
"_Hau! Istimele_!" [The steamer] echoed several, as the cause of the
prevailing astonishment met their eyes.
The ridge was of some elevation. Beyond the succession of forest-clad
valleys and rock-crowned divides lay a broad expanse of blue sea, and
away near the offing stretched a long line of dark smoke. Eustace could
make out the masts and funnel of a large steamer, steering to the
eastward.
And what a sense of contrast did the sight awaken in his mind. The
vessel was probably one of the Union Company's mail steamships, coasting
round to Natal. How plainly he would conjure up the scene upon her
decks, the passengers striving to while away the tediousness of their
floating captivity with chess and draughts--the latter of divers kinds--
with books and tobacco, with chat and flirtation; whereas, here he was,
at no very great distance either, undergoing, in this savage wilderness,
a captivity which was terribly real--a prisoner of war among a tribe of
sullen and partially crushed barbarians, with almost certain death, as a
sacrifice to their slain compatriots, staring him in the face, and a
strong probability of that death being a cruel and lingering one withal.
And the pure rays of the newly risen sun shone forth joyously upon that
blue surface, and a whiff of strong salt air seemed borne in upon them
from the bosom of the wide, free ocean.
For some minutes the Kafirs stood, talking, laughing like children as
they gazed upon the long, low form of the distant steamship, concerning
which many of their quaint remarks and conjectures would have been
amusing enough at any other time. And, as if anything was wanting to
keep him alive to the peril of his position, Hlangani, stepping to the
prisoner's side, observed:
"The time has come to blind you, Ixeshane."
The words were grim enough in all conscience--frightful enough to more
than justify the start which Eustace could not repress, as he turned to
the speaker. But a glance was enough to reassure him. The chief
advanced toward him, holding nothing more formidable than a folded
handkerchief.
To the ordeal of being blindfolded Eustace submitted without a word. He
recognised its force. They were nearing their destination. Even a
captive, probably foredoomed to death, was not to be allowed to take
mental notes of the approaches to the present retreat of the Paramount
Chief. Besides, by insuring such ignorance, they would render any
chance of his possible escape the more futile. But as he walked,
steered by one of his escort, who kept a hand on his shoulder, he
concentrated every faculty, short of the sight of which he was
temporarily deprived, upon observations relating to the lay of the
ground. One thing he knew. Wherever they might be they were at no
great distance from the sea coast. That was something.
Suddenly a diversion occurred. A long, loud, peculiar cry sounded from
some distance in front. It was a signal. As it was answered by the
returning warriors, once more the wild war-song was raised, and being
taken up all along the line, the forest echoed with the thunderous roar
of the savage strophe, and the clash of weapons beating time to the
weird and thrilling chant. For some minutes thus they marched; then by
the sound Eustace knew that his escort was forming up in martial array
around him; knew moreover, from this circumstance, that the forest had
come to an end. Then the bandage was suddenly removed from his eyes.
The abrupt transition from darkness to light was bewildering. But he
made out that he was standing in front of a hut, which his captors were
ordering him to enter. In the momentary glance which he could obtain he
saw that other huts were standing around, and beyond the crowd of armed
men which encompassed him he could descry the faces of women and
children gazing at him with mingled curiosity and wonder. Then,
stooping, he crept through the low doorway. Two of his guards entered
with him, and to his unspeakable gratification their first act was to
relieve him of the _reim_ which secured his arms. This done, a woman
appeared bearing a calabash of curdled milk and a little reed basket of
stamped mealies.
"Here is food for you, _Umlungu_," said one of them. "And now you can
rest until--until you are wanted. But do not go outside," he added,
shortly, and with a significant grip of his assegai. Then they went
out, fastening the wicker screen that served as a door behind them, and
Eustace was left alone.
The interior of the hut was cool, if a trifle grimy, and there were
rather fewer cockroaches than usual disporting themselves among the
domed thatch of the roof--possibly owing to the tenement being of recent
construction. But Eustace was dead tired and the shelter and solitude
were more than welcome to him just then. The curdled milk and mealies
were both refreshing and satisfying. Having finished his meal he
lighted his pipe, for his captors had deprived him of nothing but his
weapons, and proceeded to think out the situation. But nature asserted
herself. Before he had taken a dozen whiffs he fell fast asleep.
How long he slept he could not tell, but it must have been some hours.
He awoke with a start of bewilderment, for his slumber had been a heavy
and dreamless one: the slumber of exhaustion. Opening his eyes to the
subdued gloom of the hut he hardly knew where he was. The atmosphere of
that primitive and ill-ventilated tenement was stuffy and oppressive
with an effluvium of grease and smoke, and the cockroaches were running
over his face and hands. Then the situation came back to him with a
rush. He was a prisoner.
There was not much doing outside, to judge by the tranquillity that
reigned. He could hear the deep inflections of voices carrying on a
languid conversation, and occasionally the shrill squall of an infant.
His watch had stopped, but he guessed it to be about the middle of the
afternoon.
He was about to make an attempt at undoing the door, but remembering the
parting injunction of his guard, he judged it better not. At the same
time it occurred to him that he had not yet investigated the cause of
the saving of his life. Here was a grand opportunity.
Cautiously, and with one ear on the alert for interruption, he took the
silver box from the inside pocket in which it was kept. Removing the
chamois leather covering, which showed a clean cut an inch long, he
gazed with astonishment upon, the box itself. The assegai had struck it
fair, and there in the centre of the lid its point, broken off flush,
remained firmly embedded. He turned the box over. The point had just
indented the other side but not sufficiently to show through.
For some minutes he sat gazing upon it, with a strange mixture of
feeling, and well he might. This last gift of Eanswyth's had been the
means of saving his life--it and it alone. It had lain over his heart,
and but for its intervention that sure and powerfully directed stroke
would have cleft his heart in twain. That was absolutely a fact, and
one established beyond any sort of doubt.
Her hand had averted the death-stroke--the shield of her love had stood
between him and certain destruction. Surely--surely that love could not
be so unlawful--so accursed a thing. It had availed to save him--to
save him for itself. Eustace was not a superstitious man, but even he
might, to a certain extent, feel justified in drawing a highly
favourable augury from the circumstance. Yet he was not out of his
difficulties--his perils--yet. They had, in fact, only just begun; and
this he knew.
So far his captors had not ill-treated him, rather the reverse. But
this augured next to nothing either way. The Gcalekas had suffered
severe losses. Even now they were in hiding. They were not likely to
be in a very merciful mood in dealing with a white prisoner, one of the
hated race which had shot down their righting men, driven them from
their country, and carried off most of their cattle. The people would
clamour for his blood, the chiefs would hardly care to run counter to
their wish--he would probably be handed over to the witch-doctors and
put to some hideous and lingering death.
It was a frightful thought, coming upon him alone and helpless. Better
that the former blow had gone home. He would have met with a swift and
merciful death in the excitement of battle--whereas now? And then it
crossed his mind that the interposition of the silver box might not have
been a blessing after all, but quite the reverse. What if it had only
availed to preserve him for a death amid lingering torments? But no, he
would not think that. If her love had been the means of preserving him
thus far, it had preserved him for itself. Yet it was difficult to feel
sanguine with the odds so terribly against him.
What would she do when she heard that Tom had been killed and himself
captured by the savages? "Were anything to befall you, my heart would
be broken," had been almost her last words, and the recollection of them
tortured him like a red-hot iron, for he had only his own fool-hardiness
to thank that he was in this critical position at all. Fortunately it
did not occur to him that he might be reported dead, instead of merely
missing.
His reflections were interrupted. A great noise arose without--voices--
then the steady tramp of feet--the clash of weapons--and over and above
all, the weird, thrilling rhythmical chant of the war-song. He had just
time to restore the silver box to its place, when the door of the hut
was flung open and there entered three Kafirs fully armed. They ordered
him to rise immediately and pass outside.