"He must be killed! He must be killed!"
The cry was taken up. The bloodthirsty shout rolled through the ranks
fiercer and fiercer till the wild roaring chorus was deafening. That
crouching, armed multitude, a moment before so motionless and silent,
sprang erect, swaying to and fro, frenzied with uncontrollable
excitement; a legion of dark demons roaring and howling under the
promptings of superstition and ferocity; bellowing for blood--blood,
blood, no matter whose. Weapons waved wildly in the air, and the
deep-throated shout volleyed forth. "He must be killed!"
The warriors were seated in an immense double semicircle. Gliding with
her half-dancing step to the upper end of this, the witch-doctress began
chanting an incantation in a high nasal key, an invocation to the great
_Inyoka_ [Serpent] who held the kraal and its inhabitants under its
especial favour. As she commenced her round, the shouting of the
warriors was hushed. All stood upright and silent. Different emotions
held sway in each grim, dark countenance. The hearts of many were
sinking with deadly fear, yet each strove to meet the eye of the
terrible witch-doctress boldly and without quailing. They knew that
that fatal round would prove of deadly import to one or more of them ere
it was completed.
"Ho--_Inyoka 'nukulu_!" [Great serpent] chanted the hag, with a
significant shake of the body of the hideous reptile, which she held by
the neck. "Find the wizard! Find the wizard!"
"Find the wizard!" echoed those whom she had already passed by as she
commenced her passage along the line.
"Find the wizard!" they shouted, rapping the ground with their sticks.
Those who had yet to undergo the ordeal kept stem silence.
The chorus grew in volume as the number qualified to swell it increased.
Not merely a lust for blood did that horrid shout represent--it
embodied also a delirious relief on the part of those already safe.
Suddenly Ngcenika made a half pause, raising her voice in the midst of
her yelling chant. The serpent, its black coils writhing and twisting
around her arm, opened its jaws and hissed horribly. Those still
expectant held their breaths; those already relieved shouted and
hammered with their sticks harder than ever. Those directly opposite
the sorceress, at this ill-omened juncture, stood turned to stone.
"Find him, Inyoka!" snarled the hag.
"Find him! Find him!" echoed the deep-toned chorus.
But the pause was only momentary. Not yet was the victim singled out.
Ngcenika resumed her way, only to repeat the process further along the
line. And this she would do at intervals, sometimes coming to a dead
stop in such significant and purpose-fraught fashion that the whole body
of spectators stood ready to hurl themselves like lightning upon the
unlucky one denounced. The hellish hag was enjoying the terror she
inspired, and as strong men of tried bravery one after another quailed
before her she gloated over their fears to such a pitch that her voice
rose to a deafening shriek of demoniacal glee.
The other end of the great human crescent was nearly reached and still
no victim. And now those who had escaped so far began to feel their
apprehensions return. It would be no unprecedented affair were a second
trial to occur, or even a third. The sorceress might elect to make her
fatal progress through the ranks again and again. There were barely
fifty men left. Unless the victim or victims should be found among
those, a second progress was inevitable.
The bloodthirsty chorus rose into a deafening roar. The tension was
fearful to witness. The hideous possession of the repulsive
witch-doctress had communicated itself in some degree to the mass of
excitable savages. Many were foaming at the mouth and apparently on the
eve of convulsions. Not satisfied with the shouting, the infuriated mob
beat time with their feet in addition to their sticks, as they joined in
the hell-hag's demoniacal incantations, and the perspiration streamed
from every pore till the very air was heavy with a sickening and musky
odour. It was a repellent and appalling scene, and even the white
spectator, apart from the extreme peril of his own situation, felt his
blood curdle within him at this vision of what was very like a
diabolical power let loose. But there was worse to follow.
Suddenly the sorceress was seen to halt. Her voice rose to a frightful
yell, as with blazing eyes, and pouring forth a torrent of denunciation,
she raised the great black serpent aloft in such wise that its writhing
neck and hissing jaws made a dart straight at the face of a man in the
rear rank of the line and near the end of the latter.
"Thou hast found him, _Inyoka_! Thou hast found him! Show us the
wizard!" screeched the hideous witch-doctress. The grinning skull and
the two devil-like horns of hair which surmounted her head quivered
convulsively. Her eyes started from the sockets, and the weird and
barbaric amulets hung about her person rattled like castanets. She was
once more the mouthing demoniac of a short half-hour ago.
The writhings and hisses of the serpent had become perfectly frantic.
Suddenly the reptile was seen to spring free of her grasp and to fling
itself straight at the man whose face it had first struck at.
"The wizard! The wizard!" roared the warriors. "_Hau_! It is Vudana!
Vudana, the son of Sekweni, _Hau_!"
"Vudana, the wizard! Seize him!" shrieked the sorceress. "Seize him,
but slay him not. He must confess! He must confess! On your lives,
slay him not!"
The first part of her mandate had already been obeyed. Those in his
immediate neighbourhood had flung themselves upon the doomed man and
disarmed him almost before the words of denunciation had left the hag's
lips. The second part was in no danger of being disobeyed now. Better
for the victim if it had.
The latter was a man just past middle age, with a quiet and far from
unpleasing cast of features. He was not a chief, but had a reputation
for shrewdness and foresight beyond that of many an accredited leader.
"Ha, Vudana! Vudana, the wizard!" cried Ngcenika mockingly. "Vudana,
who did not believe in the efficacy of my magic. Vudana, who pretended
to manufacture `charms' as effective as mine. Vudana, whose poor
attempts at magic have been effective to destroy mine in the case of all
who believed in them. Call the names of those who fell," she cried,
addressing the crowd. "They are all believers in Vudana, not in me!
Where are they now? Ask the Amanglezi--even the Amafengu, before whose
bullets they fell. Ask the jackal and the vulture, who have picked
their bones. Ask Mfulini, the son of Mapute, whose weapon was turned by
the magic of the white man! Was he a believer in Vudana's `charms'?"
she added in a menacing voice, rolling her eyes around.
"He was not," shouted the warrior named, springing forward. "Where is
the man who bewitched my broad _umkonto_. Let him confess and say how
he did it."
"It is well, Mfulini," said the witch-doctress grimly, knowing that the
other trembled for his personal safety now that she had dexterously
turned suspicion upon him. "Thou shall be the man to make him confess."
"I have nothing to confess," said Vudana. He lay on his bark, held
powerless by several men while waiting for a _reim_ to be brought
wherewith to bind him. He knew that he was doomed--doomed not merely to
death, but to one of the differing forms of frightful torment meted out
to those accused of his offence. He knew moreover that whether he
accused himself or not the result would be the same, and a warrior light
blazed from his eyes as he replied.
"If the Great Chief wants my cattle, my possessions, they are his; let
him take them. If he wants my life, it too is his; let him take it.
But I will not accuse myself of that which I have never committed."
If Kreli had heard this appeal he made no sign. Witchcraft was an
offence--theoretically at any rate--outside the secular province.
"Smelling out" was a good old custom which had its uses, and one not
lightly to be interfered with. It was doubtful, however, whether he did
hear, for a shout of execration, led by the witch-doctress, drowned the
victim's words.
"He will not confess! _Au_! Where are the hot stones? To the fire!
To the fire!" roared the crowd. The witch-doctress uttered a fiendish
laugh.
"No. To the ants!" she cried.
"_Ewa! Ewa_! To the ants!" they echoed. "Bring him along. _Hau_!
The ants are hungry!"
A noosed _reim_ was thrown round the doomed man's neck, and another made
fast to each of his wrists, and thus, with the whole crowd surging and
yelling around him, he was dragged into the adjoining forest.
"_Hamba-ke, umlungu_!" ["Go on, white man"] said several of the
warriors guarding Eustace, motioning him to proceed. "We are going to
show you a sight. Quick, or we shall be late!"
By no means free from apprehension on his own account, Eustace obeyed.
When they arrived among the eager and excited crowd, the entertainment
had already begun. All made way for the white prisoner and his guards,
and there was a fiendish leer on many a dark face which needed not a
muttered remark or two to explain. The horrible scene he was about to
witness was extremely likely to be his own fate.
The doomed man lay spread eagled on his back; his hands and feet,
stretched to their utmost tension, were fastened to stout pegs driven
into the ground. Two of the Kafirs were busily anointing his naked body
with a sticky compound, which was, in fact, a mixture of honey and
native beer. This they smeared over him with bits of rag: ears, eyes,
nose, coming in for a plentiful share. Already his flesh seemed alive
with moving objects, and then the cause became apparent. The wretched
man was tied down right across a huge ant's nest, which had been broken
in order to receive his body. Already the infuriated insects were
making their bites felt. _He was to be devoured alive by black ants_.
"Confess, Vudana," cried Ngcenika. "Confess thy witchcraft and how thy
`charms' were obtained. The black ants bite hard. Ha!"
"Confess? Ha-ha!" jeered the sufferer, his eyes blazing. "Not to thee,
vulture. Not to thee, jackal. Not to thee, spawn of a Fingo dog. Ha!
That is the witch-doctress of the Amagcaleka! Such a thing as that!
What magic can she make? A cheat--a liar! I can die--I can die as I
have lived--a man, a warrior."
"_Hau_! A wizard! A traitor!" vociferated the crowd. "Confess thy
witchcraft, lest we put thee to the flaming torment. The fire bites
deeper than the black ants. _Hau_!"
"I laugh at the fire," roared the victim. "I laugh at all that you can
do. The fire is but a pleasant warmth. The bite of the ants is but the
softest tickling. Thou dog, Mfulini, were I free, I would whip thee
round the kraal."
"Is thy bed a comfortable one, Vudana?" replied the barbarian thus
apostrophised, with a sneer. And picking up a handful of the venomous
insects he scattered them upon the tortured man's face with a brutal
laugh.
For all his defiant fortitude the latter was undergoing agonies. The
ants were swarming all over his body, crawling into his nostrils and
ears, biting everywhere, eating the rims of his eyelids, his lips, his
throat, and he was powerless to move a hand or foot. The spectators
crowded around, mocking and jeering at him. A few minutes ago he was a
man of consideration--now all pushed and fought for the front places to
witness his sufferings, all heaped execrations upon him as they gloated
over the horrible punishment of one who had been denounced as a wizard.
"Whose magic is the greatest, Vudana--thine or mine?" jeered Ngcenika,
bending over her victim until her face was close to his. But the
proximity of that repulsive countenance infuriated even the helpless
victim. With a roar of rage he spat full into it, vociferating:
"Thou spawn of a Fingo dog! Thine hour is come. I have put my mark
upon thee. Before many moons are dead thou too shalt die, and thy death
shall be even as mine. I, Vudana, say it. Hear ye my words all!"
"He has confessed," shouted the crowd. "He is a wizard. He has
confessed. Let him die the death!"
With a yell of fury Ngcenika started back, and glared vengefully around
as if inquest of some means whereby to add to the sufferer's agony.
Then she remembered that it would hardly bear adding to under the
circumstances, and contented herself with a satanic laugh.
Nor would it. In a short time the miserable man's body was black with
the repulsive insects. They swarmed into his ears and nostrils. His
struggles became fearful, as he writhed in the excruciating torment of
their poisonous bites. He foamed at the mouth. His eyeballs rolled and
strained in their sockets, and he shook his head and roared like a
beast. It would be impossible to exaggerate the agonies he was
undergoing. His frantic struggles availed not to shake off a single one
of the myriad insects swarming upon him. Already his eyes were half
eaten away.
It was a fiendish and appalling spectacle. The man was now raving mad.
He gnashed his teeth and howled. His contortions were fearful to
witness. Yet no spark of pity or compunction did the sight awaken in
the ferocious hearts of the spectators, many of whom were, up to the
moment of the fatal denunciation, his kindred and his friends. But
since his treatment of the witch-doctress all were chary of venturing
too close. Many of the superstitious barbarians had already began to
look upon Ngcenika with decreased respect. Vudana, suffering as a
wizard, had spat in her face, accompanying the act with a prophecy and a
curse. On no consideration would they run the risk of exposing
themselves to like treatment.
Eustace, forced to be a spectator of this blood-curdling scene, felt his
head swim with horror and disgust. The chastened gloom of the forest,
the gibing crowd of armed savages, the weird shrill singing of the
witch-doctress, and the frightful contortions and beast-like roars of
the miserable victim, who was being literally devoured alive, made up a
picture likely to haunt a man in his dreams for the rest of his life, to
start him suddenly awake in a cold sweat of terror. Still he remembered
that any exhibition of feeling would be in the highest degree dangerous,
and controlled himself accordingly.
All this had taken some time and now the frantic struggles of the
sufferer had subsided. A convulsive shudder would now and then run
through his limbs, and his sightless eyeballs would roll in a manner
hideous to behold, and ever the disgusting insects swarmed over him in a
horrible moving mass, now red with blood, and smothered beneath gouts of
saliva which had flown from the maniac's lips. Upon his violent
struggles had followed exhaustion--mercifully, the exhaustion of
approaching death.
"He is dying!" cried several, bending over the victim. "_Hau_! A man
like Vudana should have taken much longer to die."
This was said in a disappointed tone. The barbarous appetite of these
savages was thoroughly roused--whetted for further atrocities. A shout
arose.
"The white man! The white man! What shall we do with him?"
Well might Eustace start, in horror and dismay. But a glance served to
show that the object of attention was not himself, but somebody at the
other end of the crowd, in which direction all heads were turned. Then
as the crowd parted a moment he caught a glimpse of something--somebody
rather--which evoked a second start, this time one of very unequivocal
amazement. Could he believe his eyes?