"Thy promise, Great _Innyanga_! Thy promise. Give me not over to this
man, for I fear him. Thou didst swear I should be allowed to depart
hence; on the head of Umzilikazi thou didst swear it. Thy promise, O
Great _Innyanga_!"
"It shall be kept, sister," said Shiminya, softly, his eyes fairly
scintillating with devilish glee. "I swore to thee that thou shouldst
be _taken_ hence, and thou shalt, for this man and I will take thee."
The wretched creature broke into fresh outcries, which were partly
drowned, for already they were dragging her, still lashed to the pole,
outside.
"Ha, Nompiza!" jeered Nanzicele, bending down and peering into her face
as she lay in the moonlight. "Dost remember how I was driven from thy
father's kraal with jeers? Ha! Whose jeers were the loudest? Whose
mockeries the most biting? Thine. And now Kulula will have to buy
another wife. Thou hadst better have been the wife of Nanzicele than of
death. Of death, is it not, my father?" turning to Shiminya, who glared
a mirthless smile.
Wrought up to a pitch of frenzy by the recollection of the insults he
had then received, the vindictive savage continued to taunt and terrify
the wretched creature as she lay. Then he went over to pick up his
great knobstick.
"Not thus, blunderer; not thus," said Shiminya, arresting his arm. "See
now. Take that end of the pole while I take the other. Go thou first."
Lifting the pole with its helpless human burden, these bloodthirsty
miscreants passed out of the kraal. Down the narrow way they hurried,
for Shiminya though small was surprisingly wiry, and the powerful frame
of the other felt it not, although their burden was no light one. Down
through a steep winding path, and soon the thorns thinned out, giving
way to forest trees.
"Well, sister, I predicted that Lupiswana would come for thee to-night,"
said Shiminya, as they set their burden down to rest themselves. "And--
there he is already."
A stealthy shape, which had been following close upon their steps,
glided into view for a moment and disappeared. The wretched victim saw
it too, and uttered such a wild ringing shriek of despair that Nanzicele
fairly shuddered.
"_Au_! I like not this," he growled. "It is a deed of _tagati_."
"Yet thou must do it, brother, or worse will befall thyself," said
Shiminya, quietly. Then they resumed their burden.
Through the trees now came a glint of silver light, then a broad
shimmer. It was the glint of the moon upon water. The Umgwane River,
in the dry season, consists of a series of holes. One of these they had
reached.
"And now, sister," began the wizard, as they set down their burden upon
its brink, "thou seest what is the result of an unquiet tongue. But for
that thou wouldst not now be here, and thy brother Pukele and thy sister
Ntatu would have yet longer to live. But you all know too much, the
three of you. Look! Yonder is Lupiswana waiting for thee, even as I
predicted," said this human devil, who could not refrain from adding
acute mental torture to the dying moments of his victim. And as he
spoke a low whine rose upon the night air, where a dark sinister shape
lay silhouetted against the white stones of the broad river-bed some
little distance away.
The victim heard it and wailed, in a manner that resembled the whine of
the gruesome beast. Shiminya laughed triumphantly.
"Even the voice she has already," he exclaimed. "She will howl bravely
when Lupiswana hunts her."
"Have done," growled Nanzicele. Brutal barbarian as he was, even his
savagery stopped short at this; besides, his superstitious nature was
riven to the core. "Get it over; get it over!"
They raised the pole once more, and, by a concerted movement, swung it
and its human burden over the brink, where the pool was deepest. One
wild, appalling shriek, then a splash, and a turmoil of eddies and
bubbles rolling and scintillating on the surface, and the cold
remorseless face of the brilliant moon looked down, impassive, upon a
human creature thus horribly done to death.
"_Hlala-gahle_!" cried Shiminya, with a fiend-like laugh, watching the
uprising of the stream of bubbles. Then, turning to his fellow
miscreant, "And now, Nanzicele, whom Makiwa made a chief, and then
unmade, the people at Madula's can hardly speak for laughing at thee,
remembering thy last appearance there, bragging that thou wert a chief.
Makiwa has done this, but soon there may not be any Makiwa, for so I
read the fates. Go now. When I want thee I will send for thee again."
And the two murderers separated--Nanzicele, dejected and feeling as
though his freedom had gone from him for ever; Shiminya, chuckling and
elate, for the day had been a red letter one, and the human spider was
gorged full of human prey.