Chapter Twenty Nine.
What we Found.
I have seen a good many astonished natives in my time but never a more astonished one than my boy Tom that evening after supper, when staggering to my feet and lurching unsteadily I bade him in thick and indistinct accents to go into the store and fetch some new blankets for my two guests to sleep on. When on his return, I cursed him roundly, and threw an empty bottle at his head, taking good care however that it shouldn’t hit him, then subsided on to the floor to all outward appearances in the last stage of helpless intoxication, poor Tom must have thought the end of the world had come. This, of course, was part of the programme as drawn up between myself and Jan Boom.
In every other particular I had scrupulously observed it even to the severe laming of my unfortunate horse. Poor beast! but then what were the passing sufferings of a mere animal, when issues such as this were in the balance! I had got through the morning joining in the pretended search, and it was while thus engaged that I found an opportunity of imparting to the other two our plan of rescue.
“By the Lord!” exclaimed Kendrew, “I never heard such an extraordinary thing in my life.”
“The thing is, can we swallow it?” was Falkner’s remark. “These niggers are such infernal liars.”
“Well. I’m going to follow it up, even if I go alone,” I said.
“Who the devil said you were going alone, Glanton?” he answered gruffly. “Look here, we rather hate each other, but you can’t say that up there in Zululand, for instance, I ever backed down.”
“Certainly I can’t, Sewin,” I said. “What I can say is that in any sort of scrap there’s no man I’d rather have alongside than yourself. And as for hating each other, it’s only natural you should hate me I suppose, but I’ve never returned the compliment.”
“Well we’ll knock hell out of someone to-night anyhow,” he said. “Now let’s have all particulars of the scheme.”
I gave them, exactly as I had had them from Jan Boom.
“The thing is to keep it up,” I said. “That’ll be the stiffest part of all—to keep it up. We mustn’t go about looking as if we had found her already. Native eyes and ears are sharp, and native deductions are swiftly drawn.”
This was agreed upon, and we continued our mock search more strenuously than ever. We dared not even let fall so much as a hint to the old people. Pitiable as it was to witness their distress, yet it was better that this should continue a little longer rather than that our success should be imperilled, as certainly would have been the case had we let slip the slightest inkling that there was ground for hope.
“Has Ivondwe made any revelation?” I asked the police inspector, later on as we were about to start. “Not a word. Would you like to talk to him, Glanton? You might get something out of him.”
“Not to-day. To-morrow perhaps. Only keep him doubly guarded. He’ll certainly escape if he can.”
“He’ll be a bigger magician than Ukozi if he does. He’s handcuffed in a hut, with four of my men guarding him, two inside and two out. And the two out are just dead shots with rifle or pistol, although they do belong to the poor old police,” he added meaningly.
“All right. Now I’m off to try and work the native intelligence department.”
“And I hope to God you may succeed,” had been the fervent answer. “Good-bye.”
So here we were, only awaiting our guide in order to set forth. The other two had also simulated inebriation, but only to a slight extent. We had a business-like revolver apiece and plenty of cartridges, but no guns. Another significant item of our outfit comprised several strong, new reims. At last, after further waiting, which seemed an eternity, Jan Boom appeared.
There was mirth lurking in his face as he explained that he had come over at Tom’s instance. Tom should have come to see if anything more was wanted before he turned in for the night, but he was afraid. His master seemed bewitched, he declared. He and the other two white men were all drunk, but his master was the most drunk of all—yes, by far. His master drunk!
At any other time we would have roared over the absurdity of the situation, and Tom’s very justifiable amazement. Now Jan Boom was directed to tell him to turn in, and then come back. He came back, but took rather long about it. “Now Amakosi!” he said. “We will start, but no word must be spoken save in the faintest of whispers, and only then if it cannot be avoided.”
“What if Tom should take into his head to come here again?” I asked.
“He will not, Nkose, I have tied him up so that he can neither move nor speak.”
“Good,” I said.
The night seemed very dark as we set forth, for the moon had not yet risen, and the starlight was insufficient to render our march easy, as we followed the elastic stride of our silent guide. Our excitement was intense, as we threaded the thickness of some bushy kloof by narrow game paths known to our guide and lit upon in the darkness with the unerring instinct of the savage. Every now and then a rustle and patter, as something scurried away, and once some large animal, alarmed, started away with a sudden and tremendous crash which it seemed must have been heard for miles. Not one of us dared break the Xosa’s enjoinment to strict silence, and thus we proceeded. How long this lasted we could only guess, but it seemed that we were hours traversing the interminable tortuousness of bushy ravines, or scaling the side of a slope with such care as not to disturb a single stone. At last Jan Boom came to a halt, and stood, listening intently.
In the gloom we could make out nothing distinct. We were facing a dark mass of thick bush, with a rugged boulder here and there breaking through, as if it had fallen from a stunted krantz which crowned the slope not very much higher above. It took some straining of the eyes to grasp these details. When we looked again our guide had disappeared.
“What does it mean, Glanton?” whispered Falkner. “What if this is another trap and we are going to be the next to disappear? Well, we sha’n’t do it so quietly, that’s one thing.”
Then through the silence came Jan Boom’s voice, and—it seemed to come from right beneath our feet.
“Down here, Amakosi. Iqalaqala first.”
“Down here?” Yes—but where? Then I saw what was a hole or cavity, seeming to pierce the blackness of a dense wall of bush. Without a moment’s hesitation I obeyed, and finding Jan Boom’s outstretched hand I dropped into what was curiously like a sort of deep furrow. The others followed, and lo—something closed behind us. We were in pitch darkness, and a moist and earthy smell gave out a most uncomfortable suggestion of being buried alive.
“Now walk,” whispered the Xosa. “Let each keep hold of the one in front of him. But—before all—silence!”
In this way we advanced, Jan Boom leading, I keeping a hand on his shoulder, Kendrew doing ditto as to mine, while Falkner brought up the rear. The place was not a cave, for every now and again we could see a star or two glimmering high above. It seemed like a deep fissure or crevasse seaming the ground, but what on earth it was like above I had no idea.
We walked lightly and on our toes in order to ensure silent progress. A few minutes of this and the Xosa halted. The fissure had widened out, and now a puff of fresh air bore token that we were getting into the light of day, or rather of night, once more. Nor were we sorry, for our subterranean progress was suggestive of snakes and all kinds of horrors. I, for one, knew by a certain feel in the air that we were approaching water.
A little further and again we halted. A patch of stars overhead, and against it the black loom of what was probably a krantz or at any rate a high bluff. The murmur of running water, also sounding from overhead, at the same time smote upon our ears.
It was getting lighter. The moon was rising at last, and as we strained our gaze through the thick bushy screen behind which we had halted, this is what we saw.
We were looking down upon a circular pool whose surface reflected the twinkling of the stars. On three sides of it ran an amphitheatre of rock, varying from six to twenty feet in height. At the upper end where the water fell into it in a thin stream, the rock dipped to the form of a letter “V.” All this we could make out in the dim light of the stars, for as yet the face of the rock was in dark shadow. And yet, and yet—as I gazed I could descry a striking resemblance to our own waterhole except that this was more shut in.
“Remember,” whispered the Xosa, impressively. “There is to be no shooting. They are to be taken alive.”
We promised, wondering the while where “they” were. A tension of excitement, and eagerness for the coming struggle was upon all three of us. For me I rebelled against the agreement which should deter me from battering the life out of the black villains who had brought my darling to this horrible place. What terrors must she not have endured? What ghastly rites of devil worship were enacted here?
Foot by foot the light crept downwards, revealing the face of the rock as the moon rose higher and higher. Then a violent nudge from Falkner, at my side—but I had already seen.
The water was pouring down upon the head of what had once been a human being. Now it was a dreadful, glistening slimy thing, half worn away by the action of the running water. It was fixed in a crucified attitude, facing outwards, bound by the wrists to a thick pole which was stretched across horizontally from side to side of the pool, the feet resting upon a rock ledge beneath. It needed not the agonised stare upon that awful upturned face—or rather what once had been a face—to tell in what unspeakable torture this wretched being had died. To my mind and to Falkner’s came the recollection of our gruesome find that grey afternoon in the northern wilds of Zululand.
Two more bodies, one little better than a skeleton, were bound similarly on each side of the central one. As we gazed, spellbound with horror, we saw that which pointed to one of these being the body of a white man.
Now a dark figure appeared on the brink above the central victim, appeared so silently and suddenly as to lend further horror to this demon haunted spot. We watched it in curdling horror as it stooped, then reached down and cut the thongs which held first one wrist then the other. The body thus released toppled heavily into the pool with a dull splash that echoed among the overhanging rocks. Then it disappeared.
The figure, straightened up now, stood watching the troubled surface for a moment. Standing there full in the moonlight I thought to recognise the face. It was that of one of Tyingoza’s people whom I knew by sight, but could not fit with a name. Then he turned to clamber back, crooning as he did so, a strange weird song. It was not very intelligible, but was full of sibongo to the Water Spirit, who should now delight in a fresh victim, a rare victim, one by the side of which all former sacrifices were but poor. Then would the land have rain again—would drink all the rain it needed.
Now the blood seemed to rush to my brain as though to burst it. A red mist came before my eyes, and my heart seemed to hammer within me as though it would betray our place of concealment without fail. For I realised who this new victim—this rare victim—was to be, the victim who was to take the place of the ghastly shapeless horror which we had seen disappear beneath that awful surface. A warning touch from Jan Boom brought me back to recollection and sanity again.
Through our concealing screen we saw the man who had released the corpse drop down the rock. Another had joined him, and now the two crouched down in the shadow with an air of eager expectancy as though waiting for something or somebody. One held in his hand a coiled thong. Then we heard voices, one a full, sonorous, male tone talking in the Zulu; and another, rich, musical, feminine—and it I recognised with a tightening of the heart. Both were approaching, in such wise as would bring the speakers almost within touch of us.
And the two fiends, the one with the coiled thong, and the other, crouched—waiting.