Chapter Eight.
Zwabeka’s Kraal.
“Isn’t that a perfect picture of savage life, set in a savage surrounding?” said Lamont, as he stood with his travelling companion before the door of the hut allotted to them. “It is artistically complete.”
“It is indeed,” was the answer.
And it was. The circle of the kraal, with its great open space and the conical huts, four deep, ringing it in: the dark, lithe forms of its occupants, unclothed save for a mútya of dangling monkey skins; or in the case of the women a greasy hide apron: the sinuous movements as the young men and boys ran in and out among the multi-coloured cattle: the reek of smoke and kine: the wild background of wooded ridge and craggy rock, and the swirling streamers of the storm-cloud above, pouring forth jetty beams of steely blue light and reverberating roll against the bushy spurs and darksome recesses. All this in the fast-gathering dusk made up a picture of sombre, impressive grandeur, the very soul of which seemed to permeate the minds of its two civilised spectators.
Then the full force of the storm broke overhead, and it was as though the whole world were on fire, and split in twain; what with the unintermittent electric glare, and the ear-splitting crashes, hardly more intermittent. But, with it all, not a drop of rain.
“It’s grand; but I’ve a notion it’s beastly dangerous,” said Lamont. “We’d better get inside. There’s more electricity in us than in a roof. They say,” he went on, as they gained their shelter, “that dry storms are more dangerous than when it rains, but that may be a popular superstition. Anyway everyone doesn’t share it, for here’s somebody coming.”
Even as he spoke, there crept through the low doorway, which had been left open, a young man followed by two girls, one bearing a basket of green mealies roasted on the ashes, the other a large bowl of tywala. The youth explained that they were sent by Gudhlusa, who was sorry he could not send meat, but the people were poor, since Government and the pestilence had killed all their cattle, and they had no meat.
“We shall do famously,” said Lamont. Then to the young man: “We thank Gudhlusa. And thou, umfane, make ready and broil these birds for us. Here is of the white man’s money; for thyself.”
“Nkose!” cried the youth delightedly, taking up the two francolins. “It shall be done. My father, Gudhlusa, also said that the chief, Zwabeka, is not able to see and talk with the Amakosi this night. He is sick.”
Lamont expressed his concern for the chief’s health, not believing a word of the above statement, and the messenger withdrew.
Half an hour or so later they were reclining snugly in their blankets, beginning on the broiled birds and roast mealies by the light of an old waggon lantern the boy had rummaged out. “The only thing wanting is salt,” pronounced Lamont. “However, just a grain of this makes a sort of substitute. Try it.”
He cut open one of his cartridges, which were made with black powder, and poured some of the latter out on to a piece of paper.
“But it does. Why, what a perfect travelling companion you are, Mr Lamont. You provide us with the salt—with the poultry—with everything.”
Lamont laughed.
“Oh, as to the last,” aiming a whack at a native dog, which was skulking in at the open door with an eye to plunder, “I always carry a shot-gun when travelling across country. It is an easily portable larder. The whole land swarms with birds, and you need only get off and shoot if you want skoff. Once, when I first came up here, I was travelling, and my horse went lame when I was about three hours from anywhere. I was in a great state of starve. Then it suddenly occurred to me that the bush was full of clucking pheasants—why the deuce didn’t I shoot one, light a fire and broil him? Well, I did, then and there. Ever since then I’ve always travelled with a shot-gun.”
“I, for one, am very glad of it, to-day especially,” laughed the priest. “These birds are delicious.”
They did ample justice to the bowl of tywala too, then lit their pipes, and lay chatting, at ease, the hollow roaring of the receding storm—or was it another approaching?—enhancing the sense of comfort within, under the influence of which conversation soon became disjointed. Father Mathias started as his half-smoked pipe dropped from his mouth, while his companion was already nodding. Both laughed.
“I think we had better say good-night,” said the latter. “For my part, I feel as if I could sleep till the crack of doom.”
The kraal was wrapped in silence, save for an indistinct hum here and there, where some of its occupants still carried on a lingering conversation. At last even it died away, and as hour followed hour the midnight silence was unbroken and profound.
Lamont was rather a light sleeper than otherwise, consequently it is not surprising that, the burden of his last waking words notwithstanding, a feeling of something half-scratching, half-tickling his ear, then his cheek, should start him wide awake. Following a natural impulse, though not perhaps a wise one, he brushed the thing off, and as he did so a shudder of loathing and repulsion ran through him, for it had a sort of feathery, leggy feel that made him guess its identity. Quickly he struck a light. Sprawling over the floor of the hut was a huge tarantula, looking more like an animal than an insect in the dim light of the burning vesta. Then, alarmed, it moved across the floor at a springy run, and before the spectator had decided how to put an end to its loathly existence it disappeared within a crevice in the side of the hut.
“Phew! what an awful-looking beast!” said Lamont to himself, with a natural shudder at the thought of how the hairy monster had been actually about to walk over his face in the darkness, and further, of what a narrow escape he must have had from its venomous nippers as he brushed it off. “They grow them large here, for that’s the biggest I’ve ever seen—by Jove it is!”
He struck another match. His companion was sleeping peacefully, but as for himself all desire for sleep had fled. With his large experience of sleeping in all sorts of places, it would have been odd if a similar disturbing incident had not come his way before, and that not once only: yet the feeling of repulsion was none the less real, none the less unpleasant, now. He would get through the remainder of the night outside. The ground was open, and there was no thatch overhead to drop hairy horrors upon him in his sleep. Taking his blanket, he crept out through the hole which did duty for a doorway.
All traces of the storm had disappeared, and overhead the stars shone forth in the blue-black vault in a myriad blaze unknown to cold northern skies. By their light he could just see the time. It was half-past one.
The night air was fresh, not to say chilly, and he shivered. No question was there of further sleep, at any rate not for some time. Wrapping his blanket around him he decided to walk about a little.
On one side of the hut which had been allotted to them was open ground, by reason of it being the site of several old habitations which had been removed to make way for new ones. This would supply him with excellent space for his sentry-like walk.
So still was the great kraal that it might have been the abode of the dead—the clustering huts so many mausoleums. Not even a dog was astir, which might be accounted for by the fact that there were but few in the place, and they probably away on the farther side. And then it occurred to Lamont that nocturnal perambulation with no external, and therefore legitimate, object, especially during the small hours, was an unpopular form of exercise among natives. Only abatagati, or evil-disposed wizards, prowled about at night, they held, wherefore his present wandering was injudicious—might even prove dangerous. He had better go in.
Now, as he arrived at this conclusion, his perambulations had brought him to the other side of the open space above described—that farthest removed from his own hut, and as he turned to carry it into effect he stopped short—a thrill of astonishment tingling through his frame. For his ear had caught the low murmur of voices and—in among them—the native version of his own name.
Yes, there it was again, distinctly—‘U’ Lamónti.’ What did it mean? The whole kraal should by rights have been plunged in slumber, yet here was quite a conclave of its inhabitants, not only very wide awake, but engaged in some apparently earnest discussion—in which his own name seemed to hold no unimportant a place. A curious warning prescience took possession of his mind, and moved him to adopt a course from which he would, by every natural instinct, have recoiled with loathing. He was going to play eavesdropper.
The hut from which the sounds proceeded was an outer one just within the main circle, standing almost against the thorn stockade. By creeping up on this side, the shadows of both would be in his favour, and, lying flat, with his ear as close to the doorway as he dared venture, it would be hard if he could not catch at any rate the gist of their discussion.
Lying there in the darkness it seemed to the listener that the loudness of his own heart-beats must betray him, for no sooner was he in position than the very first words he caught were such as to thrill him through with excitement and eagerness.
“It is not yet the time for killing,” a voice was saying.
“Not the time?” hummed several others.
“Not the time. He has said it. Before the next moon is dead, were the words of Umlimo. And it is not yet born.”
“But that was for the eating up of all Amakiwa,” objected another voice. “These who are in our midst are only two. No one will miss them. Who saw them come into our midst? None but our own people.”
“Eh! hé!” assented the others.
“U’ Lamonti. He has fire-weapons, and we need such,” went on the last speaker. “These will be ours.”
The listener lay, cursing himself for a very complete idiot. For the mention of firearms brought back to him that at the present moment he was totally unarmed. He had unslung his revolver when he lay down to sleep, and on coming out of the hut had left it there. Did any of them discover his presence now he was defenceless!
Now it was urged that the plan of stealing upon and murdering their two guests in their sleep was a bad one, and impolitic in that it would cause inquiries to be made, and so put the other Amakiwa on their guard. Then another voice said—
“You cannot kill the white isanusi. His múti is too powerful.”
“Ha!”
“Too powerful,” went on the speaker. “Hau! he is a real isanusi this one. He has a magic house, wherein he brings down fire from the sky—lapa gu’ Buluwayo. I know, for I have seen. Impela!”
The murmur of wonder or incredulity evoked by this statement having subsided, the other continued—
“I am not lying. I saw it. The Amakiwa in that house bent to the very ground, and sang great songs in praise of that wonder—fearing it. There were captains among them too, ha! Now I would ask if the fighting Amakiwa feared this isanusi and his múti—they fearing nothing—how then shall we have power against him? It may not be.”
Notwithstanding his peril a ripple of mirth ran through the listener, as he grasped what the speaker was feeling around—and which meant that that unlearned savage had by some means or other obtained a glimpse into the church at Buluwayo what time his travelling companion was exercising his sacerdotal functions, and was now recording his impressions of that experience.
“But Qubani—he too is an isanusi” said another voice. “He can match his power against that of this white one. Is it not so, Qubani, thou wise one?”
And from the tone, the listener gathered that the man addressed was held in great respect. It inspired in him no surprise, only rekindled interest, for he had heard of this Qubani as an isanusi of some renown.
“Meddle not with the white isanusi” was the laconic but decided answer. It was received with a hum of respectful assent, followed by a moment of silence.
“And the other, U’ Lamónti. Shall we not kill him, my father?”
Again the listener’s nerves thrilled as he crept a little more forward to catch the answer. It came.
“He may not be hurt—not now. He is under the protection of the white isanusi.”
This dictum was accepted without question, and, very considerably relieved in his mind, Lamont was preparing to creep away, when a new discussion arose, and the first few words of it were of so momentous and startling a nature, that he decided to remain and hear more—and that at any risk. And such risk became graver and graver with every moment.