Chapter Sixteen.
Mephisto—in Black.
The aspect of the two natives into whose power she had fallen was not such as to inspire Nidia with any great degree of reassurance. They formed an evil-looking pair; the tall one, heavy, sullen, scowling; the short one, lithe, lean, very black, with hawk-like features and sunken cruel eyes. One circumstance, however, she did not fail to note, and it inspired her with a momentary gleam of hope. The big man was clad in the uniform of the Native Police, very much soiled and worn, and hardly looking identical with the smart get-up she had noticed in members of the same corps at Bulawayo, yet the uniform for all that. If he was a policeman she was safe. He would be bound to protect her, and guide her to some place of safety. To this end she addressed him.
“You are a policeman, are you not?”
“Where you go?” was the gruff reply.
“To Sikumbutana. You must show me the way, and I will give you something you will like—money.”
“Sikumbutana? Kwa Jonémi?” repeated the man.
“Jonémi?”—wonderingly. “John Ames! Yes; that is the name,” she exclaimed, eagerly recognising it. “How much you give me?”
“A pound. Twenty shillings.”
“Give me now”—stretching out his hand.
Could she trust him? She would willingly have given twenty—fifty—pounds to find herself in a place of safety, but the gruff offhand manner, so different to the smooth deferential way in which natives were wont to treat their white conquerors, inspired her with distrust and alarm. But she was in their power absolutely.
She took out her purse—a dainty, silver-rimmed, snake-skin affair—which contained some loose silver and a couple of sovereigns, and opened it. The big native snatched it roughly from her hand.
She started back, flushing with anger, less at the robbery than at the ruffianly manner of its perpetration, but her anger was dashed with a chill, sinking feeling of terror. She was so entirely within the power of these two savages. Then she remembered how John Ames had laid down, in the course of one of their numerous conversations, that in dealing with natives it never did to let them think you were afraid of them.
“Why did you do that?” she said, looking him straight in the face, her eyes showing more contempt than anger. “You—a policeman? I would have given you all that money if you had asked me, and more, too, when you had taken me where I wanted to go.”
Her utterance was purposely slow, clear and deliberate. The big native had sufficient knowledge of English to enable him to understand at any rate the gist of her rebuke. But he only scowled, and made no reply. Then the small man began to address her volubly in Sindabele, but to each of his remarks or questions Nidia could only shake her head. She understood not one word of them. Having satisfied himself to that extent, he left off talking to her, and, turning to the other, began a long and earnest discussion, of which it was just as well that Nidia could not understand a word.
“See, Nanzicele,” the short man was saying. “This woman has walked right into our hands. The whites are all killed. Now, kill her.”
But the other shook his head with a dissentient grunt.
“One blow of that heavy stick in thy belt, and that head will fly to pieces like a pumpkin rolling down a hill. Or why not cut that white throat and see the red blood flow? Au! The red blood, flowing over a white skin—a skin as white as milk—and the red of the blood—ah—ah! It will be acceptable to Umlimo, that blood. See, Nanzicele, thou hast a knife that is sharp. The red blood will flow as it did from the throat of the wife of thy captain in the hut but two nights ago.”
Again the tall barbarian grunted dissent.
“I like not this killing of women, Umtwana ’Mlimo,” he answered. “This woman has never harmed me. I will not kill her.”
“What about Nompiza?” said the small demon, with his head on one side. “Au! thou didst laugh when she splashed into the water-hole in the moonlight.”
“She did harm me, in that she scorned and mocked me. Yet, I liked not that deed either, Shiminya.”
“Yonder dogs, shall we call them and set them on to devour this white witch?” went on the sorcerer. “They are hungry, and she is defenceless. We shall laugh at her face of terror when they attack her on all sides, and then, when they rend her limb from limb—they shall eat white meat for once. Au! It will be a sacrifice pleasing to Umlimo.”
“I never heard of a sacrifice pleasing to Umlimo, or any other Great Great One, that was offered through a dog’s maw, Shiminya,” cried the other, with a great jeer; for too much association had somewhat sapped Nanzicele’s respect for the redoubted magician. The latter, conscious of having made a slip, went on.
“Nompiza scorned thee when thou wouldst take her to wife, Nanzicele. Thou art large and strong, but thou hast no cattle, son of Fondosi, therefore thou hast no wives. Here is one who comes straight to thee. She is white, it is true, yet take her.”
Of all these atrocious suggestions Nidia, standing there, was of course blissfully ignorant. The sun was declining, and she was inwardly growing somewhat impatient. Would they never have finished their indaba? Was it, perhaps, her look of absolute unconsciousness, her very helplessness, that appealed to some spark of manliness within the heart of that rough savage, as he replied?
“No, no. I want not such. They are tagati, these white women. The Amakiwa are the wisest people in the world, yet they treat such women as these as though they were gods. I have seen it—yes, I, myself. Look, too, at this woman. She is not afraid. There is a power behind her, and I will not offer her violence.”
Then the abominable wizard deemed it time to throw his trump card.
“Where is she going? To Sikumbutana,” he said, lapsing into a professional oracularism. “To whom is she going? To Jonémi. Nanzicele was a chief in the Amapolise, but he is not now. Why not? Ask Jonémi. This woman knows Jonémi—belongs to him, it may be; perhaps his sister—perhaps his wife. Jonémi was in our power, but he escaped from us. This woman is in our power; shall we let her go?”
This recapitulation of his wrongs and appeal to his vengeful feelings was not entirely without effect upon Nanzicele. He hated John Ames, whom he regarded, and rightly, as the main instrument of his own degradation. He had only spared him, in the massacre of Inglefield’s hut, for a worse fate, intending to convey him to Shiminya’s múti kraal, and put him to death in the most atrocious form that the fiendish brain of the wizard could devise. Then they had all become drunk, and John Ames had escaped, and for all the trace he had left behind him might just as well have disappeared into empty air. And now, here, ready to his hand, was a scheme of vengeance upon the man he hated. Turning his head, he looked intently at Nidia. But the aspect of her, standing there calm and fearless—fearless because entirely ignorant of what had happened at Sikumbutana, and still regarding this man, rough as he had shown himself, as her protector by reason of his Police uniform—appealed to the superstitious nature of the savage. He felt that it was even as he had said. There was a power behind her.
“I will not harm her, Shiminya,” he growled. “Au! I am sick of all this killing of women. It will bring ill chance upon us. They ought to have been shown a broad road out of the country.”
“To show a broader road to more whites to come into it by? Thy words are not words of sense, Nanzicele. Have it as thou wilt, however,” said the crafty wizard, who knew when to humour the savage and stubborn temperament of his confederate. “We will take care of her this night—ah—ah! in the only safe and secure place”—with a sinister chuckle.
“Be it so. I will not have her harmed, Shiminya,” declared the other. “It may be we shall yet obtain large reward for delivering her back to her own people in safety.”
“Will the reward be of lead or of raw-hide?” said the sorcerer, pleasantly. “And who will give it when there are no more whites in the land?”
“No more whites in the land? That will be never,” returned Nanzicele, with a great laugh. “That is a good tale for the people, Umtwana ’Mlimo. But for thee and for me—au! we know. When Makiwa sets his foot in any land, that foot is never taken up. It never has been, and never will be.”
Yes, decidedly in this case familiarity had bred contempt. The ex-police sergeant had “got behind” the mysterious cult, through his close association with one of its most influential exponents. Shiminya, for his part, was aware of this, and viewed the situation with some concern. Now he only said—
“Talk not so loudly, my son, lest ears grow on yonder bushes as well as thorns. Now we will go home.”
A look of relief came into Nidia’s face as she knew, by the rising of the two, that their conference was at an end. Then Nanzicele said—
“You go with we.”
“Can we get there to-night?” she asked eagerly.
“We try. Where you from?”
Then she told him, and about the murder of the Hollingworths; and her voice shook and her eyes filled. To her listener it was all a huge joke. He knew she was tinder the impression that she was talking to a loyal policeman. Then she began asking questions about John Ames. Was he at home? and so forth. But Nanzicele suddenly became afflicted by a strange density, an almost total ignorance of English.
For upwards of an hour they journeyed on, leaving the cultivated lands, and striking into wilder country. Once a great snake rose in their path, and went gliding away, hissing in wrath, and bright-plumaged birds darted overhead. Vast thickets of “wacht-een-bietje” thorns lined the river-bank, and these they skirted.
Nidia was becoming exhausted. So far excitement and nervous tension had kept her up. Now she felt she could hold out no longer. Just then they halted.
In front was the vast thicket. Shiminya, bending down, crawled into what was nothing more nor less than a tunnel piercing the dense thorns and just wide enough to admit the body of a man. There was something sinister in its very aspect. Nidia drew back.
“Go after him. Go after that man,” ordered Nanzicele, roughly.
“No. I don’t like it. I can’t get through there,” she answered. “This can’t be the way to Sikumbutana.”
Nanzicele snatched out the short-handled heavy knob kerrie stuck through his belt.
“Go after that man,” he roared, flourishing it over her head.
The aspect of the great savage was so terrific, the sudden change so startling, that Nidia put her hands over her eyes and shrank back with a faint cry, expecting every moment to feel the hard wood crash down upon her head. Trembling now in every limb, she obeyed without hesitation the command so startlingly emphasised, and crawled as best she could in the wake of Shiminya, Nanzicele bringing up the rear.
The tunnel did not last long, and soon they were able to proceed upright, but still between high walls of the same impenetrable thorn. Lateral passages branched out on either side in such labyrinthine tortuosity of confusion that Nidia’s first thought was how it would be possible for any one to find his way through here a second time.
Soon a low whining sound was heard in front; then the thorns seemed to meet in an arch overhead. Passing beneath this, the trio stood in a circular open space, at the upper end of which were three huts, “What place is this?” exclaimed Nidia, striving not to allow her alarm to show in her voice, for in her heart was a terrible sinking. There was that about this retreat which suggested the den of a wild beast rather than an abode of human beings, even though barbarians. How helpless, how completely at the mercy of these two she felt.
“You stay here,” replied Nanzicele. “Sikumbutana too far. Go there to-morrow. Plenty Matabele about make trouble. You stay here.”
There was plausibility about the explanation which went far to satisfy her. The situation was a nervous one for a solitary unprotected woman; but she had been through so much within the last twenty-four hours that her sensibilities were becoming blunted. They offered her some boiled corn, but she was too tired to eat. She asked for water, and they brought her some, greasy, uninviting, in a clay bowl, but her thirst was intense.
“You go in there—go to sleep,” said Nanzicele, opening one of the huts.
“But I would rather sleep outside.”
“You go in there,” he repeated, more threateningly. And Nidia, recollecting the knobstick argument, obeyed.
The hut was stuffy and close; suggestive, too, of creeping things both small and great; but, fortunately, she was too completely exhausted to allow room for nervous fears, and sleep overwhelmed her. Sleep! The ghosts of former victims done to death amid every circumstance of horror within that den arose not to appal her. She slept on in blissful ignorance; slept—within the scarce-known retreat of one of the most atrocious monsters of cruelty that ever flourished amid even a barbarous race—slept—within the web of the crafty blood-sucking human spider.
Nanzicele departed, and the sorcerer, having secured the entrances to his den with thick thorn branches, sat crouching over a small red fire, his plotting brain ever at work. He was in high good humour, for here was a new victim for him to practise some of his favourite barbarities upon. In this case they must be refined forms of barbarity, such as would torture the mind rather more acutely than the red-hot iron would the body, and a better subject for such he thought he had never seen. So he squatted there, and gleefully chuckled. Beside him crouched the wolf. “Ah, ah, Lupiswana!” he exclaimed, addressing his familiar spirit. “It may be that thou shalt sink thy fangs into white flesh—dainty delicate flesh, Lupiswana. White blood, too—white red blood—richer, more rare than that of Nompiza, and such. It is sleeping now. Come, Lupiswana; we will go forth and see.”
Taking one of the red faggots from the fire, he blew it into flame; then, rising, he went to the door of the hut wherein Nidia was asleep. Softly undoing the fastenings, he entered. The light flickered fitfully on the horrible trophies disposed around. The evil beast at his side was emitting a low, throaty growl; but neither that nor the proximity of this demon availed to awaken the sleeping girl. Calm, peaceful, she slumbered on amid her hideous surroundings. The wizard went forth again, “Ah, ah, Lupiswana! She knows not what is before her. To-morrow I think thou must have one taste of this white flesh—perhaps two.”
And the four-footed demon growled in response to the biped one.