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.”