The old man held out his tin mug with alacrity for Payne to replenish. Then he tossed off the contents, heaved a sigh or two and was about to speak, when suddenly he stopped short and appeared to be listening intently.
“Come,” he said, rising. “Come with me, Amakosi!”
“Oh, that’s another pair of shoes,” said Payne, suspiciously. “But, Mhlanga; why should you come here to tell me this—eh?”
“I was with you for several years, ’Nkosi, and when the snake bit me you put in the medicine stuff that healed it. I do not wish harm to befall you.”
“Oho! gratitude’s the order of the day, is it?” Then to the Kafir: “Steer ahead, Mhlanga.”
They followed the old man as he led the way to the brow of a slight eminence a few hundred yards from the homestead. Above, the stars twinkled in their silent watch, twinkled on ever the same. The midnight sky, moonless, and arching overhead like a heavy pall of blue-black velvet besprinkled with gold-dust, was oppressive in its darksome serenity, and there was something in the mystery and suddenness of the whole situation which even to the tried nerves of the two white men was intolerably awesome and thrilling. Far away in the distance, beyond the mouth of the defile or gap, a few fires glowed like sparks.
“Listen,” said the Kafir, pointing with his sticks in the direction of this. “When the amajoni (soldiers) are mustered kwa Rini (at King Williamstown), the trumpet is blown in the morning sunshine, and all the town hears it, for its voice is of brass. Ha! When the chiefs of the Amaxosa gather their fighting men the trumpet is sounded too, but it is sounded in the blackness of midnight; and all the country hears it, for its voice is of fire. Look,” he went on. “Even now the chiefs are talking to each other. The Fire Trumpet is calling the tribes to war.”
As he spoke a red tongue of flame leapt forth from the darkness against the distant horizon, where it flashed and burned for a few minutes. Then from another high point a second beacon-fire gleamed, followed by a third; and as the watchers gazed in half-incredulous wonder, not unmixed with awe, a strange, weird, resounding cry rose upon the midnight air, gathering volume as it rolled, as if kindled by those threatening beacons which glowed in the midnight firmament from the Kei to the far Amatola. Again and again pealed forth that dismal sound, and then all was still as the fiery signal shot up redly from half-a-dozen lofty elevations, and then sank as suddenly as it had blazed forth, until nearly invisible. And that unearthly and ominous cry might well strike a chill to the hearts of the listeners, for it was the war-cry of the formidable Gaika clans.
“Who was the man who asked leave to sleep in the huts, to-night?” asked the old Kafir, meaningly. “If he is here to-morrow, if your three herds are here to-morrow, if they answer when you call them, then I have been telling you lies. Listen, ’Nkosi,” he concluded, impressively. “You are a good man. You saved my life once, and I have come far to talk to you to-night. Take your wife and your children, and your sheep, and cattle, and go—go away into the town where they will be safe, and that to-morrow, for the call of the Fire Trumpet has rung in the heavens, and the land is dead.”
Payne was more impressed than he would care to own, and made up his mind to act upon the other’s words, if not to-morrow, yet at no distant date.