With many a shrill laugh, and chattering like magpies, the women crowded round to look at the prisoner as he sat in the midst of his captors and guards, stoically indifferent to his fate. Hideous, toothless crones, whose wrinkled hides hung about them in a succession of disgusting flaps; crushed-looking middle-aged women and plump, well-made girls, all in different stages of undress. One of the latter slily put out her hand and gave Claverton a sharp pinch on the arm, amid screams of laughter from her fellows as they watched its effect upon the countenance of the captive.
“Yaow!” they cried. “The white man cannot feel. See, he does not move!”
Then a frightful hag stepped in front of the prisoner, and, amid a torrent of invective, began brandishing a butcher-knife within an inch of his nose.
“Ah—wolf—white snake—vulture’s spawn!” she yelled. “We will spoil your handsome face for you. Our young men are lying about the land in thousands, and the jackals are devouring their carcases, and it is your work. For every one of their lives you shall undergo a pang that will make you pray for death. Do you hear, tiger-cat; do you hear?” screamed the hag in a frenzy of rage.
Again a grim smile was upon Claverton’s face. The idea of him, who had made himself felt in sober earnest, who had escaped peril and death so narrowly and so often, coming to this—that it was in the power of such a thing as this to cut his throat like a fowl.
“He dares to laugh!” yelled the she-devil, brandishing her knife and clawing him by the hair. Just then one of the warriors took her by the shoulders and sent her spinning a dozen yards off, where she lay on the ground foaming with rage.
“Hamba-ké! Leave the prisoner alone. He belongs to the chief!”
At a sign from the speaker a girl came forward rather timidly and held a bowl to the captive’s lips. It contained curdled milk, with some mealie-paste thrown in. It was cool and refreshing, and Claverton drank deeply.
“Thanks,” he said, with a nod and a pleasant smile. “That’s good.”
The rest of the contents of the bowl were drained by his guards; and the girl, retiring amongst her companions with many a sidelong glance at the prisoner, remarked, in a half whisper, what a handsome fellow the white man was, and she was sure he must be a very great chief, and it was a shame to kill such a man as this.