Chapter Five.
Gasitye the Wizard.
For long I stood there thinking. I looked at the ground, all red and splashed with blood. I looked at the distorted body of the dead slave and the great gaping wound which had let out the life—the sure and certain mark of the dreaded Red Death—always dealt as it was, in the same part of the body—and for all my thought I could think out no method of finding and slaying this evil thing. Then I thought of the múti—the amulet which Lalusini had hung around my neck. Should I look within it? Her words came back to me. “Seek not to look within until such time as thy wit and the wit of others fail thee.” Yet, had not that time come? I could think of no plan. The monster was not of this world. No weapon ever forged could slay it; still there must be a way. Ha! “the wit of others!” Old Masuka had departed to the land of spirits himself. He might have helped me. Who could those “others” be, of whom my sorceress-wife had spoken while her spirit was away among the spirits of those unseen?
“Remain here,” I said suddenly, to Jambúla and the other slave. “Remain here, and watch, and stir not from this spot until I return.”
They made no murmur against this—yet I could see they liked not the order. But I gave no thought to them as I moved forward with my eyes fixed upon the tracks of the retreating monster.
The bloody imprint of the huge hoofs was plain enough, and to follow these was a work of no difficulty. Soon, however, as the hoofs had become dry, it was not so easy. Remembering the crashing noise I had heard as the thing rushed on its course, I examined the bushes and trees. No leaves or twigs were broken off such as could not but have happened with such a heavy body plunging through them. Then the hoof-marks themselves suddenly ceased, and with that, Nkose, the blood once more seemed to tingle within me, for if the thing had come no further was it not lying close at hand—those fiery eyes perhaps at that very moment watching me—those awful horns even now advancing silent and stealthy to rip and tear through my being? Ha! It seemed to me that this hunting of a terrible ghost was a thing to turn the bravest man into a coward.
Then as I stood, my hearing strained to its uttermost, my hand gripping my broad spear ready at any rate to fight valiantly for life, and all that life involved, something happened which well-nigh completed the transformation into a coward of a man who had never known fear.
For now a voice fell upon my ears—a voice low and quavering, yet clear—a voice with a strange and distant sound as though spoken afar off.
“Ho! fearless one who art now afraid! Ho! valiant leader of armies! Ho! mighty induna of the Great King! Thou art as frightened as a little child. Ha, ha, ha!”