“He made one spring, and drove his assegai through the body of the foremost; then, not waiting till the wretch was dead, he knelt upon the still struggling carcase, and with the axe hacked off the head, flinging it with a laugh across the horrible hole. It bounded over the crackling bones, nearly striking me where I sat. Then, dragging the spouting carcase to the line, he began to make fast the feet preparatory to the hauling of it up.
“Now, I began to see clearly where I was, and all manner of tales heard in childhood crowded back. Not these miserable beings, who were shut up in this place, were eaters of men—though probably they had been driven by hunger to devour the corpse of Gungana. Those who kept them there were the cannibals, and now I remembered wild and hideous legends of just such practices current among certain of the mountain tribes, and how their captives were shut up in caves or hollows and eaten one by one as they were required. I saw, too, how it was that the place was strewn with skulls. For some dark reason or other the heads were flung away here as I had seen this one flung. Those whom I had first found here were ‘cattle.’ It was the slaughterhouse of the Izímu.
“As the man bent down to knot the feet of the corpse to the line, I stepped lightly up behind him, and with one swift blow of my heavy knobstick shattered his skull to atoms. Then, tying around me the end of the line, which was of raw hide and strong, I signed to the two still alive that they should call to those above to draw up the line. This they did, being crafty enough to hope that my escape was to compass their own.
“Fortunately for me, the aperture was not large enough to admit the passage of more than one body at a time, wherefore, when my head rose above the surface, the only things I saw were the backs of eight or ten men who had hauled me to the surface by the simple plan of walking away with the other end of the thong! They must have thought that the slayer and the ‘ox’ were being drawn up together, from the weight of it. How they were tugging and straining! Au, Nkose! you would have laughed aloud to have seen the scare on the faces of those men when they turned round to behold—not the dead carcase, their expected cannibal feast, but a big live Zulu warrior, fully armed with shield and weapons, charging upon them like lightning, roaring out the war-shout with all the power of his lungs! Hau! Did they run? Did they scream? Hau! I saw nothing but their backs as they leaped away among the rocks in all directions, and, indeed, it is little to be wondered at if they did. And I, Nkose—having sufficiently frightened them, I did not linger either.
“When I emerged from the hole into the broad light of day—the shades of evening, rather, for it was growing dark—I saw that I was in a small rocky hollow, in the middle of which a fire was burning, doubtless for cooking the expected meal of the Izimu. But having given those who fled a sufficient fright, I lost no time in doing as they did, and fleeing myself. The growing darkness, too, was in my favour, and as I gained the outer ridge of the hollow, I saw beneath, a long rugged slope falling into the far depths of the defile up which our impi had marched the day before, and then my heart felt light again, and I began to sing softly to myself for joy, for now I could find my way back to Ekupumuleni. My enemy Gungana was cleared out of my path, I had fought well and bravely, and Kalipe, the war-chief who would succeed him, and who was kindly disposed towards me, would ‘point at’ me at the Tyay’igama dance. Then, after all I had gone through and my strange experiences, the face of the King would soften towards me, and I should obtain my heart’s desire. And, as though it were a good omen, I almost stumbled over a young buck crouching on the mountain-side, to send an assegai through which was as a flash of time. But I dared not light a fire, lest scattered bands of enemies should still be lurking about; yet, as I was nearly starving, in any event I could not have waited. So I devoured great portions of the animal raw, as I walked, carrying the remainder with me. Then a great weariness came upon me, and, crawling into a hole among the rocks, I slept until the next sun was very high.
Chapter Twelve.
A Wild and Desperate Scheme.
“Not until I was clear of the mountains did I dare to travel daring the light of day, for it seemed certain we had not entirely stamped out those abatagati. Now and then I could see them in small parties creeping warily about the mountainside, and though I was well armed, yet I was but one man and they were many. So by day I lay in some safe hiding-place and rested, travelling only at night. Whau! but I liked it not. Those great mountain ranges seemed full of ghosts and the whispers of wizard voices in the darkness. But I had got rid of my enemy Gungana, who was ever striving to turn the King’s ear against me, and it seemed that now things would go well. So I sang softly to my guardian serpent as I stepped through that shadowy place, and my heart felt strong again.