Battered, bruised, his bones nearly broken, his joints racked well-nigh to dislocation point by the terrific jolting, poor Dawes lay where they had thrown him, grinding his teeth in his impotent rage and pain. Better to have been killed outright, he thought. He was only spared for some lingering torture—the hideous stake of impalement, most likely. Many had fallen at his hand in that brief moment—their spirits would be satisfied by no less a sacrifice.
The savages, running beside the waggons, jeered at his sufferings.
“Does it hurt—does it hurt, Jandosi?” they cried, as an extra big jolt would nearly brain the unfortunate man. “Ah! ah! there are some things that hurt far more—far more!”
Thus in wild and riotous shouting the whole crowd arrived once more at the gate of the Igazipuza kraal—and here the terrible confusion of the tumult beggars description—the shrill nasal singing of the women who turned out to meet them, the yelping clamour of dogs, the howling of those whose relatives were slain, and the sonorous rhythm of the war-song, all mingled together in the most ear-splitting, brain-stunning din.
Sintoba and his fellows, having outspanned in compliance with the peremptory orders of their captors, were seized and unceremoniously bound. Then poor Dawes was hauled out of the waggon and brutally dragged through the kraal, amid kicks and cuffs, to where the chief was sitting. Then he was flung roughly and anyhow upon the ground.
For some moments did Ingonyama contemplate the helpless form of his captive in silence, and in his massive countenance was a gleam of ruthless, vengeful ferocity. He had sat in fear, here on this very spot, the last time this white man occupied it with him—in fear of his life, be, Ingonyama, the chief of the redoubted Igazipuza. Now the tables were turned. This miserable captive, bruised, helpless, lying there half-stunned, should taste what it meant to tread on the paw of the lion.
“Well, Jandosi?” he began sneeringly. “You are a bird whose song is over loud; yet now surely are your wings cut.”
If John Dawes’s bodily attitude was abject, it was only through force of circumstances. His mental one was very far from having attained that state. With a painful effort he succeeded, amid the jeering laughter of the spectators, in raising himself to an upright sitting posture.
“You are right, Ingonyama,” he replied. “My song is over loud—for you. It is even how being sung at Undini, in ears in which it is bad for you that it shall be poured. Did I not tell you my ‘tongue’ was a long one and spoke far? Even now it speaks.”
“Hi! And did I not tell you that we have a Tooth here which can bite it short? You and your ‘tongue’ shall be bitten on The Tooth, Jandosi!”