"The remains of huts, but of people none," repeated the induna, with a wave of his hand. "Well, stranger, that is the name of the king, the Great Great One."
"The name of the king?"
"I'Tyisandhlu!"
"I'Tyisandhlu? The Strong Wind that burns from the North?" repeated Laurence, translating the name.
"E-hé!" assented the chiefs emphatically. "Now say,—hath not a broad belt around the land of the People of the Spider been burned flat?" with a wave of the hand which took in the desolated region.
They had gained the great mountain range whose snowy summits had been drawing nearer for days, and a noble range indeed it was apparently, moreover, of immense altitude. Laurence Stanninghame, who was well acquainted with the Alps, now gazed in wonder and admiration upon these snow-capped Titans whose white heads seemed to support the blue vault of heaven itself, to such dizzy heights did they soar. Walls of black cliff, overhung with cornices even as with gigantic white eyebrows, towered up from dazzling snow slope, and higher still riven crags, split into all fantastic shapes, frowned forth as though to menace the world. And all around, clinging about the feet of these stupendous heights, soft, luxuriant forests, tuneful with the murmur of innumerable glacier streams. A very Paradise of beauty and grandeur side by side, thought Laurence—amid which the shields and spears, the marching column of the savage host seemed strangely out of keeping.
"How are they called, those mountains, Silawayo?" he said.
"Beyond them lies the land of the People of the Spider," answered the induna evasively. And the other understood that he must not look for exuberant information on topographical subjects just then.
They entered the mountains by a deep, black defile which pierced the range. For a day and night they wound through this, hardly pausing to rest, for it had become piercingly cold. Moreover, as Silawayo explained, even when the weather was at its highest stage of sultriness elsewhere, in the mountains the changes were sudden and great. To be snowed up in this pass was too serious a matter to risk.
"Was it the only gate by which the country of the Ba-gcatya was entered, then?"