"And so art thou, I think," replied Tyisandhlu, turning a somewhat haughty stare upon the speaker. Then he muttered, "Yet not this one."
An interruption occurred; gruesome, grotesque. A number of figures, seeming to spring from no one knew where, were seen gliding forward. They were coal black from head to foot, and their faces were more like masks than the human countenance, being bedaubed with some pigment that gave each of them the aspect of possessing two huge goggle eyes. But these horrible beings seemed at first sight to have no arms and no legs, their whole anatomy being encased in a sort of black, hairy sacking, whence tails and streamers, also hairy, flapped in the air as they moved. Hideous, indeed, they looked,—hideous and grotesque, half reptile, half devil.
They surrounded Lutali—all in dead silence, the guards precipitately falling back to give them way. Then the king spoke, and his words were gentle and mocking:
"Go now to thy Paradise, O believer; these will show thee the way. Hamba-gahle!"
He waved his hand, and, in obedience to the signal, the whole group of black horrors fastened upon the Arab and dragged him away. And from all who beheld there went up a deep, chest note of exclamation that was part satisfaction, part awe.
The king, having received further reports and attended to other business connected with the army, withdrew. Laurence, watching the stately personality of this splendid savage retiring amid the groups of indunas towards the gate of the great kraal, felt his ever-present conjectures as to his own fate merge in a vivid sense of interest. But Tyisandhlu seemed to have forgotten his existence, for he bestowed no further word upon him; however, he was taken charge of by Ngumúnye, who assigned him a large hut within the royal kraal.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Cannibals.