“Thou hast found him, Inyoka! Thou hast found him! Show us the wizard!” screeched the hideous witch-doctress. The grinning skull and the two devil-like horns of hair which surmounted her head quivered convulsively. Her eyes started from the sockets, and the weird and barbaric amulets hung about her person rattled like castanets. She was once more the mouthing demoniac of a short half-hour ago.
The writhings and hisses of the serpent had become perfectly frantic. Suddenly the reptile was seen to spring free of her grasp and to fling itself straight at the man whose face it had first struck at.
“The wizard! The wizard!” roared the warriors. “Hau! It is Vudana! Vudana, the son of Sekweni, Hau!”
“Vudana, the wizard! Seize him!” shrieked the sorceress. “Seize him, but slay him not. He must confess! He must confess! On your lives, slay him not!”
The first part of her mandate had already been obeyed. Those in his immediate neighbourhood had flung themselves upon the doomed man and disarmed him almost before the words of denunciation had left the hag’s lips. The second part was in no danger of being disobeyed now. Better for the victim if it had.
The latter was a man just past middle age, with a quiet and far from unpleasing cast of features. He was not a chief, but had a reputation for shrewdness and foresight beyond that of many an accredited leader.
“Ha, Vudana! Vudana, the wizard!” cried Ngcenika mockingly. “Vudana, who did not believe in the efficacy of my magic. Vudana, who pretended to manufacture ‘charms’ as effective as mine. Vudana, whose poor attempts at magic have been effective to destroy mine in the case of all who believed in them. Call the names of those who fell,” she cried, addressing the crowd. “They are all believers in Vudana, not in me! Where are they now? Ask the Amanglezi—even the Amafengu, before whose bullets they fell. Ask the jackal and the vulture, who have picked their bones. Ask Mfulini, the son of Mapute, whose weapon was turned by the magic of the white man! Was he a believer in Vudana’s ‘charms’?” she added in a menacing voice, rolling her eyes around.
“He was not,” shouted the warrior named, springing forward. “Where is the man who bewitched my broad umkonto. Let him confess and say how he did it.”
“It is well, Mfulini,” said the witch-doctress grimly, knowing that the other trembled for his personal safety now that she had dexterously turned suspicion upon him. “Thou shall be the man to make him confess.”
“I have nothing to confess,” said Vudana. He lay on his bark, held powerless by several men while waiting for a reim to be brought wherewith to bind him. He knew that he was doomed—doomed not merely to death, but to one of the differing forms of frightful torment meted out to those accused of his offence. He knew moreover that whether he accused himself or not the result would be the same, and a warrior light blazed from his eyes as he replied.