Chapter Thirty Three.
The Chief’s Plan.
They had entered a narrow chamber, into which the light streamed through numerous cracks, in volume sufficient to bring every object into dim relief. For several minutes the little band, snatched from certain death at the last moment, stood anxiously listening for the movements of their enemies, scarcely daring to hope that their hiding-place would not be immediately detected; then, with a sigh of relief, they grasped each other’s hands and peered about them.
At one corner of the room was the old woman who had first visited them, mixing something in a stone dish; near her crouched the witch-doctor, with his head bent in a state of utter dejection, while, with his back to the wall and his eyes fixed upon the woman, leant the warrior whose prompt action had so timely released the captives. Sirayo was seated on the floor, with the Gaika endeavouring to stanch the blood that still trickled down his arm. Hume stood with his hands to his eyes, having torn off the bandage, which, in its sun-dried state, had increased his torture, his face looking haggard and white. As her eyes, growing accustomed to the darkness, dwelt upon his pathetic action, and noticed the signs of suffering in his face, Laura realised what he must have endured through the long hours of darkness. She moved to his side, and gently took his arm, the tears gathering in her eyes.
The old woman rose up, washed away the blood from the wounds of the warrior of her own race, then anointed them with the preparation on which she had been engaged, and over the wounds so treated laid a thin leaf peeled from a large bulbous root. The man turned away, and took a deep draught of water from a calabash, the gurgling noise breaking strangely on the silence.
Sirayo stood up, and thrust his arm before the old woman, and she, without a word, busied herself with it, probing it with her skinny fingers to feel if the bones were broken, and giving a satisfied grunt when she found it was sound. Moving the limb under a stream of sunlight, and bidding Klaas support it, she washed out the wound, then brought the gaping ends together, and stitched them with a dried thorn of mimosa and sinews. She spread ointment on the wound, and bound the arm up with a curious fragment cut from a long strip stretched along the wall. With the same material she made a sling for his arm, then, with a dry chuckle, dismissed him, and cast a questioning gaze at the others.
Seeing, from the expression of Hume’s face, that he was the only other needing her attention, she stepped to his side, drew his hand away, and with glittering eyes peered into his mutilated face. Then, roughly pushing Laura aside, she drew him to the light and again scrutinised him, while the others looked on in silence, subdued by the confidence in her own power of this old and withered savage.
She whispered to the crouching witch-doctor, and he submissively brought her first a calabash of water, with which she moistened the blackened and inflamed lids, then some vegetable, which she began to chew with her almost toothless gums, making awful grimaces. Then, taking the masticated pulp, she spread it over the lids, stretched on them leaves from the bulb, and with the handkerchief made a bandage.
Hume had submitted with a strange patience, and, now that the operation was over, stood with his face in the light.
Laura stole to his side again. “Do you feel any relief?” she murmured.