“Take it easy, Nick,” said Frank, laughing. “We shall soon enter the kraal now. I hope that brute, Maomo, will be in the way to see our entry. It will do him good.”
As they ran on in this way, they approached the Bechuana kraal, where indeed, in accordance, as it seemed, with Wilmore’s wish, nearly the whole population, that had remained behind from the elephant hunt, were assembled. Maomo was in the middle of them, apparently engaged in making some address of a warning or threatening character to his hearers, which had the effect of exciting and terrifying them. As the lads approached nearer, they saw that the people were gathered round some object stretched on the ground; to which the prophet continually pointed during the pauses of his speech. Presently they perceived that the object was an ox, dying in great suffering from some malady. The poor brute’s limbs were swollen to a huge size, froth was issuing from its mouth and nostrils, the eyes rolled dim and bloodshot, and every now and then its whole frame was shaken by violent convulsions. As the chief, who was only a few paces behind the two boys, came on the scene, Maomo burst forth into a torrent of declamation, having reserved his energies, it appeared, for Chuma’s more especial hearing.
“See you here,” he exclaimed; “the pestilence has smitten the oxen, this poor beast will die, and no one can heal it; what has happened to one will happen to all. There will not be an ox left alive in the village in two or three days more. And who has caused it? The White Prophet. He prays to the wicked Spirits, and they hear him and send the pestilence! Every day, for many weeks past, he and the young prophet have been praying to the Spirits to punish the Bechuanas, because they will not worship his bad gods. Why does not Chuma forbid him? Why does he not punish him? Does not Chuma care that our cattle die? Chuma’s own cattle will die also.”
The Bechuana chief had halted, as he reached the spot where the ox was lying, and was now standing over it with a face of evident perplexity and dismay. There was no mistaking the symptoms of the malady, which, some years previously, had nearly caused a famine in the village, by the number of horned cattle which it had swept off. Nor was there any known remedy for the disease. Its appearance in the village might well cause the utmost alarm. It was almost impossible to account for the visitation. It had been generally attributed in former years to drought and deficient pasturage; but those causes could not be assigned now, as there had been abundance both of water and sweet grass for many weeks past. He did not suspect the truth—that Maomo had paid a secret visit to a distant tribe where the disease was raging, and brought back with him some of the virus, with which he had inoculated some two or three isolated cows. All Chuma’s former suspicions of De Walden rushed back upon the chief with accumulated force.
“How do you know that the White Prophet has caused this?” he asked, taking advantage of the first pause in Maomo’s oration.
“My Spirits have told me so,” replied Maomo. “They have sent good rains and healthy seasons to the Bechuanas, and now the White Falsehood-man has come among them and taught them to worship false and wicked Spirits, and many of the Bechuanas are beginning to pray to them, and the wicked Spirits hear them, and answer their evil prayers.”
“This is not true,” exclaimed Chuma, angrily. “I have forbidden the White Prophet to offer prayers to his Spirits. I have forbidden any of my people to hearken to his words. Who is there that would dare to disobey me.”
“The White Prophet treats your words as if they had been the idle winds,” returned the rainmaker, “and he has persuaded many of the people to disregard them too. He thinks his Spirits are strong enough to protect him against your anger; and so they would be if it were not that my Spirits are stronger still; but he does not know that, and presumes to set you at open defiance.”
“Is this true?” cried the chief, whose passion was now strongly excited. “Does this white man pray, as the rainmaker says? Do any presume to join in his prayers, if he so offers them?”
His eye was fixed sternly upon Kobo, whom he regarded in a general way as answerable for De Walden’s movements.