“It is well said; the advice is good, and shall be followed,” exclaimed the king. “It shall be done forthwith. I will send forth a messenger commanding all chiefs to present themselves before me in the Great Place, in connection with a matter of import; and when they have assembled, Sekosini also shall be brought hither.”
“There is no need for you to trouble about Sekosini,” answered Dick. “When you require his presence I will bring him to you by the power of my magic.”
About an hour later Lobelalatutu, having summoned his chiefs, sat upon his throne in the centre of the Great Place before his palace, with Dick beside him, and his bodyguard of some five hundred warriors, fully armed, arranged in a wide circle round him. Then the chiefs began to arrive, singly, or in twos or threes, until all were present; and as each arrived he was admitted to the interior of the circle of guards, where he squatted on his haunches before the king, the entire assemblage of chiefs, some thirty in number, forming themselves into an arc of a circle at a distance of about twenty feet from the throne. When at length it had been ascertained that every chief except the sick ’Nkuni was present, the king turned to Dick and said:
“Now, O Healer! by the power of your magic, cause Sekosini, the chief witch doctor, to come hither, I pray you.”
At the king’s words there occurred an uneasy movement among the assembled chiefs, some of whom exchanged quick, furtive glances of apprehension, which were duly noted by Dick and the king. The latter smiled somewhat sardonically and, beckoning the chief of his bodyguard toward him, murmured certain instructions in his ear. Meanwhile Dick, concentrating his thoughts upon Sekosini, mentally commanded him at once to present himself before the king in the Great Place. A quarter of an hour of somewhat painful tension followed, during which no word was spoken by any one of those who were hemmed in by the circle of armed guards, and then the chief witch doctor was seen approaching. He entered the circle of the guards, through a gap which was opened to give him passage—and which instantly closed again behind him—did bonga
(homage) to the king, and then stood, silent and serene, about midway between the king and the line of sitting chiefs. His aspect of perfect serenity, due to the fact that he was still completely under Dick’s hypnotic influence, seemed to reassure certain of the assembled chiefs, whose faces had shown signs of anxiety; but the fact that The Healer, sitting there silent and impassive beside the king, had been able to summon Sekosini from a distance, and compel his presence, had been duly noted, and hands were placed over mouths, and low murmurs of “Au! ’mtagati; ’mkulu ’mtagati” (a wizard; a great wizard) ran round the assembly.
The king himself was by no means unimpressed by this evidence of Dick’s wonderful power. He decided that it was a thing to be remembered; but it in nowise troubled him, for it was being exercised in his behalf. He, however, allowed time for the effect to sink into and take good hold of the minds of the spectators, for he was shrewd enough to recognise that the possession of such an ally must materially strengthen his own position; and at length, when he believed that the incident had produced its full effect, he sprang a new surprise upon his audience by saying, in a loud voice:
“Stand forth, O Sekosini! and tell us what you know concerning the sickness of the chief, ’Nkuni, and the deaths of those other six who have recently travelled along the Dark Path!”
Then, to the unutterable confusion and dismay of his fellow conspirators, the chief witch doctor, speaking in a loud, clear voice, proceeded clearly and succinctly to unfold detail after detail of the plot for the overthrow of the king, and the means whereby it had been hoped to accomplish it, including the murder of the six chiefs who, it was believed, were powerful enough to render the scheme abortive. As the full, cold-blooded atrocity of the conspiracy became revealed, murmurs of anger and detestation, low at first, but louder as the story proceeded, began to run round the line of chiefs, while those who sat next the parties implicated edged away from them on either side as far as possible, until they crouched, isolated, crestfallen, and self-condemned by their guilty countenances, a target for all eyes. At length Sekosini’s story came to an end, and for a few tense moments a profound silence ensued. There was not an individual present who did not realise the vital importance to the entire nation of the issues that had been raised by the witch doctor’s confession, and the manner in which those issues would be dealt with by the king. Disaffection, secretly fomented and carefully nurtured, had grown so strong that it now threatened to disintegrate the whole nation, and unless it were firmly dealt with would probably split up the Makolo into a number of petty tribes, at enmity with each other, and an easy prey to those other nations who surrounded them. Would the king have the courage boldly to seize the hydra-headed menace and choke the life out of it, or would he resort to a policy of temporising and concession? Everybody present awaited the king’s action in breathless suspense, while some were already grimly counting the number of spears upon which they might reckon to back them. But the anxious broodings of the assemblage were suddenly broken in upon by the voice of the king, who, lifting his head, cried in a loud voice: