Then, from somewhere in the rear of where I was sitting, there suddenly came leaping and bounding into the small open space a most extraordinary and horrible figure. It was that of a man—the man who had visited me at my wagon on the previous night, I presently perceived, although I did not immediately recognise him; for his dark body was painted, back and front, from head to foot, in white, in such a manner as to represent, with considerable skill and fidelity, a fleshless skeleton. His head was decorated with a pair of bullock’s horns, firmly secured by means of straps; round his neck he wore a necklace composed entirely of skeleton human hands, which had been severed at the wrists; about his waist was a girdle of animals’ teeth and claws, supporting a mucha, or rather a short petticoat made of dry grass, from beneath the rear portion of which dangled a bullock’s tail; and in his right hand he carried a formidable bangwan or stabbing spear.
Notwithstanding his great age, this man—who, of course, was Machenga, the dreaded chief witch doctor—capered and pirouetted with astounding agility in the centre of the arena for fully five minutes; then he suddenly dashed forward, and, prostrating himself at Lomalindela’s feet, proceeded to do bonga, or homage, by shouting the various titles of the king, and exalting His Majesty to the skies as the greatest, most potent, most wonderful, most glorious monarch in the universe, the only king, in fact, worthy of serious mention. This sort of thing, punctuated at intervals by thunderous shouts of acclamation from the troops, continued until the king, satiated with praise, put a stop to it, when the man, after a brief interval of silence, rose to his feet and stood staring intently for a few minutes up into the rich blue splendour of the cloudless sky.
Then, gliding meanwhile slowly hither and thither in a series of narrow circles and turns and twists, in a kind of slow waltz step, Machenga began a song, the burden of which was the glory, majesty, and power of the king, and the inexpressible wickedness of those who presumptuously dared to entertain evil thoughts of him. This continued for about twenty minutes, during which the singer gradually worked himself up into a state of excitement and exaltation that finally became a perfect frenzy, under the influence of which his voice rose to a piercing shriek, while he dashed hither and thither with a display of strength, agility, and fury that seemed to me incredible. Finally, the man collapsed and sank to the ground exhausted, and foaming at the mouth; and at the same instant out from the rear dashed the entire company of subordinate witch doctors, in number fully one hundred, who, forming up about their prostrate chief, began to dance madly round him, singing a weird song of which I could make nothing except an occasional word, here and there, that conveyed no particular meaning to me.
These men were all decorated and garbed exactly like their chief, excepting that, instead of a bangwan, each carried a slender white wand, about twelve feet in length, in his right hand. For a period of about five minutes these terrible beings whirled and flashed hither and thither in bewildering confusion; then, with the precision of highly trained soldiers, they suddenly halted, and I became aware that Machenga, their chief, was again upon his feet, standing in their midst. Then, while the cloud of dust raised by their mad gyrations still hovered in the air, half obscuring the company, the tramp of feet was heard, and into the small arena marched twenty stalwarts, ten of whom were armed with enormous bangwans, while the remainder carried heavy, straight-bladed knives, about two feet long, and some six inches wide at the hilt, tapering away from there to a sharp point. These twenty—whom Lomalindela grimly condescended to inform me were the Slayers—halted on the king’s left, just clear of the left wing of His Majesty’s bodyguard, arranging themselves in pairs—a spearman and a knife-bearer alternately—as they did so. Then Machenga, at a nod from the king, raised his bangwan, and immediately his satellites began to circle hither and thither, with a slow, waltz-like movement, similar to that with which he had begun his own mad dance; and as they moved, gradually widening their circles until they were strung out all along the face of the motionless regiments, they hummed a low, weird, wordless song that was somehow inexpressibly suggestive of vague, nameless horror. As for Machenga, after watching his assistants for a minute or two, he stalked slowly toward the king and seated himself at His Majesty’s feet, where, after a time, he seemed to lose all consciousness of outward things, and to sink into a state of profound and anxious thought. Meanwhile the general company of the witch doctors had separated into units who were slowly working their way along the front ranks of the closely packed regiments, pausing occasionally as though in doubt, and then passing on again, to the obvious relief of the individuals before whom the ominous pause had been made. For a little while, possibly five or six minutes, matters proceeded thus, and nothing happened; then I observed that one of the witch doctors had halted, with his head thrown up, and was sniffing the air, like a dog that has scented game. He turned his head eagerly here and there, as though trying the air, seemed to get the scent for which he was seeking, and then looked square into the eyes of a man in the ranks, who visibly quailed beneath his gaze. Then, sniffing again, the witch doctor suddenly sprang forward, thrust his face close to that of the man who seemed to have incurred his suspicion, and, after a momentary pause, as though to make quite sure of what he suspected, stepped back a pace, and, stretching forth the wand in his hand, lightly touched the unfortunate warrior on the breast with it.
Instantly the man’s comrades to right and left of him seized the unhappy wight by the arms and led him forward unresisting to within about ten paces of the king. For a moment the king regarded the supposed culprit with a cold, frowning stare: then he turned toward where the Slayers were drawn up and nodded, upon which a pair of them stepped forward and stationed themselves, the bangwan-bearer in front and the knife-bearer behind the doomed man, who stood with his hands clenched by his sides, his comrades having, at the king’s nod, taken from him his spear and shield and laid them at His Majesty’s feet. Then, as I saw the right arms of the executioners raised to strike, I shut my eyes. A moment later I heard the dull sound of a blow, followed by the thud of a falling body; and when I opened my eyes the first victim of the diabolical rite of “smelling out” lay stretched out upon his face, dead, with skull cloven and a bangwan wound that must have cut his heart in twain. It was a sickening sight; but there was one redeeming feature about it, the mode of death was at least merciful, for the Slayers had done their work so well and so quickly that the unhappy man must have died instantly, with perhaps scarcely a pang to mark his dissolution. He was a mere nobody, just a common soldier from the ranks, who had probably never harboured in his simple heart a single thought disloyal to the king; but Machenga was cunning enough to realise that a certain number of such unconsidered and inconspicuous victims must be sacrificed if he would avoid attracting undue attention to the fact that the holocaust included all those whose death advantaged him either pecuniarily or as the gratification of his revenge.
Chapter Thirteen.
I kill Machenga, and am expelled from Mashonaland.
After the fall of the first victim the dreadful work proceeded quite briskly, each witch doctor seeming to feel it incumbent upon him to display his skill and zeal by providing at least as many victims as the most active and zealous of his brother practitioners. And as victim after victim fell a sacrifice to as cruel, wicked, and debasing a superstition as it is possible for the mind to conceive, so did my anger burn the more fiercely, until I felt an almost irresistible impulse impelling me to spring to my feet, and, with my pistol levelled at the king’s head, insist upon an end being put to the slaughter.