“What is the matter with the Matabele?” asked Hughes, as he raised his eyes and saw Masheesh coming down among the huts in a manner very different from his usual stately pace.
“We shall soon know the cause; see how the muscles of his black face are working, and listen to the shouts of the Amatongas behind him. Well, Masheesh, what’s wrong?” asked Wyzinski, looking at him, with his pencil and note book in his hand.
“Sgalam is dead!” replied the Matabele, in an excited tone.
“And who the deuce is Sgalam?” asked the missionary, calmly bending his head once more over his work.
“The chief who spoke so bitterly against the white men; he who threatened to denounce Umhleswa if they were not put to death; refusing to hear the words of Mozelkatse, and who was threatened by Luji with death.”
“Well, a chief has departed from among his people, and the Amatonga have lost a brave; but what then?”
“The evil eye has done it. The white men have bewitched their enemy, and he is dead.”
The full danger of the situation dawned on the missionary’s mind as Masheesh said this, and turning to Hughes, he told what had passed. The latter only laughed.
“Since we have been in Africa,” he replied, “I have not seen one instance of violence or bloodthirstiness. A more gentle race I never met with. Why it is the custom even among the warriors who have shed blood in battle, to consider themselves unclean, and a native who has so much as touched a dead body is thought so. What is there to fear?”
“The whole native population of South Africa is superstitious, and these Amatongas are a low caste tribe, more superstitious than most. You heard Umhleswa ask about the rain?”