Flood at once admitted the man, who, immediately upon entering, blew out the candle which the trader held in his hand.
“Folodi,” he said, in an agitated whisper, “put the saddle on your best horse, and get to the other side of the Kei River as soon as you can.”
“Why—what have I done?” queried the astonished trader.
“It is the matter of the python which you killed, and of which the Bomvana chief drank the gall. Kreli is going to war, and he means to have your skull and to drink your gall out of it on the day the army is doctored. You are now a very great man because you slew ‘Munyu,’ and the chief wants your greatness for himself.”
“But Kreli is my friend,” said Flood, with a considerable tremor in his voice, “and I am not one of his own men to kill at his pleasure. I never heard of such a thing in my life—I—I—”
“Folodi,” interrupted Fanti in a tone which carried conviction, “the men are now on the way to kill you, led by the witch-doctor. Go or stay as you please, but I have told you the truth, and I can wait no longer to risk having my neck twisted.”
As he spoke the last words Fanti glided out of the hut, and vanished like a ghost. John Flood knew the customs of the natives better, I fear, than he knew his prayers, so he stood not upon the order of his going. He pulled down the bars of the kraal entrance so as to let the cattle go free. After this he hurriedly put on his best suit of clothes, and took down his trusty double-barrelled gun and its appurtenances from where they hung to the wattled roof. Then he saddled his best pony.
He took a last look at the goods upon his shelves. The stock had recently been added to; it was very hard to have to abandon it.
He did not awaken Nolai, who slept in the kitchen. He knew that her father would take her home, and that the law of the land required that she should be comfortably maintained until she again married, out of the dowry cattle. He was glad there were no children to complicate matters.
After he had mounted his pony, John Flood sat for a moment and gazed with emotion upon the spot where he had spent several contented years. Just as he was about to start he bethought himself of the python’s skin. He had carefully dried it, and it lay in a coil upon one of the shelves in the shop. That, at all events, he determined they should not have, so he dismounted, re-entered the hut, and fetched the trophy, which he tied with a thong to the side of his saddle. Then he turned and rode sadly, though swiftly, away.