Kitabı oku: «A Frontier Mystery», sayfa 17
It had been decided that the execution should, contrary to custom, be a public one. It was reckoned that the opportunity would be a good one for striking terror among the natives, as an example of the fate that would certainly overtake, sooner or later, all who should indulge in similar practices. Rightly it was argued that a terrible superstition of this nature, fostered by a secret society and finding its logical outcome in barbarous and abominable forms of murder, needed to be sternly stamped out.
On a grey and cloudy morning Ukozi, Ivondwe and Ivuzamanzi were led forth to die. There had been rain in the night, which had left a raw chill in the air; while the wind sang mournfully as it drove the low clouds along the hill tops. A pit had been dug in front of the gaol, to serve as a drop, and over this the gallows had been erected. From an early hour natives had been coming in by twos and threes, and now a crowd of several hundreds of them had assembled. Their demeanour however was neither turbulent nor defiant, on the contrary it was remarkably subdued, and they conversed in awed undertones. With a view to any possible demonstration a full troop of Mounted Police was disposed around the scaffold, with bandoliers filled, and all ready for action, but the precaution was unnecessary. The temper of the dark crowd was one of subdued awe as it contemplated the preparations for this grim and unaccustomed method of exit from life; in short just the very effect intended to be produced by making the execution a public one.
A hollow murmur ran over the crowd like a wave as the gaol doors swung open and the prisoners appeared, pinioned. Their demeanour was varied. That of Ukozi showed, unmistakably, fear – shrinking fear. At sight of the scaffold something like a tremor ran through the frame of the witch doctor, and he half stopped instinctively, while his lips moved in piteous protest. Ivondwe was as impassive as a statue; but the chief’s son walked with his head thrown back, his tall form erect, and a bitter scowl of hate and defiance upon his face. Then his glance met mine.
“That is the man through whom I am here,” he roared. “Are there none present to whom I may bequeath my vengeance?” And he glared around.
“Yet I saved thy life once, son of Tyingoza,” I answered, speaking so that all could hear, and this I did with a purpose.
“Walk on, Ivuzamanzi, and die like the son of a chief,” said the sheriff to him in a low tone. And he obeyed.
The Indian hangman and his assistant did their work quickly and well, and the three disappeared from view, hardly a quiver in the ropes showing that they had met death instantaneously, and in infinitely more merciful fashion than the lingering and horrible manner in which they had meted it out to so many unsuspecting victims sacrificed to their abominable and devilish superstition; and as I thought of one who came within an ace of adding to the number of such victims I could feel no pity for them now, which may have been wrong, but if it is I can’t help it.
In pursuance of the policy which had decreed that the execution should be public, the natives were allowed to come forward in batches and view the bodies if they wished. Many did so come forward, and the sight of the three hanging there, still and motionless, with the white caps drawn over their heads and faces, seemed to impress them deeply, judging from the remarks they made as they went away. Moreover I have reason to believe the effect was salutary and lasting. The pomp and awe and mystery of it appealed to them powerfully.
I had a reason for answering Ivuzamanzi, otherwise I would not have seemed to wrangle with a man on the very steps of the scaffold. For, be it remembered, he was the son of a powerful chief, and his words might be in the highest degree dangerous to myself, and I had no hankering to be marked out as the object of a vendetta. But I knew that natives have a strong sense of justice, and the fact that I had once saved his life being made known, would go far towards taking the sting out of his denunciation.
“He feared,” said a native voice at my elbow.
I turned quickly, though I knew the voice. It was that of Jan Boom.
“He feared,” repeated the Xosa. “He feared death. His heart melted to water within him. Silungile! Now am I avenged.”
Chapter Thirty Three.
Conclusion
For all the brave way in which Aïda had taken her grisly experience – and the full gruesomeness of her peril and narrow escape had been borne in upon her, especially during the trial and the revelations it had evolved – an impression had been left upon her mind which rendered the life to which she had been looking forward, and its associations, distasteful to her for the present. So after our marriage, which took place a month later than the dark and tragical circumstances I have just recorded, we decided to start for a prolonged tour of a year or more in Europe.
That time was a halcyon time for me, falling in no whit short of what I had always pictured it in anticipation. We did not hurry ourselves. We took things easily, and thus were spared all the worry and flurry of those who do not. In consequence we were able to enjoy to the full the pick of the Old World in all that was beautiful or interesting, and after my twenty years of up-country knocking about, and generally roughing it, everything enjoyed in such association was both.
The farm I had bought for our joint occupation I was able to dispose of at a trifling loss, and my trading store I sold at some profit; which made things not merely as broad as they were long, as the saying goes, but broader. But before we started on our tour it transpired that Edith Sewin and Kendrew had managed to compass a very mutual excellent understanding – it might have occurred to me at the time of our anxiety and grief that Kendrew had displayed quite an unusual familiarity in his references to my sister-in-law elect, but I suppose in the all-absorbing anguish of my own loss I had no mind to give to any such trivial detail. But as we were to be away a long time, the artful dog took advantage of the circumstance to hurry forward his own ambition. It would never do, he urged – they both urged – for the presence of her only sister to be wanting at Edith’s marriage, and in the result if there was not a double wedding, at any rate there were two within a very short time of each other. Well, we were all glad. Kendrew was a good fellow – a thoroughly good fellow – and the farm he had inherited through poor old Hensley’s murder was a right good one. He was going to throw up transport-riding and work it, he declared, and he did.
The old people, reft thus of both their daughters, decided to leave the frontier and settle just outside Durban; an excellent climate and country for those who have spent most of their lives in India. The farm was turned over to Falkner; who, by the way, soon blossomed into a remarkably able and energetic colonist. His sheer brutal pluck won him the very real and undiluted respect of the natives, and after not more than three attempts had been made upon his life, these came to the conclusion that “Umsindo” was really great, and one whom, taking him all round, it was no disgrace or disadvantage to serve; for with all his faults he was open-handed, and this tells. He was a very devil, they declared, but one that it was better to be with than against, and so he prospered. But he soon found a better outlet for his pugnacity than mere head punching, for the Zulu War broke out, and of course Falkner must be in the thick of it. He served all through, in a corps of Irregular Horse, and performed fine feats of daring on more than one occasion and notably during the disastrous rout on the Hlobane Mountain, for which he ought to have got the V.C. but didn’t, and is a happy man proportionately in that he cherishes a grievance. By a curious irony of Fate too he was instrumental in saving the life of no less a personage than our old antagonist, Dolf Norbury, for soon after the invasion of Zululand, that worthy, having quarrelled with his friend and ally Mawendhlela, found himself run very hard by that gin-loving potentate’s followers. He had made a desperate fight for it, and had shot down quite a number. Still there were numbers left, when Falkner, happening along with a patrol, rescued him only in the bare nick of time. Afterwards he told me that he had invited him to try, just in a friendly way, another “scrap” for the conqueror, but Dolf wasn’t taking any. He’d rather light out for over the Swazi border, he said, if it was all the same to his rescuer and quondam enemy. It was – and so they parted, this time in a kind of rough friendliness.
Of the “Brotherhood of the Dew” I have been able to get no further information. Whether the Zulu War had created a far-reaching diversion, or that the hanging of Ukozi and Co. had conveyed the impression that it was unhealthy to carry on its operations in a white man’s country I can’t say for certain, but nothing more was heard of it, in Natal at any rate. Aïda’s experience of it however, had left such an impression upon her that she had a rooted aversion to returning to live anywhere near the scene of its former operations, so we decided to settle down upon a farm in one of the most healthy and picturesque parts of the Eastern Districts of the Cape Colony. There Jan Boom is our most reliable and trusted factotum; Jan Boom, now the owner of three wives – with power to add to the number – and much cattle – the result of the priceless service he rendered us in the past.
Priceless service! Yes indeed, for although a good many years have gone by since the events happened of which I, Godfrey Glanton, have striven to set forward a clear account – remember literature is not an up-country man’s strong point – still they have been years of unbroken happiness. And still they remain, in proof whereof, I invite any reader of this narrative who may find himself in my part of the world, to come and judge for himself. I am easily found, and I promise him a cordial welcome, and – if he is fond of the gun – something not bad in the way of sport.
