Kitabı oku: «The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley», sayfa 9

The Swazis, completely cowed, stared stupidly at the speaker. Kazimbi, triced up all ready for the lash, turned grey with fear, and moaned piteously for mercy. Whatever course the others might decide to follow, he would not desert, he protested. He would be the white men’s dog to the end of time, only let them spare him now. It was hard that his skin should depend on the decision of the others, he pleaded – drawing down upon himself the somewhat grimly ironical retort that, whereas he had been their spokesman, now they were his.

“We will remain as before,” said the others, almost immediately. “We will fulfil our duties until we are no longer wanted.”

“Very good,” said Dawes, with the self-possession of a man who had foreseen this result all along. “Untie Kazimbi.”

On returning to where they had left their property, such of the Swazis as possessed assegais found that those weapons had been removed. Their sticks only were left them. Then orders were given to inspan and the trek was resumed.

As though to obliterate their former misconduct, the behaviour of the malcontents was admirable. But the eye of their masters was ever upon them. Dawes and Gerard, riding on horseback, had a knack of turning up here, there, and everywhere during the trek. No opportunity for desertion was allowed them.

“I don’t know quite what to think, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, as they rode on a little ahead, about an hour before the evening outspan. “We’ve squashed their devilment for the time being, but, after all, we are very much at their mercy. The schelms might hook it any hour of the night they chose, for all we’d be the wiser. We can’t mount guard over them all night – besides, it’s bad policy.”

“Why shouldn’t we mount guard over them all night – one of us by turns? It would be no joke if they did clear out. We should be mighty short handed with all the trek stock. Besides, they might betray us to these Igazipuza they seem in such a mortal funk of.”

“Not the least chance of that. They’d get the worst of it themselves. Besides the Igazipuza know all about us by this time – even if they haven’t been watching us all along. Remember that fellow who killed our buck – Vunawayo!”

“The idea of being watched is distinctly demoralising,” said Gerard. “There’s a sort of creepy, eerie feeling about the notion, don’t you know.”

“I’m inclined to plead guilty to something of an error of judgment,” said Dawes. “A fellow of my experience ought to have known better than pooh-pooh any native story however tall. I didn’t believe in the existence of these people, and now I do. The chap we met yesterday left us under no sort of doubt as to their existence. I’m afraid we shall have trouble with them yet. All this stock we’ve got along is temptation enough to any thieving gang. No. We ought to have avoided this border altogether, and trekked straight down to Luneburg. Well it’s of no use now talking of what ought to have been done. We must just push on and trust to luck to get us through.”

Nothing in Nature suggested the brooding peril which overhung their path. The deep blue of the sky was without a cloud. The scenery of this beautiful wilderness, with its boldly outlined hills, was wild and romantic, but not forbidding. There was plenty of the smaller species of game to be shot for the going after – partridges and francolin, and a bush-buck or so – and the warm air was musical with the voices of ringdoves, with many a strange bird-call from the black strips of bush which belted the slopes of the hills.

“Hallo, hallo! What’s all this?” said Dawes, suddenly, as they rounded a spur.

There was a prodigious flapping of wings, and a cloud of great white vultures rose from the ground to join a number of others which were wheeling lazily overhead. At sight of the horsemen, however, the swooping circles widened and the great birds darted off. In a moment they seemed to disappear.

“Here’s a chap who can’t fly!” cried Gerard, eagerly, putting his horse at one of the aasvogels, who, thoroughly gorged, could only waddle along like a puffin. And then a cry of horror escaped him, and his face paled. Boiling gently down the slope of the ground, where the vulture had let go of it, was a severed head – the head of a native child of about nine or ten years of age. Grim and gory, with the eyes picked out by the carrion birds, the frightful object rolled. Gerard felt nearly sick with horror. At the same time Dawes’s horse, shying violently, nearly unseated his rider.

The slope of the hill here was covered by a low, bushy scrub. Lying about among this, contorted into ghastly attitudes, were several bodies, all natives, and representing all ages and sexes. They had been torn by the vultures, and ripped and mangled by their slayers, and the appearance they presented to those who thus came upon them wholly unexpectedly in the midst of the wilderness was inexpressibly hideous and horrible. Three of the bodies were those of full-grown men, the rest women and children – thirteen persons in all. They were covered with assegai-stabs, out of which the blood seemed yet to ooze, and they were all ripped up, a circumstance which pointed to their slayers being of Zulu nationality. Why had these poor creatures, thus travelling peaceably through the country – for fragments of mats and other articles pointed to the probability of it being a family trek – been thus fallen upon and ruthlessly butchered – men, women, and children, even to the month-old baby speared again and again on its mother’s back? Who had done it? The two white discoverers of the massacre looked at each other, and the mind of each shaped the same reply – Igazipuza.

A shadow passed between them and the sun, then another and another. The vultures, having become accustomed to the cause of their first alarm, had gathered again, impatient to drop down to their horrible feast. To Gerard it seemed that all the virtue had gone out of the sweet golden sunlight, yielding place to a flaming brassy glare, and the atmosphere seemed to reek of blood.

“Poor devils!” said Dawes. “They’re ‘eaten up’ and no mistake. We had better not let on about this to the ‘boys,’ or all that diplomacy this morning is just thrown away. Nothing on earth would keep them from taking to their heels.”

After all, it is human to err, and Dawes for once was wrong in his judgment. Had the Swazis but stumbled upon the horrid sight, it would most effectually have killed in them any further desire to tempt their fate in a journey on their own account. They would have demanded nothing better than to hug the vicinity of the waggons as closely as possible.

With a dire foreboding of impending peril upon them the two quitted the spot, and rode back upon their track, for they had come on ahead rather further than they had intended. They had not progressed far, when Dawes said quietly —

“Don’t start, Ridgeley. But if you can do so without turning your head, look up – to the left.”

Gerard did so. High up on the slope of the hillside was a flash and shimmer of something. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun glinted upon the points of spears, upon the smooth surface of great shields. A group of armed savages sat watching the two horsemen.

Whatever their intentions might have been, whether hostile or the reverse, they made not the slightest attempt at concealment. There they sat – out in the open. Had they been watching them when they discovered the massacre; could they, indeed, have been seen from that point of vantage? That these were the perpetrators of that barbarous deed Dawes had little doubt. They were but few, certainly – a dozen at most – but how many more were concealed close at hand, ready to spring out upon them!

It was a terribly trying situation. While feigning to talk at their ease as they rode along, the nerves of both of our two friends were strung to the uttermost. Every moment might come the whiz of assegais from the bush, which in places grew right down to the path – every moment the roar of the war-shout, the swift and tiger-like charge. To Gerard especially, less accustomed to peril than his companion, and by nature less cool, the situation was desperately trying; and by the time they reached the waggons, and the spot being convenient, ordered an outspan then and there, the dark cloud of peril hovering above them seemed to brood thicker and thicker. Even the very sun seemed to set in a lurid sea of blood.

Chapter Thirteen.
The Igazipuza

“Bolted! Every man Jack of them!”

Thus John Dawes, as he and Gerard stood looking dubiously at each other in the faint sickly light of dawn. A thick mist lay heavy on the earth, so thick that, as the former said, a man could hardly see the end of the nose upon his face. The place occupied by the Swazi herdsmen and drivers knew them no more, nor was there any trace of those worthies in or around the encampment. Moreover, their traps had eke disappeared. The thing John Dawes feared had come to pass, and, shaking his head, he could only repeat blankly —

“Bolted! Every man Jack of them!”

Gerard could not but feel relieved in his innermost heart that this defection had not befallen during his period of watching. He and Dawes had gone the round together when the latter had relieved him. Then the Swazis were rolled up, snug and snoring, in their blankets. An hour before dawn a thick mist had rolled up, covering everything, and then it was that their faithless retainers had seen their opportunity, and had slipped away under cover of its folds.

“Overhaul them? Not we?” said Dawes, in answer to Gerard’s suggestion. “This mist may last for hours, and even if it didn’t they’ll have made the most of their leg-bail by now, depend upon it. Besides, it would be courting plunder to leave the waggons here in charge of ‘boys’ only, as we should have to do if we started to chevy those schelms. No. We must get on as best we can without them, but it’ll mean a goodish handful for you and me. We shall have to drive and herd the stock ourselves.”

“What if we have to?” said Gerard, heartily. “It won’t hurt us, and, for the matter of that, I dare say I could undertake the whole lot of it myself, leaving you as free as before.”

“You can’t, Ridgeley. Sheep and cattle can’t be driven in one lump. I wish we hadn’t brought along that confounded small stock; taken something else instead, only we couldn’t get it. Now we’d better make coffee, and be all ready to inspan as soon as the mist lifts.”

They were seated at the fire, and had just filled up steaming pannikins of the strong black brew, when the sound of deep voices was heard, and immediately there appeared a group of figures out of the mist. That these were their defaulting retainers was an idea which the first glance served to dispel. There were more than twice the number; besides, the tall fine frames, the haughty poise of the head, the large war-shields, bespoke them Zulus.

They halted a brief moment as they came in sight of the fire, then strode up to half a dozen paces of the two white men, and halting again, eyed the latter in silence for a moment, and one of them said —

“Saku bona.”

Dawes, as he returned the greeting, with one quick keen glance scrutinised the group, and noted two things. The man they had met two days before, Vunawayo, was not in it, and though all were fully armed, they had not, in accordance with Zulu etiquette, deposited their weapons a few paces in the background. They, for their part, he fancied, looked meaningly at the two guns which lay beside himself and Gerard, and ready to the hand of each. They were, as we have said, tall, fine men, and most of them ringed. But though they carried the large war-shield instead of the little ornamental shield usually employed on pacific journeyings, and were fully armed with assegai and knobkerrie, and here and there a battle-axe, their persons were bedizened by no martial gear – being, in fact, devoid of little other adornment than the mútya. These men, he decided, were either the whole or part of an “eating-up” expedition⁴, or they were members of the dreaded Igazipuza.

The Zulus had squatted down on their haunches in crescent formation. There were fifteen of them. Dawes handed them the large horn snuff-box he always carried. It was passed round, and for a few minutes they were all taking pinch after pinch in silent contentment. Then one of them said —

“What have you got to sell, Umlúngu?”

“Very little,” was the answer. “We are at the end of our trip, not at the beginning, and have got rid of nearly everything.”

“Among the Swazi dogs? Why did you not come through the Zulu country?”

“We heard there had been too many traders there before us,” replied Dawes, unveraciously. “And in the part we did touch we could do nothing. The people were not inclined to trade.”

“Are these all your people?” went on the Zulu, with a glance at the four Natal natives, who, Sintoba excepted, had been gazing at them with a curiosity strongly dashed with awe. Sintoba, however, had given them the “Saku bona” as on terms of perfect equality, and they had returned it. “They are few to take care of so much property,” went on the spokesman.

“They are,” said Dawes. “We had some Swazis – six of them – but they ran away in the night.”

“Whau! They will not run far,” said the Zulu, and a meaning grin played upon the faces of his countrymen.

“Do you know Sobuza?” asked Gerard, handing them a huge pannikin of strong black coffee, well sweetened, of which, in accordance with custom, he took a preliminary sip.

They looked at each other, and then followed a discussion as to whether it was Sobuza the son of Panhla, or that other Sobuza who was once in command of the king’s bodyguard, or Sobuza the son of somebody else.

Gerard added that he didn’t know who Sobuza’s father was, but his father’s son, at any rate, was a chief in the Udhloko regiment.

“Ehé!” cried the warriors in concert. “That is Sobuza the son of Panhla. He has his kraal by the Intaba’nkulu. Do you know him, Umlúngu?”

“I did, once. But, next time you see him, ask him when he is inclined for another swim in the Umgeni river.” And then, as well as he could, he described the incident of the chief’s misadventure, and how, indeed, he was able to come to his aid twice in the same day. The Zulus listened attentively, and Gerard hoped that his object in telling the story was gained, viz. to establish some sort of a claim upon their friendship in case they should belong to the dreaded freebooting clan.

“Do you belong to the chief Ingonyama?” said Dawes, when he had done.

“Ingonyama?”

“Yes.”

“Ingonyama’s kraal is out Hlobane way. Are you going to visit him?” said the Zulu, in true native fashion avoiding a direct answer, and further, replying to one question by another.

“We know not. Perhaps, if we have time,” answered Dawes, rising. “And now, amadoda (men), it is becoming light. We must get upon our road again.”

With magical suddenness the sun had burst forth. The sky overhead was a vivid blue, which had almost a shade of the most lovely green in it, in direct contrast to the white and solid masses of fleecy vapour which was giving way before the arrowy rays. The curtain of mist, rolling back from the slopes of the hills, was disclosing a carpet of sheeny dewdrops, sparkling, glittering in the sun like a sea of diamonds. Dawes was about to give orders to inspan, when there burst forth from around the spur of the hill a most horrible and startling tumult.

A wave of dark figures surged into view, shouting, whistling, leaping. On they poured like a pack of wolves. But some distance ahead of them – fleeing for their lives, their eyes starting from their heads in deadly fear – coming straight for the camp, ran five or six men, natives, hard pressed by the surging mass in their rear. Then arose from a multitude of fierce throats, drawn out into a half chant, half roar, but deafening in its thunderous volume, a most hideous and appalling shout —

“Igazi—pu—za!”

Assegais hurled from the onrushing mass whistled through the air. One of the fugitives fell. In a moment a howling, raving crowd was around him, upon him, their tiger-like roars drowning the shrieks of the wretched man being literally hacked to pieces. Another staggered into camp, and fell almost at Gerard’s feet, covered with spear-wounds. And in the fleeing refugees frenzied with terror, they recognised the treacherous and defaulting Swazis.

“Save me, save me, father!” yelled Kazimbi, rolling like a log at Dawes’s feet.

“Keep cool, Ridgeley,” muttered the latter. “Don’t fire a shot, on your life.”

Anything more ferocious and appalling than the aspect of these savages as they poured like a torrent upon the camp it would be hard to conceive. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Naked save for their mútyas, each had a red disc painted on his breast, and another between the eyes. They leaped high in the air as they ran, brandishing their assegais and great shields, and, roaring in long-drawn, bloodthirsty cadence, their terrible slogan. It seemed as though no living thing there, whether man or beast, would survive the blind fury of their overwhelming rush.

And indeed it was a fearful moment for all concerned as they swarmed around the waggons. Gerard, well-nigh carried off his feet by the surging rush, doubted not but that his last moment had come, as the sea of spear-blades, some red and reeking with blood, flashed in front of his eyes, as the deafening vibration of the hideous shout stunned his ears. Still, his presence of mind never deserted him; still through it all he remembered Dawes’s emphatic injunction to keep cool and offer no violence.

It was hard all the same, as he felt himself hustled here and there by the fierce horde. However, he was of strong and athletic build, and with a well-affected, good-humoured bluffness, he was able to push back the foremost aggressors without having recourse to any weapon.

“What have you got to sell, abelúngu?” shouted the wild crowd, with a roar of boisterous laughter. “We come to trade – we come to trade.”

“The way to trade isn’t to raise all this abominable din,” replied Dawes, coolly. “Sit down, can’t you, and talk quietly.”

A roar of derision greeted this.

“We are the Igazipuza, ’mlúngu,” they shouted. “Ha – Come forth, you dogs!”

This to the Swazi fugitives who had slunk under one of the waggons, in the desperate hope that these terrible and dreaded warriors might take their departure as suddenly as they had appeared.

“Come forth, dogs – come forth!” they vociferated again. And daring no longer hesitate, the wretched Swazis crept trembling from their would-be hiding-place.

“Ha, you long-legged, wolf-faced jackal,” cried a savage-looking villain, seizing Kazimbi by the throat, and placing the point of his assegai against his breast. “What is your name?”

“Kazimbi, Inkose!” faltered the trembling Swazi.

“Kazimbi? Hau! not much iron about you,” jeered his tormentor in a great mocking voice. “Whau! I did not do that,” he laughed, as some of the crowd behind wantonly or accidentally jogged his elbow, causing the blade of the assegai to pierce the chest of Kazimbi, eliciting from that unfortunate a startled shriek, for the wound was a deep one, and the blood spurted forth in a warm jet. The bystanders yelled with laughter. The jest was excellent.

“I did not do it, but now I will.” And maddened by the sight of blood, the ferocious savage drove the broad spear blade up to the hilt into the chest of the miserable Swazi, and continuing the blow by a swift, powerful, down-stroke, ripped open the whole body, which fell to the earth a horrible weltering mass. Raising their terrific war-cry, these human wolves clustered around it, stabbing, ripping, hacking, till soon the only distinguishable remains of the wretched Kazimbi was his bleeding heart, plucked out and reared aloft upon an assegai point.

This shocking and appalling scene the two white spectators of it were powerless to prevent. Themselves hemmed in by the fierce crowd, now infuriate in its growing blood-lust, their own lives hung upon no more than a hair. Another of the wretched Swazis was set upon and barbarously slaughtered, and then Gerard could stand it no longer. Scattering all considerations of prudence to the winds, he threw himself in front of the three remaining victims, and drawing his revolver – as being more readily handled than the gun which he carried – presented it full at the mass of infuriated savages. And Dawes, himself hemmed in, seeing this, held his breath for the life of his young companion.

“Stand back!” thundered Gerard. “Stand back, you cowardly dogs!”

The voice, the act, the deadly weapon pointing right in their faces, the resolute countenance and flashing eyes, had an extraordinary effect. That one man should thus dare to beard them, the dreaded Igazipuza, in their might, to stand before their reddened spears in the thick of their blood fury, to wrest the prey from the raging lion in the act of devouring it, to throw himself between their wrath and a few miserable dogs of Swazis, struck these ferocious savages as little short of miraculous. To the wild fierce hubbub there succeeded a dead silence. The forest of bristling spear-blades tossing aloft, dropped motionless. Heads were bent forward and a sea of rolling eyeballs glared upon the intrepid form of the young Englishman. Then from every chest went up a quick, deep-toned gasp of wonder – of amazement.

“Who is your chief?” cried Dawes, who had taken advantage of their momentary confusion to edge his way to the side of his young companion. “Is this a horde without a leader? We are not at war with the Zulu people that an impi should ‘eat up’ our camp and kill our servants. Where is your chief?”

“Your servants have not been harmed, Umlúngu,” said a voice in the crowd. “There they are, your Amakafula. These were not your servants, only some miserable Swazi dogs, who had run away from you, as you yourselves just now told us. Have they not been well and rightly served?”

The crowd had parted, making way for the speaker, in whom our friends now recognised the man who had been talking with them prior to the startling interruption. He with the remainder of the group now came forward.

“Well, three of them have been killed, let the rest now be spared,” said Dawes, who was not inclined to dispute the logic of the Zulu’s dictum, and whose matter-of-fact nature was in the last degree averse to running any quixotic risk on behalf of the worthless fellows who had treated him so scurvily. “And now, if the Igazipuza wish to trade, let them sit down quietly and say so, if not, let them go their way in peace, and we will proceed upon ours.”

This was pretty bold, considering how absolutely at the mercy of these turbulent barbarians was the speaker and his mere handful of companions. But he thoroughly knew his ground. A bold and resolute attitude is the only one which commands their respect, as indeed Gerard’s intrepid and apparently foolhardy act served to show. And in pursuance of this idea he would not offer them even the smallest gift, at any rate until they became civil, lest they should construe the act into a concession to fear.

“We want to trade, abelúngu, but not here,” shouted several voices. “Not here. At the kraal of our father, Ingonyama.”

“Yes, yes. To the kraal of our father,” repeated the crowd.

“You have not enough people to drive all that stock,” cried a voice. “We will help you.”

“We will – we will,” echoed the crowd, with a shout of boisterous laughter. And tearing away the thin fence of bushes which enclosed them, the savages began to drive out the cattle and sheep, pricking them with their assegais, and roaring with laughter at the pain and terror of the poor beasts.

“Wait one moment!” cried Dawes. “We have hardly anything to trade, and are returning home. It will be very inconvenient to us to go out of our way. Take a couple of oxen and half a dozen goats as a present to your chief, Ingonyama, and tell him we hope to visit him at some future time. Now we will keep on our way.”

“No – no!” roared the crowd. “No – no! You cannot pass so near the kraal of our chief without paying him a visit. So come with us, abelúngu. We will help drive your cattle.”

The tone though effusively good-natured was not to be mistaken. The best policy was to affect to believe the good nature genuine, and that these playful barbarians really were consumed with anxiety to show hospitality to the two white traders, instead of practically taking them prisoners. And that such they were admitted of no shadow of a doubt. In a second the minds of both had grasped the situation. If they refused to proceed to Ingonyama’s kraal, the Igazipuza would assuredly plunder them of every hoof, for they were already driving off the stock – plunder them even it might be of the trek-oxen and the two horses. They might even take it into their heads to massacre them, but this was improbable. So making a virtue of necessity, and giving his companion a hint to do the like, Dawes replied that since they and their chief were so anxious to have them as guests, why, they should have their wish. Then he gave orders to inspan.

Shouting, singing, and indulging in horseplay the savages crowded round, watching the process. Then as the waggons rolled slowly off, they would clamber into the huge vehicles, or hang on behind in clusters, roaring with laughter as some fellow tumbled off, or a whole bunch of them got jerked into the air by an unexpected bump. Indeed, it became difficult to drive the oxen at all. Gerard and Dawes were riding their ponies, surrounded by the group of ringed men who had first visited their camp. These, though evidently men of authority, seemed little inclined to exert that attribute, and made no attempt to check the rowdiness and horseplay of the younger warriors. Among these latter the poor Swazis were having a bad time; being jeered and threatened, and in momentary fear of sharing the fate of their countrymen whose mangled corpses lay behind, another feast for the vultures. The Natal natives were treated with more respect – especially Sintoba, who, marching beside his span, seemed perfectly indifferent to all the brag and swagger of the armed crowd. Indeed, once or twice, when they pressed him too close, he menaced them with the butt end of his long whip-handle.

Thus in the midst of their most unwelcome escort did our two friends proceed upon their enforced visit across the border of northern Zululand.