Kitabı oku: «The Sign of the Spider», sayfa 14

"I am glad the king is pleased," he went on, "for I would fain tarry among the Ba-gcatya forever. And, becoming one of that people, shall not all my efforts turn towards rendering it a great people?"

A hum of astonishment escaped the two indunas, and Laurence thought to detect the same significant look on both their faces. Then he added:

"And those whom I have already taught in the use of the fire-weapon, they are strong in it, and reliable?"

"That is so," assented Tyisandhlu.

"And I have taught many the ways of the chase, no less than the more skilled ways of war – that too is true, O Burning Wind?"

"That too is true," repeated the king.

"Good. And now I would crave a boon. While the People of the Spider have become more formidable in war, while the ivory comes pouring into the king's treasury, faster than ever it did before, so that soon there will be enough to buy fire-weapons for the whole nation, I who brought all this to pass remain poor – am the poorest in the nation – and – the daughters of the Ba-gcatya are fair – exceeding fair."

"Whau!" exclaimed the two indunas simultaneously, with their hands to their mouths. But Tyisandhlu said nothing, though a very humorous gleam seemed to steal over his fine features in the firelight.

"The daughters of the Ba-gcatya are exceeding fair," repeated Laurence, "but I, the poorest man in the nation, cannot take wives. For how shall I go to the father of a girl and say, 'Lo, I desire thy daughter to wife, but my slaves have been killed, and my other possessions are now the property of the king; yet inasmuch as I cannot offer lobola, having nothing, give her to me on the same terms?' My house will not grow great in that way. Say now, Ndabezita, will it?"

"I think not, Nyonyoba," answered the king, struggling to repress a laugh. "Yet perhaps a way may be found out of that difficulty, for in truth thou hast done us good service already. But we will talk further as to this matter in the future. For the present, here waits outside one who will show thee what thou wilt be glad to see."

Quick to take this hint of dismissal, Laurence now arose, saluted the king, and retired, not ill-pleased so far with the results of his interview. For in the circumlocutory native way of dealing with matters of importance, Tyisandhlu had received with favour his request, preferred after the same method, that some of his possessions should be restored to him. Then he would offer lobola for Lindela, and —

"I accompany you farther, Nyonyoba, at the word of the Great Great One, by whose light we live."

The voice of the inceku who had ushered him forth broke in upon his meditations. This man, instead of leaving him at the gate of the isigodhlo, still kept at his side, and Laurence, manifesting no curiosity, having picked up his weapons where he had left them, accompanied his guide in silence.

They passed out of Imvungayo, and after walking nearly a mile came to a large kraal, which Laurence recognized as that of Nondwana, the king's brother. And now, for the first time, he felt a thrill of interest surge through him. Nondwana's kraal! Had Tyisandhlu, divining his wishes, indeed forestalled them? But this idea was as quickly dismissed as formulated. The king had probably ordered that one or two of the Ba-gcatya girls should be allotted to him – possibly chosen from those in attendance upon the royal wives. His parting remark seemed to point that way.

"Enter," said the inceku, halting before one of the huts. "Enter, and good go with thee. I return to the king. Fare thee well!"

Laurence bent down and pushed back the wicker slab that formed the door of the hut, and, having crawled through the low, beehive-like entrance, stood upright within, and instinctively kicked the fire into a blaze. And then, indeed, was amazement – wild, incredulous, bewildering amazement – his dominant feeling, for by the light thus obtained he saw that the hut was tenanted by two persons. No feminine voice, however, was raised to bid him welcome in the soft tongue of the Ba-gcatya, but a loud, full-flavoured, masculine English one:

"Stanninghame – by the great Lord Harry! Oh, kind Heavens, am I drunk or dreaming?"

CHAPTER XXIV.
AS FROM THE DEAD

"There, there, Holmes. Do you quite intend to maim a chap for life, or what?" exclaimed Laurence, liberating, with an effort, his hand from the other's wringing grasp. "And Hazon, too? In truth, life is full of surprises. How are you, Hazon?"

"So so," was the reply, as Hazon, who had been biding the evaporation of his younger friend's effusiveness, now came forward. But his handshake was characteristic of the man, for it was as though they had parted only last week, and that but temporarily.

"And is it really you yourself, old chap?" rattled on Holmes. "It's for all the world as if you had risen from the dead. Why, we never expected to set eyes on you again in life – did we, Hazon?"

"Not much," assented that worthy laconically.

"Well, I can say the same as regards yourselves," rejoined Laurence. "What in the world made them give you quarter?"

"Don't know," answered Hazon. "We managed to get together, back to back, we two, and were fighting like cats. Holmes got a shot on the head with a club that sent him down, and I got stuck full of assegais till I couldn't see. The next thing I knew was that we were being carted along in the middle of a big impi– Heaven knew where. One thing, we were both alive – alive and kicking, too. As soon as we were able to walk they assegaied our bearers, and – made us walk."

"Don't you swallow all that, Stanninghame," cut in Holmes. "He fought, standing over me – fought like any devil, the Ba-gcatya say, although he makes out now it was all playful fun."

"Well, for the matter of that, we had to fight," rejoined Hazon tranquilly. "Where have you been all this time, Stanninghame?"

"Here, at Imvungayo. And you two?"

"Shot if I know. They kept us at some place away in the mountains. Only brought us here a few days back."

"They won't let us out in the daytime," chimed in Holmes. "And it's getting deadly monotonous. But tell us, old chap, how it is they didn't stick you?"

This, however, Laurence, following out a vein of vague instinct, had decided not to do, wherefore he invented some commonplace solution. And it was with strange and mingled feelings he sat there listening to his old confederates. For months he had not heard one word of the English tongue, and now these two, risen, as it were, from the very grave, seemed to bring back all the past, which, under novel and strange conditions, had more and more been fading into the background. He was even constrained to admit to himself that such feelings were not those of unmingled joy. He had almost lost all inclination to escape from among this people, and now these two, by the very associations which their presence recalled, were likely to unsettle him again, possibly to his own peril and undoing. Anyway, he resolved to say nothing as to the incident of "The Sign of the Spider."

"Well, you seem to have got round them better than we did, Stanninghame," said Hazon, with a glance at the Express rifle and revolver wherewith the other was armed. "We have hardly been allowed so much as a stick."

"So? Well, I've been teaching some of them to shoot. That may have had a little to do with it. In fact, I've been laying myself out to make thoroughly the best of the situation."

"That's sound sense everywhere," rejoined Hazon. "You can't get Holmes here to see it, though. He's wearing out his soul-case wanting to break away."

This was no more than the truth. Laurence, seated there, narrowly watching his old comrades, was swift to notice that whereas these months of captivity and suspense had left Hazon the same cool, saturnine, philosophical being he had first known him, upon Holmes they had had quite a different effect. There was a restless, eager nervousness about the younger man; a sort of straining to break away even, as the more seasoned adventurer had described it. The fact was, he was getting desperately home-sick.

"I wish I had never had anything to do with this infernal business," he now bursts forth petulantly. "I swear I'd give all we have made to be back safe and snug in Johannesburg, with white faces around us, – even though I were stony broke."

"Especially one 'white face,'" bantered Laurence. "Well, keep up your form, Holmes. You may be back there yet, safe and sound, and not stony broke either."

"No, no. There is a curse upon us, as I said all along. No good will come to us through such gains. We shall never return – never."

And then Laurence looked across at Hazon, and the glance, done into words, read: "What the mischief is to be made of such a prize fool as this?"

The night was spent in talking over past experiences, and making plans for the future, as to which latter Hazon failed not to note, with faint amusement, blended with complacency, that the disciple had, if anything, surpassed his teacher. In other words, Laurence entered into such plans with a luke-warmness which would have been astonishing to the superficial judgment, but was not so to that of his listener.

Nondwana, the brother of the king, was seated among a group of his followers in the gate as Laurence went forth the next morning to return to his own quarters. This chief, though older than Tyisandhlu in years, was not the son of the principal wife of their common father, wherefore Tyisandhlu, who was, had, in accordance with native custom, succeeded. There had been whisperings that Nondwana had attempted to oppose the accession, and very nearly with success; but whether from motives of policy or generosity, Tyisandhlu had foreborne to take his life. The former motive may have counted, for Nondwana exercised a powerful influence in the nation. In aspect, he was a tall, fine, handsome man, with all the dignity of manner which characterized his royal brother, yet there was a sinister expression ever lurking in his face – a cruel droop in the corner of the mouth.

"Greeting, Nyonyoba. And is it good once more to behold a white face?" said the chief, a veiled irony lurking beneath the outward geniality of his tone.

"To behold the face of a friend once more is always good, Branch of a Royal Tree," returned Laurence, sitting down among the group to take snuff.

"Even when it is that of one risen from the dead?"

"But here it was not so, Ndabezita. My 'Spider' told me that these were all the time alive," rejoined Laurence, with mendacity on a truly generous scale.

"Ha! thy Spider? Yet thou art not of the People of the Spider."

"But I bear the sign," touching his breast. "There are many things made clear to me, which may or may not be set forward in the light of all at the fall of the second moon. Farewell now, Son of the Great."

The start of astonishment, the murmur which ran round the group, was not lost upon him. It was all confirmatory of what he had heard. And then, as he walked back to his tent in Silawayo's kraal, it occurred to Laurence that he had probably made a false move. Nondwana, who, of course, was not ignorant of his daughter's partiality, would almost certainly decide that Lindela had betrayed the secret and sinister intent to its unconscious object; and in that event, how would it fare with her? He felt more than anxious. The king might take long in deciding whether to restore his property or not, and etiquette forbade him to refer to the matter again – at any rate for some time to come. That Nondwana might demand too much lobola, or possibly refuse it altogether as coming from him, was a contingency which, strange to say, completely escaped Laurence's scheming mind.

"Greeting, Nyonyoba. Thy thoughts are deep – ever deep."

The voice, soft, rich, bantering, almost made him start as he raised his eyes, to meet the glad laughing ones of the object of his thoughts at that moment, the chief's daughter.

"What do you here, wandering alone, Lindela?" he said.

"Ha – ha! Now you did well to say my name like that – for – does it not answer your question, 'to wait, to watch for'? And what is meant for two ears is not meant for four or six. I have news, but it is not good."

They were standing in the dip of the path, where a little runlet coursed along between high bush-fringed banks, and the tall, graceful form of the girl stood out in splendid relief from its background of foliage. Not only for love had she awaited him here, for her eyes were sad and troubled as she narrated her discoveries, which amounted to this: It was next to impossible for Laurence to escape the ordeal – whatever it might be. All of weight and position in the nation were resolved upon it, and none more thoroughly so than Nondwana. The king himself would be powerless to save him, even if he wished, and, indeed, why should he run counter to the desire of a whole nation, and that on behalf of a stranger, some time an enemy?

Laurence, listening, felt his anxiety deepen. The net was closing in around him, had indeed already closed, and from it there was no outlet.

"See now, Lindela," he said gravely, his eyes full upon the troubled face of the girl, "if this thing has got to be, there is no help for it. And, however it turns out, the world will go on just the same – and the sun rise and set as before. Why grieve about it?"

"Because I love you – love you – do you hear? I know not how it is. We girls of the Ba-gcatya do not love – not like this. We like to be married to men who are great in the nation – powerful indunas – if not too old, – or those who have much cattle, or who will name us for their principal wife; but we know not how to love. Yet you have taught me, Nyonyoba. Say now, is it through the magic of the white people you have done it?"

"It may be so," replied Laurence, smiling queerly to himself, as he thought how exactly, if unconsciously, this alluring child of nature had described her civilized sisters. Then his face became alert and watchful. He was listening intently.

"I, too, heard something," murmured Lindela, scarcely moving her lips. "I fear lest we have been overlooked. Now, fare thee well, for I must return. But my ears are ever open to what men say, and my father talks much, and talks loud. It may be that I may learn yet more. But, Nyonyoba, delay not in thy first purpose, lest it be too late; and remember, Nondwana has a covetous hand. Fare thee well."

Left alone, Laurence thought he might just as well make sure that no spy had been watching them. Yet though he examined the banks of the stream for some little distance around, he could find no trace of any human presence, no mark even, however faint, of human foot. Still, as he gained his own quarters in Silawayo's kraal, a presentiment lay heavy upon him – a weird, boding presentiment of evil to come – of evil far nearer at hand than he had hitherto deemed.

Long and hard he slept, for he was weary with wakefulness and anxiety. And when he awoke at dusk, intending to seek an interview with the king, he beheld that which in no wise tended to allay his fears. For as he drew nearer to Imvungayo there issued from its gate a crowd of figures – of black, grotesque, horrible figures, and in the midst a man, whom they were dragging along in grim silence, even as they had hauled Lutali to his unknown doom, and as they disappeared into the gathering darkness, Laurence knew only too well that here was another victim – another hideous sacrifice to the grisly and mysterious demon-god. No wonder his blood grew chill within him. Would he be the next?

"And you would still become one of us, Nyonyoba?"

"I would, Great Great One; and to this end have I sent much ivory, and many things the white people prize, including three new guns and much ammunition, to Nondwana."

"Ha! Nondwana's hand is large, and opens wide," said the king, with a hearty chuckle. "Yet Lindela is a sprig of a mighty tree. And I think, Nyonyoba, you yourself are sprung from such a root."

"That is no lie, Ruler of the Wise. As a man's whole height is to the length of half his leg, so is the length of my house to that of the kings of the Ba-gcatya, or even to that of Senzangakona⁵ himself."

"Ha! That may well be. Thou hast a look that way."

This conversation befell two days after the events just described. The king had refused him an audience on that evening, and indeed since until now. But in the meantime, by royal orders, a great portion of the plunder taken from the slave-hunters' camp had been restored to him, considerably more, indeed, than he had expected. And now he and Tyisandhlu were seated once more together in the royal dwelling, this time alone.

"But to be sprung from an ancient tree avails a man nothing in my country if he is poor," went on Laurence. "Rather is it a disadvantage, and he had better have been born among the meaner sort. That is why I have found my way hither, Ndabezita."

"That is why? And you have gained the desired riches?" said the king, eyeing him narrowly.

"I had – nearly, when the Ba-gcatya fell upon my camp, and killed my people and my slaves. Now, having lost all, I care not to return to my own land."

"But could you return rich you would care so to return?"

"That is so, Root of a Royal Tree. With large possessions it is indeed a pleasant land to dwell in – with no possessions a man might often think longingly of the restful sleep of death."

"That may well be," said Tyisandhlu thoughtfully. "The cold and the gloom and the blackness, the fogs and the smoke – the mean and horrible-looking people who go to make up the larger portion of its inhabitants. Whau, Nyonyoba, I know more of your white people and their country than anyone here dreams, and it is as you say. Without that which should raise him above such horrors as this, a man might as well be dead."

"Wherefore I prefer to live in the land of the Ba-gcatya rather than die in my own. But whoever brought hither that description of our land told a wonderfully true tale, Ruler of the Great."

Tyisandhlu made no reply, but reaching out his hand he took up a whistle and blew a double note upon it. Immediately there entered an inceku.

"Let no man approach until this note shall again sound," said the king. "Preserve clear a wide space around, lest the ear that opens too wide be removed from its owner's head. Go."

The man saluted humbly and withdrew. And then for long did they sit together and talk in a low tone, the barbarian monarch and the white adventurer – and the subject of their talk seemed fraught with some surprise to the latter, but with satisfaction to both.

"See now, Nyonyoba," concluded the king. "They have brought you here, here whence no man ever returned; and you would become one of us. Well, be it so. There is that about you I trust."

"Whence no man ever returned?" echoed Laurence.

"Surely. Ha! A white man found his way hither once, but – he was a preacher – and I love not such. He never returned."

"But what of my two friends? You will not harm them, Ndabezita, because they are my friends, and we have fought together many a long year," urged Laurence.

"I will spare them for that reason. They shall be led from the country with their eyes covered, lest they find the way back again. But – if they do – they likewise shall never depart from it. And now, Nyonyoba, all I have told you is between ourselves alone. Breathe not a whisper of it or anything about me even to your friends. For the present, farewell, and good fortune be yours."

CHAPTER XXV.
HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND

Now, if Laurence Stanninghame's prospects were brightening, and his lines beginning to fall in pleasant places, – relatively speaking, that is, for everything is relative in the conditions of life, – the same held not good as regards the other twain of our trio of adventurers. Both were kept prisoners in Nondwana's kraal, and, save that they were not ill-treated, no especial consideration was shown them. They were allowed to wander about the open space outside, but watchful eyes were ever upon them, and did they venture beyond certain limits, they were speedily made aware of the fact. No such distractions as joining in the hunting parties, or coming and going at will such as their more fortunate comrade enjoyed, were allowed them, and against the deadly monotony of the life – in conjunction with a boding suspense as to their ultimate fate – did Holmes' restless spirit mightily chafe; indeed, at times he felt sore and resentful towards Laurence. At such times Hazon's judicious counsel would step in.

"Shall we never make a philosopher of you, Holmes?" he would say. "Do you think, for instance, that Stanninghame, faring no better than ourselves, would improve our own lot any? No; rely upon it, his standing in with the king and the rest of them is doing us no harm in the long run."

"I suppose you're right, Hazon; and it's beastly selfish of one to look upon it any other way," poor Holmes would reply wearily. "But, O Lord, this is deadly work. Is there no way of getting away from here?"

"Not any at present. Yet you don't suppose I'm keeping my eyes or ears shut, do you? We must watch our chances, and see and hear all we can. I believe Tyisandhlu is a decent fellow all round, and mind, you do come across plenty of pretty good fellows even among savages, whatever bosh some men may talk to the contrary. But I don't care for Nondwana. I believe he'd make short work of us if he dared. Possibly the king may be watching his opportunity of smuggling us out of the country. At any rate, I don't think he means us any harm, if only by reason of the astonishing fancy he seems to have taken to Stanninghame!"

This, as we know, was very near the truth, though far more so than the speakers guessed. For Laurence, moved both by inclination and expediency, had rigidly adhered to his promise of secrecy. If it seemed hard that he should be compelled to shut his companions out of his entire confidence, he consoled himself with the certainty that their admission into it, though it might encourage them mentally, could in no wise benefit them materially – very much the reverse, indeed, for it would probably bring about their destruction.

"Well, if anything is going to be done, it had better be soon or not at all. It wouldn't take much to send me clean off my chump," said Holmes dejectedly. "Every day I feel more inclined to break out – to run amuck in a crowd, if only for the sake of a little excitement. Anything for a little excitement!"

The two were strolling up and down outside Nondwana's kraal. It was a still, hot morning; oppressive as though a storm were brooding. A filmy haze lay upon the lower valley bottom, and the ground gave forth a shimmer of heat. Even the amphitheatre of dazzling snow-peaks omitted to look cool against the cloudless blue, while the coppery-terraced cliffs seemed actually to glow as though red hot.

"I hate this," growled Holmes, looking around upon as magnificent a scene of nature's grandeur as the earth could show, "positively hate it. I shall never be able to stand the sight of a mountain again as long as I live – once we are out of this. Oh, Heavens, look! What a brute!"

His accents of shuddering disgust were explained. Something was moving among the stones in front – something with great, hairy, shoggling legs, and a body the size of a thrush and much the same colour. A spider, could it be, of such enormous size? Yet it was; and as truly repulsive and horrible-looking a monster as ever made human flesh creep at beholding.

Whack! The stone flung by Holmes struck the ground beside the creature; struck it hard.

"Hold, you infernal fool," half snarled, half yelled Hazon. But before he could arrest the other's arm, whack! – went a second stone. The aim was true, the grisly beast, crushed and maimed, lay contracting and unfolding its horrible legs in the muscular writhings of its death throes.

"What's the row, eh?" grumbled Holmes, staring open-mouthed, under the impression that his comrade had gone mad, and at first sight not without reason, for Hazon's face had gone a swarthy white, and his eyes seemed to glare forth from it like blazing coals.

"Row? You fool, you've signed our death-warrant, that's all. Here, quick, pretend to be throwing stones on to it, as if we were playing at some game. Don't you see? The name of this tribe – People of the Spider! They venerate the beast. If we have been seen, nothing can save us."

"Oh, Heavens!" cried Holmes, aghast as the whole ugly truth dawned upon him, setting to with a will to pile stones upon the remains of the slain and shattered monster.

"Too late!" growled Hazon. "We have been seen! Look."

Several women were running stealthily and in alarm towards the gate, and immediately a frightful uproar arose from within. Armed with sticks and spears, the warriors came pouring forth, and in a moment had surrounded the two – a howling, infuriated, threatening mob.

Although expecting nothing less than instant death, with the emergency Hazon's coolness had returned. He stood in the midst of the appalling uproar, apparently unmoved. Holmes, on the other hand, looked wildly around, but less in fear than in desperation. He was calculating his chances of being able to snatch a weapon from one of them, and to lay about him in the last fierce battle for life. "Anything for a little excitement!" he had said. In very truth his aspiration was realized. There was excitement enough in the brandished spears and blazing eyeballs, in the infuriated demoniacal faces, in the deafening, roaring clamour.

"This is no matter for you," cried Hazon in firm, ringing tones. "Take us to the king. We can explain. The affair was an accident."

At this the ferocious tumult redoubled. An accident! They had lifted their hand against the great tutelary Spider that guarded Nondwana's house! An accident!

"Hold! To the king let them be taken!" interposed a strong, deep voice. And extending his hands, as though to arrest the uplifted weapons, Nondwana himself stalked into the circle.

There was no gainsaying the mandate of one so great. Weapons were lowered, but still vociferating horrible threats, the crowd, with the two offenders in its midst, moved in the direction of Imvungayo.

But it seemed as though the wild, pealing shouts of rage and consternation were a very tocsin; for now from every kraal, near and far, the inhabitants came surging forth, streaming down the hillsides over the face of the plain like swarming ants – and before they reached Imvungayo the two whites seemed to move in the midst of a huge sea of gibing, infuriated faces, as the dark crowd, gathering volume, poured onward, rending the air with deafening shouts of execration and menace. But the royal guards barred the gate, suffering no entrance save on the part of the two white men, together with Nondwana and a few of the greater among the people.

"This is the tightest place we have been in yet," murmured Hazon. "To tread on the superstitions of any race is to thrust one's head into the jaws of a starved lion."

"D – their filthy superstition," said Holmes, savagely desperate. "Well, I did the thing, so I suppose I shall be the one to suffer."

The other said nothing. He had a shrewd suspicion that more than one life would be required in atonement. But he and death had stared each other in the face so frequently that once more or less did not greatly matter.

On learning the cause of the tumult, Tyisandhlu had come forth, and now sat, as he frequently did, to administer justice at the head of the great central space. When the shouts of "bonga!" which greeted his presence had subsided, he ordered that the two whites should be brought forward.

This was the first time the latter had seen the king, and now, as they beheld his stately, commanding bearing, calm and judicial, both of them, Holmes especially, began to hope. They would explain the matter, and offer ample apologies. The owner of that fine, intellectual countenance, savage though he might be called, he, surely, had a soul above the debased superstitions of his subjects. Hitherto he had spared their lives – surely now he would not sacrifice them to the clamour of a mob. Yet, as Hazon had said, to tread on the superstitions of any race was the most fatal thing on earth.

"What is this that has been done?" spoke the king, when he had heard all that the accusers had to say. "Surely no such deed has been wrought among us since the Ba-gcatya have been a nation."

There was a sternness, a menace even, in the full, deep voice, that dispelled all hope in the minds of the two thus under judgment. They had committed the one unpardonable sin. In vain Hazon elaborately explained the whole affair, diplomatically setting forth that the act being accidental, and done by strangers and white people, in ignorance, no ill-luck need befall the nation, as might be the case were the symbol of its veneration offended by its own people. The voice of the king was more stern than before – almost jeering.

"Accidental!" he repeated. "Even though it be so, accidents often bring greater evil in their results than the most deliberate wrong-doing – for such is the rule of life."

"That is so!" buzzed the indunas grouped on either side of the king. "Au! hear the wisdom of the Burning North Wind!"

"Well, then, in this matter atonement must be made. It appears that one only was concerned in it, and that one is Nomtyeketye."

This was the somewhat uncomplimentary nick-name by which Holmes was known, bestowed upon him on account of his talkative tendencies as contrasted with the laconic sententiousness of Hazon.

"I rule, therefore," went on the king, "that Nomtyeketye be taken hence to where atonement is offered. The other may depart from among us to his own land."

A shout of approval rose from the vast crowd without as the decision became known. Some there were who clamoured for two victims – but the king's decision was not lightly to be questioned. And before the shout had died into a murmur the whole multitude of hideous black figures in their weird disguise came bounding across the open space to seize their victim. But before they could surround the latter an unlooked-for interruption occurred.