Kitabı oku: «The Triumph of Hilary Blachland», sayfa 6

Chapter Eleven.
The King’s Snake

A loud, awful hiss of ear-splitting stridency – and simultaneously there shot up, from the very ground as it were, a long, writhing, sinuous length of black neck, glistening as the half light played upon it – swaying in the gloom of the recess. It was surmounted by a horrible head, with two scintillating eyes. The forked tongue was darting in and out between the widely parted fangs, as the head, waving to and fro was suddenly drawn back as if to strike. And the man had been actually standing upon the hidden coils of this huge and terrible reptile.

For a moment Blachland stood as one petrified, as well he might be by the awfulness and suddenness of this blasting apparition. Then, instinctively, he drew his revolver, as being more sure at close quarters than the rifle, the while stepping back cautiously, and keeping his face turned to the reptile.

The fury of the latter seemed in no wise to diminish. Hissing hideously, its eyes glared, as more and more of its horrible length rose into view, and the further floor of the cave heaved and trembled with the still concealed coils.

Blachland had now drawn back as far as he could, short of clambering out of the place altogether, and, his blood all curdling with horror and dread, he stood watching the monster with a kind of fell fascination. He dared not fire. The cavernous echoes of the report would go booming forth over all the land so to say, and bring an entire hornet’s nest about his ears from which there would be no escape. The King’s Snake! He recalled the utter derision wherewith he had received Sybrandt’s statement on the subject – and yet it was only too fearfully true. A black imamba, Sybrandt had said, and this was one, and an enormous one at that. He knew, moreover, that this species was the most deadly and ferocious of serpents. No, he would stay here no longer – not another moment. Better meet death a hundred times in the ordinary way at the hand of enemies in the open, than remain here, shut up in a charnel house, with this awful black fiend.

Acting on this idea, he began to feel for a firm hold of the stone parapet, intending to spring out quickly and at all risks, but still keeping his eyes on the reptile. It, strange to say, still remained where it was, just behind the skeleton of the King, and though still hissing furiously, made no movement forward to attack him. Encouraged by this, he got a firm grip on the topmost stone, and hoisted himself carefully up. Then he let himself down again. For simultaneously with the appearance of his head above the stones, a shout had broken forth from beneath, then another and another. His presence there had been discovered. Well, he had a choice of two deaths, both equally horrible. Was there not a third, however, which was less so? There was. He might blow out his own brains. That would be quicker at any rate.

But almost immediately upon the idea came the consciousness that these were no hostile shouts that rose booming, full-voiced, to raise the echoes of the King’s grave.

“Kumálo!

Ho, inyoka ’nkulu!

Ho, Inyoka ’mninimamdhla!

Bayéte!”¹

With a flash of returning hope, Blachland peered forth, trusting to the combined effect of distance and shadow, to render his head invisible from below. Two men were standing on the flat place beneath – where lay the heaps of charred bones – two old men, with right hand uplifted and facing the tomb – and he recognised one as Umjane, a favourite and trusted councillor of Lo Bengula’s, the other as Faku, the old induna who had intervened when the warriors were clamouring to be allowed to massacre the four white men on the occasion of their last visit to the King. Now they were here to give the nbonga at the grave of Umzilikazi, and the listener’s heart sank again, for he had heard that this was a process which sometimes lasted for hours. But, as though in compensation, he noticed that the snake had abated its fury. It had dropped its hideous head, and lay there, in a shining, heaving coil as the sonorous chant proceeded:

“Ho, Inyoka ’mnyama!

Nkos’ inyoka!

Inyoka-ka-Matyobane!

Ho, Inyoka yise wezulu!

Bayéte!”²

Strophe by strophe, in a sort of antiphonal fashion, the two old indunas continued this weird litany of the Snake. Then they changed to every kind of other title of sibonga, but always returning to the subject of the serpent. But the strange part of it to the human listener, was the calming effect it seemed to have upon the black horror, then but a few yards off – for the brute quieted down more and more as the voices outside were raised higher. What on earth could be the reason, thought Blachland? There was an idea abroad that reptiles were susceptible to music, but even if such were the case, this monotonous unvarying intonation, never exceeding three notes, was not music. Could it be that in reality the spirit of the dead King was transmigrated into that serpent form? and again he recalled old Pemberton’s rough and ready words: – “There’s mighty rum things happen you can’t explain nor scare up any sort of reason for.” What if this were one of them? And with the idea, and aided by time and place, a kind of superstitious dread began to steal over him with paralysing effect. The white skull, staring at him in the semi-gloom, seemed to take on a fell and menacing expression, and the fleshless face to frown; and beyond it the gliding restless heave of the glistening coils, its terrible serpent guardian.

The chant continued – on and on – now falling, then rising, with renewed attributes to the spirit of the mighty dead. The two old indunas were walking to and fro now, and it seemed that each was striving to outdo the other in inventing fresh titles of praise. And what of the hidden gold? Not for all the wealth this world could produce would Blachland have meddled further with the mysteries of this gruesome tomb. His sole aspiration now was for an opportunity of getting outside of it, and slipping away in safety.

Of this, however, there seemed but small prospect. Hours seemed to have gone by, and yet these two indefatigable old men showed no sign of bringing their loyal, if posthumous, performance to a close. Then a change came over the aspect of affairs, but was it a change for the better?

A party of warriors had appeared a little way behind them. They advanced to the edge of the platform of rock and soil whereon the two indunas were walking up and down – then, at a sign from these, drew nearer. Their assegais flashed in the sunlight: the shiny faces of their hide shields, too, caught the gleam. Then all weapons were let fall as with right hand upraised the new comers with one voice uttered aloud the salute royal: —

“Kumalo!”

And now the watcher became aware of something else. In the midst of the new comers were three black heifers. These were dragged forward on to the sacrifice ground – and thrown down. They bellowed and struggled, but in vain. Like ants besetting the unwary beetle or cricket which has strayed into the disturbed nest, the savages threw themselves upon the luckless animals, and drawing off, revealed these securely bound. Then followed a scene which, his own peril notwithstanding, turned Blachland sick. The wretched beasts were not merely slaughtered, but were half flayed and cut to pieces alive. Quarters were torn off, amid the frenzied bellowings of the tortured victims, and held up towards the tomb of the great King amid roaring acclamations of sibonga, and finally a vast mass of dry brushwood and grass was collected, and being heaped over and around the moaning, agonised creatures, was set alight. The red flames crackled, and roared aloft, and the smoke of the heathenish burnt offering, areek with the horrid smell of burning flesh, floated in great clouds right to the mouth of the cleft, and above and over all, now augmented to thunder tones by the voices of the later arrivals, the strophes of their fierce and gloomy devil-worship – the paeans in praise of the Snake, in whom now rested the spirit of the dead King – arose in weird and deafening chorus above this holocaust of agony and fire and blood.

Transfixed with horror and disgust, Blachland watched this demoniacal orgy, the more so that in it he saw his own fate in the event of detection. Suddenly the great serpent at the back of the cleft, which had been quiescent for some time, emitted a loud hiss – rearing its head in startling suddenness. Was the brute going to attack him? Then a desperate idea came into his head. Under cover of the smoke would it be practicable to slip out, and getting round the pile of boulders, lie hidden in some crevice or cranny until dark? Again the monster emitted a hiss, this time louder, more threatening. And now he thought he saw the reason. The smoke was creeping into the cleft, not thickly as yet, but enough of it to render the atmosphere unpleasant, and indeed he could hardly stifle a fit of coughing. This would bring the reptile out, perhaps even it was partly designed to do so – in order to satisfy the heathenish watchers that their tutelary deity, the serpent of Umzilikazi, was still there, was still watching over its votaries. In that ease, was he not in its way? It could only find egress by passing over him – and in that case, would it fail to strike him with its venomous deadly fangs? Outside, the assegais of the savages, the death by torture. Within, the horrible repulsive strike of the fearful reptile, the convulsions and agony attendant upon the victims of the bite of that species before death should claim them. It was a choice, but such a choice that the very moment of making might turn a man’s hair white in the event of his surviving.

And now the smoke rolled in thicker, and, noonday as it was, those below were quite invisible. A heavy gliding sound from the far end of the cleft was audible. The horror was drawing its fearful coils clear of its covering. In a moment it would be upon him, mad, infuriated in its frenzied rush for the open air. It was now or never. A thick volume of smoke rolled up as Blachland scrambled over the piled stones, nearly choking him, even in the open air. A sharp, sickening pain shot through his bruised ankle. Was it the fangs of the deadly mamba? Two or three of the great stones, displaced, rattled loosely – but the thunderous Snake song raised below must have drowned the rattle. Heavens! the smoke was parting! Only for a moment though, but in that moment the desperate man caught sight of that which encouraged him. The savages were clustering around the burning holocaust, heaping on piles of grass and brush. The concealing cloud closed in again thicker than ever, and under its friendly cover, he gained the rock at the foot of the Kafferboen; then, keeping his head comparatively clear, he crept round the upper side of the granite pile with the instinct of keeping it between himself and his enemies. This object once attained, he staggered blindly forward, the shouting and the song growing fainter behind him. Ha! This would do. A cranny between two boulders six or eight feet deep. He would lie here perfectly still until night. The awful strain he had undergone, and the anguish of his contused ankle, now stiff and sore, rendered such a rest absolutely essential. Lowering himself cautiously into the crevice he lay for a few moments unsteadily thinking. The pain of his ankle, intensified in its fierce throbbing – was it the mamba poison after all? Then everything seemed to whirl round, and he lost consciousness.

Chapter Twelve.
A Turn of the Wheel

“Oh, lucky Jim!

How I envy hi-im!

Oh-h, Lucky Jim —

“Get up, old sportsman! It’s time for ‘scoff.’” And the singer thus breaking off from song to prose, dives his head into the tent door, and apostrophises about six-foot-one of recumbent humanity.

“All right, Jack! A fellow isn’t dead that it requires all that infernal row to wake him,” retorts Justin Spence, rather testily, for his dreams in the heat of the blazing forenoon have been all of love and roses, and the brusque awakening from such to the rough delights of a prospector’s camp in the wilds of sultry Mashunaland, is likely not to supply a soothing contrast.

His partner takes no notice of the passing ill-humour save for a light laugh, as he returns to his former occupation, the superintending and part assisting at, a certain cooking process under the shade of a tree, effected by a native boy and now nearly completed. A tent and a small waggon supply the residential quarters, the latter for the “boys,” who turn in on the ground underneath it – the former for their masters. A “scherm” of chopped boughs encloses the camp, and within this the donkeys are safeguarded at night: a case of learning wisdom by experience, for already two of these useful little animals have fallen a prey to lions through being left thus unprotected. Just outside this is a partially sunken shaft, surmounted by a rude windlass.

“What have we got for ‘scoff,’ Jack?” says Justin Spence, yawning lazily as he withdraws his dripping hands from the calabash wash-basin, and saunters across to the scene of culinary operations. “Oh, Lord!” giving a sniff or two as a vile and carrion-like effluvium strikes upon his nostrils. “There’s one of those beastly stink-ants around somewhere. Here, Sixpence!” calling to one of a trio of Mashuna boys lounging beneath the shade of the waggon aforesaid. “Hamba petula stink-ant – what the deuce is the word, Jack? ’Iye, yes, that’s it Bulal’iye. Comprenny? Well, clear then. Hamba. Scoot.”

A splutter of bass laughter went up from the natives at this lucid direction, which, however, the other man soon made clear.

“Oh, never mind about the stink-ant,” he said. “Why, man, it’s all in the day’s work. You must get used to these little trifles, or you’ll never do any good at prospecting.”

“Oh, damn prospecting! I hate it,” returned Justin, stretching his graceful length upon the ground. “Ladle out the scoff and let’s fall to. I want to have another smoke.”

“Oh, Lucky Jim!

How I envy him – ”

resumed Jack Skelsey, while engaged in the above occupation.

“So do I, Jack, or anybody else to whom that word ‘lucky’ can be said to apply – and I’m afraid whoever that is it’ll never be us.”

“You never can tell, old man. Luck generally strikes a chap when least expected.”

“Then now’s the time for it to strike me; right now, Jack.”

“Oh, I don’t know we’ve much to grouse about, Spence. It’s beastly hot up here, and we’re sweating our souls out all for nothing. But after all, it’s better than being stuck away all one’s life in a musty old office, sometimes not even seeing the blessed light of day for a week at a time, if it happens to be foggy – a miserable jet of gas the only substitute for yonder jolly old sun. Rather! I’ve tried it and you haven’t. See?”

Nobody could have looked upon that simple camp without thoroughly agreeing with the speaker. It was hot certainly, but there were trees which afforded a cool and pleasant shade: while around for many a mile stretched a glorious roll of bush veldt – all green and golden in the unclouded sunlight – and the chatter of monkeys, the cackle of the wild guinea-fowl, the shrill crow of the bush pheasant together with the gleam of bright-winged birds glancing overhead, bespoke that this beautiful wilderness was redundant with life. The two men lounging there, with bronzed races and chests, their shirtsleeves turned up from equally bronzed wrists, looked the picture of rude health: surely if ever there was such a thing as a free life – open – untrammelled – this was it.

The day was Sunday, which may account for the lazy way in which we found one at any rate of the pair, spending the morning. For they had made it a rule to do no work on that day, not, we fear, from any particularly religious motive, but acting on the thoroughly sound and wholesome plan of taking one day in seven “off.” A thoroughly sound and wholesome appetite had they too. When they had done, Skelsey remarked:

“Shall we go and have a shoot?”

The other, who was tugging at a knot in the strings of his tobacco bag, looked up quickly.

“Er – no. At least I won’t go,” he said rather nervously. “Er – I think I’ll ride over to Blachland’s.”

“All right, old chap. Let’s go there instead.”

This did not suit Spence at all. “Don’t know whether you’d care for it, Jack. The fact is, Blachland’s away.”

“I see-ee!” rejoined Skelsey, significantly. “Oh-h, l-lucky Jim! How I envy hi-im – ” he hummed.

“You know you always swear you hate talking to women,” said Spence eagerly, as though anxious to apologise for or explain his unfriendliness. “So I thought it only fair to warn you as to what you had to expect.”

“I see-ee!” repeated the other with a laugh and a wink. “Who’s this?” shading his eyes and gazing out over the veldt. “Jonah back already?”

A native was approaching, a clothed native; in fact one of their boys. He had been despatched to a trading store, a trifling distance of twenty-five miles away, to procure certain supplies, and now as he reappeared, he was bearing on his head a prodigious load.

“Now we shan’t be long!” ejaculated Skelsey, “and good biz too, for the grog was running most confoundedly low. Jonah is therefore for once a welcome sight.”

The load on being investigated was found to consist of a case of whisky and sundry unconsidered trifles in the grocery line. When this had been overhauled the boy, fumbling in the pockets of his greasy cord jacket, fished out a greasier bundle all rolled up in newspaper.

“The mail, by George!” cried Skelsey. “English mail too. Here you are, Spence. It’s all for you, confound it,” he added disappointedly. “Well, that jolly blue envelope bears a striking family likeness to our old friend the dun. Never mind, old chap, you’re out of that brute’s reach anyway.”

Justin was probably of the same opinion, for he looked dubiously at the suspicious enclosure, and put it aside, beginning upon his other two mail letters. Yet, when half through these something moved him to tear open the other. A glance at its contents – then he started and grew pale. What was this? His hands trembled, and a mist seemed to come between his eyes and the paper, as he held it in front of him, striving to master the contents. Was it real? Heavens! no! Some fool must have been putting up a practical joke on him. It was impossible. It could not be.

“No bad news I hope, old chap?”

His partner’s voice, anxious, sympathetic, sounded quite far away.

“No – no. Oh no – not bad news,” he answered unsteadily. “I’ll tell you bye-and-bye. Here, Sixpence! Hurry up and get in my horse. Tshetsha– d’you hear! Tshetsha!”

Skelsey watched him furtively and wondered. However, he made no further remark.

“Well, so long, Jack,” said Spence, as he led forth his horse. His partner had further observed that his hands shook during the process of saddling up – and that he seemed in a desperate hurry to be off. “I’ll be back to-night, but after dark, I expect.”

“No, you won’t,” thought Skelsey to himself. “Spence is making a bally fool of himself in that quarter. There’ll be a gorgeous bust-up one of these days.” Then aloud:

“So long, Spence. Remember me to the beautiful Mrs B.”

“No more of this life,” thought Spence to himself as he rode along. A very different one now threw wide its alluring portals before him. He would leave all his share in the joint outfit to Jack Skelsey. He was a good fellow was Jack —

“Oh, l-lucky Jim!

How I envy hi-im – ”

Justin laughed aloud, lightheartedly, gleefully, as his chum’s favourite song arose fainter and fainter behind him. And then his chum’s strange prediction, uttered scarcely half an hour ago, recurred to his mind.

“‘Luck generally strikes a man when least expected!’ By Jove! Jack was right.”

We have said that Blachland had undergone a stormy time of it domestically, by reason of this new and sudden absence. But Hermia’s grievance was not a genuine one. So little indeed was it genuine that she was conscious of a distinct feeling of relief when he announced it. But side by side with this was an inherent instinct to deceive herself, since there was no other object on which to practise deception: to deceive herself into the idea that she really was a very ill-used person. He neglected her shamefully, she had declared. She had not bargained for leading this utterly lonely life when she decided to accompany him to this remote corner of the earth. Well, again let him take care. There were others who appreciated her if he did not. To which he had replied equably: —

“Meaning Spence,” and had gone on with his preparations.

It was this very imperturbability which had always dominated Hermia. She knew their relationship was dangerously near a rupture, and was not quite sure within her heart of hearts that she desired such. But a short while since, she emphatically did not; now it might be otherwise. Yet it was impracticable, for the first essential to her mind was comfort and liberty unstinted. Justin Spence was as poor as the proverbial church mouse, else why should he be out there prospecting? She knew that every cent he had in the world was drawn from an allowance – not a large one either – and that allowances are the most precarious of all means of subsistence, in that they depend solely upon the will and caprice of the allower. It was a thousand pities. If only he were well off, she would not have hesitated. She was perfectly sick of this uncivilised, lonely life. She longed for the world again. Justin adored her. Her will would be his law. Ah, why was he not independent and well off?

She looked back over her past, but it caused her no qualms. She looked back on a period of passion and love, but the retrospect only served to emphasise the subsequent disillusionment. To be content with the love of one – no, that was not in her. New life, new love – the new wine of life! That was to live indeed.

She looked around on the glowing veldt, shimmering in the afternoon heat. Away on yonder rise a line of black objects was moving. She got out the binocular, a clear and powerful glass, and the objects seemed about fifty yards away – a score of sable antelope moving through the low bush, some of them magnificent specimens of that noble buck, and she could clearly distinguish the great scimitar-like horns and black hides, so markedly defined. Yes, this was a grand country for men, but for women, debarred from all outdoor sport and excitement, why it was a living grave. And then, as she looked, suddenly the leaders of the line threw up their heads, stopped short, snuffing the air, and then the whole line turned about and trotted back in the direction from which they had come.

What had alarmed the animals? Sweeping the glass round carefully it revealed another object, a man on horseback, and her heart gave a great bound of delight.

“It is. It’s Justin,” she exclaimed half aloud. “The dear boy! How glad I am. But – what on earth – ? What a hurry he’s in!”

For the advancing rider was coming along at something like a hard gallop, which was no pace at which to push a horse on a sweltering day like this. Then Hermia began a little piece of acting. She went into the house, and arranging herself on an old wicker couch covered with a leopard skin rug, began to read.

“Missis – Baas riding this way. Tink it Baas Spence.” This from the grinning woolly head of Tickey, inserted through the open doorway. Hermia rose, stretched herself, and the book still in her hand came and stood in the doorway. Then she stretched herself again and thus he found her.

“Why, Justin? Who would have thought of seeing you?” This with round, astonished eyes.

“But – aren’t you glad to, dearest?” He was looking her up and down, a tremor of love in his voice, a world of hungry passionate adoration in his gaze.

“You know I am, dear love. Come inside.”

She had put out her hand to him, and he, still holding it, needed no second bidding. Once within, however, he seized her splendid form – its lines the more seductive through the thin, summer transparency of her light attire – in a strong and passionate embrace.

“Justin, Justin, let me go!” she urged. “Really, you are getting perfectly unmanageable.” And she accompanied her words with a warning gesture towards the door of the inner room. The young man laughed aloud.

“No fear,” he said. “You’re all alone again as usual.”

“How do you know that?”

“Never mind how. I do know, and it wasn’t you who told me. But” – becoming suddenly reproachful – “why didn’t you?”

“Oh, I didn’t want to distract you from your work, for one thing. You have been neglecting it far too much of late. Hilary says you’ll never make a prospector.”

“Oh, damn Hilary! He doesn’t know everything.”

“Ssh – ” with a hand over his mouth. “You mustn’t use swear words. And now, you dear ridiculous boy, what are you looking so absurdly happy about?”

“Ah, that’ll come in time. I’m not going to tell you all at once,” he retorted, suddenly becoming mysterious. “But, Hermia my darling, it’s like new life to see you again.”

She smiled softly, her dark eyes into his blue ones. It was like new life to her, this passionate and whole-hearted adoration. And he was so handsome too; the sunbrowned face with its refined features, the tall, well-knit figure, stirred the animal side of her, and she found herself contrasting him with the absent one. Hilary was really getting old and prosaic and satirical. He had no more sentiment left in him than a cuttlefish – was the result of the mental contrast which she drew. Whereas this one – it did occur to her that he, too, would one day lose the buoyancy and fire of youth, or even that this might come to be diverted on some object other than herself; but for the first, it was far enough off in all conscience – for the second, she had too much pride in her own powers to give it a thought.

“Ah, yes,” she answered. “You think so now, but – you wouldn’t always. Remember, Justin, I am older than you – well, only a little. But at any rate I have seen far more of the world – of life – than you can possibly have done. But what’s the use of talking? We shall have to part sooner or later.”

They had dropped down on the couch, and were seated side by side, he holding both her hands.

“But why shall we have to part sooner or later?” he asked, and the lack of lugubriousness with which he echoed her words struck her at the time.

“Well, Justin, just look at things in the face. Isn’t love in a cottage a synonym for the very height of absurdity? What about its Mashunaland equivalent – love in a prospector’s camp?”

He laughed aloud. There was something so happy and buoyant in his laugh that it struck her too.

“Yes, it strikes you as funny, doesn’t it?” she said. “Well, it is.”

“So it is,” he answered. “I quite agree. Now look here, Hermia. Supposing it were not a case of love in a prospector’s camp, but love in all the wide world – in any part of it that pleased you – no matter where – the brightest parts of it, where everything combined to make life all sunshine for you, while you made life all sunshine for me? What then?”

“Now you’re getting beyond me, Justin. Suppose you explain.”

“Yes. That’s all right. I will. No more prospecting for me, no need for that or anything else – only to enjoy life – with you. Look at this.”

He put into her hand the communication he had received in camp – the sight of which had caused him that great and sudden agitation, and which had moved his comrade so anxiously to utter a hope that it contained no bad news. Bad news! The news that it imparted was not exactly that he was a millionaire, but that all unexpectedly he had succeeded to a goodly heritage, just stopping short of five figures as a yearly income.

“Now, have we got to part sooner or later?” he cried triumphantly, watching the astonishment and then gladness which overspread her face. “Look, we have all the world before us, and need care for nobody. Come with me, Hermia my darling, my one love. Leave all this and come with me, and see what love really means.”

She did not immediately answer. She was looking him through with her large eyes, and was thinking. She looked back upon her life, and it seemed all behind her. Here was an opportunity of renewing it. Should she take him at his word, or should she play him a little longer? No, that was not advisable under the circumstances. It was now or never. It was strike while the iron is hot – and it was hot enough now in all conscience, she thought, as she looked at his pleading earnest face.

“Justin, my love, I believe I will take you at your word. Only it must be immediately or not at all. Shall I ever regret it, I wonder?” And again she looked him through with a fine expression of great and troubled seriousness.

“Never, darling,” he cried enraptured. “That old fossil doesn’t appreciate you. I will show you what appreciation means. You will go with me at once – to-morrow – never to part?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Ha-ha-haa!” laughed a jackal, questing after prey away in the gloaming shades of the now dusking veldt.

“Ha-ha-haa!” laughed his mate.