The Fire Trumpet Part 89

"Who is the traitor? What is his name? He must be killed!" exclaimed the Kafirs, gripping their sticks and a.s.segais. "Name him! Name him!"

The wizard glared around, and many a bold spirit quailed before the glance of those dreaded eyes.

"The traitor is of the house of the Great Chief--of his own house.

Where is Nxabahlana?"

A loud murmur of mingled amazement and relief arose, succeeded by ominous mutterings.

"Here!" roared the warrior named, springing into the circle and confronting his denouncer. "Here! What have you to say against Nxabahlana? Liar, fool, juggler! Out with it, before I cut out your lying tongue!"

"Stop!" cried Matanzima. "Stop! We must hear what all have to say. If Nxabahlana is true, he need fear nothing. Where is Senhlu?"

Then stepped forward the suspicious one, and narrated how his leader had been in close confabulation with the captive, whom he--Senhlu--had heard him agree to release, on condition of receiving five hundred head of cattle (exaggeration Number 1); further stipulating that, when the whites were victorious, Sandili and Matanzima should be slain, and he, Nxabahlana, put into their place (exaggeration Number 2). He told how anxious his leader had been to go dangerously near the white men's camp, and how he and Mopela had stirred up the others to resist this plan, feeling sure that their said leader intended to desert and betray them.

As he concluded, the ominous murmur had risen to angry shouts, and every eye was bent upon the accused with a glare of vengeful wrath. But the object of it never quailed. He stood cold, erect, and disdainful--his tall, herculean frame looking quite majestic, as with a sneer on his face he listened unmoved to the shouts of execration around him. And Claverton, for the time, forgot his own position in the vivid interest which this unlooked-for turn of affairs afforded him. He could see that the whole thing was a plot, and he felt quite sympathetic towards his captor and would-be deliverer, who he saw was doomed, otherwise no common fellow like Senhlu would dare raise his voice against a kinsman of the Great Chief.

"It is a lie!" shouted the accused, waving his hand in the air. "It is a lie. Give this lying sorcerer a weapon and let us meet hand to hand.

I will kill him and then whip Senhlu like a dog--my dog that turns to bite me. Listen, Ama Nqgika. Who has been in the front rank whenever we fought the whites? Nxabahlana. Who has shot three of them with his own hand, and seven dogs of Fingoes besides? Nxabahlana. Who has lost the whole of his possessions--cattle, wives, even his very dogs--in the cause of his people? Nxabahlana. Even now," he went on, working himself up into a pitch of fervid eloquence, "even now, look at me. Am I afraid? Am I afraid of any man living? Who remained on the watch all night and captured this white man, when all the rest were afraid of him and had given up the search? Nxabahlana. Well, then--is it likely I should wish to let him escape? Is it, I say? Surely none but a fool would do this. None but a child like Senhlu. None but a covetous, jackal-faced impostor like Nomadudwana. None but a wolf who devours his own flesh and blood, like Mopela. None but these. Certainly not a warrior. Certainly not Nxabahlana--a warrior, a man of the house of Nqgika. Is the Great Chief, Sandili, a child? Are the _amapakati_ children that they should have their ears filled with such childish tales? It is absurd, I say--absurd."

He ceased, and a hum of mingled doubt and anger greeted his words.

"Nxabahlana talks well," said Matanzima, with a gleam of malice in his eyes. "But we know that the whites are very liberal towards traitors.

We know that if we are conquered the man who stood the white man's friend will be well rewarded. When a prisoner is in our hands we do not go and look in at the enemy's camp on our way home for nothing.

Nxabahlana talks of children. Who but a child would do such a thing as this?" concluded he, in a tone of significant cunning.

"A traitor! A traitor!" howled the wizard. "How shall we hold our own with a traitor in our midst?"

And the crowd answered with yells of execration, even the women in the background screaming and brandis.h.i.+ng sticks.

"Ha! Matanzima is a boy," replied the accused in scornful accents.

"Let him be silent when he is by his father's side. Now listen. Here is the white prisoner himself. Let the Great Chief--let the _amapakati_ ask him. Ask him whether I agreed to release him."

It was a bold stroke. A brief glance at Claverton's face had inspired the Gaika warrior that here might lie his chance of safety. It was, indeed, a bold stroke, thus throwing himself upon the mercy of the captive. As for Claverton, the unbounded courage of the man filled him with admiration, and on that account alone he would willingly have saved his life, apart from any other consideration.

"Ask him, I say," repeated Nxabahlana. "Ask the prisoner whether anything pa.s.sed between us."

"Ewa! Ewa!" [Yes--yes] echoed the crowd, "ask him?"

"Is this true, white man?" asked Sandili. "Are the words of Nxabahlana true?"

All eyes were bent upon Claverton, and there was a hush that might have been felt. Every ear was strained to catch his answer. It came in a bold, clear voice.

"Yes. They are. The words of Nxabahlana are true."

"But what of the wizard and Senhlu? You heard what they said."

"They are liars."

The whole a.s.sembly was taken aback. Not a man present but expected the answer would be unfavourable to the accused, and it may be added, that not a man present believed it now that it was the reverse. Wherefore Claverton went up a hundredfold in their estimation, for had he not just excelled in one of their most cherished virtues--the art of lying well when convenient; and he, himself, felt a glow of satisfaction over having saved this brave man's life; but even he forgot that among the Kafirs it is not necessary to convict a subject obnoxious to his chief, to ensure that subject's condemnation.

"There!" exclaimed Nxabahlana, triumphantly, drawing his gigantic figure up to its full height. "You hear what the prisoner has said! Now let my accusers stand forth. Where are they?" and he looked searchingly around. There was dead silence. No one moved; but the eyes of the councillors were bent upon him with an ominous glance, and, meeting that glance, Nxabahlana knew that he was a doomed man. Yet he was game to the very last.

"Where are they?" he repeated. "Ah, they have hidden themselves, and well they may. But I appeal to the Great Chief. Let him order my traducers to stand before my face. I claim my rights. The Great Chief cannot refuse," and in his eagerness he made two steps towards where Sandili was sitting.

Now it happened that Nxabahlana held in his hand a kerrie--just such an ordinary stick as the Kafirs always carry. He had better have dropped it before approaching his chief; but at the moment he forgot everything in his excitement. Not that the difference would have been great either way, for they were determined to get rid of him.

"I claim my rights! The Great Chief cannot refuse!" he repeated, standing with outstretched arm, and looking Sandili straight in the eyes.

The old chief started slightly. A dark expression came into his countenance as he gazed upon his audacious subject for a few moments in silence.

"What!" he exclaimed, in tones of indignation, "What is this? Who is this that dares to command his chief? Who is this that approaches me with threats? Who is this that dares to threaten his chief? _Have I no men_?" and he looked around with a volume of meaning in his fierce eyes.

Like a spark applied to an explosive the glance told. There was a rash forward on the part of the crowd, a swift flash or two, and a gleam as of the sunlight upon steel. The throng separated, and upon the ground lay the huge frame of Nxabahlana, the hot life-blood welling from half-a-dozen a.s.segai wounds in his chest and sides.

It was a dastardly act, and, although he knew that the victim had richly deserved his fate, yet Claverton felt that the weight of evidence was in his favour, and he should, at any rate, have been allowed to meet his accusers face to face. But little time had he to indulge in regrets on another's behalf, for now all eyes were turned upon him with a bloodthirsty glare, and voices began to clamour that the white prisoner should be given over to them.

And as he looked upon the wild scene it seemed hardly credible to Claverton that scarcely forty-eight hours had gone since he had left Lilian and set his face eastward to carry out his plan of revenge. He glanced down the line of stern, relentless countenances, where sat the chief and his councillors, the late victim of their tyrannous vengeance bleeding at their very feet; but in the shrewd, rugged features he could detect no hope of mercy. Around, hemming him in, crowded the clamouring savages, their fierce eyes burning with a l.u.s.t for blood. Behind them he caught a glimpse of a large fire, wherein a group of women and boys were heating bits of iron red-hot, and he had small doubt as to the use to which that fire would be put. The only man who might have befriended him was lying dead at his feet, and the weapons that had done the deed had slain his own hopes. His time had come.

"Give me a drink of water," said the prisoner.

They brought him some in a bowl. His arms were bound to his sides at the elbows, but his hands were free, and he took a long, deep drink.

This attention conveyed to him no false hopes; he had no doubt as to his ultimate fate. He looked around. The sun, which was nearing its western bed, had sunk behind a heavy bank of cloud which loomed upon the horizon, and a roll of thunder stirred the still, hot afternoon. The storm which had been threatening all day was drawing near.

And now the wizard, decked in all his hideous paraphernalia, bounded into the midst.

"Hear, now, Sandili, Great Chief, of the house of Gaika! Hear, ye _amapakati_! Hear, all ye warriors of the race of Gaika!" he cried.

"For two moons we have been fighting the English. For two moons we have shed our blood and given our best lives in the endeavour to drive the English into the sea. Have we been successful? We and our brethren, the Ama Gcaleka, who can show twenty warriors for every one of the English, have spent our strength in vain. Whenever we met them the English have driven us back. Even when we met them--a mere handful that we ought to have eaten up--we have been driven back before their charmed bullets. They have charmed bullets and charmed guns which they keep on firing without loading. Why can we do nothing against these English?

Listen, and I will tell you. You see the man before you? _He_ is their sorcerer. _He_ it is who causes our bullets to fly off them without harming them. He is in every fight. Who can mention a battle that this man was not present in? Now we have this sorcerer in our midst. What shall we do with him, I say? Shall we let him go? My magic is stronger than his; I have delivered him into your hands. Will you, then, suffer him to escape again? Cut his bonds and let him free, and you will all be destroyed."

A roar of execration was the answer to this appeal. Weapons were brandished, and the crowd pressed closer around.

"Give him to us!" they yelled. "See, there is a fire; we will burn him, one limb at a time."

"Old men, where are your sons?" went on the wizard. "Young men, where are your brothers? Where are they? Ask the vulture of the rocks, the wolf and the wild dog of the forest, even the skulking jackal who burrows in the earth. Ask the breezes of the air, which blow over their whitening bones where they lie by thousands, slain by the charmed bullets of the English. Hark; I hear their voices in the wind--the voices of their spirits crying for vengeance. I hear it in the trees, in the rocks, in yon thundercloud which is drawing nearer and nearer,"

and at his words a heavy boom was heard, followed by a spasmodic rustling gust violently agitating the surrounding bush, and stirring up the air around. With awe-stricken looks, his superst.i.tious listeners bent their heads. "Yes," roared the ferocious demon, working himself into a state of frenzy. "Do you not hear them? They are crying--'Vengeance! Vengeance! Vengeance!' And we, who are left--are we not hunted like wild beasts? Are we not driven from bush to bush by these white men--who have not a tenth of our number--by them and our dogs the Fingoes? Soon shall we follow our brethren, and the name of Gaika will exist no more. Here is a white man! Here is the destroyer of our race. Shall we not make him weep out in tears of blood the woe which has come upon us? Shall we not make him writhe in torment for many days, to appease the spirits of our slaughtered sons? We await the word of the Great Chief!"

Every eye was fixed upon the semicircle of grey-bearded councillors seated round the chief--dark, stern, and immovable. With bodies bent forward, and a wolfish, bloodthirsty grin, the warriors stood scanning the expression of the impa.s.sive countenances before them, eagerly awaiting the word, which they doubted not would be given. Again reverberated that thunder-roll--nearer still--as half the sky was hidden beneath an inky shroud, and the dull red flash gleamed from its depths.

One of those storms which, in the hot weather, break with such fearful violence over the wilds of Southern Africa, would shortly be upon them.

But "the word" remained still unspoken. Sandili--whose pliant, vacillating nature ever ready to yield to the pressure of circ.u.mstances or to the advice of whoever had his ear last, was so powerfully appealed to--would have spoken it, and ended the difficulty; but it was evident that the councillors were not unanimous on the point. On the one hand, the nation was clamouring for the captive's life; on the other, some of the councillors were clearly opposed to the expediency of sacrificing it, and even the Great Chief dared not fly dead in the teeth of their advice without some show of debate. So he gave orders that the prisoner should be removed out of hearing while they talked, but that he should not be harmed.

"We have heard what Nomadudwana, the seer, has told us," said the chief, looking inquiringly around. "Shall we then allow the prisoner to go free?"

Now the wizard was hated and despised by the older men of the tribe, though among the younger he was in the zenith of his popularity as a fierce and unswerving preacher of a crusade among the whites.

Consequently the mention of his name struck a chord calculated to tune the whole instrument in Claverton's favour. The mutterings of Matanzima and a few of the younger men, to the effect that a prisoner ought to be treated in the accustomed way--_i.e._ handed over to the people without all this _indaba_--were stifled by the decided and dissenting head-shakes of many of their seniors.

Then one of the _amapakati_ spoke. He was a very old man; and an expectant murmur greeted his appearance.

"It is Tyala!" murmured the group. "Hear Tyala--he is wise!"