Part 85 (2/2)
Ha! what is that? Cautiously he raises his head and listens. Is it a patrol? Aid--succour? No; the tread is of light feet--naked feet. It draws near, and Claverton has just time to step back within the gloom of his late prison-house as a large band of warriors glides swiftly past, and the moonlight gleams on the red, naked shoulders and on the gun-barrels and a.s.segai blades, as the savages flit silently like spectres through the bush. They have not seen him, it is true, but can it be that they are still hunting for him? In the morning they will find his spoor, and then it will be the work of an hour or two to run him down--enfeebled, nearly exhausted, and quite unarmed as he is; for in his fall his belt broke and got lost, and with it his revolver and sheath-knife. An unarmed and half-starved man, alone in an unknown country, with bands of fierce savages quartering the forest like hounds in his pursuit. What chance had he?
But whatever chance he has must not be thrown away. He will start at once; yet not at once, for sound travels an enormous distance in the bush at night, and it is indispensable that the party which has just gone by shall be allowed sufficient time to get out of hearing. So he waits and waits, till at last he can wait no longer. Emerging from his shelter he glances at the stars, and, guided by those friendly lamps of heaven, steps boldly forth into the bush.
”Never say die,” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es, half aloud. ”I shall live to talk over this fix yet.”
A low mocking laugh at his very elbow breaks the silence of the night.
Starting, as if he had been shot, he turns, and, as he does so, he is violently seized from behind. With a spring he shakes himself free. A dozen Kafirs are upon him, and their uplifted a.s.segais flash in the moonlight. A straight, neat hit from the shoulder, and the foremost goes down like a ninepin; but they see that he is unarmed, and fearlessly throw themselves upon him. A rapid struggle, a fall--and in a moment Claverton is lying on the ground, securely bound and helpless as a log.
”Ha--ha--ha!” laughed the tall barbarian who had set his face against the abandonment of the search. ”The white man is a wizard. He can melt into air, and then rise up again out of the earth, but we have been too knowing for him this time. Ha--ha--ha!”
”Oh, d.a.m.n you, do your worst, and the sooner the better,” retorted the prisoner, in a tone of weary, hopeless disgust.
”Ha!” jeered the savage. ”Lenzimbi is a skilled wizard. He can disappear into the solid rock. He can light his magic candle and walk through the heart of the earth; but his G.o.d has quarrelled with him, and has deserted him at last. Yes, Lenzimbi is a great wizard, a valiant fighting man; but now _the black goat lives and the white goat dies_.
Ha!”
VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
”...IN EVER CLIMBING UP THE CLIMBING WAVE.”
Claverton looked sharply at the speaker. The voice seemed familiar to him, but the features less so. And then, the other had addressed him by the name given him by the natives at the time he was living at Seringa Vale. Not only that. He had uttered words which sounded familiar. In a moment the floodgates of memory were opened; Claverton remembered the midnight meeting at Spoek Krantz, and the oracle with which its proceedings closed. Now his captor had repeated the words of that augury, but had reversed them with grim significance. Still, he thought he saw a glimmer of light.
”Stand up?” said the savage, peremptorily.
”Needs must where literally the devil drives,” was the prisoner's reply, given with all his wonted coolness, as he obeyed. Resistance would be worse than useless, for it would only subject him to further indignity.
He was absolutely in their power.
”Now walk,” was the next order.
”Which way?”
”_Hamba-ke_!” [”Walk, then,” or ”Go on.”] repeated the tall Kafir--who seemed to be the chief of the gang--and the command, uttered in a fierce and threatening tone, was emphasised by a prod with his a.s.segai.
Not by word or sign did the prisoner show that he even felt the sharp dig of the weapon, though the blood was running freely down his leg.
Then they started in single file, with the prisoner in the middle, a _reim_ fastened to his bound hands being held by the man immediately behind him. Thus they made their way out of that moonlit valley, and the strange procession wended on through the still, beautiful night.
The Kafirs, for the most part, kept perfect silence as they walked, and now even Claverton was surprised by the readiness with which they got through the dense bush, picking out the most unlikely paths, and threading them with an ease and rapidity that savoured of the marvellous; but although they hit upon the smoothest paths, the prisoner's powers were sorely tried, for he had undergone no slight strain within the last twenty-four hours, and his footsteps began to drag in spite of himself. The first sign of this, however, met with encouragement in the shape of a dig from the a.s.segai of the man behind him, accompanied by a brutal laugh. There was no help for it--he was entirely in their hands.
”The white man is a very great warrior,” remarked the Kafir whom he had knocked down. ”He can turn his hand into a club when he has no other weapon. He is made of iron; but even iron will bend and melt in the fire--in the fire. Whaow!” repeated the savage, with a dark, meaning look; and Claverton knew that the reference was to his probable fate.
His probable?--nay, his certain fate.
”Look here, you fellows,” said the prisoner coolly. ”You're rather a skulking lot, when all's said and done. Here you've got me in your power--me whom you've fought fairly and openly in the field--and you think it immense fun to give me a quiet dig now and then with your a.s.segais, like a lot of old women's spiteful pinches. That's not the way in which warriors of the Amaxosa should behave, even to a prisoner.”
A laugh, not wholly an ill-natured one, greeted this remonstrance.
”If you intend to cut my throat, as no doubt you do, cut it and have done with it; but, hang it, until you do you might give a fellow a little peace,” he went on.
”Peace, peace? No, it's war now, white man--war,” they replied. ”Why should we give you any peace until the time comes to roast you? That's what we are going to do with you.”
”Are you? Well, that's for the Great Chief to decide. Meanwhile, if you were decent fellows, you'd fill me up a pipe and let me have a smoke as we go along.”
His coolness staggered them. But it stood him in good stead, for among these people a bold and fearless mien always commands respect. The tall chief stepped back to the prisoner's side, and filling up a pipe from Claverton's own tobacco pouch, lighted it and gave it to him, or rather stuck it into his mouth, with a grim laugh.
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