Читать книгу Children of the Wind - M. P. Shiel - Страница 15
ОглавлениеTHE ROYAL HUT
Prowling close outside the enclosure of the sovereign's domicile under gross shadow of foliage which overgrew, the four slowly approached the south portion of the enclosure. Now, however, there was alarm—a dog starting to bark.
On finding out the dog, a small thing tied near the stockade—why tied there was not clear—one of the two Zulus tossed it biltong, and Cobby then, in his zest for chloroform that morning, pressed a cloth over its nose, and shut it up.
In two minutes more they came to the gate of the stockade....
Here three at least of the four were quite certain of finding sentries, but there was none.
"What does it mean?" Cobby whispered to Macray.
"Very rum!" Macray whispered back. "Shall we turn tail?"
Both the Zulus already had revolvers in hand, expecting now an ambush.
Now Cobby, raising himself on the stockade, peered over, to see before him, a long way off at the bottom of an avenue, the round doorway of a hut, filled with fire-light, like a dim full-moon.
And with a heart now fast beating he dropped back to his feet, whispering keenly, "Come, try the gate ... this may be luck...."
His torch-ray, switched upon the gate's edge, showed two thongs for raising two latches of wood within: this was all the fastening; the gate opened easily outward; and they passed up a little ascent that had rows of stones imbedded in the earth to serve as steps, then on along an avenue all ambushed in blackness of darkness, having among the bush, on each side, five idols, mighty forms, of which the marauders were just conscious in moving close under them, these being the only sentinels visible; and in the distance ahead the steady disc of light, a dim eye, soundless, mysterious, that seemed to drowse and dream.
Cobby and Macray crawled foremost, and near behind them the two furtive Zulus, all eye and ear, all nerves and alertness.
Then, to the scandalizing of everyone, Macray dropped his revolver ... and loud it sounded, an outrage on that hush.... Some moments more, and it was as if someone muttered somewhere in the night.... The men stood arrested by it: but it was so low, and so momentary, a rumour from nowhere, that none was certain that it was not some birth from the night's disquiet, from the stirring of wind and tree. Cobby moved on, and soon, lying on his face, was spying into the lighted opening....
He saw a round room, big as his own drawing-room at home, with a vaulted roof supported toward its centre by two roof-trees of red-wood (mopane), ten feet apart, quite nicely fashioned and polished, between them in the roof being a smoke-hole, and under this a dying fire of logs; hanging from the roof a few charms—snake-skins, ivory elephants; over the floor a profusion of rugs, with some gourds and stools well polished; and round the walls swaths of tapestry of fawn-skin soft-tanned, all embroidered with elephants in beads of "gold-stone," hanging from the ends of pegs; and between them on the wall shields, and sheaves of spears. But not all this did Cobby see, his gaze being riveted on two girls who lay on beds of rugs at the foot of the roof-trees, one on each side of the fire, their feet toward him, their faces as yet very vague to him, though it was evident that the one to his right with the ivory anklet was white, that the one to his left with the brass bangles was black: and motionless they lay.
Here, then, was the instant, and here a case for the judicious application of chloroform: so Cobby whispered "the black" into the tympanum of Macray, handing bottle and cloth, he having carefully trained Macray to apply anæsthetics, while he himself held bottle and cloth for the white.
And now he was impetuously in.
As little light came from the fire, he, on finding himself over the white, switched on the little ray of his torch, and saw her well, lying half on her side, with one arm cast naked above her head as in careless slumber, the rest of her wrapped in a kaross of yellow cloth embroidered everywhere with black elephants; and there, just as Rolls had once described her, was the lane running up the side of her high brow betwixt the wings of her hair.
Cobby, breathing "By heaven!" started, as a dart of admiration pierced his nature.
In that same moment there arose a sound—behind him—something like a snigger, like half a snigger smothered, which, as it slipped out, was finished. Cobby glanced alertly round at the negro girl, who, however, seemed asleep, then again at the white, whose lips, as if in sympathy with that snigger, had now moved into a smile, the vaguest ghost of a smile—but still visible.
The truth now pierced Cobby's consciousness that these people were not really asleep—a fact chilling enough to the heart. There he stood pallor-struck—saw all lost, his party trapped; but, as he was not sure, and as retreat was hardly his way, he was still about to venture upon doing what he was there to do, when, as he stooped to her, the Queen's lips opened a little to say "now."
"Hands up!" shouted Cobby in Zulu, spinning to the four winds with his revolver pointed at a circle of nine giants who spurted out upon him from behind all the swaths of wall-curtain; but no hand was put "up," and he did not shoot, understanding in a flash that that would be useless bloodshed, since, whichever way he span, some were at his back, while Macray seemed seized with paralysis.
One shot, however, was fired—outside the hut—by one of the two Zulus, who were pounced upon by an ambuscade outside; and this man, after shooting another in the abdomen, made his escape through the bush of the close. But when that shot sounded outside, Cobby was already on his back, panting under a foot on his breast and another on his neck, his arms bound to his sides with many rounds of hide, his poor cloth and bottle of science lying scattered from his hand, exhaling a smell of carbohydrates; two stood by Macray, holding his arms; while the Queen and Sueela, seated on their beds, Sueela with big ox-eyes, her head all kid's-horns of hair sticking out as in curling-pins, inspected the activities of the men, three of whom had kindled at the logs torches which illumined the room with a smoky glow.
But now one from outside entered the opening, and, on hands and knees, uttered the report: "Bayeté! Kindayana shot in the belly; the one that shot him gone off; another one captured"—and instantly the Queen's countenance changed. Springing to her feet, she went ranging about the chamber, resentment on her brow; but stopped to say over her shoulder to the messenger: "Carry Kindayana to Mandaganya" (a doctoress); on which the messenger went running out, bent so headlong down, as to suggest one tumbling on his face, or seeking in haste a flea on the floor, while Spiciewegiehotiu again ranged the room, and Sueela, expecting squalls, followed her goings with ogling ox-eyes, with her fingers expanded like a goose's toes, with a pantomime pull of face, as when a baby does "Oh! bogies!"
When the Queen next stopped, it was to point a bâton of ivory at one of the nine giants, and say: "You run and tell his highness the Commander to send a mounted messenger to the captain who has gone to destroy their camp: if they point out the one who shot Kindayana, the captain let ten of them live; if not, he kill them all"—and, bent headlong, seeking a flea, this messenger went running, while Spiciewegiehotiu stood with a shoulder propped upon a roof-tree, her feet crossed, a palm on her upper haunch, like a birch formed of long curves perfectly outlined by a kaross bound in by a simple string at the waist, and falling to the ankles, a flimsy thing, accumulation of raiment not being the mode among the ladies of this community; and she pointed her sceptre, saying to another: "These two and the one outside to 'The Elephant' for now"—but at the same time made a silent sign that this was not meant as to Macray.
The feet that had been on Cobby then lifted, stirred him to stand up, and he, scrambling upright, faced Spiciewegiehotiu, though, as he was in a half-dark, with no torch near him, she hardly saw his face.
"What you want here, you?" she called to him.
Guessing her meaning, he answered in Zulu with a monarch's head and offended lids: "I am here, not for my own good, but for yours. It appears that I am your cousin, and your rightful guide and guardian. You will have to do what I tell you—if I live. Soon I shall learn to gabble your jargon, then I will tell you."
She, apparently, understood at any rate some of it, for with a nose of deadly disdain pulled at him, with her sceptre uplifted to hit him, she stepped promptly upon him, crying out with the flying tongue of a scold: "You think you have time to learn Se-Ngwanya jargon? You think so? Vultures know how black man taste; now they want to know how white man taste. If the man your man shot die, Ah! you watch vultures eat your tongue before they eat your lungs."
And down the bâton of ivory came, or was coming, for his head, when it halted suspended: now she saw his face, that rock of his sovereignty, upon which the waves of defeat and danger seethed in vain.
But it was not respect that stayed her blow, but something else—Memory. For quite a minute of silence she eyed him; then a left finger summoned one of the torch-bearers, and for quite another minute of silence in the light of that torch her eyes pondered upon him, while Sueela, leaning forward, stared with wonderment at her.
In those moments it seemed to the Queen that in some dream somewhere she had seen that countenance, known its meaning, and within what household and home of mood it lived and moved—Cobby, in fact, having a very strong resemblance to his Aunt Jane, Spiciewegiehotiu's mother, a stronger resemblance than to his own mother, as Spiciewegiehotiu more resembled his mother than her own.
Spiciewegiehotiu turned away without a word; stood again against the roof-tree, with lowered lids.
"If you care anything for Reason——" Cobby now began to say, when she, with sudden fretfulness, shook her face intolerantly, saying: "Take these men out of my sight!" And at once this was done.
