Читать книгу John Ames, Native Commissioner: A Romance of the Matabele Rising - Mitford Bertram - Страница 4

Shiminya resumed his seat upon the ground, with the múti bowl in his hands. The wolf he had already secured in one of the huts. The grim beast was in truth his familiar spirit, and as such not to be gazed upon by profane eyes, and in broad daylight. And now footsteps were heard approaching the scherm, together with the rattle of assegai hafts. Three men entered by the narrow gateway. Shiminya looked up.

“Greeting, Izinduna,” he said.

“Greeting to thee, Umtwana ’Mlimo,” came the reply in a deep-voiced hum, as the newcomers deposited their assegais just within the gate, and advanced a few steps nearer in. With two of these we are already acquainted, they being, in fact, Madúla and his brother Samvu. The third was another influential chief by name Zazwe.

Shiminya seemed to take no further notice of their presence, continuing to sway the múti bowl from side to side, muttering the while. The faces of the three indunas wore an expression of scarcely to be concealed disgust; that of Zazwe in addition showed unutterable contempt. He was an unprepossessing looking man, lean, and of middle height, with a cold, cruel countenance. At bottom he loathed and despised the whole Umlimo hierarchy as a pack of rank impostors, but it suited him now to cultivate them, for he was an arrant schemer, and would fain see every white man in the country cut to pieces.

“There are three goats in thy kraal beyond the river, Shiminya,” he began presently, tired of the silence.

“That is good, my father,” the sorcerer condescended to reply. “They are for Umlimo?”

“Nay; for his child.”

“And – for Umlimo?”

“There is a young heifer.”

“Au! Of such there will soon be no more,” replied Shiminya.

“No more?” echoed the trio.

“No more. The whites are bewitching all the cattle in the land. Soon you will see great things. The land will stink with their rotting carcases.”

A murmur went up from the three listeners. They all bent eagerly forward. Shiminya, who knew his dupes, was in no hurry. He continued to shake his bowl of abomination and mutter; then he went on:

“The last time you heard the Great Voice, what did it say? Were not the words thereof as mine are now – I, its child? Whau! I fear there were some who heard that voice and laughed, Izinduna – who heard that voice and did not believe.”

At this juncture there came a subdued wail, inexpressibly doleful, from one of the huts. It was answered by a snarl from another. Two of the three chiefs, listening, felt perturbed, the countenance of Zazwe alone preserving its hard, sceptical expression; though, to tell the truth, even he – so rooted is the innate superstition of savages – did not feel entirely at ease in his surroundings.

“There is, further, a good milch cow for the Umlimo,” spake Madúla, “and for his child a heifer.”

“It is well. There will soon be no more,” repeated the wizard.

“And three fat-tailed sheep, and for Umlimo a young bull,” said Samvu.

“That, too, is good,” was the cold acknowledgment of Shiminya, “for there will soon be no more.”

Now, cattle constitute the very life of all the South African tribes, wherefore the three chiefs felt their hearts sink as they realised the gist of this doleful prophecy. The rinderpest had not as yet made its appearance in their midst, but was very soon destined to do so, and the sorcerers of the nation, having gained secret information that the terrible scourge was, in the ordinary course of things, bound to be upon them soon from further north, used their knowledge as a most powerful lever towards promoting the uprising they were straining every nerve to bring about. In this they found willing aid from many of the chiefs, who saw their power and influence waning day by day; themselves forced to be the subservient vassals of a few – from their point of view – upstart and arrogant whites.

“Why, then, should Makiwa (Matabele term for the white man) wish to bewitch all the cattle?” said Madúla, who at present was in the vacillating stage, though the high-handed action we have recorded, on the part of the native police, had gone far towards settling him in the wrong direction. “They will suffer equally with ourselves.”

“Our cattle are our life. Their life is in other things,” pronounced Shiminya, who never looked at his interlocutors when he spoke, thus giving his answers an oracular air, as though inspired by the magic stuff into whose black depth he was gazing. “We die. They live.”

“Hau!” cried the listeners, fully comprehending the hint.

“Not many times will the moon be at full before this death is upon us,” went on the wizard, still without looking up. “If there are no whites left in the land, then will it be averted.”

Again that hollow groan proceeded from the hut. Their feelings worked up to an artificial pitch, the superstitious savages felt something like a shudder run through their frames. But the imperturbable Shiminya went on:

“There are two who must die – Pukele, the son of Mambane.”

“He who is servant to Jonemi?” queried Madúla.

“The same.”

“Has he done wrong?” said Samvu, for the man named was one of Madúla’s people, and neither of the brothers liked this edict.

“He knows too much,” was the remorseless reply. “The other is Ntatu, formerly wife of Makani.”

A measure of relief came into the countenances of the two chiefs. A woman more or less mattered nothing, but they did not like to sacrifice one of their men.

“It is the ‘word’ of Umlimo,” pursued Shiminya, decisively. “This must be.” And for the first time he raised his eyes, and fixed them upon the two chiefs with cruel, snake-like stare.

“What is the life of a man, more or less, when Umlimo has spoken?” said Zazwe, thus throwing in the weight of his influence with the dictum of the sorcerer. “A man, too, who is faithful to one of these whites set over us! Au! Umlimo is wise.”

This carried the day; and after some more talk, mostly “dark,” and consisting of hints, the three chiefs, gathering up their assegais, withdrew.

Left alone, Shiminya still sat there, satisfied that his sanguinary edict would be carried out. A dead silence reigned over the great thorn thicket, and as though the satanic influence which seemed to brood upon the place imparted itself to wild Nature, even the very birds forbore to flutter and chirp in its immediate vicinity. The sun sank to the western horizon, shedding its arrows of golden light upon the myriad sharp points of the sea of thorns, then dipped below the rim of the world, and still the grim wizard squatted, like a crafty, cruel, bloodthirsty spider, in the midst of his vast web, though indeed the comparison is a libel on the insect, who slays to appease hunger, whereas this human spider was wont to doom his victims out of a sheer diabolical lust of cruelty and the power which he could sway through that agency. This day, indeed, he might feel content, for it had not been wasted. But the day was not over yet – oh no – not quite yet. Still, would it be possible for this satanic being to commit further deeds of atrocity and of blood? Well, is there not the wretched sufferer lying bound and helpless within the hut?

Again that low, vibrating hum sounded forth. It seemed to come from the thick of the thorn palisade. The deeply plotting brain of the wizard was again on the alert, but its owner evinced no eagerness, not even looking up from what he was doing. Some person or persons had unawares touched the hidden communication wire which, situated at the entrance of the narrow labyrinthine passage leading to the kraal, signalled such approach.

Shiminya’s discernment was consummate in every sense he possessed; indeed, this faculty had not a little to do with the ascendency he had gained. In the very footsteps of the new comer, shod with the amanyatelo– a kind of raw-hide sandal used as protection in thorny country – his keen ear could gather a whole volume of information. They were, in fact, to him an open index of the new comer’s mind. While distant they indicated a mind made up, yet not altogether removed from, the verge of wavering; the possession of a purpose, yet not altogether a whole-heartedness in its carrying out. Nearer they revealed the vulgar trepidation attendant upon the mere fact of approaching a place so sinister and redoubtable as the múti den of a renowned sorcerer, and that in the dim hours of night.

For the brief twilight had long since passed, and now a golden moon, in its third quarter, hung lamplike in the sky, and, save in the shadows, its soft brilliance revealed every detail almost as clear as in the day. It fell on the form of a tall, powerfully built savage, standing there in the gateway, naked save for the mútya, unarmed save for a short, heavy knobstick. This he laid down as he drew near the wizard.

“Greeting, my father,” he uttered.

“Greeting, Nanzicele,” replied the sorcerer, without looking up.

Divested of his civilised and official trappings, the ex-sergeant of police looked what he was – a barbarian pure and simple, no whit less of a one, in fact, than those over whom he was vested with a little brief authority. Whether this visit was made in the interests of loyalty to his superiors or not may hereinafter appear.

“Hast thou brought what I desired of thee, Nanzicele?” said the wizard, coming direct to the point.

Nanzicele, who had squatted himself on the ground opposite the other, now fumbled in a skin bag which was hung around him, and produced a packet. It was small, but solid and heavy.

“What is this?” said Shiminya, counting out ten Martini-Henry cartridges. “Ten? Only ten! Au! When I promised thee vengeance it was not for such poor reward as this.”

“They are not easily obtained, my father. The men from whom I got these will be punished to-morrow for not having them; but I care not. Be content with a few, for few are better than none. And – this vengeance?”

“Thou knowest Pukele – the servant of Jonemi?”

“The son of Mambane?”

“The son of Mambane, who helped hoot thee out of his kraal when thou wouldst not offer enough lobola for Nompiza. He is to die.”

Nanzicele leaped with delight. “When? How?” he cried. “Now will my eyes have a feast indeed.”

“At thy hand. The manner and the time are of thine own choosing. To thee has Umlimo left it.”

Nanzicele’s glee was dashed. His jaw fell.

“Au! I have no wish to dance in the air at the end of a long rope,” he growled; “and such would assuredly be my fate if I slew Pukele, even as it was that of Fondosa, the son of Mbai, who was an innyanga even as thyself, my father. Whau! I saw it with these eyes. All Fondosa’s múti did not save him there, my father, and the whites hanged him dead the same as any rotten Maholi.”

“Didst thou glance over one shoulder on the way hither, Nanzicele? Didst thou see Lupiswana following thee, yea, even running at thy side? I traced thy course from here. I saw thee from the time of leaving Jonemi’s. He was waiting for thee was Lupiswana. It is not good for a man when such is the case,” said Shiminya, whose esprit de corps resented the sneering, contemptuous tone which the other had used in speaking of a member of his “cloth.”

For the event referred to was the execution of a Mashuna witch-doctor for the murder of a whole family, whose death he had ordered.

The snake-like stare of Shiminya, the appeal to his superstitions, the sinister associations of the place he was in, a stealthy, mysterious sound even then becoming audible – all told, Nanzicele looked somewhat cowed, remembering, too, how his return journey had to be effected alone and by night.

Having, in vulgar and civilised parlance, taken down his man a peg or two, Shiminya could afford to let the matter of Pukele stand over. Now he said softly —

“And the other ten cartridges, those in thy bag, Nanzicele? Give them to me, for I have a better revenge, here, ready at thy hand, and a safer one.”

“Au! They were to have been thine, my father; I was but keeping them to the last,” replied the ex-police sergeant, shamefacedly and utterly mendaciously, as he placed the packet in the wizard’s outstretched hand. “And now, what is this vengeance?”

Shiminya rose, and, beckoning the other to follow, opened and crept through the door of the hut behind him. A hollow groan rose from the inside. Nanzicele, halfway in, made an instinctive move to draw back. Then he recovered himself. “It is not a good omen to draw back when half through a doorway,” said Shiminya, as they both stood upright in the darkness. “Yet – look.”

He had struck a match, and lighted a piece of candle. Nanzicele looked down, and a start of surprise leapt through his frame.

“Whau!” he cried. “It is Nompiza!”

“And – thy vengeance,” murmured the wizard at his side.

But the sufferer heard it, and began to wail aloud —

“Thy promise, Great Innyanga! Thy promise. Give me not over to this man, for I fear him. Thou didst swear I should be allowed to depart hence; on the head of Umzilikazi thou didst swear it. Thy promise, O Great Innyanga!”

“It shall be kept, sister,” said Shiminya, softly, his eyes fairly scintillating with devilish glee. “I swore to thee that thou shouldst be taken hence, and thou shalt, for this man and I will take thee.”

The wretched creature broke into fresh outcries, which were partly drowned, for already they were dragging her, still lashed to the pole, outside.

“Ha, Nompiza!” jeered Nanzicele, bending down and peering into her face as she lay in the moonlight. “Dost remember how I was driven from thy father’s kraal with jeers? Ha! Whose jeers were the loudest? Whose mockeries the most biting? Thine. And now Kulúla will have to buy another wife. Thou hadst better have been the wife of Nanzicele than of death. Of death, is it not, my father?” turning to Shiminya, who glared a mirthless smile.

Wrought up to a pitch of frenzy by the recollection of the insults he had then received, the vindictive savage continued to taunt and terrify the wretched creature as she lay. Then he went over to pick up his great knobstick.

“Not thus, blunderer; not thus,” said Shiminya, arresting his arm. “See now. Take that end of the pole while I take the other. Go thou first.”

Lifting the pole with its helpless human burden, these bloodthirsty miscreants passed out of the kraal. Down the narrow way they hurried, for Shiminya though small was surprisingly wiry, and the powerful frame of the other felt it not, although their burden was no light one. Down through a steep winding path, and soon the thorns thinned out, giving way to forest trees.

“Well, sister, I predicted that Lupiswana would come for thee to-night,” said Shiminya, as they set their burden down to rest themselves. “And – there he is already.”

A stealthy shape, which had been following close upon their steps, glided into view for a moment and disappeared. The wretched victim saw it too, and uttered such a wild ringing shriek of despair that Nanzicele fairly shuddered.

“Au! I like not this,” he growled. “It is a deed of tagati.”

“Yet thou must do it, brother, or worse will befall thyself,” said Shiminya, quietly. Then they resumed their burden.

Through the trees now came a glint of silver light, then a broad shimmer. It was the glint of the moon upon water. The Umgwane River, in the dry season, consists of a series of holes. One of these they had reached.

“And now, sister,” began the wizard, as they set down their burden upon its brink, “thou seest what is the result of an unquiet tongue. But for that thou wouldst not now be here, and thy brother Pukele and thy sister Ntatu would have yet longer to live. But you all know too much, the three of you. Look! Yonder is Lupiswana waiting for thee, even as I predicted,” said this human devil, who could not refrain from adding acute mental torture to the dying moments of his victim. And as he spoke a low whine rose upon the night air, where a dark sinister shape lay silhouetted against the white stones of the broad river-bed some little distance away.

The victim heard it and wailed, in a manner that resembled the whine of the gruesome beast. Shiminya laughed triumphantly.

“Even the voice she has already,” he exclaimed. “She will howl bravely when Lupiswana hunts her.”

“Have done,” growled Nanzicele. Brutal barbarian as he was, even his savagery stopped short at this; besides, his superstitious nature was riven to the core. “Get it over; get it over!”

They raised the pole once more, and, by a concerted movement, swung it and its human burden over the brink, where the pool was deepest. One wild, appalling shriek, then a splash, and a turmoil of eddies and bubbles rolling and scintillating on the surface, and the cold remorseless face of the brilliant moon looked down, impassive, upon a human creature thus horribly done to death.

“Hlala-gahle!” cried Shiminya, with a fiend-like laugh, watching the uprising of the stream of bubbles. Then, turning to his fellow miscreant, “And now, Nanzicele, whom Makiwa made a chief, and then unmade, the people at Madúla’s can hardly speak for laughing at thee, remembering thy last appearance there, bragging that thou wert a chief. Makiwa has done this, but soon there may not be any Makiwa, for so I read the fates. Go now. When I want thee I will send for thee again.”

And the two murderers separated – Nanzicele, dejected and feeling as though his freedom had gone from him for ever; Shiminya, chuckling and elate, for the day had been a red letter one, and the human spider was gorged full of human prey.