Читать книгу The Induna's Wife - Mitford Bertram - Страница 7

I was not dead, Nkose; or, indeed, how should I be here telling you my story? Or, if I were – well, at any rate, the magic which had been powerful enough to draw me through the abode of those who had become ghosts was powerful enough to bring me back to life and to the world again – and yet I know not. It is a terrible thing to look upon the faces of those who have long been dead; and how shall a man – being a man – do this unless he join their number? Such faces, however, had I looked upon, for, as I opened my eyes once more to the light of the sun, no dim recollection of one who has slept and dreamed was mine. No; the mysterious cave, the magic fire, the fearsome sights I had beheld – all was real – as real as the trees and rocks upon which I now looked – as real as the sky above and the sun shining from it.

Yes; I was in the outer air once more. I rose and stood up. My limbs were firm and strong as before, my hand still grasped the broad spear – the white shield lay at my feet. Before me was the smooth rock wall, there the exact spot where it had opened to receive me. But there it might remain, closed for ever, for all I cared. I had no wish to look further into its dark and evil mysteries. But now, again, the voice came back to my ears, faint and far away this time, but without the mocking mirth which had lured me before to what might have been my doom.

“Ho, Untúswa!” it cried; “wouldst thou see more of the unseen? Wouldst thou look further into the future?”

“I think not, my father,” I answered. “To those who deal in magic be the ways of magic, to warriors the ways of war – and I am a warrior.”

“And thine inkosikazi, Untúswa, what of her?”

“Help me to slay the ghost-bull who deals forth the Red Death, my father!” I pleaded eagerly.

There was no answer to this for long. Then, weary of waiting, I was about to turn away, when once more the voice spake from within the rock – faint, as before.

“Great is the House of Matyobane; great is the House of Senzangakona; Umzilikazi is ruler of the world to-day – but Dingane is greater. Yet to-morrow, where now are the many nations they have stamped flat there shall they be. Dust – all dust! Gasitye sees it.”

“Ha! And shall I see it too, my father?”

“Thou shalt see it, Untúswa. Thou, too, shalt see it.”

Now, when I heard the name of Gasitye, I knew it as the name of a great seer and prophet who dwelt alone among the mountains, and who was held in wide repute among all tribes and peoples, near and far. His own tribe nobody knew exactly, but it was supposed that his age was three times that of the oldest man known. Even Umzilikazi himself had more than once sent secretly to consult him, with gifts; for the rest, nobody cared to interfere with him, for even the most powerful of kings does not desire the enmity of a great and dreaded sorcerer, whose magic, moreover, is real, and not as that of the tribal izanusi– a cheat to encompass the death of men. And now I had encountered this world-famed wizard; had beheld him alone in the heart of the rock, whose face he had the power to open and shut at will.

“Help me to slay the ghost-bull, my father,” I entreated again.

“And when thou hast slain it – what then?”

“Then it shall be well with me and mine.”

“Well with thee and thine? Will it then – with thee and thine! Ha, ha!” repeated the voice within the cliff, in the same tone of mockery as before. “Go now and slay it, Untúswa, thou valiant one. Go!”

I waited some little time, but no further answer could I obtain, though I spoke both loud and softly. Then I turned away.

As I did so a strange feeling came over me, a feeling as of the faintness caused by starvation. The fumes of the wizard fire had worn off in the clear open air, and I felt as though I could spend the rest of my life eating, so hungry was I. So, losing no time, I started back to where I had left Jambúla.

Then upon my mind came the recollection of the death-yell I had heard when within the vault. Ha! I must proceed with care. I glanced upward. The sun was well up when I entered the rock; now it was at its highest overhead. I had not been as long in that vault of fear as it seemed.

Now there struck upon my nostrils a most horrible stench as of death and putrefaction. What did it mean? I had passed this spot this very morning and the air was pure and clear. Death might have taken place – but putrefaction? —au, there was not time for that. Yet this was a place of witchcraft, where everything was possible. And, thus thinking, I came right upon a human body.

It was in a horrible state, Nkose, in the state of one who has been dead eight or ten days. Yet here such could not have been the case, for in the swollen, half-decayed features, as well as by articles of clothing, I recognised the second of the two slaves, whom I had left alive and well that same morning, but a very few hours before. Yet, there it lay, beneath a tree, with upturned face, and across the decaying ribs the rending gash left by the horn of the ghost-bull.

Now I heard a voice in salute, behind me – a voice I knew. Looking up, I beheld my slave, Jambúla.

He was looking strangely at me. Then he broke forth into extravagant words of welcome, and it seemed to me he had been badly frightened, and was glad enough to behold me once more. That was it, of course; so giving no further thought to the matter at all, I bade him find food. He had a number of speckled pigeons, which he had knocked over with his kerries; and having kindled a fire on the flat top of a high rock for safety’s sake —whau, Nkose