Читать книгу The Triumph of Hilary Blachland - Mitford Bertram - Страница 3

As they entered the outer enclosure, a deep humming roar vibrated upon the air. Two regiments, fully armed, were squatted in a great crescent, facing the King’s private quarters, and were beguiling the time with a very energetic war-song – while half a dozen warriors, at intervals of space apart, were indulging in the performance of gwaza, stabbing furiously in the air, right and left, bellowing forth their deeds of “dering-do” and pantomiming how they had done them – leaping high off the ground or spinning round on one leg. The while, the great crescent of dark bodies, and particoloured shields, and fantastic headgear, swaying to the rhythmic chant; the sparkle and gleam of assegais; the entirely savage note of anticipation conveyed by nearly two thousand excited voices, constituted a spectacle as imposing as it was indisputably awe-inspiring.

“The Imbizo and Induba regiments,” said Sybrandt, with a glance at this martial array.

But with their appearance the song ceased, and the warriors composing this end of the crescent jumped up, and came crowding around, in much the same rowdy and threatening fashion which had distinguished the execution party down in the valley.

“Lay down your arms, Amakiwa!” they shouted. “Au! it is death to come armed within the gates of the Ruler of the World.”

“It has never been death before – not for us,” replied Sybrandt. “At the inner gate, yes – we disarm; not at the outer.”

The answer only served to redouble the uproar. Assegais were flourished in the faces of the four white men – for they had already dismounted – accompanied by blood-curdling threats, in such wise as would surely have tried the nerves of any one less seasoned. The while Sybrandt had been looking round for some one in authority.

“Greeting, Sikombo,” he cried, as his glance met that of a tall head-ringed man, who was strolling leisurely towards the racket. “These boys of thine are in high spirits,” he added good-humouredly.

The crowd parted to make way for the new arrival, as in duty bound, for he was an induna of no small importance, and related to the King by marriage.

“I see you, Klistiaan,” replied the other, extending his greeting to the rest of the party.

But even the presence of the induna could not restrain the turbulent aggressiveness of the warriors. They continued to clamour against the white men, whom they demanded should disarm here instead of at the inner gate.

To this demand, Sybrandt, who was tacitly allowed by the others to take the lead in all matters of native etiquette or diplomacy – did not deem it advisable to accede. But something in Sikombo’s face caused him to change his mind, and, having done so, the next best thing was to do it with a good grace.

“What does it matter?” he said genially. “A little way here, or a little way there.” And he stood his rifle against the fence, an example which was followed by the others. The warriors then fell back, still with muttered threats; and, accompanied by the induna, the four white men crossed the open space to the gate of the King’s stockade.

There perforce they had to wait, for the barbarian monarch of Zulu descent and tradition is, in practice, in no greater hurry to receive those who come to consult him than is the average doctor or lawyer of twentieth-century England, however eager he may be in his heart of hearts to do so, and the last of the Matabele kings was not the man to forget what was due to his exalted position.

“What does it all mean, Sybrandt?” said Blachland, as, sitting down upon the dusty ground, they lighted their pipes. “Why are the swine so infernally aggressive? What does it mean anyhow?”

“Mean?” returned Young, answering for Sybrandt, who was talking to the induna, Sikombo. “Why, it means that our people yonder will soon have to fight like blazes if they don’t want their throats cut,” – with a jerk of the hand in the direction of the newly occupied Mashunaland. “The majara are bound to force Lo Ben’s hand – if they haven’t already.”

From all sides of the great kraal the ground sloped away in gentle declivity, and the situation commanded a wide and pleasant view in the golden sunlight, and beneath the vivid blue of a cloudless subtropical sky. To the north and west the dark, rolling, bush-clad undulations beyond the Umguza River – eastward again, the plain, dotted with several small kraals, each contributing its blue smoke reek, led the eye on to the long flat-topped Intaba-’Zinduna. Down in the valley bottom – where now stands the huge straggling town, humming with life and commerce – vast cornfields, waving with plumed maize and the beer-yielding amabele; and away southward the shining rocky ridge of the Matya’mhlope; while, dappling the plain, far and near, thousands of multi-coloured cattle – the King’s herds – completed the scene of pleasant and pastoral prosperity. In strange contrast to which the cloud of armed warriors, squatted within the gates, chanting their menacing and barbarous strophes.

Suddenly these were hushed, so suddenly indeed as to be almost startling. For other voices were raised, coming from the stockade which railed in the esibayaneni– the sanctum sanctorum. They were those of the royal “praisers” stentoriously shouting forth the king’s sibonga: —

“He comes – the Lion!” – and they roared.

“Behold him – the Bull, the black calf of Matyobane!” – and at this they bellowed.

“He is the Eagle which preys upon the world!” – here they screamed; and as each imitative shout was taken up by the armed regiments, going through every conceivable form of animal voice – the growling of leopards, the hissing of serpents, even to the sonorous croak of the bull-frog – the result was indescribably terrific and deafening. Then it ceased as suddenly as the war-song had ceased.

The King had appeared. Advancing a few steps from the gateway, he paused and stood surveying the gathering. Then, cleaving the silence in thunder tones, there volleyed forth from every throat the salute royal —

“Kumalo!”

Over the wide slopes without it rolled and echoed. Voices far and near – single voices, and voices in groups – the melodious voices of women at work in the cornfields – all who heard it echoed it back, now clear, now faint and mellowed by distance —

“Kumalo!”

There was that in the aspect of the King as he stood thus, his massive features stern and gloomy as he frowned down upon those whose homage he was receiving, his attitude haughty and majestic to the last degree, which was calculated to strike awe into the white beholders if only through the consciousness of how absolutely they were in his power. He had discarded all European attempts at adornment, and was clad in nothing but the inevitable mútya and a kaross made of the dressed skin of a lioness, thrown carelessly over his shoulders. His shaven head was surmounted just above the forehead by the small Matabele ring, a far less dignified-looking form of crest than the large Zulu one. Then, as he advanced a few steps further, with head thrown back, and his form, though bulky, erect and commanding, a more majestic-looking savage it would be hard to imagine.

A massive chair, carved out of a single tree stump, was now set by one of the attendants, and as Lo Bengula enthroned himself upon it, again the mighty shouts of praise rent the air —

“Thou art the child of the sun!”

“Blanket, covering thy people!”

“King mountain of the Matopo!”

“Elephant whose tread shaketh the world!”

“Eater-up of Zwang’indaba!”

“Crocodile, who maketh our rivers to flow clear water!”

“Rhinoceros!”

Such, and many more, were the attributes wherewith they hailed their monarch, who was, to all intents and purposes, their god. Then the chorus altered. A new and more ominous clamour now expressed its burden. It became hostile and bloodthirsty in intent towards the white strangers within their gates.

Who were these whites? chanted the warriors. It were better to make an end of them. They were but the advance-guard of many more – swarms upon swarms of them – even as the few locusts who constituted the advance-guard of swarms upon swarms of that red locust, the devourer, which had not been known in the land before the Amakiwa had been allowed to come and settle in the land. The locusts had settled and were devouring everything – the Amakiwa had settled and were devouring everything. Let them be stamped out.

Those thus referred to sat still and said nothing. For all the effect the bloodthirsty howling had upon them outwardly, they might just as well not have heard it. Lo Bengula sat immovable in frowning abstraction. The two regiments, waxing more and more excited, began to close in nearer. As warriors armed for some service, they were allowed to approach that near the King, with their weapons and shields. They growled and mouthed around their white visitors, and one, at any rate, of these expected to feel the assegai through his back any moment.

But at this juncture one of the indunas seated near the King leaned forward, and spoke. He was a very old man, lean and tall, and, before the stoop of age had overtaken him must have been very tall indeed.

“Peace, children,” he rebuked. “The dogs of the King have other game to hunt. These Amakiwa are not given to you to hunt. They are the friends of the Black Elephant.”

Growls of dissatisfaction greeted this reproof, which seemed not supported by Lo Bengula.

“Have done, then,” thundered the old induna. “Get back, dogs, who have but yesterday learned to yap. Offend ye the ears of the Great Great One with your yelpings? Get back!”

This time the rebuke answered. Respect for age and authority is among the Bantu races instinctive and immense, and the speaker in this instance represented both, for he had participated in the exodus from Zululand, under Umzilikazi, early in the century, and had been one of that potentate’s most trusted indunas before Lo Bengula was born; wherefore the malcontents shrunk back, with stifled growlings, to take up their former position at a distance.

Order being restored, Sybrandt judged it time to open the proceedings.

“Kumalo!” he began, saluting the King, his companions joining.

“I see you, Klistiaan,” returned Lo Bengula, somewhat surlily. “All of you.”

“The King has sent for us, and we have come,” went on Sybrandt. “Strange messengers entered our camp this morning, three majara, armed. Furthermore, they were rude.”

“Au!” exclaimed Lo Bengula, with a shake of the head. “See you not, Klistiaan, my fighting men love not white people just now. It would be better, indeed, if such were to leave the country. It is no longer the healthy season for white people here.”

Which apparently commonplace remark conveyed to these experienced listeners, three distinct meanings – first, that their position was exceedingly dangerous; secondly, that Lo Bengula was aware that even his authority might be insufficient to protect them from the fanatical hate of his warriors, but did not choose to say so in so many words; and lastly, the tone in which it was uttered conveyed a royal command. But to the recipients of the latter, it was exceedingly distasteful. An order of a more startling nature was, however, to follow.

“You, Isipau,” addressing Blachland. “Turn your waggon wheels homeward, before the going down of the sun.”

“Isipau,” signifying “mushroom,” was Blachland’s native name, and as such he had been known among the natives on his first arrival in the country, years before, owing to his inordinate partiality for that delectable vegetable wherever it could be obtained.

“When white people come into my country I welcome them as my friends,” went on the King. “When I give them leave to hunt and to trade, it is well. It is not well when they seek to look into things for which I have given them no permission. Now I have given an order, and I give not my orders twice. Fare ye well. Hambani-gahle.”

And without another word, Lo Bengula rose from his seat, and stalked within the stockade.

Blachland was the first to speak. “Damn!” he ejaculated.

“Be careful, man, for Heaven’s sake,” warned Sybrandt. “If they got wind you were cursing the King, then – good-night!” Then, turning to the old induna, who had quelled the outcry against them, “Who has poisoned the heart of the Great Great One against us, Faku? Have we not always been his friends, and even now we have done no wrong.”

The old induna shrugged his shoulders, as he answered —

“Who am I that I should pry into the King’s mind, Klistiaan? But his ‘word’ has been spoken in no uncertain voice,” he added significantly.

This there was no denying, and they took their leave. As they passed out of the kraal, the lines of warriors glowered at them like wolves, for though the conversation had been inaudible to them, they divined that these whites had incurred the King’s displeasure.

“You’ve got us into a pretty kettle of fish, Blachland,” said Young, rather curtly, as they rode in the direction of their camp.

“Don’t see it,” was the reply. “Now, my belief is, Lo Ben is shirty about our gold-prospecting. My scheme had nothing to do with it.”

“Blachland’s right, Young,” cut in Pemberton. “If it had been the other thing, we wouldn’t have got off so cheaply. Eh, Sybrandt?”

“Rather not. We may thank our stars it wasn’t the other. That rip Hlangulu must have been strung upon us as a spy. The old man is dead off any gold-prospecting. Afraid it’ll bring a swarm of whites into the country, and he’s right. Why, what’s this?”

All looked back, and the same idea was in the mind of each. Had Lo Bengula thought better of it, and yielded to the bloodthirsty clamour of his warriors? For the gates of Bulawayo were pouring forth a dense black swarm, which could be none other than the impi gathered there at the time of their visit, – and this, clear of the entrance, was advancing at a run, heading straight for the four equestrians.

These looked somewhat anxious. Their servants, the two Bechuana boys, went grey with fear.

“Is it a case of leg-bail?” said Blachland, surveying the on-coming horde.

“No, we must face it anyhow,” answered Pemberton, puffing at his pipe tranquilly. “Besides, we can’t leave these poor devils of boys to be murdered. Eh, Sybrandt?”

“Never run away, except in a losing fight and there’s no help for it,” was the reply.

Accordingly they kept their horses at a walk. But the moment was a thrilling one. On swept the impi; but now it had drawn up into a walk, and from its ranks arose a song —

“Uti mayihlome, mayihlome katese njebo!

Ise nompako wayo namanyatelo ayo!

Utaho njalo. Uti mayihlome katese njebo!”

This strophe – which may be rendered roughly to mean, “He says (i.e. the King), ‘Let it (the impi) arm. Let it arm at once. Come with its food, with its sandals.’ He says always. He says, ‘Let it arm at once!’” – was boomed forth from nearly two thousand throats, deafening, terrifying. But the impi swept by, and, passing within a hundred yards, singing in mighty volume its imposing war-song, shields waving, and assegais brandished menacingly towards the white men, it poured up the opposite slope, taking a straight line, significantly symbolical of the unswerving purpose it had been sent to fulfil.

An involuntary feeling of relief was upon the party, upon all but one, that is. For Hilary Blachland, noting the direction taken by this army of destroyers, could not but admit a qualm of very real and soul-stirring misgiving. That he had good grounds for the same we shall see anon.