Project Gutenberg's The Triumph of Hilary Blachland, by Bertram Mitford This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Triumph of Hilary Blachland Author: Bertram Mitford Release Date: May 28, 2010 [EBook #32566] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIUMPH OF HILARY BLACHLAND *** Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England Bertram Mitford "The Triumph of Hilary Blachland" Chapter One. The Camp on the Matya’mhlope. “There! That is Umzilikazi’s grave,” said Christian Sybrandt, pointing out a towering pile of rocks some little way off, across the valley. “Is it? Let’s go and have a look at it then,” was the prompt reply. But immediately upon having made it, the second speaker knew that he had spoken like a fool, for the first gave a short laugh. “Go over and have a look at it?” he echoed. “W hy we’d all be cut to bits before we got within half a mile. It’s holy ground, man; guarded, picketed by armed majara, rigidly watched, day and night. You couldn’t get near it, no, not at any price.” “Well, I’ve a great notion to try,” persisted the other, to the imaginative side of whose temperament the place of sepulture of that remarkable savage, the remorseless, all-destroying war-leader, the founder and consolidator of a martial nation, irresistibly appealed, no less than the mystery and peril enshrouding the undertaking did to the adventurous side. “No white man has ever seen it close, I think you said, Sybrandt?” “That’s so. And you won’t constitute the exception, Blachland. You’ll never get there; and, if you did, you’d never get away.” “Yet it would be interesting to constitute that exception,” persisted the other. “I like doing things that nobody else has done.” “Well, even if you escaped the five hundred to one chances against you, you wouldn’t have the satisfaction of talking about it—not as long as you are in this country, at all events; for let even so much as a whisper get about that you had done such a thing, and your life wouldn’t be worth a week’s purchase.” The two men were riding over the site of the old Mahlahlanhlela Kraal—distinguishable by its great circle of nearly overgrown hut floors, and sherds of rude pottery, erewhile the head-quarters of a favourite regiment of the Great King, whose tomb they were viewing. There it rose, that tomb, away on the right, a great pile standing boldly against the sky—prominent from the outermost edge of the rugged Matopo, all tumbled rocks, and granite boulders and scant tree growth; in front, an undulating sweep, bounded by the Inyoka ridge, the site of old Bulawayo. The two men were dressed in serviceable and well-worn buckskin, and carried rifles. Following a little distance behind them came a group of natives, whose burden, the meat and other spoils of a young sable antelope bull, testified to the nature of the errand from which they were returning. The countenance of both, darkened by sun and exposure, wore the same expression of blended repose and latent alertness which a roving up-country life seems invariably to produce. Sybrandt—he had dropped the original “Van”—was Dutch by birth, though English by sympathies and associations. Trader, hunter, gold-prospector, adventurer all round, his life had been spent mainly on the confines of civilisation, or far beyond the same; and what he did not know about natives, from the Zambesi to Durban, from Inhambane to Walfisch Bay, nobody else did. He, for his part, was no less known to them. “U’ Klistiaan,” as they called him, in adaptation of his baptismal name, stood to them as a white man who commanded their respect and confidence far and wide. Of cool courage and unflinching resolution, a firm friend, and, while enmity lasted, a determined and dangerous foe, he stood as high in the estimation of the Zulu-speaking races as these qualifications could place him, which is to say at the highest. He was a man of about forty; in outward aspect of medium height and of sturdy and powerful build, his dark hair and pointed beard just turning iron grey. His companion, whom we heard him address by the name of Blachland, was something of a mystery. Nobody knew much, if anything, about him, except that originally he was an English importation with some years of up-country experience, and that he came and went sporadically, disappearing for a time, and turning up again as if he had been away about a week, perfectly unexplanatory, uncommunicative, as to his doings in the interim. He was a tall dark man, who might be any age compatible with a hardy frame and untiring energy. A keen sportsman and keener adventurer, he was ever on the look out for the possibilities underlying up-country life; and, in curious contrast to his normally hard and philosophic nature, was a tendency to fits of almost boyish excitement and recklessness; which would break out when least expected, and with apparently inadequate motive, and which were wont to land their owner in positions of peril or difficulty, but which, by a curious compensating element in nature, were none the less available to extricate him therefrom right at the critical moment. Now he made no reply to his companion’s very confident and more than ominous forecast. But more than one wistful glance did he send in the direction of the great natural mausoleum. The King’s grave! This rock sepulchre would hold all that was weird and uncommon, and into it no European eye had ever gazed. That was sufficient for one of Hilary Blachland’s temperament. Soon the last resting-place of Umzilikazi, the Great King, was hidden from sight behind. A few miles more and a strange phenomenon as of a mighty cloud of dust and smoke, crowning a distant eminence, broke upon the view in front, and through it a vast cluster of round grass roofs, from the silent throne of the dead the pair had turned to front the throne of the living, pulsating with humanity and its primitive impulses—Bulawayo, the great kraal of Lo Bengula, son of that Umzilikazi whose bones lay within the sombre heart of that great rock pile behind. Not on this, however, were their steps bent. Down in the valley a camp was set, and the white tents of three waggons rose among the scant bush on the banks of the Matya’mhlope, at the foot of the abrupt ridge of shining stones which gives to that insignificant river its name. And as our two wayfarers gained it the sun dropped, and in this latitude without twilight the night began to fall. Two other white men were seated in camp as these two arrived. Like Christian Sybrandt, Young and Pemberton were traders and hunters, and looked it; whereas the presence of Hilary Blachland with the outfit was inconsequent. But that word more than rather summed up Hilary Blachland. He was all keenness, however, on anything new and strange, and now the impression had grown and grown upon him that Umzilikazi’s grave came under both these qualifying adjectives. W herefore later, when the fire was roaring up brightly with red and cheery glow, and the sable antelope steaks, hot and fizzing, had been transferred from the frying-pan to the metal enamelled camp plates, he must needs drag in the subject again. Pemberton, the elder of the other two traders, whistled and shook his heavy beard. “It’s a thing that won’t bear meddling with,” was his laconic dictum. “Well, I should like to meddle with it to the extent of having a look at it anyway,” persisted Blachland. “Any one here ever seen it close, by the way?” “No, nor likely to,” answered Young. “I saw it once, about a mile off; near enough to get a good look at it through a glass. It’s a tall cleft, running right up the face of the boulder, and overhung by another boulder like a porch. There’s a tree in front too. I’d just time to see so much when a lot of majara, spotting my binoculars, started for me, yelling like blazes. I judged it wise to take a bee-line for Bulawayo, and get under old Lo Ben’s wing; but they ran me hard all the way—got there nearly as soon as I did, and clamoured to be allowed to kill me. Lo Ben wouldn’t have that, but he hinted to me quietly that the country wouldn’t be healthy for a year or so, and I took the hint. No, take my advice and leave it alone. Apart from the risk, there’s no luck meddling with such places—no, none.” “Oh, skittles about luck. It’s the risk I take count of, and that only. The fact is, Young, you old up- country men are as superstitious as sailors,” returned Blachland, with that strange, eager restlessness which now and then, and generally unexpectedly, obtruded to give the lie to his ordinarily calm and immobile demeanour. “I’ll risk the majara—luck doesn’t count,—and sooner or later I’ll explore Umzilikazi’s grave.” Sybrandt was conscious of what, in a less self-contained man, would have been an obvious start at these words. A dark form had glided silently in among them all. It was only one of their camp servants, but—a native of the country. What if he had heard—had understood? He knew some English too! “Even if you got through the pickets of majara, Blachland,” struck in Sybrandt, when this man had retired; “you’d have another factor to reckon with. The King’s Snake.” “Eh?” “The King’s Snake.” Blachland spluttered. “See here, Sybrandt,” he said. “Are you seriously trying to fill me up? Me, mind? No, it can’t be.” “Well, the Matabele say there’s a big snake mounting guard over Umzilikazi’s remains. It is the King’s spirit which has passed into the snake. That is why the snake comes in such a lot when they go periodically and give the sibonga at his grave.” “And you believe that?” “They say so.” “What sort of a snake is it?” “A black imamba. Mind you, I’ve never seen it.” “Don’t you be so cocksure about everything, Blachland,” grunted Pemberton, who was fast dropping asleep. “Luck or no luck, there’s mighty rum things happen you can’t explain, nor scare up any sort of reason for.” “Won’t do—no, not for half a minute,” returned the other, briskly and decisively. “You can explain everything; and as for luck, and all that sort of thing—why, it’s only fit for old women, and the lower orders.” Pemberton grunted again, and more sleepily still. His pipe at that moment fell out of his mouth, and he lurched over, fast asleep. Sybrandt, too, was nodding, but through his drowsiness he noticed that the native, a low-class Matabele, Hlangulu by name, was moving about, as though trying to sidle up near enough to catch some of the conversation. He was drowsy, however, and soon dropped off. Blachland, sitting there, felt anything but inclined for sleep. This new idea had caught on to his mind with a powerful hold. It was full of risk, and the object to be attained nil. The snake story he dismissed as sheer savage legend, childish and poor even as such. The luck theory, propounded by Pemberton, smacked of the turnip-fed lore of the average chaw-bacon in rural England. No, the risk lay in the picket- guard. That, to his mind, constituted the real peril, and the only one. It, however, might be avoided; and, the more he thought about it, the more resolved was Hilary Blachland to penetrate the forbidden recess, to explore the tomb of the warrior King, and that at any risk. Strangely wakeful, he lounged there, filling and lighting pipe after pipe of good Magaliesberg. The stars gleamed forth from the dark vault, so bright and clear and lamp-like in the glow of night in those high, subtropical latitudes, that it seemed as though the hand had but to be stretched forth to grasp them. Away over the veldt, jackals yelped; and the glimmer of the camp fire, dying low, emboldened the hungry little beasts to come nearer and nearer, attracted by the fresh meat brought in during that afternoon. The native followers, their heads in their blankets, had ceased their sonorous hum of gossip, and were mingling their snores with the somewhat discomforting sounds emitted by the nostrils of Pemberton. Away on the northern sky-line, a faint glow still hung, and from time to time a muffled snatch of far-away song. A dance of some sort was in late progress at the King’s kraal, but such had no novelty for Blachland. The exploration of the King’s grave, however, had; and he could think upon nothing else. Yet, could he have foreseen, his companions had uttered words of sound wisdom. He had better have left Umzilikazi’s sepulchre severely alone. Chapter Two. Before the King. “Tumble out, Blachland. We’ve got to go up and interview the King.” Thus Sybrandt at an early hour on the following morning. “And,” he added in a low voice, “I hope the indaba will end satisfactorily, that’s all.” “W hy shouldn’t it?” was the rather sleepy rejoinder. And the speaker kicked off his blanket, and, sitting up, yawned and stretched himself. Three savage-looking Matabele were squatted on the ground just within the camp. They were majara, and were arrayed in full regimentals, i.e. fantastic bedizenments of cowhair and monkey-skin, and their heads crowned with the isiqoba, or ball of feathers; one long plume from the wing of a crested crane stuck into this, pointing aloft like a horn. The expression of their faces was that of truculent contempt, as their glance roamed scornfully from the camp servants, moving about their divers occupations, to the white men, to whom they were bearers of a peremptory summons. It was significant of the ominous character of the latter, no less than of the temper of arrogant hostility felt towards the whites by the younger men of the nation, that these sat there, toying with the blades of their assegais and battle- axes; for a remonstrance from Sybrandt against so gross a violation of etiquette as to enter a friendly camp with weapons in their hands had been met by a curt refusal to disarm, on the ground that they were King’s warriors, and, further, that they were of the King’s bodyguard, and, as such, were armed, even in the presence of the Great Great One himself. “I only hope no inkling of what we were talking about yesterday has got wind, Blachland,” explained Sybrandt, seriously. “If Lo Ben got such a notion into his head—why then, good night. As to which, do you happen to notice that one of our fellows is missing? No, no; don’t say his name. Those three jokers have got their ears wide open, and are smart at putting two and two together.” Thoroughly awake now, Blachland, looking around, became aware of the significance of the other’s statement. One of the “boys” was missing, and that the one who had seemed to be overhearing when they had talked on that dangerous topic—Hlangulu, the Matabele. “Hurry now, Amakiwa,” growled one of the messengers. “Is not the Great Great One waiting?” “He can wait a little longer, umfane,” rejoined Pemberton, tranquilly sipping his coffee, which was hot. “Ah! Who but a madman would provoke the wrath of the Black Bull?” growled the savage. Pemberton nodded. “The Black Bull in this case is no longer a calf,” he replied. “Therefore he will know that everything cannot be done in a hurry.” The three savages scowled and muttered. In their heart of hearts they had an immense respect for these cool, imperturbable white men, so entirely but unobtrusively fearless. At last the latter arose, and, buckling on their bandoliers and taking their rifles, declared that they were ready. “Put those down. The Great Great One has sent for you. You cannot go before him armed,” said one of the envoys insolently, pointing with his knob stick. But for all the effect the injunction had upon those to whom it was addressed, it might just as well not have been uttered. The slightest possible raising of an eyebrow alone showed that they had so much as heard it. The horses were brought round saddled, and, mounting, they started, a kind of instinct moving them to outmanoeuvre each attempt of their truculent summoners to bring up the rear. But as they moved out of camp the idea was the same in all four minds—whether they were destined ever to re-enter it. Lo Bengula was, at that time, friendly to the English. Sick of haggling with rival concession-mongers, he had finally concluded terms for the occupation of adjacent Mashunaland, and, having made the best of a bad job, felt relieved that his lines were henceforth cast in peaceful and pleasant places. But he reckoned without the nation which produced Drake and Hawkins, Raleigh and Clive, and—Cecil Rhodes. He reckoned, also, without his own fighting men. The bumptiousness of these was inordinate, overwhelming. They were fully convinced they could whip all creation—that agglomeration being represented hither to by the inferior tribes, which they had reduced and decimated ever since the exodus from Zululand. Now these troublesome whites were coming into the country by threes and fours—why not make an end of them before they became too numerous? Umzilikazi would have done this—Umzilikazi, that Elephant who had made the nation what it was. So they murmured against Lo Bengula, in so far as they dared, and that was a good deal, for the voice of a nation can make itself heard, even against a despot, when the potentate thinks fit to run counter to its sense. Now, three out of the four knew the King intimately; the other, Blachland to wit, fairly well. They had frequently visited him at Bulawayo, either spontaneously, or in compliance with a request. But never had they been sent for in such fashion that a trio of armed and insolent youths were thought good enough to be the bearers of the King’s message. Upon this circumstance, and the disappearance of Hlangulu, Christian Sybrandt was expatiating, as they took their way leisurely along the slope where the business part of the present town of Bulawayo now stands, for Lo Bengula’s great place crowned the rise some two miles to the eastward. And here signs of busy life were already apparent. Files of women, bearers of wood or water, were stepping along; bunches of cattle being driven or herded; here and there, men, in groups or singly, proceeding to, or returning from the great kraal, their deep-toned voices rising upon the air in contrast to the clearer trebles of the feminine ones, though none the less rich and melodious. And above the immense kraal, with its ring of clustering huts, a blue smoke cloud, drifting lazily to leeward, as though the place were in a state of conflagration. A peaceful, pastoral scene, but that the sun glinted on the blades of the assegais carried by the men, and on the sheen of their miniature shields. Nor were other symptoms wanting, and those of a far more ominous character, which should bring home to our party the full fact that they were in the heart of a nation of turbulent and ruthless barbarians; for as they drew nearer to the great kraal, a mighty hubbub arose within its precincts, and there emerged from the stockade a dark surging crowd of armed warriors. These, uttering a ferocious shout, made straight for the new arrivals. “Steady, Blachland,” enjoined Sybrandt, in a low tone. “Don’t lose your head, man; keep cool. It’s the only thing to be done.” The warning was needed, for he to whom it was addressed had already shown signs of preparing to resist this hostile threatening demonstration. The gravity of the tone in which it was uttered, however, went far to neutralise in his mind the reassuring effect of the imperturbable aspect of his companions. The swarm of savages came crowding round the four white men, brandishing their assegais and battle-axes, and frightening the horses not a little. But two Bechuana boys who were attendant upon their masters they managed to frighten a good deal more. These turned grey with terror, and really there was some excuse for it. For each had been seized by a tall ruffian, who, gripping him by the throat, was making believe to rip him with a great assegai brandished in front of the miserable wretch’s face, every now and then letting him feel the point sufficiently to make him think the stroke already dealt, causing the victim to yell and whine with terror. The while his white masters could do nothing to protect him, their efforts being needed to calm and restrain their badly-frightened horses: an element of the grotesque which evoked roars of bass laughter from the boisterous and bloodthirsty crowd. “Cease this fooling!” shouted Sybrandt, in the Sindabele tongue. “Is this how you treat the King’s guests? Make way. We are bound upon the King’s business.” “The King’s business!” echoed the warriors. “The King’s business! Ah! ah! We too are bound upon the King’s business. Come and see, Amakiwa. Come and see how we black ones, the children of the King, the Eater-up of the Disobedient, perform his bidding.” Then, for the first time, our party became aware that in the midst of the crowd were two men who had been dragged along by raw-hide thongs noosed round their necks; and, their horses having quieted down, they were able to observe what was to follow. That the poor wretches were about to be sacrificed in some hideous and savage fashion was only too obvious, and they themselves could not refuse to witness this horror, for the reason that to do so would be, in the present mood of these fiends, almost tantamount to throwing away their own lives. “What is their offence, Sikala-kala?” asked Sybrandt, addressing a man he knew. “Their offence? Au! it is great. They have gone too near the Esibayaneni, the sacred place where the King, the Great Great One, practises mutt. What offence can be greater than such?” The victims, their countenances set and stony with fear, were now seized and held by many a pair of powerful and willing hands. Then, with the blade of a great assegai, their ears were deliberately shorn from their heads. A roar of delight went up from the barbarous spectators, who shouted lustily in praise of the King. “So said the Great Great One: ‘They had ears, but their ears heard what it was not lawful they should hear, so they must hear no more!’ Is he not wise? Au! the wisdom of the calf of Matyobane!” Again the executioners closed around their victims. A moment more and they parted. They were holding up to the crowd their victims’ eyes. The roars of delight rose in redoubled volume. “So said the Black One: ‘They had eyes, but they saw what it was not lawful for them to look upon. So they must see no more!’ Au! the greatness of the Elephant whose tread shaketh the world!” There was a tigerish note in the utterance of this horrible paean which might well have made the white spectators shudder. Whatever they felt, however, they must show nothing. “I shall be deadly sick directly,” muttered Blachland; and all wondered what horror was yet to come. The two blinded and mutilated wretches were writhing and moaning, and begging piteously for the boon of death to end their terrible sufferings. But their fiendish tormentors were engaged in far too congenial a task to be in any undue hurry to end it. It is only fair to record that to the victims themselves it would have been equally congenial were the positions reversed. At last, however, the executioners again stepped forward. “So said the Ruler of Nations,” they bellowed, their short-handled heavy knob sticks held aloft: “These two had the power of thought. They used that power to pry into what it is not lawful for them even to think about. A man without brains cannot think. Let them therefore think no more.” And with these two last words of the King’s sentence—terse, remorseless in the simplicity of its barbarous logic—the heavy knob sticks swept down with a horrid crunch as of the pulverising of bones. Another and another. The sufferings of the miserable wretches were over at last. Their death struggles had ceased, and they lay stark and motionless, their skulls literally battered to pieces. Not the most hardened and philosophical of the white spectators could entirely conceal the expressions of loathing and repulsion which were stamped upon each countenance as they turned away from this horrid sight. On that of Blachland it was far the most plainly marked, and seemed to afford the ferocious crowd the liveliest satisfaction. “See there, Amakiwa,” they shouted. “Look and behold. It is not well to pry into forbidden things. Behold the King’s justice.” And again they chorused forth volleys of sibonga, i.e. the royal praises. Was it merely a coincidence that their looks and the significance of the remark seemed to be directed peculiarly at Blachland? He himself was not the only one who thought so. “W hat do you think now, Blachland?” said Young, dryly. “Better leave that little exploration scheme you were planning strictly alone, eh?” “Well, I believe I had,” was the answer. And now the armed warriors clustered round the white men. Some were chatting with Christian Sybrandt as they moved upward to the great kraal, for they had insisted on forming a sort of escort for their visitors; or, as these far more resembled, their prisoners. They were in better humour now, after their late diversion, but still there were plenty who shook their assegais towards the latter, growling out threats. And as they approached the vast enclosure, the same thought was foremost in the minds of all four. Something had gone wrong. They could only hope it was not as they suspected. They were absolutely at the mercy of a suspicious barbarian despot, the objects of the fanatical hate of his people. W hat that “mercy” might mean they had just had a grimly convincing object lesson. Chapter Three. What Happened at Bulawayo. 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. “W hat 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. “W hat 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. “W hy, 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. W ho 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.” W hich 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. “W hen white people come into my country I welcome them as my friends,” went on the King. “W hen 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, “W ho 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— “W ho 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. Chapter Four. Hermia. “I don’t care. I’ll say it again. It’s a beastly shame him leaving you alone like this.” “But you are not to say it again, or to say it at all. Remember of whom you are speaking.” “Oh, no fear of my forgetting that—of being able to forget it. All the same, he ought to be ashamed of himself.” And the speaker tapped his foot impatiently upon the virgin soil of Mashunaland, looking very hot, and very tall, and very handsome. The remonstrant, however, received the repetition of the offence in silence, but for a half inaudible sigh, which might or might not have been meant to convey that she was not nearly so angry with the other as her words seemed to imply or their occasion to demand. Then there was silence. An oblong house, of the type known as “wattle and daub,” with high-pitched thatch roof, partitioned within so as to form three rooms—a house rough and ready in construction and aspect, but far more comfortable than appearances seemed to warrant. Half a dozen circular huts with conical roofs, clustered around, serving the purpose of kitchen and storehouse and quarters for native servants; beyond these, again, a smaller oblong structure, constituting a stable, the whole walled round by a stockade of mopani poles;—and there you have a far more imposing establishment than that usually affected by the pioneer settler. Around, the country is undulating and open, save for a not very thick growth of mimosa; but on one hand a series of great granite kopjes rise abruptly from the plain, the gigantic boulders piled one upon the other in the fantastic and arbitrary fashion which forms such a characteristic feature in the landscape of a large portion of Rhodesia. “Well?” The woman was the first to break the silence—equally a characteristic feature, a cynic might declare. “Well?” The answer was staccato, and not a little pettish. The first speaker smiled softly to herself. She revelled in her power, and was positively enjoying the cat and mouse game, though it might have been thought that long custom would have rendered even that insidious pastime stale and insipid. “So sorry you have to go,” she murmured sweetly. “But it’s getting late, and you’ll hardly reach home before dark.” The start—the blank look which overspread his features—all this, too, she thoroughly enjoyed. “Have to go,” he echoed. “Oh, well—yes, of course, if you want to get rid of me—” “I generally do want to get rid of people when they are sulky, and disagreeable, and ill-tempered,” was the tranquil reply. But the expression of her eyes, raised full to his, was such as to take all the sting out of her words. Not quite all, however, for his mind was in that parlous state best defined as “worked up”—and the working-up process had been one, not of hours or of days, but of weeks. “Well, then, good-bye.” Then, pausing: “Why do you torment me like this, Hermia, when you know—” “What’s that? I didn’t say you might call me by my name.” “Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs Blachland,” was the reply, bitterly, resentfully emphatic. Then, thawing suddenly, “You didn’t mind it the other day, and—well, you know what you are to me and always will be.” “Until somebody else is more so,” came the smiling interruption. “Hark”—raising a hand suddenly, and listening intently. “Yes, it is. Will you be a very dear boy, Justin, and do something for me?” “You know I would do anything for you—anything in the wide world.” “Oh, this is nothing very great. There are guinea-fowl over there in the kopje—I can hear them. I only want you to take Hilary’s gun, and go and shoot me a few. Will you? The supplies are running low.” “Of course I will,” was the answer, as they both went inside, and Justin Spence, invested with an excellent Number 12 bore, and a belt full of cartridges, started off on his errand of purveyor to the household, all his ill-humour gone. He was very young, you see, and the next best thing to glowing in the presence of his charmer was to be engaged in rendering her some service. She stood there watching his receding form, as it moved away rapidly over the veldt in long elastic strides. Once he turned to look back. She waved her hand in encouragement. “How good-looking he is!” she said to herself. “How well he moves too—so well set up and graceful! But why was he so emphatic just now when he called me that? Was it accidental? I wonder was it? Oh yes, it must have been. That’s the worst of an arrière pensée, one is always imagining things. No, the very fact of his putting such emphasis upon the name shows it was accidental. He’d never have been so mean—Justin isn’t that sort.” She stood for a little longer, shading her eyes to gaze after him, again smiling softly to herself as she reflected how easily she could turn him round her little finger, how completely and entirely he was her slave; and, indeed, Justin Spence was not the only one of whom this held good. There was a warm- blooded physical attractiveness about her which never failed to appeal to those of the other sex. She was not beautiful, hardly even pretty. Her dark hair was plentiful, but it was coarse and wavy, and she had no regularity of feature, but lovely eyes and a very fascinating smile. Her hands were large, but her figure, of medium height, was built on seductive lines; and yet this strange conglomeration of attractions and defects was wont to draw the male animal a hundredfold more readily than the most approved and faultless types of beauty could ever have done. Still musing she entered the house. It was cool within. Strips of “limbo,” white and dark blue, concealed the wattle and thatch, giving the interior something of the aspect of a marquee. There were framed prints upon the walls, mostly of a sporting character, and a few framed photographs. Before one of these she paused. “I think you are tired of me, Hilary,” she murmured, as though addressing the inanimate bit of cardboard. “I think we are tired of each other. Yet—are we?” Was there a touch of wistfulness in the words, in the tone as she gazed? Perhaps. The eyes which met hers from the pictured cardboard were the eyes which had been all powerful to sway her, body and soul, as no other glance had ever availed to do; the face was that which had filled her every thought, day and night, and as no other had ever held it. Ah, but that was long ago: and time, and possession, utterly without restriction, had palled the heretofore only dreamed-of bliss! “Yes, I think we are tired of each other,” she pursued. “He never takes me anywhere with him now. Says a camp’s no place for me, with nothing but men in it. As if I’d go if there were other women. Pah! I hate women. He used not to say that. Ah, well! And Justin! he really is a dear boy. I believe I am getting to love him, and when he comes back I shall give him a— Well, wait till he does. Perhaps by then I shall have changed my mood.” She had dropped into a roomy rocking-chair—a sensuous, alluring personality as she lay back, her full supple figure swaying to the rhythmic movement of the rocker, kept going by one foot. “It is as Justin said,” pursued the train of her meditations, “an abominable shame—a beastly shame, he called it—that I should be left all alone like this. Well, if I am, surely no one can blame me for consoling myself. But what a number of them there have been, all mad, quite mad, for the time, though not all so mad as poor Reggie. No, I oughtn’t to be proud of that—still I suppose I am. It isn’t every woman can say that a man has blown his brains out for her—and such a man as that too—a man of power and distinction, and wealthy enough even for me. If it hadn’t been for Hilary, he needn’t have done it. And, now Hilary and I are tired of each other. Ah!” The last aloud. She rose and went to the door. The sound of a distant shot, then another, had given rise to this diversion. It came from away behind the granite kopjes. Her deputed hunter had got to work at any rate, with what result time would show. The afternoon sun was declining. His rays swept warm and golden upon the spreading veldt and the pioneer residence, the latter looking, within its stockade, like a miniature fort. The air was wonderfully clear and pure; the golden effulgence upon the warm and balmy stillness rendering life well-nigh a joy in itself. The distant mellow shouts of the native herders, bringing in the cows; the thud of the hoofs of knee-haltered horses, nearer home, driven into their nightly stabling—for lions were prone to sporadic visits, and nothing alive could with safely be left outsid...