In the Whirl of the Rising Part 38

Over and above the poignancy of bereavement an awful depression would come upon her, and in her dreams she would again see the horrors and bloodshed she had witnessed--ay, and taken part in; and the savage faces of those she herself had slain would rise to confront her, glaring hideously with distorted features and threatening snarl. What was she expiating, she would wonder, that no peace should be hers either by night or by day?

If she suffered, it was in silence. Hers was far the stronger mind of the two, and even to her sister she shrank from laying it entirely open.

Yet her reticence was seen through, and everybody was considerate and sympathetic. Every sc.r.a.p of news relating to what was going on in the field was promptly conveyed to her, all but what she thirsted to hear, and that was still lacking. Day followed upon day, and the whereabouts of Peters and his following remained shrouded in a mystery as impenetrable as that of him whom they sought.

Among those who strove to cheer her up was Driffield the Native Commissioner, and he in a measure succeeded.

"Don't give up, yet, Miss Vidal," he said, "no, not by any means. I wish I could bring you round to my belief, and that is that Lamont will turn up again."

"I wish you could," she answered. "But--time goes on and we hear-- nothing."

"I'm not sure that's against it," returned Driffield. "Lamont was a peculiar chap--in fact, a very peculiar sort of chap. He was friendly with Zwabeka's people and with Zwabeka himself. Well, then, it's just possible some of them may be hiding him away until it's safe to turn him loose."

"Why do you think that, Mr Driffield?"

"I don't know. It occurs to me as quite within the possibilities. The great thing is--we know he wasn't killed there, and we know that two others were. Lamont understands natives thoroughly--I could see that-- and I fancy I know a little about them myself. Look, too, how he engineered the old witch-doctor the day of the race meeting. That was a great piece of nerve and gumption combined. By Jove! I shouldn't wonder in the least if he were to make it worth their while to let him skip. Somehow I'm almost certain he'll turn up again quite jolly."

"If only I could think so!" she would reply sadly.

Every day she would visit the wounded men, who were lying in a temporary hospital within the precincts of the laager, and this she never missed.

They had been wounded in her defence, she declared, and anything she could do to brighten the weariness and pain of their enforced detention should be done. And brighten it she did, and her daily visit was looked forward to with such eagerness that more than one poor fellow declared that it almost made it worth while being knocked out. But Jim Steele growled mightily.

"To think I should be logged up here, when Peters and the rest are looking for the captain. These infernal sawboneses are no d.a.m.n good at all. Eh, Strange?"

"No? Only to save you by a miracle from having to part with your hoof, Jim," answered the Buluwayo surgeon tranquilly. "That no good, eh?"

For the other had been shot in the ankle, and had just escaped the necessity of amputation by something like a miracle, as the doctor had said.

"Well, get it all right again sharp, that's what I want," growled the big fellow, who was terribly hipped and impatient under his enforced rest. "Get me out of this in ten days, Strange, and I'll double your blooming fees--Dawson's too."

"If you were to multiply them by twenty or twenty hundred, Jim, it couldn't be done," answered the surgeon tranquilly. "Moreover, not with my consent, nor Dawson's either,"--the latter was the Gandela medico,--"do you put that foot to the ground under six weeks. No, it's no use cussing, none at all. Besides, here's Miss Vidal just coming in, and she might hear you."

There was one who was variously affected by the disappearance of Lamont--one of whom we have lost sight of for a little, and that one was Ancram. When he awoke from his slumber of exhaustion to find the relief party gone, at first he had affected great concern. Why had not someone awakened him? Of course he would have joined it. As a matter of fact, he was overjoyed that no one had, for he had no stomach for fighting, and had spent the last three days heartily wis.h.i.+ng he had taken Lamont's advice and cleared out of the country in time. More than ever did he congratulate himself on his escape, when the experiences of the relief party became known, but it was with dismay that he learned the disappearance of its leader. For Ancram was getting desperately hard up, and would soon not know which way to turn. He was not much liked among those into whose midst he had come. Lamont might have helped him--probably would--not by reason of what he could tell--the prowess of the missing man was too much in the air for that--but for old acquaintance' sake; and now Lamont had disappeared.

The days of that disappearance had just grown into weeks. News would filter through from outside--of battles fought, of rescues effected; of losses inflicted upon the savage enemy: but of the missing man, and those who sought him, came no word, and Clare Vidal, abandoning hope, could only storm high Heaven with supplication for him, whether in life or in death.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

"WHERE HE WAS."

Even with the first slip and stumble of his horse Lamont realised that his last moment had come; and, as he lay pinned there and unable to move, he restrained a natural instinct to call for a.s.sistance. His fleeing comrades could not render him such, and the attempt would result in the certain sacrifice of their own lives. His time had come.

He was powerless for resistance. His magazine rifle was lying on the ground beyond his reach, and his revolver was crushed beneath him in such manner that he could not get at it. Helpless he awaited his end, agonising and bitter as such must be.

He saw the swarming savage faces, scowling beneath their war adornments, the tossing s.h.i.+elds and uplifted a.s.segais, as that dark crowd surged forward, eyeb.a.l.l.s glaring and blades lifted, eager to redden the latter in the blood of a hated and now helpless enemy. He heard the guttural death-hiss vibrate upon the air--and then--and then--he saw and heard no more. His horse, rendered frantic with terror, had made a wild effort to rise, and in so doing had so crushed its rider's leg that the latter had fainted through sheer acute agony.

"_Wou_! This has gone on too long. He has said that none should be spared."

"Yet, this one is."

"Ill will befall us, brothers; ill because of it." And Gingamanzi, the highest in rank of the group of Abantwana Mlimo there deliberating, clicked deprecatorily, and spat.

This Gingamanzi was a small, crafty-looking Makalaka, very black, and with a nose almost aquiline, giving a predatory and hawklike aspect to his forbidding countenance. His status in the hierarchy of the Abstraction was hardly second to that of Qubani, indeed there were those who reckoned his gifts the greater.

The group was seated in the open--a huge, riven granite pillar towering up behind them. Above, around, everywhere, vast granite blocks were piled, shutting in the place on all sides. It had been raining heavily for several hours, though by now it was sullenly clearing, and on the wet earth, stamped flat and muddy by hundreds of feet, fires were springing up in the dusk, and the hum of many voices rose and fell upon the damp heavy air.

Hundreds were collected here; all fighting men, no women and dogs.

Weapons of war lay behind each group, just as they had been put down: s.h.i.+elds, a.s.segais, guns of all sorts and sizes, axes, k.n.o.b-sticks. It was evident that this was an important stronghold and rallying point for the Matabele impis in the field.

"Zwabeka will bring destruction upon us, brothers," went on Gingamanzi.

"He it is that spared this Makiwa. He laughs at Umlimo."

"Perhaps he is but keeping him as a sacrifice to Umlimo," said another.

"A man half dead already would make a poor sacrifice."

"Zwabeka is chief here now," went on Gingamanzi meaningly. "By the time the sun has risen twice, he will not be. We will go and look at this Makiwa, and see how soon he will be ready for Umlimo. Zwabeka will not give him to us now, but when he is dead, he will be glad to."

"_Au_!" grunted another, "I am but a child beside the chief of the Abantwana Mlimo. Still I would ask--Of what use is one who is already dead, as a sacrifice to Umlimo?"

Gingamanzi put his head on one side.

"Thou art but a child! Ah! ah! that is true, Kekelwa. For the man will not really be dead but will only seem to be. If I can but touch him with this; one touch, even one little touch that he will hardly feel; why then he will be as one dead to the beholders, and yet he will know all that goes on. He will even be able to feel."

"Then he will move," was an objection raised. "How then will they think him dead?"

"He will not move. The _muti_ here is such that he will not move, although he will know and feel." And the black little demon contemplated lovingly a sort of lancet that he had drawn from a wooden sheath. The keen point was encrusted with something. Grim heads craned eagerly forward to examine the thing. _Whau_! the _muti_ of Gingamanzi was wonderful, wonderful, declared his satellites sycophantically.

"Then, when they think him dead, we will take him away to the right place, and revive him again. _Whau_! Umlimo will laugh, spending days and nights listening to his shrieks and groans. This big strong Makiwa, this leader of impis, he shall weep and whine like a woman or a dog under that which we shall make him suffer, and that for days. Come, we will go and see him, and it may be now I shall touch him with the _muti_ point."

With a hum of ferocious antic.i.p.ation the group arose. These undersized, lean Makalaka, who led the superst.i.tions of the superior race, made up for their lack of physical prowess in the field by a love of cruelty at home, and woe betide him who should be handed over to their tender mercies. That one they reckoned ought so to be, and hoped would be, we have gleaned from the above conversation--and this one a white man.

They made their way to a great block of boulders, the piling of which formed a s.p.a.cious natural cave. In this several Matabele warriors were lounging, some cooking food at a fire near the entrance. By the fitful red light of the flickering flames another rec.u.mbent form could be made out at the far extremity of the place. As the sorcerers would have entered, several of the warriors sprang to their feet, and barred pa.s.sage.

"Give way; give way," ordered Gingamanzi curtly. "We would see the Makiwa."

"That may not be, Umtwana Mlimo," came the ready reply. "He has said it--our father--that none may approach the Makiwa."

"But another _he_--who is greater still--has said that _his_ servants may. How is that, Umfane?"

"_Whau! 'Umfane_!' I _Umfane--I_, who wear the ring!" And the tall warrior scowled down upon the puny representative of an inferior race.

"_Umfane_ or not, thou art going into battle again soon," returned Gingamanzi. "But it will be thy last. Not through death--that were easy--but a warrior who has lost the use of his legs, and has to walk on his hands like a dog--why, he had better be dead. But dead or not he has fought in his last battle. How sayest thou?"

"_Eh! he_! How sayest thou?" echoed the sorcerers.

"How say I? This is how I say," answered the warrior, noting that some of his comrades seemed to be wavering. "For what happens in battle I will take my chance. For what happens here I have to answer to my father, and chief. His word was: let none enter, and--on the head ring of Umzilikazi--none _shall_ enter--no, not even were it Umlimo himself."

The speaker's voice had risen to a roar, to which was added a shrill cry of menace and resentment from the group of sorcerers at this blasphemous utterance. Even the bold one's comrades looked somewhat aghast. Would they ultimately yield? And yet--and yet--far away in Gandela one broken-hearted woman was wearying high Heaven day and night on behalf of him now threatened with this new and ghastly peril.