Tween Snow and Fire Part 24

Hoste said nothing. But for that little corner of the curtain of her suspicions which his wife had lifted on the first night of Eanswyth's arrival, he might have been three parts inclined to agree with his friend. As things stood, he wasn't.

But could they at that moment have seen the subject of their conversation, it is possible that even the sh.e.l.ly and cynical Payne might have felt shaken in his so glibly expressed opinion. In the seclusion of her room she sat, soft tears coming to the relief of the hitherto dry and burning eyes as she pressed to her lips, forehead, and heart, a little bit of cold and tarnished metal. It was the broken spur which Eustace had been wearing at the time of the disaster, and which her recent visitors had just given her. And over this last sorry relic she was pouring out her whole soul--sorrowing as one who had no hope.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE s.h.i.+ELD OF HER LOVE.

When Eustace Milne fell from his saddle to the earth, the savage who had stabbed him, and who was about to follow up the blow, started back with a loud shout of astonishment and dismay.

It arrested the others. They paused as they stood. It arrested a.s.segai blades quivering to bury themselves in the fallen man's body. It arrested murderous k.n.o.b-kerries whistling in the air ready to descend and crash out the fallen man's brains. They stood, those maddened, bloodthirsty barbarians, paralysed, petrified, as they took up with one voice their compatriot's dismayed shout.

"_Au! Umtagati! Mawo_!" [Ha! Witchcraft! A wonder!]

They crowded round the prostrate body, but none would touch it. The blow had been dealt hard and fair, by a hand which had dealt more than one such blow before, and always with deadly effect. Yet the wound did not bleed.

The dealer of it stood, contemplating his a.s.segai, with looks of amazement, of alarm. Instead of driving its great broad blade up to the hilt in the yielding body of his victim, and feeling the warm blood gush forth upon his hand, the point had encountered something hard, with the effect of administering quite a shock to wrist and arm, so great was the force of the blow and the resistance. And the point of the spear blade had snapped off by at least an inch.

"Witchcraft!" they cried again. "He is dead, and yet he does not bleed.

_Mawo_!"

He was. Not a movement stirred his limbs; not a breath heaved his chest ever so faintly. The lips, slightly parted, were as livid as the features.

For a few moments they stood contemplating their victim in speechless amazement. Then one, more daring or less credulous than his fellows, reached forward as if about to plunge his a.s.segai into the motionless body. The rest hung breathlessly watching the result of the experiment.

But before it could be carried into effect the deep tones of a peremptory voice suspended the uplifted weapon. Every head turned, and the circle parted to make way for the new arrival.

He was a tall, muscular Kafir, as straight as a dart, and carried his head with an air of command which, with the marked deference shown him, bespoke him a man of considerable rank. His bronzed and sinewy proportions were plentifully adorned with fantastic ornaments of beadwork and cow-tails, and he wore a headpiece of monkey skin surmounted by the long waving plumes of the blue crane.

Without a word he advanced, and, bending over the prostrate body, scrutinised the dead man's features. A slight start and exclamation of astonishment escaped him, then, recovering himself, he carefully examined, without touching it, the place where the a.s.segai had struck.

There it was, visible to all, a clean cut in the cord jacket--yet no sign of blood.

"_Au_! He does not bleed! He does not bleed!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the crowd again.

By this time the numbers of the latter had augmented. Having given up the chase of the other two whites, or leaving it to their advance guards, the Kafirs swarmed back by twos and threes to where the gathering crowd showed that something unusual was going on.

The chief drew a knife from his girdle and bent once more over the prostrate form. But his purpose was not at present a bloodthirsty one, for he only held the broad blade across the livid lips. Then raising it he scrutinised it keenly. The bright steel was ever so slightly dimmed.

"Ha!" he exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction, rising to his feet after repeating the operation. Then he issued his orders, with the result that poor Eustace was lifted on to a stout blanket, and four men, advancing, shouldered a corner apiece and thus, with their living burden in their midst, the whole band moved away down the kloof.

After about two hours' marching, during which the country grew wilder and more wooded, they halted at a water-hole--one of a chain of several in the otherwise dried-up bed of a stream. Eustace was gently lowered to the ground, and, squatting around him, his bearers began to watch him with a great and gathering curiosity, for he was beginning to show signs of returning life.

At a rapid signal from the chief, water was fetched from the hole and his brow and face bathed. A tremor ran through his frame and a sigh escaped him. Then he opened his eyes.

"_Hau_!" exclaimed the Kafirs, bending eagerly forward.

At sight of the ring of dark faces gazing upon him in the gathering dusk, Eustace raised his head with a slight start. Then, as recollection returned to him, he sank wearily back. His head was aching, too, as if it would split. He would be fortunate if the blow which had deprived him of consciousness did not end in concussion of the brain.

With the return of consciousness came a feeling of intense gratification that he was still alive. This may seem a superfluous statement, yet not. Many a man waking to the consciousness that he was a helpless captive in the power of fierce and ruthless barbarians, has prayed with all his soul for the mercy of a swift and certain death, and has done so with a grim and terrible earnestness. Not so, however, Eustace Milne.

He had something to live for now. While there was life there was hope.

He was not going to throw away a single chance.

To this end, then, he lay perfectly still, closing his eyes again, for he wanted to think, to clear his terribly aching and beclouded brain.

And while thus lying, seemingly unconscious, his ears caught the subdued hum of his captors' conversation--caught the whispered burden of their superst.i.tious misgivings, and he resolved to turn them to account.

"It is a powerful `charm,'" one of them was saying. "We ought to find it--to take it away from him."

"We had better not meddle with it," was the reply. "Wait and see. It may not be too powerful for Ngcenika, or it may. We shall see."

"Ha! Ngcenika--the great prophetess. _Ewa, ewa_!" [Yes--yes]

exclaimed several.

A powerful charm? Ngcenika, the prophetess? What did they mean. Then it dawned upon him as in a flash. The uplifted a.s.segai, the great leaping barbarian, grinning in bloodthirsty glee as the weapon quivered in his sinewy grasp: then the blow--straight at his heart. It all came back lo him now.

Yet how had he escaped? The stroke had been straight, strong, and surely directed. He had felt the contact. Checking an impulse to raise his hand to his heart, he expanded his chest ever so slightly. No sharp, p.r.i.c.king pang, as of a stab or cut. He was unwounded. But how?

And then as the truth burst upon him, such a thrill of new-born hope radiated throughout his being that he could hardly refrain from leaping to his feet then and there. The silver box--Eanswyth's gift at parting--this was what had interposed between him and certain death!

The silver box--with its contents, the representation of that sweet face, those last lines, tear stained, "warm from her hand and heart," as she herself had put it--this was what had turned the deadly stroke which should have cleft his heart in twain. What an omen!

A "charm," they had called it--a powerful "charm." Ha! that must be his cue. Would it prove too potent for Ngcenika? they had conjectured. The name was familiar to him as owned by Kreli's princ.i.p.al witch-doctress, a shadowy personage withal, and known to few, if any, of the whites, and therefore credited with powers above the average. Certain it was that her influence at that time was great.

More than ever now had he his cue, for he could guess his destination.

They were taking him to the hiding place of the Paramount Chief, and with the thorough knowledge he possessed of his captors, the chance of some opportunity presenting itself seemed a fairly good one. But, above all, he must keep up his character for invulnerability. Neither peril nor pain must wring from him the faintest indication of weakness.

In furtherance of this idea--the racking, splitting pain in his head notwithstanding--he sat up and looked deliberately around as though just awakening from an ordinary sleep. He noticed a start run round the circle of swarthy, wondering countenances. As he did so, his glance fell upon one that was familiar to him.

"_Hau_, Ixeshane!" cried its owner, stepping forth from the circle.

"You have come a long way to visit us!" and the ghost of a mocking smile lurked round the speaker's mouth.

"That is so, Hlangani. Here--tell one of them to dip that half-full of water at the hole." He had drawn a flask from his pocket and held out the metal cup. One of the Kafirs took it and proceeded to execute his request without a word. Then, adding some spirit to the water, he drank it off, and half-filling the cup again--with raw brandy--he handed it to the chief. Hlangani drained it at a single gulp.

"_Silungile_!" [Good] he said briefly, then stood wailing as if to see what the other would say next. Calmly Eustace returned the flask to his pocket. But he said nothing.

After about an hour's halt the band arose, and, gathering up their weapons and such scanty _impedimenta_ as they possessed, the Kafirs prepared to start.

"Can you walk, Ixeshane?" said the chief.

"Certainly," was the reply. His head was splitting and it was all he could do to keep on his feet at all. Still his new character must be kept up, and the night air was cool and invigorating. But just as he was about to step forth with the others, his arms were suddenly forced behind him and quickly and securely bound. There was no time for resistance, even had he entertained the idea of offering any, which he had not.

"Am I a fool, Hlangani?" he said. "Do I imagine that I, unarmed and alone, can escape from about two hundred armed warriors, think you?

Why, then, this precaution?"

"It is night," replied the chief laconically.

It was night, but it was bright moonlight. The Kafirs were marching in no particular order, very much at ease in fact, and as he walked, surrounded by a strong body guard, he could form some idea of the strength of the band. This numbered at least a couple of hundred, he estimated; but the full strength of the party which had so disastrously surprised them must have consisted of nearly twice that number. Then he questioned them concerning the fate of his comrades. For answer they grinned significantly, going through a pantomimic form of slaying a prostrate enemy with a.s.segais.

"All killed?" said Eustace, incredulously.

"No. Only the one who is with you," was the answer. "But the other two will be dead by this time. Their horses were used up, and our people are sure to have overtaken them long before they got to the river. _Au umlungu_!" went on the speaker, "Were you all mad, you four poor whites, that you thought to come into the country of the Great Chief, Sarili, the Chief Paramount, and eat the cattle of his children?"