The Induna's Wife Part 17

She was standing alone in the open, midway between the cloud of scowling witch doctors and the band of girls, and there was that in her wondrous eyes which constrained and controlled the latter. She, too, was arrayed in rich beadwork, but wore no wreaths or garlands of leaves, and as I gazed upon her standing there--a splendid and majestic form--why then, _Nkose_, anybody who chose might have stepped up and slain me, unresisting in my amazement. For she who stood there was none other than my lost sorceress-wife, Lalusini.

Had the shades sent forth their spirits? Had the grim alligators in Umzilikazi's pool of death shrank back in fear from so royal a prey?

Was I dreaming, or had I gone mad with the prolonged suspense of my impending doom? No! In the very life there she stood--she to avenge whom I would have slain a king--would have destroyed a whole mighty nation. And she stood there to avert from me the sure and dreadful death--the death of the man at whom the witch-wand has been pointed.

One glance she flashed upon me from her wonderful eyes--quick, full, penetrating--one glance and no more; but in that glance I knew I was safe, for who should harm one whom the most marvellous magic ever known now protected?

For some time thus she stood, speaking no word, only gazing around with calm commanding eyes. Then the King grew impatient.

"Have done," he exclaimed, with a frown. "Let us see whether the magic of Mahlula is greater than that of Tola."

"The magic of Mahlula," had said Dingane. Then Lalusini was not known.

Yet it seemed to me the majesty of the House of Senzangakona was so stamped upon every feature that her very look must betray her.

"Judge now for thyself, Father of the Wise," she replied. "This is the word of Mahlula. The 'stranger' of whom Tola speaks, of whom his company did but now sing, is not here, else these"--showing with a sweep of the hand the band of girls, who had ceased their movements and were now sitting in a ring around her--"these whom I have trained and taught would have found him--for my will works through theirs--my eyes see through theirs. Therefore, he cannot be here."

"Why, then, are we?" said Dingane, with a meaning in his tone that boded ill for Tola and his following.

"Was it to learn the fate of a nation, Great Great One?" answered Lalusini, or Mahlula, as she was known here. "Learn it then so far.

The end is not yet. But--I see the shook of war. I see men and horses advancing. The lion-cubs of Zulu flee before them. But lying behind the hills on either side is a dark cloud of terrible ones. Still they advance, those whites. Then that cloud whirls down upon them, breaks over them. Ha! There are death-screams as the flash of the spears rises and falls, and horses straggling, hoofs in air, and the song of those black ones is a battle-song of triumph."

Now I saw that the speaker had fallen into one of those divining trances I knew so well, and in which all she foretold had come to pa.s.s.

Dingane, too, began to see this, and asked eagerly, yet not without awe in his tone:

"And when shall this be, sister?"

"Hearken to no idle counsels. Heed no false magic," she answered, with meaning. "I, and I alone, can see into the future. Be led by me if this nation would live."

With these words, I, who looked, saw the vision pa.s.s away from Lalusini's countenance, and her eyes were as those of one who awakens out of a deep sleep. The King, too, must have seen it, for he forebore to question her further. Then he spoke, low at first, but raising his voice in a black and terrible burst of wrath.

"Now of yon impostors I will make an end. Take them away, ye black ones." And he pointed with his spear at Tola and his following.

At the word of the King, the slayers sprang forward. But the witch doctors fled howling, and keeping in a compact body, broke through all who stood in their path, and the lower end of the kraal became full of the kicking, tumbling bodies of men. But the slayers were among them; and the people barring their way to the lower gate, they were seized and dragged, howling and shrieking, without the kraal. And as the k.n.o.bkerries fell with a heavy thud upon their cunning and bloodthirsty brains, a murmur of fierce delight escaped all who heard, for the people hated these wolves of _iza.n.u.si_, and rejoiced that they themselves should taste the death they loved to deal out to others.

There was one, however, who did not so rejoice, and that was Tambusa; indeed at first he had made a movement to stay the word, which was that of doom to the _iza.n.u.si_; but the look on the face of Dingane was so fell and deadly, that even the boldness of Tambusa quailed before it.

And I--_Whau_!--I rejoiced that I still lived, and that Tola was dead.

But Tambusa did not.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE DWELLING OF THE WISE ONE.

With the slaughter of the witch doctors Dingane had retired, and the vast a.s.semblage of the people, breaking up, was streaming away in different directions. Mahlula had disappeared.

Then, having gained my huts, I gave orders that I was to be left alone, and sat down to take snuff and to think. For here was a wonderful thing. She whom I had thought dead was alive again--had reappeared at the very moment when death would otherwise have overtaken me. There was something of fear in my mind as I thought of it all. Was it really Lalusini whom I had seen, or was it another sorceress who bore to her a most marvellous likeness--a sister, perhaps? But even the House of Senzangakona could not produce two such, I reflected; and then the very method she had adopted of averting from me the doom was the method of Lalusini. And now I longed for her again, for, as I told you, _Nkose_, I loved her as you white men love your women; but if, for some reason, she had been forced to hide herself under another name, how could I, the wanderer, the stranger, the man who had come hither to deliver his own nation to destruction, reveal the real relations.h.i.+p between us by laying claim to her?

How was it I had never heard men speak of her? No talk, no word of a marvellous witch doctress, of a sorceress like no other ever seen, had reached my ear. Tola I knew, and those who worked magic with him, but of this one never a word. Was it because I was a stranger and not yet fully trusted? But old Gegesa's tale was untrue anyhow, for here was Lalusini alive and well, and beautiful as ever. Then I thought how to get speech with her.

To this end I went out. First I sought the hut of Silwane. But when after bringing round the talk to the events of the morning I would have drawn out of him what he knew as to the sorceress Mahlula, I found that he knew but little, as did those who sat in his hut. Her appearance in their midst was mystery, her movements were mystery, her very dwelling was mystery; and hearing this I thought how greatly I could have amazed Silwane by revealing how it was through the magic of this sorceress that our arms had won success over the great _impi_ he had helped to command at the Place of the Three Rifts. But from them I could obtain no tidings, nor from any with whom I talked on the subject; and as day after day went by, I began to wish I had not beheld Lalusini again, for now it seemed as though I were losing her once more.

Then my mind went back--back over my life since I had first beheld Lalusini and at great peril had managed to keep her for myself; back over our first meetings in the rock chamber of the Mountain of Death, what time we had eaten up the Bakoni, the nation who owned the Blue Cattle, and I remembered her words: "There is a people into whose midst I will one day return, and there I shall be great indeed, and you through me." Ha! Was this part of a scheme--of a carefully-matured plan? It seemed like it. So I resolved to wait and let things shape their course.

Now the very day on which I had formed this resolve I chanced to be outside of Nkunkundhlovu alone. Two girls strode by me with bundles on their heads, and as they did so, one whispered, "This night--induna of the Great One who site in the north. This night, by the two large reed-beds at the turn of the river. Mahlula waits."

The speaker pa.s.sed on, but I, _Nkose_--my blood leaped at the words. At last I would have speech with Lalusini. At last we would meet face to face. Yet, even in the midst of my joy came a misgiving. Was it a snare--was it a trap Tambusa had set for my undoing? for the man who wanders at night on mysterious business--_au_! he is soon an object of suspicion, and to be an object of suspicion at that time meant death.

This, however, I was ready to risk, but for all that I resolved to proceed warily, and he who should attempt treachery upon me might well wish he never had. So with my great a.s.segai, together with a heavy k.n.o.b-stick and a small s.h.i.+eld, I wandered up the river shortly before sundown, and did not return to Nkunkundhlovu for the night.

It had fallen quite dark, though the stars glittered forth in countless eyes from the blackness above. There was just the faintest murmur of the wind in the reed-beds, like the sigh of one who waits, and expecting, is disappointed for the time. The water flowed, evenly and smooth, lapping a low rock slab on the opposite bank, and now and again a soft splash and ripple as some crocodile rose or sank. In the air was a feeling of wizardry and awe; but I had pa.s.sed through too many strange things to hold such in fear. Yet it seemed over long that I sat by that dark water and whispering reeds, waiting, while I listened to the many voices of the night, near and far.

"Greeting, Untuswa!"

The words seemed to come out of nowhere. Quickly I looked up, but the voice was not that of Lalusini! Then I made out a dark shape--a very shadow.

"Follow now, holder of the White s.h.i.+eld," it said, and immediately began to move away.

The voice was that of a woman--soft and pleasing. Keeping the shadow in view, yet warily, I moved forward. Beneath the heavy gloom of trees overhanging the river bank we moved, and I had quite lost to view my guide, but at such times her voice would lead me; and at last I found she had halted at the entrance to a great rift like unto that wherein I had hid what time Jambula was surprised by the _impi_ in search of me.

My guide signed me to follow, and lo! we were threading our way in darkness between two great walls of earth. Then a light shone dully forth, and there, in a cave formed by the closing of the earth walls overhead, I beheld a fire.

"Advance now, induna of another King," said the voice of my guide, "for my errand is done."

Even as I looked round for her she had disappeared. But raising my eyes to the lighted s.p.a.ce in front I beheld that which made me forget all else, for before me stood Lalusini.

In the circle of firelight there she stood, a smile of welcome wreathing her lips, her splendid form erect and tall as when I last saw it standing to watch me out of sight what time I had started for the Valley of the Red Death. There she stood, her hands extended towards me.

"Welcome, Untuswa," she said. "Thus do we meet once more."

No words did I utter, _Nkose_. I sprang to her side and we embraced long and warmly. Then we sat down to talk, for we had much to say.

"Welcome, Untuswa," she repeated, still holding my hands. "Welcome, thou great brave one who would have slain a King who knew not how to keep faith."

"Ha! But how didst thou know?" I cried in amazement.

"What do I not know? Tell me that," she said, smiling at me. "Listen; I saw the midnight struggle in the 'great hut' of the _isiG.o.dhlo_. I saw the dark way along the cliffs of the Ink.u.me. Was not my _muti_ in the buck with its fawn that saved thee from the pursuing _impi_ by showing no alarm, even as the _muti_ upon thy neck saved thee when Umzilikazi lay p.r.o.ne and stupified?"

"_E-he_! but that is indeed so. And it was thy _muti_ which saved me from the hatred of Tambusa and Tola but a few days since," I answered.

"But, tell me now, Lalusini, was not that tale true which was told me by old Gegesa?"

"It was true so far as she knew. Ha! when Umzilikazi's slaying dogs came to hale me forth in the black night, I laughed to myself, for I knew I had that by which the alligators should not harm me. I leaped into the dreadful pool where so many have died--and--came out quietly on the other side what time those dogs returned to report to Umzilikazi that the sorceress he hated would trouble him no more; but perhaps in that they lied--ah, ah, Untuswa, perhaps they lied! Not for nothing did that Great One from whom I sprung cause me to be taught the deepest mysteries of the magic of the wise. And thyself, Untuswa, through many wanderings earnest thou here?"

"_Whau_! Not to thee need I tell of my wanderings, Lalusini, thou to whom all things are known." I said.

"And I think among such things are all thy wanderings," she laughed.

"Thou camest here to deliver the Amandebeli into the hand of Dingane."

"That is so, Lalusini; and for thy death the whole House of Matyobane should have died a thousand deaths. And now?"