“Spare him, my lords,” said the old man in supplication; “he is the king’s son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood will be required at my hands.”
“Yes, that is certainly so,” put in the young man with great emphasis.
“You may perhaps doubt our power to avenge,” I went on, heedless of this by-play. “Stay, I will show you. Here, you dog and slave (addressing Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that speaks;” and I tipped a wink towards my express rifle.
Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a grin as I have ever seen on his dignified face, handed me the rifle.
“It is here, O lord of lords,” he said, with a deep obeisance.
Now, just before I asked for the rifle I had perceived a little klipspringer antelope
af
standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards away, and determined to risk a shot at it.
“Ye see that buck,” I said, pointing the animal out to the party before me. “Tell me, is it possible for man, born of woman, to kill it from here with a noise?”
“It is not possible, my lord,” answered the old man.
“Yet shall I kill it,” said I, quietly.
The old man smiled. “That my lord cannot do,” he said.
I raised the rifle, and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and one which one might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it would not do to miss.
I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck stood still as stone.
“Bang! thud!” The buck sprang into the air and fell on the rock dead as a door nail.
A groan of terror burst from the group before us.
“If ye want meat,” I remarked coolly, “go fetch that buck.”
The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and presently returned bearing the klipspringer. I noticed, with satisfaction, that I had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They gathered round the poor creature’s body, gazing at the bullet hole in consternation.
“Ye see,” I said, “I do not speak empty words.”
There was no answer.
“If ye yet doubt our power,” I went on, “let one of ye go stand upon that rock that I may make him as this buck.”
None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the king’s son spoke.
“It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but a buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man.”
The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he seemed hurt.
“No! no!” he ejaculated, hastily, “my old eyes have seen enough. These are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any should wish a further proof, let
him
stand upon the rock, that the magic tube may speak with him.”
There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.
“Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies,” said one, “we are satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like of this.”
“It is so,” remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense relief; “without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the stars, children of the shining eye and the movable teeth, who roar out in thunder and slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once King of the Kukuana people. This youth is Scragga.”
“He nearly scragged me,”
ag
murmured Good.
“Scragga, son of Twala, the great king—Twala, husband of a thousand wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of an hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the Terrible.”
“So,” said I, superciliously, “lead us then to Twala. We do not talk with low people and underlings.”
“It is well, my lords, we will lead you, but the way is long. We are hunting three days’ journey from the place of the king. But let my lords have patience, and we will lead them.”
“It is well,” I said, carelessly, “all time is before us, for we do not die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware! Play us no tricks, make for us no snares, for before your brains of mud have thought of them, we shall know them and avenge them. The light from the transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired face (Good) shall destroy you, and go through your land: his vanishing teeth shall fix themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives and children; the magic tubes shall talk with you loudly, and make you as sieves. Beware!”
This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it was hardly needed, so deeply were our friends already impressed with our powers.
The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the word “Koom, Koom,” which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute, corresponding to the Bayéte of the Zulus,
3
and turning, addressed his followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and chattels, in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which they would on no account touch. They even seized Good’s clothes, which were, as the reader may remember, neatly folded up beside him.
He at once made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.
“Let not my lord of the transparent eye and the melting teeth touch them,” said the old man. “Surely his slaves shall carry the things.”
“But I want to put ’em on!” roared Good, in nervous English.
Umbopa translated.
“Nay, my lord,” put in Infadoos, “would my lord cover up his beautiful white legs (although he was so dark Good had a singularly white skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord that he should do such a thing?”
Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile, one of the men started on with the garments.
“Damn it!” roared Good, “that black villain has got my trousers.”
“Look here, Good,” said Sir Henry, “you have appeared in this country in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must live in a flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and an eye-glass.”
“Yes,” I said, “and with whiskers on one side of your face and not on the other. If you change any of these things they will think that we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you must do it. If once they begin to suspect us, our lives will not be worth a brass farthing.”
“Do you really think so?” said Good, gloomily.
“I do, indeed. Your ‘beautiful white legs’ and your eye-glass are now
the
feature of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live up to them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air is warm.”
Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to get accustomed to his attire.
Chapter 8
We Enter Kukuanaland
ALL THAT AFTERNOON WE travelled on along the magnificent roadway, which headed steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces ahead.
“Infadoos,” I said at length, “who made this road?”
“It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even the wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old enough to remember its making. None can make such roads now, but the king lets no grass grow upon it.”
“And whose are the writings on the walls of the caves through which we have passed on the road?” I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like sculptures we had seen.
“My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings. We know not who wrote them.”
“When did the Kukuana race come into this country?”
“My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten thousand thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there beyond,” and he pointed to the north. “They could travel no farther, so say the old voices of our fathers that have come down to us, the children, and so says Gagool, the wise woman, the smeller out of witches, because of the great mountains which ring in the land,” and he pointed to the snow-clad peaks. “The country, too, was good, so they settled here and grew strong and powerful, and now our numbers are like the sea sand, and when Twala the king calls up his regiments their plumes cover the plain as far as the eye of man can reach.”
“And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the regiments to fight with?”
“Nay, my lord, the country is open there,” and again he pointed towards the north, “and now and again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know not, and we slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since there was a war. Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who came to eat us up. So since then there has been no war.”
“Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears.”
“My Lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that came down upon us, but it was a civil war,
1
dog eat dog.”
“How was that?”
“My lord, the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same birth, and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to let twins live, the weakest must always die. But the mother of the king hid away the weakest child, which was born the last, for her heart yearned over it, and the child is Twala the king. I am his younger brother born of another wife.”
“Well?”
“My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and had a son by his favourite wife. When the babe was three years old, just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend. Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not die, proclaimed to the people, saying, ‘The king Imotu is no king.’ And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his hut not able to move.
“Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and the twin brother of the king, whom she had hidden since he was born among the caves and rocks, and stripping the ‘moocha’ (waist-cloth) off his loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the sacred snake coiled round his waist, wherewith the eldest son of the king is marked at birth, and cried out loud, ‘Behold, your king whom I have saved for you even to this day!’ And the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason and the knowledge of truth, cried out,
‘The king! The king!’
but I knew that it was not so, for Imotu, my brother, was the elder of the twins, and was the lawful king. And just as the tumult was at its height Imotu the king, though he was very sick, came crawling from his hut holding his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi (the lightning).
“ ‘What is this noise?’ he asked; ‘Why cry ye The king! The king?’
“Then Twala, his own brother, born of the same woman and in the same hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair stabbed him through the heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried,
‘Twala is king!
Now we know that Twala is king!’ ”
“And what became of his wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill them too?”
“Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead, she seized the child with a cry, and ran away. Two days afterwards she came to a kraal very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at nightfall a little child, a girl, crept out and brought her to eat, and she blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with her boy before the sun rose again, where she must have perished, for none have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi.”
“Then if this child Ignosi had lived, he would be the true king of the Kukuana people?”
“That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he lives he is the king; but alas! he is long dead.”
“See, my lord,” and he pointed to a vast collection of huts surrounded with a fence, which was in its turn surrounded by a great ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. “That is the kraal where the wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we shall sleep to-night, if, indeed,” he added, doubtfully, “my lords sleep at all upon this earth.”
“When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the Kukuanas do,” I said, majestically, and I turned round suddenly to address Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied with unsatisfactory attempts to keep his flannel shirt from flapping up in the evening breeze, and to my astonishment butted into Umbopa, who was walking along immediately behind me, and had very evidently been listening with the greatest interest to my conversation with Infadoos. The expression on his face was most curious, and gave the idea of a man who was struggling with partial success to bring something long ago forgotten back into his mind.
All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate down towards the undulating plain beneath. The mountains we had crossed now loomed high above us, and Sheba’s breasts were modestly veiled in diaphanous wreaths of mist. As we went on the country grew more and more lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant; without being tropical, the sun was bright and warm, but not burning, and a gracious breeze blew softly along the odorous slopes of the mountains. And, indeed, this new land was little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural wealth, and in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a fine country, but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.
So soon as we started, Infadoos had despatched a runner on to warn the people of the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command, of our arrival. This man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which Infadoos had informed me he would keep up all the way, as running was an exercise much practised among his people.