"Ho, dog!" cried Mashumbwe, as a youth passed before him without making obeisance. "Do you dare stand before me—before me! thou spawn of these man-eating jackals? Lo! lie prostrate forever." And with the words he half threw, half thrust his great spear into the unfortunate lad's body. The blood spurted forth in a great jet, and, staggering, the boy fell.

"Au! And am I to be defiled with the blood of such as this," growled the chief, upon whom several red drops had squirted. "Let that carrion be removed."

Several of the Wangoni sprang forward, and, as the quivering body was dragged away, these savages gave vent to their pent-up ferocity by stabbing it again and again. Having tasted blood they rolled their eyes around in search of further victims. But the remaining Wajalu had withdrawn in terror: and well for all concerned that it was so, otherwise the Wangoni, inspired by the example of their chief, would certainly have commenced a massacre which even the prestige and authority of Hazon and Laurence combined would have been powerless to quell. But there was no one outside to begin upon, and, though a truculent, unruly crowd, their interests in the long run lay in submitting to the authority of the white chiefs.

So the Wajalu rejoiced much, if tremblingly, as the last of the dreaded host disappeared. For good or for ill their village was spared—spared to continue its most revolting forms of savagery and cannibalism and parricide—spared for good or for ill in that it had entertained an angel unawares in the person of that hard, pitiless, determined slave-hunter, Laurence Stanninghame.



CHAPTER XVII.

DISSENSIONS.

"Well, I'm uncommonly glad I was out of that affair yesterday, Stanninghame. But it isn't like you, letting those poor devils off, eh?"

Thus Holmes, as the two were leisurely pursuing their way, somewhat on the rear flank of the slave-party.

"I don't know. You see they let me off, and I didn't want to be outdone in civility even by a lot of scurvy dogs who eat each other. There was no feeling about the matter."

Before the other could pursue the subject, the sound of faint groans, and pleading in an unknown tongue, was heard just ahead. With it, too, the sound of blows.

"Some devilish work going forward again," muttered Holmes, with savage disgust.

"You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs," was the indifferent reply. And then they came upon a not entirely unfamiliar scene.

On the ground crouched three human figures, wretched-looking and emaciated to the last degree. Disease and exhaustion had overpowered them, and they were begging to be left to die. Standing over them in threatening attitude was Lutali, with some half-dozen of the slavers.

"They are too far gone to feel the whip," Lutali was saying. "Clearly they are of no further use. You, Murad, shorten me the shadow of yonder dog. We shall see."

The man named, a savage-looking ruffian, stepped forward, grinning with delight. Just as he was swinging up his scimitar, Holmes burst forth:

"Hold on, Lutali! Give the poor devil another show."

Half turning his head at this interruption, there was that look upon the hawk-like features of the Arab which at times so strangely resembled Hazon. His keen eyes darted haughty reproof at Holmes, for he was a sort of supercargo of the slave department, and relished not this interference. Then, turning back, he once more gave the signal. Down flashed the great blade. There was a dull swooshing thud, and the headless trunk was deluging the earth.

The effect, however, upon the other two exhausted wretches was magical. With a despairing effort they raised themselves up and staggered on, to the accompaniment of not a few blows by way of recognition of their malingering. Lutali, who had uttered no word, and whose impassive countenance had not moved a feature, stalked gravely on.

"Why could we not have prevented this?" burst forth Holmes, whom a sort of morbid fascination seemed to root to the spot.

"Because it would have been the very acme of insanity to attempt such a thing. Lutali, in common with the rest, is in far too ugly a mood, after yesterday, to be fooled with needlessly. Besides, all that sentiment is simply thrown away. These people, remember, are atrocious brutes, who eat their own fathers and mothers. It is positively a work of charity to enslave them. Once they are off the march they are fairly well treated,—better, in fact, than they treat each other—and, of course, no more cannibalism."

"That may be. But I wish to Heaven I could blot out these two years as though they had never been. The recollection of the horrors one has been through will haunt me for life. I feel like blowing my brains out in sheer disgust. Why did I ever come?"

It was not the first time Holmes had burst forth in this fashion, as we have shown. Laurence looked keenly at him.

"There is a worse thing to haunt one's life than recollection," he said, "and that is anticipation."

"Of what?" asked Holmes shortly.

The other touched the muzzle of his rifle, then his own forehead.

"It's that—or this," he said, pointing to the ghastly trunk and the severed head which lay before them. "You don't suppose I should have adopted this sweet trade from choice, I suppose? No. Hard necessity, my dear chap. If anybody has to go under—and somebody always has to—I prefer that it shall not be me."

Holmes made no reply for a while, so they left the spot, walking in silence. Then Laurence went on:

"Now we are on the subject, I don't know that you would have come out any the better had we left you behind at Johannesburg. For you were going the wrong way. You were a precious sight too fond of hanging around bars, and that sort of thing grows. In fact, you were more than once a trifle—shall we say 'muddled.' Not to put too fine a point upon it, you were on your way to the deuce. I know it, for I've seen it so often before, and you know it too."

"I believe you're right there," assented Holmes.

"Well, then, we owe our first duty to ourselves; wherefore, my soft-hearted young friend, it is better to spend a year or two raking in a fortune and ameliorating the lot of humanity, than to die in a state of soak, and a disused shaft, on or around the Rand, even as did Pulman the day before we left."

"I don't believe that same fortune will do us any good," urged Holmes gloomily. "There is the curse of blood upon it."

"The curse of my grandmother," laughed the other.

There was no affectation about Laurence Stanninghame's indifference. It was perfectly genuine. Strong-nerved constitutionally, callous, hard-hearted through stress of circumstances, such sights as that just witnessed told not one atom upon him. In the sufferings of the miserable wretches he saw only a lurid alternative—his own. In them, toiling along, wearily, dejectedly, beneath the chain or yoke, he saw himself, toiling, grinding, at some sordid and utterly repellent form of labour, for a miserable pittance; no ray of light, no redeeming rest or enjoyment to sweeten life until that life should end. In them, cowering, writhing, beneath the driver's brutal lash, he saw himself, ever lashed and stung by the torturing consciousness of what might have been, by the recollection of what had been. Or did they fall exhausted, fainting, to die, or to undergo decapitation to insure that such exhaustion should not open even a feeble possibility of escape, there too, he saw himself sinking, borne down by the sheer blank hopelessness of fate, taking refuge in the Dark Unknown, his end the grave of the suicide. It was himself or them, and he preferred that it should be them. Preyer or preyed upon—such was the iron immutable law of life, from man in his highest development to the minutest of insects; and with this law he was but complying, not in wanton cruelty, but in cold, passive ruthlessness.

Further, the sufferings of these people were only transitory. They would be much better off when the journey was ended and they were disposed of—better off indeed than many a free person in civilized and Christian lands. Besides, such races as these, low down as they were in the scale of humanity, suffered but little. It needs imagination, refinement, to accentuate suffering. To anything approaching such attributes, these were utter strangers. They were mere animals. Men dealt in sheep and cattle, in order to live, in horses and other beasts of burden, why not in these, who were even lower than the higher animals?

This theory of their sinister occupation Hazon thoroughly indorsed.

"Depend upon it, Stanninghame," he said, "ours is the right view to take of it—the only view. This is 'a world of plunder and prey,' as Tennyson puts it, and we have got to prey or be preyed upon. You, for instance, seem to have fulfilled the latter role, hitherto, and it seems only right you should have your turn now. To cite the latest instance, all this rotten scrip and market-rigging finished you off, and what was that but rascality?"

"Of course, I've been plundered, swindled, all along the line, ever since I can remember. I'm tired of that d——d respectability, Hazon. It doesn't pay. It never has paid. This, however, does."

The other smiled significantly at the word.

"Respectability—yes," he said. "Look at your type of success, your self-made man, swelling out of his white waistcoat in snug self-complacency, your pattern British merchant, your millionaire financier, what is he but a slave-dealer, a slave-driver, a blood-sucker. What has become of your little all, swamped in those precious Rand companies, Stanninghame? Gone to bloat more unimpeachable white waistcoats; gone to add yet more pillars to the temple of pattern respectability."

"That's so," assented Laurence, with something between a sneer and a laugh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "Yet that same crowd of respectable swindlers would yelp in horror at us and our enterprise. 'Piratical,' they'd call it, eh? A hanging matter!"

"Swindlers—no. Swindler is English for a convicted person. Yet the percentage of the props and pillars of financial success and mercantile respectability who, in the self-candour and secrecy of their sleepless hours, are honestly unable to recall to mind one or more occasions when Portland, or Dartmoor, or Simonstown, or the Kowie loomed more than near, cannot be a vast one; which, for present purposes, may be taken to mean that if you have got to make money you must make it anyhow, or not at all—'anyhow' covering such methods as are involved in the conventional term 'rascality.' If you have got it you can run as straight as you like. We haven't got it—at least not enough of it yet—and so we are making it, and, like the rest of the world, making it anyhow. There's the whole case in a nutshell, Stanninghame."

"Why, of course. But, if only we could bring Holmes round to that pre-eminently sensible standpoint! I never could have believed the fellow would turn out such an ass. I am more than sorry, Hazon, that I should have influenced you to bring him along."

"Oh, Holmes is young, and hardly knows the meaning of the term 'hard experience,' as we know it. Still, in his way, he's useful enough, and first-rate in a fight; and when he comes to bank his share he'll forget to feel over particular as to how he acquired it. That's mere ordinary human nature, and Holmes is far from being an abnormal unit."

"No, but he still affects a conscience. What if he goes back and takes on that blue-eyed girl he was smitten with, and, turning soft, incontinently gives us away?"

"Are you on the croak, Stanninghame? That's odd. Here, how's your pulse? Let's time it." And Hazon reached out his hand.

"Well, yes; it is unusual. But it's d——d hot, and the steaminess of it depresses me at times," returned Laurence, with a queer, reckless laugh.

"He won't give us away, never fear," said Hazon carelessly. "He won't take on that girl, because she'll have forgotten him long ago; that, too, being ordinary human nature. And—nobody ever did give me away yet. I don't somehow think anybody is ever likely to."

Both sides of this remark struck a chord within Laurence's mind; the first, a jarring one, since it voiced a misgiving which had at times assailed himself, specially at such periods of depression as this under which he was now suffering. For the second, the tone was characteristic of the speaker and the subject. It seemed to flash forth more than a menace, in its stern, unrelenting ruthlessness of purpose, while the words seemed to recall the warning so darkly let fall by Rainsford and others regarding his present confederate. "Other men have gone up country with Hazon, but—not one of them has ever returned." To himself the words contained no menace. He trusted Hazon, felt thoroughly able to take care of himself, and, moreover, was as little likely to violate the secrecy of their enterprise as Hazon himself. But what of Holmes? With all his hard, callous unscrupulousness, Laurence had no desire that harm should befall Holmes. In a measure, he felt responsible for him.

"Don't you worry about Holmes," said Hazon, as though reading his thoughts. "We can put him to all the show part of the business, reserving the more serious line for our own immediate supervision. And the time may come when we can do very well with Holmes, in short, when three white men may be better than two. We are very near the Ba-gcatya country, and an impi of them on the raid will give us as much trouble as we can do with; and I've seen signs of late which seem to point that way."

"Isn't it a crowded-on business this Ba-gcatya terror, eh?" said Laurence, lazily puffing out rings of blue smoke, which hung upon the hot, still atmosphere as though they never meant to disperse. "I expect their strength is as exaggerated as their dash. Why, this part is not altogether unexplored, yet there is no record of an exceptionally strong tribe hereabouts."

Hazon smiled pityingly.

"That great god, the African explorer, don't know everything," he said—"no, not quite everything, although he thinks he does. Anyway, he frequently manages to get a pretty muddled-up idea of things and places hereabout—a muddle which the natives of this land would rather thicken than dispel. For instance, he will ask the name of a river or a mountain, and when the other party to the talk repeats his question, as natives invariably do to gain time for answering, he takes this for the answer, and forthwith the thing is dubbed by a word that simply means 'river' or 'mountain,' in one or other of the hundred and fifty tongues which prevail hereabout. No, the existence of the Ba-gcatya is not chronicled, simply because the explorer was fortunate enough not to fall in with them. Had he done so, he would probably never have returned to chronicle anything. But, get one or two of our Wangoni to talk, and he may, or may not, tell you something about them; for the Ba-gcatya are, like the Wangoni themselves, a Zulu offshoot, only far more conservative in the old Zulu traditions, and of purer blood. They are a much finer race, indeed I believe them to be as powerful and well disciplined as the Zulus themselves were under Cetywayo. I was all through the war of '79, you know, and that pretty scar I carry about as an ornament represents the expiring effort of an awful tough customer, who had lost too much blood to be able to strike altogether home. I call it my Isandhlwana medal."

"That where you captured it, eh?" said Laurence, with interest, for the story was new to him. He remembered first noticing the great scar upon Hazon's chest the day he visited him when ill in bed at Johannesburg, but he had never asked its history; indeed, it was characteristic of the strange relations in which these two men stood to each other that, notwithstanding all this time of close comradeship, neither should ever have asked the other any question of a personal nature. Characteristic, too, was it of Hazon's method that this piece of information should have been vouchsafed as it was. Many an experience, strange and startling, had he narrated from time to time, but never for the sake of narrating it. If anything occurred to bring it forth, out it would come, carrying, perhaps, others in its train, but ever in due sequence. Even Holmes, the impulsive, who, being young, was the 'natural man' of the trio, had long since learned that to ask Hazon for a yarn was the direct way not to get one out of him.

"Yes," went on Hazon, "that's where I captured it. Speaking with some experience, Isandhlwana is the toughest thing that has ever travelled my way, and I don't hanker after any repetition of it with 'The people of the Spider——' Why, what does this mean?"

The words, quick, hurried, broke off. On the faces of both men was a look of keen, anxious alertness. For a wild and fierce clamour had suddenly arisen and was drawing nearer and nearer, loud, swelling, threatening.



CHAPTER XVIII.

TWO PERILS.

"Just what I feared," said Hazon calmly, but with ever so faint a glance at his confederate. "Our people are in revolt."

Both men rose to their feet, but leisurely, and turned to confront the approaching tumult. And formidable enough this was. The Wangoni advanced in a compact mass, beating their shields with their spear-hafts, yelling in concert a shrill, harsh battle-song, into which they had managed to import an indescribable note of defiance, announcing their intention of returning to "eat up" those they had so weakly spared the previous day. On either side of them came the Arab and Swahili element, in silence, however, but a silence which was no less ominous than their sullen and scowling looks, and the almost significant gestures wherewith they handled their rifles.

"What do they want, Lutali?" said Hazon, turning to the Arab who, with Holmes, had just joined the pair. But Lutali shrugged his shoulders, and his hawk-like features scarce moved. Then he said:

"Who may think to strive against the hand of Allah and that of his Prophet? Yon foul dogs, even they—so great is the mercy of Allah—even they might have been turned into good Moslemia, even as other such have been before them. Yet we—we have left them to wallow in the mire of their cannibal abominations. Our people are not satisfied, El Khanac, and they fear that ill may come of it."

"A magnificent and comfortable hypocrisy that," said Laurence, in English. "Such combination of soul-saving and slave-selling is unique." Then, in Swahili, "But what do they want, Lutali?"

"They want to set right the error of yesterday."

"But the Wangoni don't care a grain of rice for Allah and his Prophet," he went on. "Why, then, are they dissatisfied?"

"They are instruments in the hands of those who do. It is so written. Allah is great. Who may call in question his decrees?" replied the Arab, in the same level monotone. "Let the people do their will, which is also the will of Allah."

During this conversation the whole party had halted, and now stood in a great semicircle around the white leaders. Then Mashumbwe spoke, and his words, though fairly courteous, managed to cover an extremely defiant tone.

"Our people are dissatisfied, father," he said, addressing Hazon. "They desire to return home."

"Wherefore?" asked Hazon shortly.

"Au! they came forth to 'eat up' other tribes, not to spare such. They are dissatisfied."

"They'd better have their own way," muttered Hazon, in English. "You are sacrificing all we have done and obtained this trip to an empty whim. How does that pan out, Stanninghame?"

"I hate to go back on my word," was the reply; "still more to be bullied into it."

"Well said!" declared Holmes warmly.

The insurgents, reading the expression upon the countenances of these two, broke forth into tumult once more. Groans and mutterings arose among the Arab contingent, while the Wangoni uttered wild laughing whoops of defiance. Nothing would be easier than to slay the white leaders. A single volley would lay them low. The position was critical, perilous to a degree.

"We go, then," cried Mashumbwe, waving his hand. "Fare ye well, El Khanac; Afa, fare ye well!"

But before his followers could form into marching rank, several men rushed from the forest, with every appearance of importance and alarm. Making straight to where stood their white leaders, they began hurriedly to confer with the latter.

"Your discontent was needless," cried Hazon, after a minute or two of such conference, turning to his rebellious followers, the whole body of whom had now paused to learn what tidings these had brought. "Your discontent comes a day too late. Those whom we spared have even now been eaten up, and their village given over to the flames."

The short, sharp gasp of amazement which greeted this announcement gave place to growls of renewed discontent. Some rival band of slave-hunters had fallen upon the village and taken that which they themselves had so weakly left. Such was their first thought.

"The Ba-gcatya have found them," continued Hazon calmly.

If there had been marvel before in the ejaculation now there was more. There was even a note of dismay. Forgetting their mutinous intentions now, all crowded around their white leaders, eager to learn full particulars. And in that moment Laurence, ever observant, was not slow to perceive, both in the looks and tones of the party, quite enough to confirm all that Hazon had said as to the terror inspired by the very name of the redoubtable Ba-gcatya. Even the savage and truculent Wangoni seemed for the moment overawed. It was striking, too, how, in the hour of impending peril, all turned to the white leaders, whom a moment before they had been entirely defying and more than half threatening.

"The Ba-gcatya are in great force," went on Hazon, as calmly as though he were merely announcing the proximity of one more well-nigh defenceless and slave-supplying village. "We shall have to fight, and that hard, but not here. We must fight them in the open."

A murmur of assent went up. Every head was craned forward, eager to hear more. Briefly and concisely Hazon set forth his commands.

Their then encampment was situate on the edge of the forest belt. Beyond the latter the country stretched away in vast, well-nigh treeless plains. Now a peculiar feature of these plains was the frequent recurrence of abrupt granite kopjes, at first glance not unlike moorland tors. But more than one of them, when arrived at, wore the aspect of a complete Druidical ring—a circle of stones crowning the rise, with a slight depression of ground within the centre. One of these Hazon, who had been over the ground before, resolved should serve them as a natural fortress, whence to resist the fierce and formidable foe now advancing against them.

With surprising readiness the march began. Loads were shouldered and slaves yoked together extra firmly. Those who were too weak to keep up the pace—treble that of the normal one—at which they were hurried forward, were ruthlessly speared; but whether they were slain by their captors or by the pitiless Ba-gcatya mattered but little.

The kopje which Hazon had selected was situated about four miles from the forest belt. No better natural fortress could have been chosen; for it consisted of a complete circle of low rocks, of about two hundred yards' diameter, and commanded an open sweep of at least a mile on every side. Laurence and Holmes were loud in their admiration and interest.

"These are old craters, I reckon," said Hazon; "not volcanic, but mud-springs. This plain, you notice, is considerably below the level of the forest country. Depend upon it, the thing was once a big swamp, with great boiling, bubbling mud-holes."

No time was it, however, for speculations of a scientific nature; and accordingly the leaders proceeded to dispose their lines of defence. This was soon done, for the three white men and Lutali had arranged all that during the march. The Wangoni were of no great use, save in pursuit of a defeated enemy. They could hardly have hit a haystack once in six shots, nor did Hazon care to intrust with firearms such a turbulent and unruly crew. But the slavers were all fair marksmen—some indeed, among them Lutali, being not far short of dead shots. These were disposed around the circle of rocks so as to form a ring of fire; and the rocks themselves were heightened wherever necessary with some of the loads, or with such piles of loose stones as could be collected in time. The part allotted to the Wangoni was that of a reserve force, in the event of the enemy carrying any given point, and thus necessitating hand-to-hand conflict. The slaves, firmly secured, were placed in the center of the great circle.

Hardly were these dispositions complete than a cry of astonishment, of warning arose. Far away over the forest country, somewhat to the right and left of the route the party had been pursuing, several columns of smoke could be seen mounting to the heavens. There were other villages, then, besides the one spared, and now the Ba-gcatya, spreading over the land in their immense might, were firing all such and massacring the inhabitants. Many and various were the comments which arose as the party gazed intently upon the distant smoke columns.

"If only as a change from knocking on the head these defenceless devils, it's quite a blessed relief to have some real fighting," quoth Holmes.

"You'll get plenty of that, Holmes, within the next few hours," remarked Hazon dryly.

It was near midday, and the heat was torrid and sweltering. The fierce vertical sun-rays seemed to pour down upon their unshaded position as in streams of molten fire. Even the quick, excited murmurs of the men grew languid. And, having seen to all being in complete readiness, as Laurence Stanninghame sat there at his post in the torrid heat, smoking the pipe of meditation, did no thought of the home, such as it was, but which he would probably never see again, not rise up before him? If it did, it was only to confirm him in the conviction that the present position of peril—whose chances he, at any rate, was in no disposition to under-estimate—was the preferable of the two. Here freedom, activity, adventure; there galling bondage, stagnation, a ceasing to live. Yes, that time indeed seemed very, very far away. He felt no shadow of inclination towards a recurrence thereof.

Then, suddenly, with magical swiftness, the whole party was astir, and it needed a sharp, hurried command or two from Hazon and Lutali to restrain some from leaping on the rocks in order to obtain a better view of what had caused the alarm.

Between the kopje and the forest belt the ground, save for an occasional roll, was entirely visible. Now, swarming out into the open, came masses of moving figures—fleeing figures. Hazon and Laurence, who each possessed a powerful glass, were able to master the situation in a twinkling.

Close on the rear of the fugitives pressed another multitude, to the naked eye like myriad ants upon the far plain, but to those who scanned them through the powerful glasses all detail was vividly distinct—the lines and lines of tufted shields, the gleam of spear blades, the streaming feather and cow-hair adornments.

And now the hum and roar of the wild onslaught and pursuit grows momentarily louder, drawing nearer and nearer. A great cloud of dust is whirling onward, and athwart it the gleam of steel, rising and falling, the distant death-scream, as the miserable fugitives fall ripped, hacked to fragments by their ferocious pursuers. And still the terrible wave pours on.

"This is going to be a hard business," muttered Laurence between his set teeth. "How many do you size them up at, Hazon?"

"Twenty thousand, rather more than less. That's just how Cetywayo's people came on at Isandhlwana, only there they took us more by surprise. Well, we're not a lot of soldiers here anyway to scatter all over the veldt. If they take this position they'll have to rush it, and rush it hard. Well, do you believe in the Ba-gcatya now, Stanninghame?"

Save a nod the other makes no answer, and now the attention of both men is upon the scene before them.

Some few of the fugitives, in the desperation of their terror, are gradually outstripping their pursuers. Against these whole flights of casting spears are launched, amid roaring shouts of bass laughter. Finally the last one falls.

And now the array of the enemy is but half a mile distant from the slaver's position. Far over the plain, in immense crescent formation, the barbarian host sweeps on, now in dead silence, not hesitating a moment, for the spoor left by the slavers is broad and easy. Now it can be seen that these warriors are of splendid physique. Most of them are nearly naked save for their flowing war-adornments of hair or jackal-tails. Many are crowned with towering ostrich plumes, both black and white; others wear balls of feathers surmounted by the scarlet tuft of the egret; some, again, have round their heads bands of the hide of the spotted cat; but all flaunt some wild and fantastic adornment. And the great hide shields, with their party-coloured facings and tufted tops, are Zulu shields, and the broad stabbing spear is the Zulu umkonto, or assegai.

There is a lurid fascination in gazing upon the awful splendour of this fierce and formidable battle-rank, which set even Laurence Stanninghame's schooled nerves tingling. As for Holmes, he could hardly remain still in his excitement. But in Hazon's piercing eyes there was a glow in which the lust of combat, despair of success, and the most indomitable resolve were about equally intermingled. The countenance of Lutali betrayed no change whatever. The bulk of the slave-hunters were scowling and eager; but the miserable slaves, realizing that massacre awaited them, were moaning and trembling with fear. Under the slave-yoke they held their lives, at any rate, but should the enemy without win the day, why, then, they would taste the steel in common with their present oppressors. The Ba-gcatya never spared.

Now the battle-rank of the latter underwent a change. From each end of the great crescent "horns" shot out, extending farther and farther. Still the numbers of the main body seemed in no wise to diminish. The rock-crowned mound was encircled by a wall of living men.

Then the silence was rent asunder, and that in most appalling fashion. From twenty thousand fierce throats in concert went up the war-shout—horrible, terrifying—combining the frenzied roars of a legion of maniacs with the snarls and baying of hounds tearing down their prey. One there had heard it before, but not in such awful, soul-curdling volume as this.

And then, with heads bent, shields thrust forward, broad spears in strong ready grip, the whole circle of the Ba-gcatya host came surging up the slope.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE SIGN.

Crash! crash! A long, detonating roar, then crash! again. The rock-circle is a perfect ring of flame, sheeting forth in red jets athwart the hanging sulphurous smoke. Death-yells are mingling with the fearful war-shout. Shields are flung high in the air, and dark bodies, leaping, fall forward upon their faces, to be trampled into lifelessness as their own comrades tread them down, not pausing, rushing over them as they lie.

"No, no! no quicker," reproves Hazon, who is directing here, where the assailant's force is the strongest, namely, the main body, the isifuba or breast of the impi. "Fire steadily and low, as before, but no quicker."

His followers growl a ready assent. They are unmitigated ruffians, but terrible and determined fighters. The fanatical fatalism of the Mohammedan creed renders them utterly impervious to panic. They keep up a steady, quick-loading fire into the charging Ba-gcatya, and, aiming low, every shot tells, committing fearful havoc among the serried, onrushing masses. Yet those terrible warriors are dauntless. Whole lines go down; still, others surge over them, and now the charge is but two hundred yards from the line of rocks.

The fore ranks hesitate, then come to a halt, crumpling back upon those behind them. The slavers, with a shrill, ringing yell, seeing their opportunity, pour a frightfully raking volley into the momentarily confused mass. Shields are clashed together, spears wildly waving. For the moment it seems as though the Ba-gcatya were fighting with each other, striving to hew their way through their own ranks in their endeavours to escape beyond the reach of that awful and destructive fire.

"Give it to them again!" growls Hazon, a lurid gleam in his deep-set, piercing eyes. "But, aim low—aim low!"

Again not a shot is thrown away. That side of the savage host falls back hurriedly, leaving the ground bestrewn with bodies, dead, dying, crushed. A perfect storm of exultant cheers greets this move.

But if a temporary retreat, it is no rout. In obedience to a rapidly-uttered, whistling signal, fully one-half of the main body swings round and hurls itself with incredible force and fury upon another point of the rock-circle, seemingly the weakest point, for here the rocks are low and apart, and have to be supplemented with bags and bales.

Laurence Stanninghame is in command here. And now his dark face flushes with the glow of a mad excitement, a perfectly transforming exhilaration. He would thunder his commands aloud, but that a deadly coolness is as indispensable almost as accuracy of aim. His orders are the same as Hazon's and uttered as calmly—but for a suppressed tremor—and as audibly.

The very earth seems to rock and reel beneath the detonating roll of the volleys, the thunderous rumble of charging feet. The dark, glaring faces of warring demons, the flinging aloft of shields, the groaning and yells, the redness of the sheeting flames, all this renders him mad—mad with the revel of conflict, with the herculean determination which is sublime above death. Here again whole lines of the enemy are down. Here again those in front would draw back if they could, but the immense weight behind hurls them on. It is the work of but very few moments.

And now the whole of the Ba-gcatya host is circling around the slaver's position, every now and again making a furious rush upon what seems a weak point of the defences. But the defenders have a way of massing upon each point thus attacked, and that with a celerity which is truly marvellous, and the result is the same. Yet with each repulse the terrible ranks leap forward immediately, and every such charge brings them nearer than the last. Moreover, as each of their fighting leaders is picked off, another springs forward with unparalleled intrepidity to take his place. The while the barking roar of their terrific slogan rends the air in its most demoniacal clamour.

Now an idea takes hold on the minds of these ferocious legionaries, and it is passed like lightning round the ranks. Those in the forefront haul up the bodies of the slain, and, holding them to them, stagger forward, thinking to make a buckler of the dead for the living. But the terrible rifles of the slavers drive their unerring missiles at that short range through dead and living alike, and corpse is heaped upon corpse in ghastly intertwining.

In the thickest of the tumult Hazon is here, there, everywhere—directing, encouraging, restraining. But for the demon-glow in the black eyes staring from the pale, set face, the man might have been made of marble, so little trace of emotion of any kind does he display. Laurence, too, is wary and self-contained, though getting in here and there a telling shot. Holmes, on the other hand, is firing away as fast as he can load. So far not a man has been injured. The assailants are not quite within spear-throwing distance yet.

"Ammunition hold out? Oh, yes, we have plenty of that," is Hazon's reply to a rapid, low-toned query on the part of Laurence. "But it's time they turned tail. Isandhlwana was nothing to this."

But now, with a deafening, vibrating roar the Ba-gcatya, massing suddenly, hurl fully one-half of their force upon the point directed by Lutali. They surge up the slope in one dense charge of lightning swiftness. Bullets are hailed upon them. They waver not. The hands of the defenders are skinned and blistered by contact with the breeches of their own rifles, so hot have these become through quick firing, and still the firing is not quick enough. Stumbling, leaping, flying over the defences they come—a great cloud of dark, grim faces, and bared teeth, and protruding eyeballs. They spring upon the defences, then over them. The whole might of the redoubtable foe is pouring into the natural fortress.



Now ensues a scene the like of which might be paralleled, but hardly surpassed, by some lurid drama of hell. In jarring shock they meet, those within and those, till now, without—the savage legionaries of "The Spider," and the no less savage and equally determined slave-hunters. The Wangoni, seeing their chance, have sprung forward to meet and roll back the assailants. But they themselves are beaten down by the broad shields, ripped with the terrible stabbing spears of the ferocious Ba-gcatya, now maddened to assuage their blood-thirst, and whose crushing might, now pouring over in countless numbers, this handful shall never hope to resist. The chief, Mashumbwe, is speared and ripped. The struggle is fierce and hand-to-hand, but short. The Wangoni, now a sorry remnant, are rolled back upon their allies.

Of these not a man but knows that the day is lost, that flight is impossible; that if the other half of the Ba-gcatya host has not swarmed over to take them on the rear, it is only because it is waiting to receive on its spear points all who flee. But there is no thought of flight. With all their indifference to human suffering, with all their brutality, their savagery, the slavers are as brave as any. They are indeed men picked for their desperate courage, and now, standing back to back, they begin to render the victory of the Ba-gcatya a dearly bought one indeed.

The war-shout no longer rends the air. There is a grim, fell silence in this hand-to-hand conflict, broken only by the snake-like hiss of the Ba-gcatya as an enemy goes down, by the slap and shock of shield meeting clubbed gun or stabbing knife, by the gasps of the combatants. The cloud of powder smoke hanging overhead partially veils the sun, which glowers, a blood-red ball, through this gloomy shroud.

The whole space within the rock-circle is a very charnel-pit of corpses, among which the combatants stagger—victorious Ba-gcatya and vanquished slave-hunters alike—stagger and slip on a foothold of oozy gore; stab, and strike, and fall in their turn.

In the rush and the melee Laurence Stanninghame has become separated even farther from his comrades,—his white comrades, that is,—nor can he by any effort hope to rejoin them. Several Arabs are around him, his own followers, swarthy sons of the Prophet, their keen eyes flashing hate and defiance upon the foe, their long ataghans sweeping a circle of light around them. In their forefront is Lutali—Lutali, whirling a great scimitar, hewing down more than one of the too venturesome Ba-gcatya, and that in spite of the broad bull-hide shield deftly wielded—Lutali, uttering a semi-religious war-cry, his erect form and keen, haughty face the very personification of absolute and dauntless valour. And he himself, wedged in by those around, can still get in now and again a telling shot from his revolver, and with every such shot one more warrior of "The Spider" has uttered his last battle cry.

No, there is no hope. Swift as lightning, a mighty brain-wave surges through Laurence's mind, and in it he sees the whole of his past life. Yet not even this dismays him—rather does it engender a sort of half-bitter exultation. Life for him has been such a mistake, and that not through any fault of his own. It held no especial charm for him. All its sweetness has been concentrated within one short idyllic period; but even that could not have lasted—even to it would have come disillusionment. Lilith would never learn his fate. It, and that of those with him, would vanish, as others had done, into the mysteries of this great mysterious continent. All this and more—so lightning-like is the power of thought—passes through Laurence Stanninghame's brain at this dread and awful moment.

A casting spear strikes him on the left shoulder, penetrating the flesh. Infuriated by the sharp, sickening pang, he discharges his revolver at the supposed thrower, but his aim is uncertain. Again he draws trigger. The hammer falls with a harmless click; the chambers are empty. And now, hard pressed by the yelling Ba-gcatya, those of his followers yet between him and the enemy stagger back, fighting furiously, while the life-stream wells from many a gashed and gaping wound. No longer can he see either Hazon or Holmes, for the forest of waving, reeking spear blades. Then one of his own followers, a hulking Swahili, mortally wounded, reels and falls, and, doing so, bears back Laurence beneath his ponderous weight. The rock-rampart is immediately behind him, and is low here. It catches the back of his knees, and now, having lost all control over his balance, grasping at empty air in wild effort to recover himself, Laurence pitches heavily backward over the rocks, and lies half stunned upon the plain without.

Those of the Ba-gcatya host in waiting on that side surge tumultuously forward, uttering yells of savage delight. This is the first of the doomed slavers who has come over; and he a white man, and of course a leader. Each warrior is eager to bury his spear-head in this man's body, and they crowd around him, every right hand raised aloft for the downward stroke.

But the fatal stroke remains undealt. Broad blades quiver aloft in a ring of steel. Each grim, bloodthirsty countenance is set and staring, stony in its indescribable expression of mingled marvel and awe, and eyeballs seem to start from their sockets as their owners stand gazing down upon this prostrate white man. Then from each broad chest a gasp bursts forth:

"Au! The Sign! THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER!"



CHAPTER XX.

TO WHAT END!

"The Sign of the Spider!" Laurence Stanninghame lying there, his faculties half dazed by the shock of his fall and the pain of his wound, hearing the words—uttered as they were in pure Zulu—almost persuaded himself that the terrible events of that day had been a dream. But no, it was real enough. His half-unclosed eyes took in the sea of grim, dark faces pressing forward to gaze upon him. "The Sign of the Spider?" What did it—what could it mean, that it should be all-powerful to stay those devouring spears, to avert from him the grisly death of blood, whose bitterness even then was already past? Then, as for the first time, he suffered his glance to follow the direction of theirs. He saw a strange thing.

The metal box had come forth, either jerked from its resting-place during his fall, or unconsciously plucked thence by his own hand in the last moment of his extremity, and now, still secured by the steel chain, it lay upon his breast. And oh! marvel of marvels! Gazing thus upon it, focussed by his half-closed eyelids and confused senses—the straggling monogram with its quaint turns and flourishes, lying brown upon the more shining metal, seemed to take exactly the form and aspect of a great sprawling tarantula. "The Sign of the Spider" had been their cry! And these were "The People of the Spider!" What magic, what mystery was this? Lilith's last gift, Lilith's image; even her very name! It had indeed acted as a talisman, as a "charm" to stand between him and the most deadly of peril, as her aspiration had worded it. Verily, again had Lilith's love availed to stand between himself and a swift, sure, and bloody death! A marvel, and a stupendous one.

All this flashed through his mind as the Ba-gcatya crowded up around him, the hubbub of their excited voices sinking into an awestruck murmur as they gazed upon the man who wore "The Sign of the Spider." No wonder this man should have come forth alive from the ring of death, they decided,—he alone,—wearing that sign. And he alone had come forth.

All sounds of conflict had now ceased, giving way to the exultant shouts and bass laughter of the victorious savages looting the property of the slavers. Not a man was left alive up there, Laurence knew only too well. He alone was spared, as the bearer of that mysterious sign; was spared, miraculously indeed—but to what end?

Now he became conscious of a movement among the crowd, which parted quickly, respectfully. Through the opening thus effected there advanced two men. Both were fine, tall warriors, elderly of aspect, for their short, crisp beards were turning gray, but apparently in the very prime of athletic strength and vigour. In outward adornment their appearance differed little from that of the bulk of the Ba-gcatya. Their shaven heads were surmounted by the isicoco, or ring, exactly after the Zulu fashion, and on either side of this, but fastened so as not to interfere with it, nodded a tuft of magnificent white ostrich plumes. Laurence, who had now raised himself to a sitting posture, felt no doubt but that in these he beheld the two principal war-chiefs of the Ba-gcatya army.

"Who art thou, stranger, who wearest the Sign of the Spider?" began one of these in pure Zulu, after gazing upon him for a moment in silence.

Laurence at first thought to affect ignorance of the language, of which, indeed, he possessed considerable knowledge. He would the more readily get at their plans and intentions that way. But then it occurred to him he could hardly sustain his character as one to be favoured of the People of the Spider if professing an ignorance of their tongue, and he intended to work that fortunate incident for all it would carry. So he replied courteously:

"You see me, father. I alone am alive of those who fought up yonder. Even the spear which would slay me refused its work. It was turned aside," showing the wound in his shoulder, of which he realized he must make light, though, as a matter of fact, it was giving him considerable pain.

A deep murmur from the vast and increasing audience convinced the speaker that he had scored a point in making this statement. The chief continued:

"Rest now, while we rest, O stranger, and eat, for the way is far which lies before us."

"And whither does that way lie, O brave ones who command the valiant?" asked Laurence.

"Where dwelleth the Strong Wind that burns from the North." And with this darkly enigmatical rejoinder the speaker and his brother chief turned away, as a sign that the conference need proceed no further at present.

Some of those who had heard now beckoned Laurence forward, and, as he moved among that terrible host, many and strange were the glances which were cast at him. He, for his part, was not unmoved. This was an experience clean outside any he had ever known. The might and stature of these formidable warriors, lingering around in immense groups, many of them bleeding from ghastly wounds, yet devouring the dried food they carried, the while comrades were treating their hurts after a fashion which would have caused the civilized being to shriek aloud with agony; the ferocious volubility wherewith they discussed and fought the battle over again; and away beyond their lines, the earth black with corpses of the slain; while up yonder, though this he could not see, the rock circle was literally piled with those who had been his friends or followers for many a long day. All this impressed him to an extent which he had hardly deemed possible, though of any outward evidence thereof he gave no sign.

"Are all dead up yonder?" he asked some of the Ba-gcatya, as he joined them in their frugal fare.

A laugh, derisive but not discourteous to himself, greeted the question.

"Au! The bite of The Spider does not need repeating twice," was the reply. "None who have once felt it live."

The Ba-gcatya, heavy as had been their losses, were in high good-humour over their victory. After all, it was a victory, and a hard-fought one. They only lived for such. Losses were nothing to them. The spoils of the slavers' caravan—arms, ammunition, goods of all sorts, were distributed for transport among the younger regiments of the impi, which, its allotted period of rest over, at a mandate from its chiefs prepared for departure. And now the solitary white man in its midst—captive or guest, he himself was hardly certain which—had an opportunity of admiring the stern and iron discipline of this splendid army of savages. That of the Zulu troops under the rule of Cetywayo, or even under that of Tshaka, might have equalled it, but could not possibly have surpassed it. Each company fell into rank with machine-like precision and celerity. The dead were left as they fell; those who were too grievously wounded to move received death from the swift, sure spear-stroke of a comrade; then, marching in five columns, the great army set forth on its return, striking a course to the northward.

Laurence Stanninghame's feelings were passing strange as he found himself thus carried captive, he knew not whither, by this mighty nation which had hitherto been to him but a name, as to whose very existence he had been until quite recently more than half sceptical. Hazon had not exaggerated its strength or prowess; no, not one whit. Of that he had had abundant testimony. And Hazon himself? That strange individual, with his marked-out personality, his cold-blooded ruthlessness and dauntless courage? Well, his career was done. He lay in yonder circle, buried beneath the slain, fighting to the last with fierce and consistent valour. And Holmes? Even Laurence's hardened nature felt soft as he thought of the comrade with whom he had been so closely linked during these years of lawless and perilous enterprise. Well, they were gone, and he was spared, but—to what end?

Then the spirit of the true adventurer reasserted itself. What lay before him? What were the chances opening out to him in the dim, unknown land whither they were speeding? "You will return wealthy, or—you will not return at all," had been Hazon's words; and now their utterer would utter no more words of any kind—but he, Laurence, would he return at all? Would he?

And now, as they gained the edge of the great plain, the whole impi raised a mighty battle-song, improvised to celebrate their triumph. Its fierce strophes rolled like thunder along the ranks to the tread of marching feet, and the multitude of hide shields dappled the plain far and near, and the wavy lines of spear-points flashed and sparkled in the sunlight.

And already over the wizard ring of the rock circle, piled with its slain, immense clouds of vultures were wheeling beneath the blue vault or swooping down upon their abundant feast. And the sun, flaming down upon the torrid earth, seemed to shed a pitiless, brassy glare upon this awful hecatomb, whose annals should ever remain unrecorded, swallowed up in the grim and gloomy mysteries of that region of cruelty and of blood.

For many days thus they journeyed—making rapid, but not forced marches. The aspect of the country, too, varied,—open, wavy plains, where giraffe and buffalo were plentiful, and were hunted in great numbers for the supply of the impi—then gloomy forest tracts, which seemed to depress the Ba-gcatya, who hurried through them with all possible speed. Broad rivers, too, swarming with crocodiles and hippopotami,—and these the warriors would dash through in a mass, making the most hideous yelling and splashing. But even the ground seemed gradually to ascend, and certain white peaks, for some time visible on the far sky line, were drawing nearer, growing larger with every march.

It may seem strange how readily Laurence Stanninghame adapted himself to this new turn in the tide of his affairs—and indeed now and again he would faintly wonder at it himself. He had fought against these formidable savages in the most determined and bloody hand-to-hand conflict that had ever befallen his lot, or, in all probability, ever would again. They had overwhelmed and massacred his comrades and whole following; sparing himself alone, and that by a miracle. And now not only was he subjected to no ill-treatment or indignity, but moved freely among them, and was even suffered to retain his arms. Yet there was a sort of stand-offishness about most of them, in which he thought to descry a mingling of awe and repulsion.

Now and again, however, a thought would occur to him,—a thought productive of a cold shiver. To what end was he thus spared? Was it to be sacrificed in some hideous and gruesome rite? The thought was not a pleasant one, and it would intrude more and more. The hot African glow, the adventurous life, replete with every phase of weird and depressing incident, had strangely affected this man's temperament. With all his coolness in emergencies—his readiness of resource—in times of rest he would grow moody and high-strung. A sort of surcharged, mesmeric property seemed to hold him at such times, and he would wonder whether the hideous experiences and iron self-repression which he had passed through of late had not begun, unknown to himself, actually to affect his brain.

Now during the heat of the midday halt, he would withdraw and sit alone by the hour, contemplating the metal box, and at times its contents. More and more, since his wonderful escape, was it assuming in his eyes the properties of an amulet, or charm. It would reassure him, too, what time unpleasant thoughts would weigh upon him as to the end to which he had been reserved. Twice had Lilith's love stood between him and death. Would it not again? In truth the metal box was a possession beyond price.

All unconsciously his frequent and rapt contemplation of this object was standing him in valuable stead. The Ba-gcatya, furtively beholding him thus engaged,—for he was never beyond their watchful gaze,—were strengthened in their belief that he was a magician of the Spider, and feared him the more. He was thus, unconsciously, keeping up his character as such.

Yet, vivid as recollection was, as conjured up by the metal box, in other respects the old life seemed far away as a dream; misty, shadowy, vanishing. All its old conventionalities, its abstract notions of right and wrong, what were they? Dust. Even now, whither was he wending? Would he ever again behold a white face? It might be never.

"Have no white people ever visited your country, Silawayo?" he said one day while he and the two war-chiefs were talking together during the march.

"One only," was the reply, given with a shade of hesitation.

"And what became of him?"

"Au! He went to—— Well, he went——" answered the chief, with a curious look.

The reply smote upon Laurence with a cold fear. What grim and gruesome form of mysterious doom did it not point to? "One only," Silawayo had said. He himself was the second. It seemed ominous. But it would never do to manifest curiosity, let alone apprehension, on his own account, so he forebore further query as to the mystery, whatever it might be. Yet he thought it no harm to say:

"And what was this white man, Silawayo?"

"He was Umfundisi" (a preacher), answered the other chief, Ngumunye. "The king loves not such."

Well, the king need have no objections to himself on that score, at any rate, thought Laurence, with a dash of grim humour. But he only said:

"The king? Tell me about your king, Izinduna. How does he look? What is his name?"

"Hau! Is it possible, O stranger, that you have never heard the name of the king?" said Ngumunye, turning upon Laurence a blankly astonished face.

"Did not Silawayo but now say that only one white man had visited your country—and even he had not returned?" said Laurence, in native fashion answering one query with another.

"Ha!" cried both chiefs, whom an idea seemed to strike. Then Ngumunye went on impressively:

"Look around, O bearer of the Sign of the Spider. For days we have seen no man,—the remains of huts have we seen, but of people none. You too were remarking upon it but yesterday."

"That is so," assented Laurence.

"The remains of huts, but of people none," repeated the induna, with a wave of his hand. "Well, stranger, that is the name of the king, the Great Great One."

"The name of the king?"

"I'Tyisandhlu!"

"I'Tyisandhlu? The Strong Wind that burns from the North?" repeated Laurence, translating the name.

"E-he!" assented the chiefs emphatically. "Now say,—hath not a broad belt around the land of the People of the Spider been burned flat?" with a wave of the hand which took in the desolated region.

They had gained the great mountain range whose snowy summits had been drawing nearer for days, and a noble range indeed it was apparently, moreover, of immense altitude. Laurence Stanninghame, who was well acquainted with the Alps, now gazed in wonder and admiration upon these snow-capped Titans whose white heads seemed to support the blue vault of heaven itself, to such dizzy heights did they soar. Walls of black cliff, overhung with cornices even as with gigantic white eyebrows, towered up from dazzling snow slope, and higher still riven crags, split into all fantastic shapes, frowned forth as though to menace the world. And all around, clinging about the feet of these stupendous heights, soft, luxuriant forests, tuneful with the murmur of innumerable glacier streams. A very Paradise of beauty and grandeur side by side, thought Laurence—amid which the shields and spears, the marching column of the savage host seemed strangely out of keeping.

"How are they called, those mountains, Silawayo?" he said.

"Beyond them lies the land of the People of the Spider," answered the induna evasively. And the other understood that he must not look for exuberant information on topographical subjects just then.

They entered the mountains by a deep, black defile which pierced the range. For a day and night they wound through this, hardly pausing to rest, for it had become piercingly cold. Moreover, as Silawayo explained, even when the weather was at its highest stage of sultriness elsewhere, in the mountains the changes were sudden and great. To be snowed up in this pass was too serious a matter to risk.

"Was it the only gate by which the country of the Ba-gcatya was entered, then?"

But Silawayo did not seem to hear this question. He descanted learnedly on the suddenness of the mountain storms, and told tales of more than one impi which had set forth in all its warlike ardour, and had found here a stiff and frozen bed whereon its people might rest for all time.

The while keenly alert to take in all the features of the route, Laurence affected the greatest interest in the conversation of those around him. But there was that about the dark ruggedness of this stupendous pass that weighed heavily upon his mind—that depressed, well-nigh appalled him. It was as though he were passing through some black and gloomy gate which should shut him forever from the outside world, as they wound their way now where the cliffs beetled overhead so as to shut out the heavens, now along some dizzy ledge, with the dull roar of the mountain stream wafted up on icy gusts from far below. He suffered severely from the cold too, he who had breathed the moist, torrid heat of equatorial forests for so long,—and his wound became congealed and stiff. Yet he bore himself heroically, even as the Ba-gcatya themselves, who, their scanty clothing notwithstanding, seemed to feel the cold not one whit, chatting and laughing and singing while they marched. Finally the ground descended once more, and at length—while he was nodding in slumber at the dawn of day, during one of their brief rests—Ngumunye touched him on the shoulder and beckoned that he should accompany him. Laurence complied, and when they had gained the brow of a gently rising ridge beyond, an exclamation of wonder and admiration burst from his lips.

"Lo!" said the induna, pointing down with his knob-stick. "Lo! there lies the land of the People of the Spider; there rests the throne of the Strong Wind that burns from the North. Lo! his dwelling,—Imvungayo."



CHAPTER XXI.

"THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS FROM THE NORTH."

From where they stood the ground fell away in great wooded spurs to a broad level valley, or rather plain,—shut in on the farther side by rolling ranges of forest-clad hills. The valley bottom, green and undulating, was watered by numerous streams, flashing like bands of silver ribbon in the golden glow of the newly risen sun. Clustering here and there, five or six together, were kraals, circular and symmetrical, built on the Zulu plan, and from their dome-shaped grass huts blue lines of smoke were arising upon the still morning air. Already, dappling the sward, the many coloured hides of innumerable cattle could be seen moving, and the long drawn shout and whistle of these who tended them rose in faint and harmonious echo to the height whence they looked down. Patches of broad, flag-like maize, too, stood out, in darker squares, from the verdancy of the grass, and bird voices in glad note made merry among the cool, leafy, forest slopes. Coming in contrast to the steamy heat, the dank and gloomy equatorial vegetation, the foul and noisome surroundings of the cannibal villages, this smiling land of plenty did indeed offer to him who now first beheld it a fair and blithesome sight.

But another object attracted and held the attention of the spectator even more than all. This was an immense kraal. It lay on the slope at least ten miles away, but with the aid of his glass, which had been returned to him from among the slavers' loot, Laurence could bring it very near indeed. The yellow-domed huts lay six or seven deep between their dark, ringed fences, the great circular space in the middle—the isigodhlo, or inclosure of royal dwellings partitioned off at the upper end—why, the place might have been the chief kraal of Cetywayo or Dingane miraculously transferred to this remote and unexplored region.

"Lo! Imvungayo. The seat of the Great Great One—the Strong Wind that burns from the North," murmured Ngumunye, interpreting his glance of inquiry. "Come—let us go down."

As the great impi, which up till now had been marching "at ease," emerged upon the plain, once more the warriors formed into rank, and advanced in serried columns—singing a war-song. Immediately the whole land was as a disturbed beehive. Men, women, and children flocked forth to welcome them, the latter especially, pressing forward with eager curiosity to obtain a glimpse of the white man, the first of the species they had ever seen, and the air rang with the shrill, excited cries of astonishment wherewith they greeted his appearance, and the calm, unruffled way in which he ignored both their presence and amazement. Much singing followed; the stay-at-homes answering the war-song of the warriors in responsive strophes—but there was little variety in these, which consisted largely, as it seemed to Laurence, of exuberant references to "The Spider" and praise of the king.

As they drew near the great kraal, two companies of girls, arrayed in beaded dancing dresses, advanced, waving green boughs, and, halting in front of the returning impi, sang a song of welcome. Their voices were melodious and pleasing to the last degree, imparting a singular charm to the somewhat monotonous repetition of the wild chant—now in a soft musical contralto, now shrilling aloft in a note of pealing gladness. Laurence, who was beginning to feel vividly interested in this strange race of valiant fighters, failed not to note that many of these girls were of extraordinarily prepossessing appearance, with their tall, beautiful figures and supple limbs, their clear eyes and white teeth, and bright, pleasing faces. Then suddenly song and dance alike ceased, and the women, parting into two companies, the whole impi moved forward again, marching between them.

The huge kraal was very near now, the palisade lined with the faces of eager spectators. But Laurence, quick to take in impressions, noticed that here there were no severed heads stuck about in ghastly ornament. This splendid race, as pitiless and unsparing in victory as it was intrepid in the field, was clearly above the more monstrous and revolting forms of savage barbarity. Then all further reflections were diverted into an entirely new channel, for the whole impi—tossing the unarmed right hand aloft—thundered aloud the salute royal, then fell prostrate:

"Bayete!"

The roar—sudden, and as one man—of that multitude of voices was startling, well-nigh terrifying. Laurence, unprepared for any such move, found himself standing there—he alone, erect—while around him, as so much mown corn, lay prostrate on their faces this immense company of armed warriors. Then he took in the reason.

Just in front of where the impi had halted rose a small cluster of trees crowning a knoll. Beneath the shade thus formed was a group of men, in a half-squatting, half-crouching attitude—all save one.

Yes. One alone was standing—standing a little in advance of the group—standing tall, erect, majestic—in a splendid attitude of ease and dignity, as, with head thrown slightly back, he darted his clear expressive eyes proudly over the bending host. A man in the prime of life—a perfect embodiment of symmetry and strength—he wore no attempt at gew-gaws or meretricious adornment. His shaven head was crowned with the usual isicoco, or ring, whose jetty blackness seemed to render the rich copper hue of the smooth skin even lighter, and for all clothing he wore a mutya of lion-skin and leopards' tails. Yet Laurence Stanninghame, gazing upon him, recognized a natural dignity—nay, a majesty enthroning this nearly naked savage such as he had never seen quite equalled in the aspect or deportment of any other living man. Clearly this was the king—Tyisandhlu—"The Strong Wind that burns from the North." Removing his hat with one hand he raised the other above his head, and repeated the salute royal as he had heard it from the warriors.

The king acknowledged his greeting by a brief murmur. Then he called aloud:

"Rise up, my children."

As one man that huge assembly sprang to its feet,—and the quivering rattle of spear-hafts was as a winter gale rushing through a leafless wood; with one voice it began to thunder forth the royal titles.

"O Great Spider! Terrible Spider! Blood-drinking Spider, whose bite is death! O Serpent! O Elephant! Thunderer of the heavens! Divider of the Sun! House Burner! O Destroyer! O All Devouring Beast!" These were some of the titles used—but the praisers would always bring back the bonga to some attribute of the spider. Laurence, who understood the system, noted this peculiarity, differing, as it did, from the Zulu practice of making the serpent the principal term of praise. Finally, as by signal, the shouting ceased, and the principal leaders of the impi, disarming, crept forward, two by two, to the king's feet.

Laurence was too far off to hear what was said, for the tone was low, but he judged, and rightly, that the chiefs were giving an account of the expedition. At length the king dismissed them, and pointing with the short knob-stick he held in his hand, ordered that he himself should be brought forward.

The ranks of the warriors opened to let him through, and as, having been careful to disarm in turn, he advanced, Laurence could not repress a tightening thrill of the pulses as he wondered what fate it was, as regarded himself, that should now fall from the lips of this despot, whose very name meant a terror and a scourge.

Tyisandhlu for some moments uttered no word, but stood gazing fixedly upon his prisoner in contemplative silence. Laurence, for his part, was studying, no less attentively, the king. The finely shaped head and lofty brow—the clear eyes and oval face, culminating in a short beard, whose jetty thickness just began to show here and there a streak of gray,—the noble stature and erect carriage, impressed him even more, thus face to face, than at a distance.

"They say thou bearest the Sign of this nation, O stranger," began the king, speaking in the Zulu tongue, "and that to this thou owest thy life."

"That is true, Great Great One," answered Laurence.

"But how know we that the Sign is genuine?" continued Tyisandhlu.

"By this, Father of the People of the Spider. Not once has it stood between me and death, but twice, and that at the hands of your people."

A murmur of astonishment escaped his hearers. But the king said:

"When was this other time?—for such would, in truth, be something of a test."

Then Laurence told the tale of his conflict with the Ba-gcatya warriors beneath the tree-fern by the lagoon—and the murmur among the listeners deepened.

"I was but one man, and they were twelve," he concluded. "Twelve of the finest warriors in the world, even the warriors of the People of the Spider. Yet they could not harm me, see you, Great Great One. They could not prevail against the man who held—who wore the Sign of the Spider."

Now an emphatic hum arose on the part of all who heard—and indeed there had been a silence that might be felt while he had been narrating his tale. More than ever was Laurence convinced that in deciding to tell it he had acted with sound judgment. He had little or nothing to fear from the vengeance of the relatives of those he had slain—for he had seen enough of these people to guess that they did not bear a grudge over the fortunes of war—over losses sustained in fair and open fight. And, on the other hand, he had immensely strengthened his own case.

"Yet, you made common cause with these foul and noisome Izimu,"[1] said the king, shifting somewhat his ground. "These carrion dogs, who devour one another, even their own flesh and blood?"

"I but spared one of their villages, O Great North Wind. For the rest, how many have I left standing?"

"That is so," said Tyisandhlu, still gazing fixedly at his prisoner. Then he signed the latter to retire among the warriors, and, turning, gave a few rapid directions in a low voice to an attendant.

In the result, a group of armed warriors was seen hurrying forward, and in its midst a man, unarmed—a man ragged and covered with dried blood, and with his arms ignominiously bound behind him. And wild amazement was in store for Laurence. He had reckoned himself the sole survivor of the massacre. Yet now in this helpless and ill-treated prisoner he recognized no less a personage than Lutali.

His body and limbs slashed with many spear-wounds—his clothing cut to ribbons—his half-starved and filthy aspect—as he was hustled forward into the king's presence, the Arab would have looked a pitiable object enough but for one thing. The dignity begotten of high descent and indomitable courage never left him—not for one moment. Weak as he was with loss of blood and the pain of his untended and mortifying wounds—the glance of his eyes, no less than the set of his keen, hawk-like face, was as proud, as fearless, as that of the king himself.

"Down, dog!" growled the guards, flinging him forward on his face. "Lick the earth at the feet of the Great North Wind, whose blast kills!"

But immediately Lutali staggered to his feet, and the hell blast of hate and fury which shone from his eyes was perfectly demoniacal.

"There is but one God, and Mohammed is the prophet of God!" he roared. "Am I to prostrate myself before an infidel dog—the chief dog of a pack of dogs? This for the scum!" And he spat full towards Tyisandhlu.

An indescribable shiver of awe ran through the dense and serried ranks of armed warriors, followed by a terrible tumult.

"Au! he is mad!" cried some; while others clamoured, "Give him to us, Great Great One. We will put him to the fiery death!"

But the king returned no word. It is even possible that his own intrepid soul was moved to admiration by the sublime courage of this man—his prisoner, bound, helpless, weakened—standing thus before him—before him at whose frown men trembled—face to face, and thus defying him. One other who beheld it, the sight must have powerfully moved, for with a lull in the tumult a voice rose clear and distinct:

"Spare him, O Great Great One, for he is a brave man."

If anyone had told Laurence Stanninghame but an hour earlier that he was about to commit so rash and suicidal an act as to beg the life of another at the hands of a grossly insulted despot, and in the face of an enraged nation, he would have scouted the idea as too weakly idiotic for words. Yet, in fact, he had just committed that very act. Deep and savage were the resentful growls that greeted his words. "Au! he presumes! He shares in the insult offered to the majesty of the king," were some of the ominous mutterings that went forth.

The king merely glanced in the direction of the speaker, and said nothing. But Lutali, becoming aware for the first time of the presence of his former confederate, turned towards the latter.

"Ask not my life at the hands of these dogs, these unclean swine, Afa," he cried;—"lo, Paradise awaits to receive the believer. I hasten to it; I enter it;" and he threw back his head fearlessly, while his eyes shone with a fanatical glare.

"Spare him, O king, for he is a brave man," urged Laurence again.

"And so art thou, I think," replied Tyisandhlu, turning a somewhat haughty stare upon the speaker. Then he muttered, "Yet not this one."

An interruption occurred; gruesome, grotesque. A number of figures, seeming to spring from no one knew where, were seen gliding forward. They were coal black from head to foot, and their faces were more like masks than the human countenance, being bedaubed with some pigment that gave each of them the aspect of possessing two huge goggle eyes. But these horrible beings seemed at first sight to have no arms and no legs, their whole anatomy being encased in a sort of black, hairy sacking, whence tails and streamers, also hairy, flapped in the air as they moved. Hideous, indeed, they looked,—hideous and grotesque, half reptile, half devil.

They surrounded Lutali—all in dead silence, the guards precipitately falling back to give them way. Then the king spoke, and his words were gentle and mocking:

"Go now to thy Paradise, O believer; these will show thee the way. Hamba-gahle!"

He waved his hand, and, in obedience to the signal, the whole group of black horrors fastened upon the Arab and dragged him away. And from all who beheld there went up a deep, chest note of exclamation that was part satisfaction, part awe.

The king, having received further reports and attended to other business connected with the army, withdrew. Laurence, watching the stately personality of this splendid savage retiring amid the groups of indunas towards the gate of the great kraal, felt his ever-present conjectures as to his own fate merge in a vivid sense of interest. But Tyisandhlu seemed to have forgotten his existence, for he bestowed no further word upon him; however, he was taken charge of by Ngumunye, who assigned him a large hut within the royal kraal.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Cannibals.



CHAPTER XXII.

THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY.

The next few days were spent by the Ba-gcatya in dancing and ceremonial—and by Laurence Stanninghame in trying to find out all he could about the Ba-gcatya. He laid himself out to make friends with them, and this was easy, for the natural suspiciousness wherewith the savage invariably regards a new acquaintance, once fairly laid to rest, the Ba-gcatya proved as chatty and genial a race of people as those of the original Zulu stock. But on one point the lips of old and young alike were sealed, and that was the fate of Lutali. No word would they ever by any chance let fall as to this; but the awed silence wherewith they would treat all mention of it, and their hurried efforts to change the subject, added not a little to the impression the last glimpse of his Arab confederate had made upon Laurence. What awesome, devilish mystery did not those hideous beings represent?

For the rest, he learned that these people were of Zulu stock, and having opposed the accession of Tshaka, when that potentate usurped the royal seat of Dingiswayo, had deemed it advisable to flee. They had migrated northward, even as Umzilikazi and his followers had done, though some years prior to the flight of that chieftain. But they were nothing if not conservative, and so intent was the king on preserving the pure Zulu blood, that he was chary of allowing any slaves among them. As it was, the issue of all slaves had no rights, and could under no circumstances whatever rise above the condition of slavery. And Laurence, noting the grand physique, and even the handsome appearance, of the sons and daughters of this splendid race, had no doubt as to the wisdom of such a restriction.

Now, as the days went by, there began to grow upon Laurence a sort of restfulness. The terrible conflict and merciless massacre of his friends and followers had impressed him but momentarily, accustomed as he was to scenes of horror and of blood—and indeed in direct contrast to such did he the more readily welcome the peaceful tranquillity of his present life. For the dreaded Ba-gcatya at home were a quiet and pastoral race—owning extensive herds of cattle—also goats and a strange kind of large-tailed sheep—though, true to their origin, horned cattle formed the staple of their possessions, and the land around the king's great palace was dappled with grazing stock, and the air was musical with the singing of women hoeing the millet and maize gardens.

Then again, the surrounding country swarmed with game, large and small, from the colossal elephant to the tiny dinkerbuck. To Laurence, passionately fond of sport, this alone was sufficient to reconcile him to his strange captivity—for a time. He would be the life and soul of the Ba-gcatya hunting parties, and skill and success, together with his untiring energy and philosophical acceptance of the hardships and vicissitudes of the chase, went straight to the hearts of these fine, fearless barbarians. He became quite a favourite with the nation.

The female side of the latter, too, looked upon him with kindly eyes. He would chaff the girls, when he came upon them wandering in bevies, as was their wont, and tell them strange stories of other conditions of life, until they fairly screamed with laughter, or brought their hands to their mouths in mute wonder.

"Whau, Nyonyoba, why do you not lobola for some of these?" said Silawayo one day, coming upon him thus engaged. "Then you could dwell among us as one of ourselves."

"One might do worse, induna of the king," he returned tranquilly, with a glance at the group of bright-faced, merry, and extremely well-shaped damsels, whom he had been convulsing with laughter.

"Yau! Listen to our father," they cried. "He is joking, indeed. Yau! Farewell, Nyonyoba. Fare thee well." And they sped away, still screaming with laughter.

The old induna looked quizzically after them, then at Laurence. Then he took snuff.

"One might do worse, Silawayo," repeated Laurence. "I have known worse times than those I have already undergone here. But all I possess I have lost. My slaves your people have killed, and my ivory and goods the king has taken, leaving me nothing but my arms and ammunition. Tell me, then, do the Ba-gcatya give their daughters for nothing, or how shall a man who is so poor think to set up a kraal of his own?"

The induna laughed dryly.

"We are all poor that way, for all we own belongs to the king. Yet the Great Great One is open handed. He might return some of your goods, Nyonyoba."

This, by the way, was Laurence's sobriquet among these people, bestowed upon him by reason of his skill and craft in stalking wild game.

It was even as he had said. This raid had gone far towards undoing the results of their lawless and perilous enterprise—a portion of his gains were safe, but this last blow was of crippling force. And only a day or so prior to it he had been revelling in the prospect of a speedy return to civilized life, to the enjoyment of wealth for the remainder of his allotted span. He recalled the misgivings uttered by Holmes, that wealth thus gained would bring them no good, for the curse of blood that lay upon it. Poor Holmes! The prophecy seemed to have come true as regarded the prophet—but for himself? well, the loss reconciled him still more to his life among the Ba-gcatya.

Of Tyisandhlu he had seen but little. Now and then the king would send for him and talk for a time upon things in general, and all the while Laurence would feel that the shrewd, keen eyes of this barbarian ruler were reading him like a book. Tyisandhlu, moreover, had expressed a wish that a body of picked men should be armed with the rifles taken from the slavers, and instructed in their use; and to this Laurence had readily consented.

"Yet consider, Ndabezita,"[2] he had said, "is it well to teach them reliance on any weapon rather than the broad spear? For had your army possessed fire-weapons, never would it have eaten up our camp out yonder. It would have spent all its time and energy shooting, and that to little purpose. It would have had time to think, and then the warriors would have brought but half a heart to the last fierce charge."

"There is much in what you say, Nyonyoba," replied the king; "yet, I would try the experiment."

So the indunas were required to select the men, and about three hundred were organized, and Laurence, having spent much care in their instruction, soon turned out a very fair corps of sharp-shooters. No scruple had he in thus increasing the fighting strength of this already fierce and formidable fighting race, to which he had taken a great liking. He even began to contemplate the contingency of ending his life among them, for of any return to civilization there seemed not the remotest prospect; and, indeed, rather than return without the wealth for which he had risked so much, he preferred not to return at all.

Even the memory of Lilith brought with it pain rather than solace. After all this time—years indeed, now—would not his memory have faded? The life he had led tended to foster such memory in himself, but with her it was otherwise. All the conditions of her daily life tended rather to dim it. That sweet, short, passionate episode had been all entrancing while it lasted; yet was it not counterpoised by the certainty that with women of her temperament such episodes are but episodes? All the bitter side of his philosophy cried aloud in the affirmative.

He had now been several months among the Ba-gcatya; and had long since ceased to feel any misgiving as to his personal safety at their hands. But his sense of security was destined to receive a rude shock, and it came about in this way.

Returning one day from a hunt, at some distance from Imvungayo, he had marched on ahead of his companions, and, the afternoon being hot, had lain down in the shade of a cluster of trees for a brief nap. From this the buzz of muttering voices awakened him.

At first he paid no attention, reckoning that the remainder of the party had come up. But soon a remark which was let fall started him very wide awake indeed, and at the same time he recognized that the voices were not those of his present companions, but of strangers. From a certain quaver or hesitancy in the tones, he judged them to be the voices of old men.

"Whau! The spider must be growing hungry again. It is long since he has drunk blood."

"Not since the son of Tondusa assumed the head-ring," answered the other.

"And now a greater is about to assume the head-ring," went on the first speaker, "even Ncute, the son of Nondwana."

"The brother of the Great Great One?"

"The same," asserted the first speaker, in that sing-song hum in which natives, when among themselves, will carry on a conversation for hours.

Now the listener was interested indeed. On the mysterious subject of "The Spider" the Ba-gcatya had been close as death. No hint or indication tending to throw light upon it would they let fall in reply to any question, direct or indirect. Now he was going to hear something. These men, unaware of his presence, and talking freely among themselves, would certainly afford more than a clew to it. Nondwana, the king's brother, he suspected of being not over favourably disposed towards himself, possibly through jealousy.

"That will be when the second moon is at full?" continued one of the talkers.

"It will. Ha! The Spider will receive a brave offering. Yet how shall it devour one who bears its Sign?"

"It may not," rejoined the other. "Hau! that will in truth be a test—if the sign is real."

One who bears its Sign! The listener felt every drop of blood within him turn cold, freeze from head to foot. What sort of devil-god could it be from which this nation derived its name, and which these were talking about as one that devoured men?

He that bears its Sign! The words could apply to none other than himself. He had deduced that, although the Ba-gcatya held cannibalism in abhorrence, yet from time to time human sacrifices of very awesome and mysterious nature took place, and that on certain momentous occasions—the accession or death of a king, of an heir to any branch of the royal house, or such a one as this now under discussion—the admission to full privileges of manhood of a scion of the same. And the sacrifice on this occasion was to consist of himself? To this end he had been spared—even honoured.

"It will in truth be a test, for some doubt that the Sign as worn by this stranger hath any magic at all," continued one of the talkers. "If he comes out unharmed—hau! that will be a marvel, indeed—a marvel, indeed."

"E-he!" they assented. Then they fell to talking of other things, and soon the concealed listener heard them rise up and depart.

Laurence decided to wait no more for his companions. He wanted to be alone and think this matter out. So when the voices of the talkers had fairly faded beyond earshot he left the cluster of trees on the farther side and took his way down the mountain slope.

A ghastly fear was upon him. The horror and mystery of the thing got upon even his iron nerves—the suddenness of it too, just when he had lulled himself into a complete sense of security. Had he learned in like fashion that he was to be slain in an ordinary way at a given time it would not have shaken him beyond the ordinary. But this thing—there was something so devilish about it. What did it mean? Was it some grotesque idol worked by mechanism, even as in the old pagan temples—to which human sacrifices were offered? Or—for he could not candidly discredit all the weird and marvellous tales and traditions of some of these up-country tribes, degraded and man-eating as they were—was it some unknown and terrifying monster inhabiting the dens and caves of the earth? Whatever it was, he knew too well, of course, that the coincidence which had so miraculously resulted in the sparing of his life at the hands of the victorious Ba-gcatya, reeking with slaughter, would stand him in nowhere here. He remembered the mystery hanging over the fate of Lutali, and those horrible beings who had hauled the Arab to his doom, whatever it was, who indeed might well constitute the priesthood of the unknown devil-god.

Surely never indeed had earth presented a fairer scene than this upon which the adventurer's eyes rested, as he made his way down the mountain-side. The calm, peaceful beauty of the day, the golden sunlight flooding the plain beneath, the great circle of Imvungayo, and the—by contrast—tiny circles of lesser kraals scattered about the valley or crowning some mountain spur, and, mellow upon the stillness, the distant low of cattle—the singing of women at work mingling with the soft voices of a multitude of doves in cornlands and the surrounding forest-trees. Yet now in the white peaks towering to the cloudless heavens, in the black and craggy rifts, in the wide, rolling, partially-wooded plains—the hunter's paradise—this man saw only a gloomy wizard circle, inclosing some horrible inferno, the throne of the frightful demon-god of this extraordinary race.

Then it occurred to Laurence that he had better not let this thing get too much upon his nerves. It was the result of inaction, he told himself. Several months of rest and tranquillity had begun to turn him soft. That would not do. He had got to look matters in the face fairly and squarely. The ceremony which was to bring him to what would almost certainly be a fearful fate was set for the fall of the second moon, the talkers had said—but of this he had been already aware, for the chief Nondwana and his son were both well known to him. That would give him a little over six weeks. Escape? Nothing short of a miracle could effect that, he told himself, remembering the immense tract of desolate country surrounding the fastnesses of the Ba-gcatya, and the ferocious cannibal hordes which lay beyond these, and who indeed would wreak a vengeance of the most barbarous kind upon their old enemy and scourge, the slaver-chief, did they find him alone, and to that extent no longer formidable, in their midst.

The friendship of the king? No. That was based on superstition, even as the friendship of the entire nation. Even it was assumed for an end. Again, should he boldly challenge the pretensions of the demon-god, whatever it might be, and asserting himself to be the real one, offer to slay the horror in open conflict? Not a moment's reflection was needed, however, to convince him of the utter impracticability of this scheme. The cherished superstition of a great nation was not to be uprooted in any such rough-and-ready fashion. The only way of escape left open to him was that of death—death swift and sudden—the death of the suicide—to escape the greater horror. But from this he shrank. The grim hardness of his recent training had nerved him rather to face peril than to avoid it. He did not care to contemplate such a way out of the dilemma. He was cornered. There was no way of escape.