Chapter Twenty Three.
The Inswani
The hot night air brooded steamy and close upon the slumbering camp of the slavers, but to these it mattered nothing. Ferocious Arab and bloodthirsty negro alike were plunged in calm and peaceful slumber.
Not so the unhappy captives. To the tortures of their cramping bonds and the bites of innumerable insects from which they were entirely powerless to protect themselves, were added those of anticipation. With a refinement of cruelty which was thoroughly Oriental, the slaver chief had decreed a respite. He had caused his victims to undergo in imagination the horrible torments he intended should be their lot on the morrow, and, to this end, he had ordered them to be taken down from the tree and put back as they were before, so that they might have the whole night through to meditate upon what awaited them on the following day.
Haviland had fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion, but his slumbers were fitful, and ever haunted by frightful visions, which would start him wide awake and quaking: for his nerves were unstrung with the awful ordeal he had undergone; and further, the recollection of the sickening massacre, the heat and excitement of battle over, was one to haunt. In his broken, unrestful sleep he was back at Saint Kirwin’s, and, instead of the Headmaster, it was Mushâd, duly arrayed in academicals – which did not seem a bit strange or out of the way in the bizarre reality of his dream – who was about to pass sentence upon him. And then appeared Cetchy, not as he used to be, but as a big, powerful, full-grown man, and started to punch the spurious Doctor’s head, and they fought long and hard, and he watched them in powerless and agonising apprehension, for upon the issue of the contest depended whether he should undergo the hideous fate in store for him or not. And then he awoke.
To the first sense of relief succeeded a quick realisation that the actuality of their position was worse than the make-believe of any dream. Involuntarily a groan escaped him. The savage face of one of his guards shot up noiselessly, with a sleepily malignant grin. But Haviland realised that it was growing almost imperceptibly lighter. The day would soon be here.
It was the hour before dawn, and sleep lay heavy upon the slave-hunters’ camp. Even their sentinels scarcely took the trouble to keep awake. Why should they? Did they not belong to the great Mushâd, whose name was a terror to half a continent, whose deeds a sweeping scourge? Who would dare to assail or molest such a power as this? So, in the faint lightening of the darkness which preceded the first dawn of day, they slumbered on, heavily, peacefully, unsuspectingly. And then came the awakening. The awakening of death.
The vibrant barking slogan seems to shatter the world, as the destroyers, apparently starting up from nowhere, pour over the silent camp, and each affrighted sleeper leaps up, only to meet the slash of the broad shearing blade which rends his vitals, and hurls him back to the earth, a deluging corpse. Huge figures, fell and dark, hundreds and hundreds of them, and yet more and more, with streaming adornments and mighty shields and short-handled, broad-bladed spears – this is what the captives behold in that terrible hour of lightening dawn. Their former enemies, overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, entirely taken by surprise, have not even time to rise and defend themselves. They are struck down, ripped, before they can gain their feet and lay hand upon a weapon. And they themselves? They, too, will be butchered in the helplessness of their bonds, but it will be a swift and sudden death.
But somehow the tide of slaughter seems to surge round them, not over them, to pass them by. What does it mean? That in the confusion and uncertain light they are counted already dead as they lie there, but even in that case these savages would inevitably rip them with their spears? Something like a glimmer of hope seems to light up the despair at their hearts, as it occurs to them that the surprise and massacre of their enemies may mean ultimate rescue for themselves.
Yet who and what are these savages? They are for the most part men of splendid physique, tall and straight, and of a red-brown colour, and their features are of the negroid type. They carry great shields akin to the Zulu, only more oval in shape, and more massive, and the latter is also the case with regard to their short-handled stabbing spears, and their battle-shout is a loud, harsh, inarticulate bark, indescribably terrible when uttered simultaneously by many throats. Here, as uttered by over a thousand, words can hardly express the blood-curdling menace it conveys. But, while thus pondering, the attention of these new arrivals is turned to themselves. Ha! now their time has come. With ready spear two of the savages bend over them. The dark faces are grim and pitiless, and the spears descend, but not to be sheathed in their bodies. The tense thongs, severed in more places than one, fly from them. Their limbs are free.
They could hardly realise it. They stared stupidly upward at the ring of faces gazing down upon them. What did it mean? Then their glance fell upon one among that vast increasing group of towering men. If that was not the ghost of Kumbelwa, why it was Kumbelwa himself. And then a string of the most extravagant sibonga, bursting from the warrior in question, convinced them that this was indeed so.
“In truth, Amakosi,” he concluded, “well was it for you that Mushâd preferred to take his revenge cool, else had these been too late.”
“But – who are these, Kumbelwa?” said Haviland. “Not the People of the Spider?” gazing at them with renewed interest.
“The Ba-gcatya? No. These are the Inswani; they of whom we were talking just lately.”
“What of Mushâd, Kumbelwa? Have they killed him?”
“He is unhurt. But I think the death he intended for yourselves, Amakosi, is sweet sleep by the side of that which the father of this people is keeping for him. Yonder he sits.”
Rising, though with difficulty, in the cramped condition of their limbs, the two, together with Somala, looked around for their enemy. The Arab had accepted their rescue with the same philosophy as that wherewith he had met his bonds. “It was written so. God is great,” had been his sole comment.
In the centre of the erewhile camp they found the man they sought. The terrible slaver chief lay as securely bound as they themselves had so lately been. With him, too, and equally helpless, were about three score of his clansmen. They were the sole survivors of the massacre, and the site of the camp was literally piled with hacked and mangled corpses. Barbarous as had been their own treatment at the hands of this ruthless desperado, the three Englishmen could not but shudder over the fate in store for him and those who had been taken alive with him. To that end alone had they been spared, for such had been the orders of the King.
“Ya Allah!” exclaimed Mushâd, his keen eyes seeming to burn, as he glared up at his late captives. “Fate is strange, yet be not in a hurry to triumph, ye dogs, for it may change again.”
“We have no desire to triumph over you, Mushâd,” said Haviland. “That would be the part of a coward, and I hardly think that even you would name us that.”
The Arab scowled savagely and relapsed into silence, and they left him. When Kumbelwa asked them about the doctor they felt almost ashamed of how the elation, attendant upon their own unexpected deliverance, had sent their friend’s memory into the background. Yet were they destined to miss him at every hour of the day.
“He died like a brave man, Kumbelwa,” had answered Haviland. “And now, what of ourselves; and how did you escape and come so opportunely to our aid?”
Then Kumbelwa sat down, and began to take snuff.
“We had a right good fight up there, Nkose, was it not so? But I knew what would be the end of it, for did not you yourself say, ‘What can one buffalo bull do against a hundred dogs?’ So I cut my way through Mushâd’s people and made for the open, and well I knew that none there could outrun me, nor indeed could their bullets even strike me, so wild were these men with excitement and victory. The while I thought that one man outside and free was better than all within and bound, wherefore I put much space between me and the battle so that I might think out some plan. And then, Nkose, I know not how, whether it was my snake that whispered it to me, or what it was, but I looked up – and lo! afar off there rose a smoke. ‘Now,’ thought I, ‘whoever is making that smoke, it is no friend to Mushâd. Further, it is no weak ones of the tribes left in the path of Mushâd, else had they not dared signify their presence so soon after he had passed.’ And I thought ‘Nothing can be worse for those in the hand of Mushâd, and it may be better. As things are, they are already dead; but as things may be, who knoweth?’ So straight to that smoke I went, and lo! by a fire lay four times ten men – warriors, in full array of battle. I walked into their midst before they seized their spears and came for me. Then I said, ‘Who are ye?’ And they told me – I standing there and uttering the name of our King. They had heard it, far, far as they dwelt from the land of Zulu; but, where has not the name of Zulu sounded?
“Then I said ‘Ye seek Mushâd? Good. I can deliver him into your hands – lead me to the impi.’ Then one man said – not speaking very well in the tongue of the Zulu, ‘How knowest thou whom we seek, O stranger; and how knowest thou that there be an impi with us?’ And I said, ‘Look at me. I am not a boy. I am a kehla, and have I not fought the battles of the Great Great One – he of the House of Senzangakona?’ And they said, ‘It is well, O stranger. Show us Mushâd.’ And now, Amakosi, I would ask you – ‘Have I not done so?’”
The cordial assent of Haviland was drowned in the chorus of emphatic applause thundered forth from those who heard, for the few who had gathered round to listen had swelled into a mighty crowd, as, seated there, the Zulu warrior poured forth his tale.
“And what of ourselves, Kumbelwa?” asked Haviland. “How are we to return, for we have no bearers left, and all that is valuable to us, though valuable to no one else, lies up yonder, where we fought?”
The Zulu’s countenance seemed ever so slightly to fall.
“For that, Nkose, you must go with these. The Father of this people desires to see you.”
“That is so, O strangers,” broke in a deep voice. Both turned. The words had proceeded from a very tall man, taller even than Kumbelwa, who stood forth a little from the rest. He was a magnificent savage as he stood there, clad in his war costume, his head thrown haughtily back, his hand resting on his great shield. But the glance wherewith he favoured them was one of supercilious command, almost of hostility. Both Haviland and Oakley felt an instinctive dislike and distrust for the man as they returned his glance.
“Who is the warrior I see before me?” asked Haviland, courteously, realising that this man was chief in command of the impi.
“I am Dumaliso,” was the reply. “You must go with us.”
And somehow both our friends realised that their troubles were by no means over.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Were They Prisoners?
The first elation of their most timely rescue cooled, Haviland and Oakley realised that they had no very bright outlook before them, under the changed condition of things. Instead of their return to civilisation and the outside world after their long exile – a return, too, bearing with them the results of a highly successful enterprise, and which every day had been bringing nearer and nearer – here they were virtually captives once more, in process of being marched back further and further from the goal to which they had looked; back, indeed, into unknown wilds, and at the mercy of a barbarian despot whose raids and massacres had set up a reputation for cruelty which surpassed that of Mushâd himself.
The conditions of the march, too, were exhausting even to themselves. Twenty-five, even thirty miles a day, were as nothing to these sinewy savages. They did not, however, take a straight line, but diverged considerably every now and then to fall upon some unhappy village. Contrary, however, to custom, they perpetrated no massacres on these occasions. What they did do was to show off Mushâd and his principal followers, with slave-yokes on their necks, and under every possible circumstance of ignominy, in order that all might see that the terrible and redoubted slaver chief was a mere dog beside the power of the Great King. This revolted the two Englishmen, and however little reason they had to commiserate their late enemies, at any rate these were brave men, and they had expected that a brave race like the Inswani would have recognised this. At last they said as much.
It happened that Dumaliso had compelled several of the meanest of the villagers to lash Mushâd. The infliction was not severe. It was merely the indignity that was aimed at. The haughty Arab, however, might have been made of wood for all the sign he gave of either pain or humiliation. But the two white men were thoroughly disgusted, and it is absolutely certain that, had the means been at hand, they would, at all risks, have aided their late enemy to escape.
“Why degrade a brave man thus, leader of the Great Great One’s impi?” Haviland had expostulated. “If he is to die, even in torment, it may be that he has deserved that. But to degrade him at the hands of these vile dogs, who just now trembled at the mere sound of his name – is that well?”
“Is it well?” echoed Dumaliso, with a brutal laugh. “See there, white man,” pointing with his great assegai at Mushâd. “If yonder dog had fifty lives, every one of them should be taken from him in the torment of many days. For him nothing is too bad. It is the word of the Great Great One.”
“What has he done, that your King should hate him so?”
“Au! He has seized and made slaves of some of our people. Inswani slaves! Think of it, Umlungu! That for one thing. For another, he has sworn to seize the Great Great One, and turn him into the meanest of slaves, to heap indignities upon him far worse than any we have heaped upon his vile carrion carcase, indignities which are not to be named. This hath he done, O insect-hunter! Is it not enough?”
Haviland realised the futility of further remonstrance, but the unpleasant conviction seemed to be growing upon them more and more that they had perchance only fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire – that they were themselves virtually prisoners, and that in the hands of a race of ferocious savages without one spark of humanity or ruth – in short, for sheer devilish, bloodthirsty cruelty not one whit behind those from whom they had been delivered. Not a day but furnished forth instances of this. The captive slave-hunters had been forced to act as carriers, and enormous bundles containing the loot of both camps had been placed upon them to bear. Did they falter, they were unmercifully beaten and goaded on with spear-points, while several, who from sheer exhaustion gave up, were savagely tortured and mutilated and left to die. To our two friends it was simply horrible. It was as though the dark places of the earth were indeed given over to devils in human shape – to work their utmost in deeds of sickening barbarity and bloodshed. And further and further into these “dark places” were they themselves being forced.
They had induced their rescuers – or captors – to revisit the scene of the battle, by holding out to them the possibility of finding more loot, over looked or not thought worth bringing away by Mushâd, their own object being twofold – to bury their unfortunate friend, and to recover if possible the precious specimens. As to the first, disappointment befell them, for such high revel had been held by the carrion birds and beasts that the remains of the doctor were undistinguishable from those of any other victim of the hideous massacre. In the second matter they were more fortunate. Most of the treasured collections had escaped damage, and the Inswani warriors had stood round, some amused, some jeering, at the spectacle of the two white men – who they had it from Kumbelwa could fight – eagerly repacking dried and pressed plants, or striving to repair the broken wings of tiny beetles.
Haviland, with his knowledge of their language, had laid himself out to try and gain their friendship, but they were not particularly responsive; and here he was surprised, for, whereas some – Dumaliso included – spoke pure Zulu, others only talked a kind of dialect of it, introducing a great many words that were strange to him. Yet somehow none of these men quite resembled the straight, clean-limbed, aristocratic savage he had become familiar with in the realm of Cetywayo. In physique many of them excelled him, but there was a hard, brutal, aggressive look in their otherwise intelligent faces. Those of them, too, who wore the head-ring wore it very large and thick, and, as we have said, their shields and assegais were heavier and of a different finish. He wondered whether these were an evolution of the original Zulu, or if the Zulu up to date had receded from this type.
Day after day their weary march continued, and they began to estimate they had covered close on four hundred miles. Four hundred weary miles to be re-traversed, if they ever did return. But during the last few days the face of the country had been improving. The climate was cooler, and, as they had been gradually ascending, it was evident that the home of these people lay amid healthy uplands. Great valleys opened out, dotted with mimosa patches and baobab, and half a hundred varieties of shrubbery. Game, too, was plentiful; but when our friends would have varied the monotony of the march by a little sport they were promptly repressed, for this was one of the king’s preserves, and woe betide him who should violate, it. And then at last one morning a halt was called, and weapons and shields were furbished up, and full war-gear, laid aside for the march, was donned. Away in the distance, far up the valley, but just discernible from their elevation on the hill slope, a light veil of smoke hung upon the morning air. It was the King’s town.
And now, as the march was resumed, our two friends saw, for the first time, something of the people of the country into which they had been brought; for those inhabiting the outlying villages, both men and women, came swarming down to meet the returning impi. Most of the women, they noticed to their surprise, were inclined to be rather short and squat, though there were some of good height among them. But these stared at the two Englishmen in wild surprise, uttering remarks which, to Haviland, at any rate, who understood them, were not calculated to enhance self-esteem. The main centre of attention, however, was the presence of the captive slave-hunters, and here the fury of the undisciplined savage nature broke forth, and the air rang with wild howls and threats of impending vengeance. And this awful tumult gathered volume as it rolled along the valley, for, drawn by it, others came down in every direction to swell the tide of dark, infuriated humanity; and, lo! the returning impi seemed a mere handful in the midst of the crowd that poured round it on every hand, roaring like beasts, clamouring for the blood and anguish of their hated foes; and the dust swirled heavenward in a mighty cloud, while the earth shivered to the thunder of thousands and thousands of feet.
In the midst of all this horrible tumult, our two friends were straining their eyes through the blinding dust-clouds to catch a first glimpse of the town, and it was not until they were right upon it that they did so. Contrary to their expectation, however, it bore no resemblance what ever to a Zulu kraal, for it was square in shape and fenced in with a formidable stockade. Some twenty yards back from it was another and a similar stockade, and they reckoned that the space enclosed by this was fully a mile each way. The huts, or houses, were also square, except in some instances where they were oblong, and many of them were of some size. From these dark forms could be seen pouring, until all the open spaces within the town were even as a disturbed ants’ nest. Then, as they drew near the principal gate, Haviland noticed that the stakes on either side of it were thickly studded with heads, a very un-Zulu practice.
The whole impi defiled through this, followed by its accompanying crowd, and to such grim accompaniment our two friends entered the head town of the terrible King of the Inswani. But they were rather silent, for the same thought was in both their minds. How would they leave it?
Up to the principal open space they marched, the impi with its prisoners in its midst, distinguishable from the unorganised crowd by its well-ordered ranks and towering head-gear. Before an oblong hut of large size it halted. Down went shield and weapon. Every right hand shot into the air, and from the thousand and odd throats there roared forth one word:
“Umnovu!”
“Drop your weapons, Amakosi!” whispered a warning voice.
Haviland obeyed, telling Oakley to do the same, for the speaker was Kumbelwa.
The whole vast crowd continued its vociferations. It was evident, too, to the two white spectators that the word was a royal title, or form of salute. Still the roar continued, but nobody appeared. Then the impi struck up a kind of swaying dance. Faster and faster this grew, stimulated by a wild whirling chant. The whole body would prostrate itself, rising as one man, and taking extravagant leaps into the air. At last, when the frenzy had reached its height, and throats were hoarse with bawling, and dusky bodies were streaming with perspiration, the uproar ceased – ceased so suddenly that the dead silence which succeeded was even more startling than the tumult of a second before.