Part 20 (1/2)
Such scenes as these had at times been partially detailed to Gray, but he had had no evidence of their reality.
The crowd, in their eager fear, spread out like a fan, as though each member meditated an escape; but a loud summons from the princ.i.p.al councillor drew them round their chief, and all doubts were soon dispelled as to the real victim of the day.
Amani, having held his incantations over the Hottentot's skull and its contents, dipped the a.s.segai therein, and, drawing it out dripping with the fiendish potion, began to wave it slowly before him. Tormentor that he was! he pointed it for a minute or two at the trembling girlish mimic. Did he know of her delinquency? She bore the ordeal with the insensibility of a statue, and the wizard pa.s.sed her by. Some, utterly unconscious of offence, were inwardly startled when they found the sharp-bladed weapon within an inch of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; but their dignity never forsook them. Each awaited his fate with outwardly unshaken nerves, and then watched the weapon as it pa.s.sed them by to tantalise or condemn another victim.
All this could be distinctly seen by Gray. He was breathless--cold dews poured down his face--his teeth chattered with horror and suspense--he covered his face with his hands. A shout!--was it of exultation?-- pierced the air, and penetrated his very brain. He looked again,
Amayeka was in the hands of two fiendish women, witch-doctresses, confederates with Amani. The circle was broken--the throng were gathered closely together. Amani was standing up, gibbering and declaiming to the nearest listeners. Gray could distinguish a shrill scream from Amayeka.
Once again he bent his gaze upon the frightful picture.
Amani's glittering wand was again in motion, the witches were tearing open Amayeka's dress, the bead bodice, of which she had been so proud, was scattered in shreds on the ground; and oh, unhappy Gray! behold the proof--the witness in Amani's accusation. They draw from the depths of her bosom, appended to a bit of reim secured round her waist, the steel chain thou gavest her last night!
He comprehended all instantly, dropped from his leafy covert, leaped into the ravine, and, scrambling through bush and briar, rushed across the plain, and overtook the hags as they were bearing off their victim to a fire in a hollow behind Umlala's great hut.
Shocked, frightened, bewildered, unarmed, still he followed with the crowd. He could hear Amayeka's cries of agony, and the poor meercat seeing him stopped, awaiting his white friend's approach with an eye of wonderment and fear.
Once only the eye of Gray met Amayeka's; as the unhappy girl was dragged to the bottom of the hollow, she caught a glimpse of her lover on the mound above. She made a desperate struggle to shake off her persecutors; but had she succeeded, not one of the tribe--partly from superst.i.tion, partly from dread of the consequences to themselves--dared have lifted a finger to a.s.sist her.
Gray was frantic. He rushed back to Umlala, and the white man threw himself at the feet of the brutal savage. He lifted up his hands in humble supplication.
Umlala sat motionless. Not even his eye gave sign that he saw the supplicator; and Amani grinned silently like a demon at his fallen foe.
No response, no token of regret; all was stolid indifference on the chief's part; and, ere long, he rose. The wizard shook his a.s.segai in Gray's face, and crying, in a loud voice, ”Y-enzainhlela i be banzie”--”Make a path: let it be wide,” the throng in front parted to the right and left, the chief moved deliberately onward, Amani at his ear talking rapidly, and to Gray almost incoherently, although he had acquired enough of the language to know that the wizard was intent on keeping Umlala to the dreadful purpose for which the tribe had been summoned together.
All at once two strong women seized Gray from behind, and held him tight. Amayeka saw that, for he heard her shriek. Had they no mercy, these wretches? Were they women? Was he to be immolated with Amayeka?
They dragged him down the green slope, slippery with dew, that shone in diamond drops upon flowers of rainbow hues. He heard the fire roaring, and saw boy devils at their impish work. They had bound poor Amayeka's slender wrists with hard thongs of hide, and were trying to get the bangles over her hands. Had they not succeeded, they would have hacked off the limbs in their impatience to possess themselves of these gauds, so precious to them.
She ceased her cries, poor thing, and lay exhausted on the green-sward, while some of the women, who were foremost in the horrible work, prepared to stretch her out with the soles of her feet towards the flames, already greedy of their prey.
Gray called to her; she made a violent attempt to release herself, but in vain; and he, in his fury, shaking off the Amazons who held him, sprang forward, and would have either attempted to rescue the victim, or insisted on sharing her fearful death; when screams of affright and gestures indicative of warning drew the attention of the people on the plain to the herdsmen on the nearest hill. Some were hastily gathering the cattle together, while others pointed in the direction of Eiland's glen, an outlet of the ravine which almost encircled the Kraal.
Some alarming object was evidently in sight; but what it was could not be distinguished by the people in the hollow.
They were soon enlightened. A group of Europeans on horseback emerged from a wooded glen, a branch of the ravine running between two hills to the north-west. As they reached the summit of the gorge, and halted between earth and sky, the s.h.i.+ning morning light showed them to be heavily-armed, and fully accoutred for a _trek_; but their horses, though rough, were fresh; and if they were from a distance, they had evidently been resting somewhere within an easy ride of the Kraal. The party swept down the hill at a brisk pace, plunged into the ravine, and were out of sight for a moment. The next, with arms unslung and ready poised, they galloped in close column, in number about thirty, across the open s.p.a.ce, to the mound overlooking the hollow, in which the fire had been lit, and where Gray now knelt, releasing, with his good English knife, poor Amayeka from her dreadful fate.
Yet, white men though they were, the unexpected visitants of the Kraal did not pause in their course to notice the unfortunate lovers, but dashed on towards the ravine, where they perceived the cattle and their drivers. The Kafirs, on first observing the farmer's approach, had whistled off their plunder towards this dense bush, but had not succeeded in collecting the herd sufficiently close to the only gap through which such a body of men and beasts could pa.s.s in haste.
Women and children fled into nooks and corners; some found their way to their huts, and the herdsmen on the hills rushed into the adjacent kloofs and valleys. The tribe being, as I have observed, much reduced in numbers, the thirty stout farmers were more than a match for the thieves who had cleared their homesteads. Umlala, paralysed with fear and surprise--for visits from the settlers were, on account of his remote position from the colony, very unusual,--had hastened to conceal himself in a mimosa thicket; and Amani was quaking in a wolf-hole, his favourite retreat in intrigue or danger.
The Kafirs were unprovided with their firearms, some were even without their a.s.segais. A volley of musketry from the settlers sent them screeching into the glen; and a Hottentot guide, catching a glimpse of Amani's head-gear, recognised him as a wizard, and shot him like a wild beast in his hole.
The cattle, responding to the call of their rightful owners, soon fell quietly into order, and were driven off with no further opposition than a few a.s.segais thrown at random; the enemy calling out to the invaders, from the safe side of the ravine, ”Take care of them; we will come for them before the hills grow white,”--alluding to the snow on the mountain ridges.
To this the colonists turned an indifferent ear, and, forbidding the guide to fire again, put their horses to speed, galloped round and round the herd of cattle, whistling, hallooing, and encouraging them forward, for no time was to be lost, as it was not unlikely that the armed Kafir scouts in the valleys might pounce upon them, unawares, by certain short cuts between the hills.