Part 24 (1/2)
”Never was she cleaner since she was born out of the fire, baas Also, the powder has been sifted and set to dry in the sun with the caps, and the bullets have been trued to the barrel, so that thereIf you els, baas, it will not be the fault of Intombi or of the powder and the bullets; it will be your own fault”
”That's coo to the Death-hill yonder”
”Why, baas, before the ti back a little ”It is no place to visit till one is obliged These Zulus say that ghosts sit there even in the daylight, haunting the rocks where they were hosts”
”Vultures sit or fly there also, Hans; and I would see how they fly, that I ht, baas,” said the clever Hottentot ”This is not like firing at geese in the Groote Kloof The geese go straight, like an assegai to its els wheel round and round, always on the turn; it is easy to , baas”
”Very easy Co Vrouw Prinsloo appeared froon, and with her Marie, who, I noticed, was very pale and whose beautiful eyes were red, as though eeping
The vrouw askeda little, she said that was a good thought of round before a battle
I nodded, and led Marie aside behind sorew near
”Oh! Allan, ill be the end of this?” she asked piteously High as was her courage it seeood end, dearest,” I answered ”We shall come out of this hole safely, as we have of many others”
”How do you know that, Allan, which is known to God alone?”
”Because God told me, Marie,” and I repeated to her the story of the voice I had heard in my dream, which seemed to comfort her
”Yet, yet,” she exclaimed doubtfully, ”it was but a dreas You may fail, after all”
”Do I look like one ill fail, Marie?”
She studied me froh you did when you caed Still, Allan, you may fail, and then--what? Some of those dreadful Zulus have been here while you were sleeping, bidding us all aan is in earnest If you do not kill the vultures, he will kill us It seems that they are sacred birds, and if they escape he will think he has nothing to fear fro by butchering us I mean the rest of us, for I am to be kept alive, and oh! what shall I do, Allan?”
I looked at her, and she looked at me Then I took the double-barrelled pistol out of ave it to her
”It is loaded and on the half-cock,” I said
She nodded, and hid it in her dress beneath her apron Then without more words we kissed and parted, for both of us feared to prolong that scene
The hill Hloma Amabutu was quite close to our encampment and the huts of the Reverend Mr Owen, scarcely a quarter of afrom the flat veld on the further side of a little depression that hardly amounted to a valley As we approached it I noticed its peculiar and blasted appearance, for whereas all around the grass was vivid with the green of spring, on this place none seerow An e the, dark-leaved bushes; that was its appearance Moreover, h they had been splashed and lined ash, showing that they were the resting-place of hundreds of gorged vultures
I believe it is the Chinese who declare that particular localities have good or evil influences attached to them, some kind of spirit of their own, and really Hloma Amabutu and a few other spots that I aive colour to the fancy Certainly as I set foot upon that accursed ground, that Golgotha, that Place of Skulls, a shi+ver went through me It may have been caused by the atmosphere, moral and actual, of the mount, or it may have been a prescience of a certain dreadful scene which within a few months I was doomed to witness there Or perhaps the place itself and the knowledge of the trial before h my healthy blood I cannot say which it was, but the fact reh a minute or two later, when I sahat kind of sleepers lay upon that mount, it would not have been necessary for me to seek any far-fetched explanation ofin and out between the rough rocks that lay here, there and everywhere like hailstones after a winter storm, ran sundry paths It seehbourhood of the Great Kraal ran over it, and although no Zulu ever dared to set foot there between sun-set and rise, in the daytih But I suppose that they also held that this evil-omened field of death had some spirit of its own, some invisible but imminent fiend, who needed to be propitiated, lest soon he should claim them also
This was their h, I believe, inI cannot tell As the traveller came to those spots where the paths cut across each other, he took a stone and threw it on to a heap that had been accumulated there by the hands of other travellers There were many such heaps upon the hill, over a dozen, I think, and the size of theest contained quite fifty loads of stones, and the smallest not fewer than twenty or thirty
Now, Hans, although he had never set foot there before, seemed to have learned all the traditions of the place, and what rites were necessary to avert its curse At any rate, e caed hed and refused, but e reached the second heap the saain I refused, whereon, before we caround and began to groan, swearing that he would not go one step farther unless I pro
”Why not, you fool?” I asked
”Because if you neglect it, baas, I think that we shall stop here for ever Oh! you ht ill-luck upon yourself Reels”
”Bosh!+” I exclaimed, or, rather, its Dutch equivalent Still, as this talk ofvultures touched me nearly, and it is always as well to conform to native prejudices, at the next and two subsequent heaps I cast my stone as humbly as the most superstitious Zulu in the land