Part 23 (1/2)
”Yes,” answered Mart, ”and very soon we shall follow him, Macumazana”
I wished that his face were visible so that I could see if he still smiled when he uttered those words
An hour or so later the usual fire appeared in the ures flitted dih I did not want to look, fearing what I ht see Luckily, however, ere too far off to discern anything at night
While these unholy cereress the climax came, that is so far as the weather was concerned Of a sudden a great gale sprang up, a gale of icy wind such as in Southern Africa sometimes precedes a thunderstorhtning flashed across the heavens, and by the glare of it we perceived that all the population of Siathered in the market-place At least there were so at the sky
A few reat crash of thunder, of which it was impossible to locate the sound, for it rolled fro hard struck the roof by my side and rebounded, to be followed next moment by a blow upon h I ell protected by the skin rugs
”Down the stair!” I called ”They are stoning us,” and suited the action to the word
Ten seconds later ere both in the room, crouched in its farther corner, for the stones or whatever they were see us
I struck a ether with ood pocketful of tobacco--my only solace in those days--and, as it burned up, saw first that blood was running down Mart's face, and secondly, that these stones were great lu several ounces, which hopped about the floor like live things
”Hailstorm!” remarked Mart with his accustomed smile
”hell storm!” I replied, ”for whoever saw hail like that before?”
Then the match burnt out and conversation caer hear each other speak The hail ca roar, that in its sum was one of the most terrible sounds to which I ever listened And yet above it I thought that I could catch another, still ony After the first few an to be afraid that the roof would be battered in, or that the walls would crumble beneath this perpetual fire of the ood and the place well built
So it came about that the house stood the tealvanized iron I am sure it would never have done, since the lumps of ice must have shattered one and pierced the other like paper Indeed I have seen this happen in a bad hailstorm in Natal which killed my best horse But even that hail was as snowflakes compared to this
I suppose that this natural pheno ten of which it was at its worst Then by degrees it ceased, the sky cleared and the ain and looked It was several inches deep in jagged ice, while the ht ht to be buried beneath a veil of snow
Very rapidly, as the normal temperature of that warm land reasserted itself, this snow or rather haila flood of water which, where there was any fall, began to rush aith a gurgling sound Also we heard other sounds, such as that fro hoofs of many of the horses which had broken loose from their wrecked stables at the north end of the reat nu roofs or had kicked each other to death, and a wild universal wail that rose fro town, in which quantities of the worst-built houses had collapsed Further, lying here and there about the market-place we could see scores of dark shapes that we knew to be those of men, women and children, whoht before they could escape and slain or wounded almost to death For it will be remeathered on this ht sacrifice and discussing the unnatural weather when the storm burst upon them suddenly as an avalanche
”The Child is sreat Behold the first curse!”
said Mart solemnly
I stared at him, but as he chose to believe that a very unusual hailstorm was a visitation fro the point Only I wondered if he really did believe this Then I remembered that such an event was said to have afflicted the old Egyptians in the hour of their pride because they would not ”let the people go” Well, these blackguardedly Black Kendah were certainly worse than the Egyptians can ever have been; also they would not let _us_ go It was not wonderful therefore that Mart should be the victidid we come to understand the full extent of the calamity which had overtaken the Black Kendah I think I have said that their crops this year wereto harvest Froreat area of thee of the forest When the sun rose that round was covered with a carpet of green pulp Also the forest itself appeared suddenly to have experienced the full effects of a northern winter Not a leaf was left upon the trees, which stood their pointing their naked boughs to heaven
No one who had not seen it could i fury of that storm For example, the head of the diviner as buried in the court-yard awaiting resurrection through our ic was, it may be recalled, covered with a stout earthenware pot Now that pot had shattered into sherds and the head beneath was nothing but bits of broken bone which it would have been iic to reconstruct to the likeness of a huh the land
CHAPTER XIII
JANA
No breakfast was brought to us thatThis did notthat plenty of food accumulated from supper and other meals stood in a corner of the house practically untouched So we ate e could and then paid our usual visit to the hut in which the camelmen had been confined
I say had been, for noas quite e vanished away like his coht of this vacuum filled me with a kind of fury