Part 9 (2/2)

”_Yeh-bo, Nkose_, and by black ones, too, if with it they can buy cattle and wives. _Hau_! In the abode of the mighty dead there is much of it.”

Blachland didn't start, but his nerves were all a thrill. The man's words were plain enough. A quant.i.ty of treasure had been buried with the dead King. That was the interpretation.

”Is the gold like this, Hlangulu?” he said, producing a sovereign.

”_Eh-he, Nkose_!” a.s.sented the Matabele. ”It is in a bag, so high,”-- holding his hand about a couple of feet from the ground.

Then they talked, the white man and the savage,--talked long and earnestly. The superst.i.tions of the latter precluded him from going near the dreaded sepulchre, let alone entering it. But for the former no such barrier existed. Hlangulu knew a way of getting him through the pickets: then he could accomplish a double purpose, explore the interior of the King's grave, and bring away the concealed wealth which lay there; and this they would share equally.

It was quite dark when they separated: Blachland all braced up by the prospect of a new and interesting adventure, which, coming when it did, was peculiarly welcome; Hlangulu to dream of an idyllic existence, in some far-away land where Lo Bengula's arm could not reach, where he could sit in his kraal and count his vast herds of cattle, and buy wives, young and new, whenever inclined.

CHAPTER NINE.

A WEIRD QUEST.

Away among the ma.s.ses of the wonderful Matopo range.

Huge granite piles rearing up skyward in every varied form of bizarre delineation, like the mighty waves of an angry sea suddenly petrified, the great flow of fallen stones covering the entire slope like the inflow of surf upon a slanting sh.o.r.e; the scanty trees, and tall, knife-edged tambuti gra.s.s in the valley bottoms, like seaweed in the rainy moisture of the dusking evening. Then a blue gleam of lightning along the grim granite faces; and a dull boom, re-echoed again and again as the thunder-peal is tossed from crag to crag in a hundred deep-toned reverberations.

Standing just within their ample shelter--which is formed by the overhang of a great boulder--Blachland gazes forth upon the weird and awe-inspiring solitude. Opposite, a huge castellated rock, many hundreds of feet in height, balances on its summit a mighty slab, which it seems would need but the touch of a finger to send cras.h.i.+ng into the valley beneath; then a ridge of tumbled boulders; further down another t.i.tanic pile, reft clean through the centre by a chasm, in whose jaws is gripped tight the enormous wedge of stone which seems to have split it: and so on, till the eye is tired and the mind overawed by the stupendous grimness of these Dante-esque heights and valleys.

The adventure is in full swing now. Blachland and his strange guide have been out several days, travelling when possible only at night, and then keeping to the hills as much as practicable. And now they are nearing their goal.

And, looking at it calmly, it is a strange adventure indeed, almost an aimless one. The story of the buried gold Blachland is inclined to scout utterly. But no amount of questioning will shake the faith of his guide, and so, at last, he has come to believe in it himself. Indeed, otherwise, what motive would Hlangulu have for aiding and abetting that which, in his eyes, was nothing more nor less than a monstrous piece of sacrilege? He knew that savages are the most practical of mortals, and that it is entirely outside their code of ethics to go to a vast deal of trouble and risk without the prospect of adequate and substantial advantage to be gained thereby.

It had occurred to him that there might be another motive, and a sinister one. Hlangulu might be decoying him into the most out-of-the-way recesses of Matabeleland in order to make away with him treacherously; and the idea was not a pleasant one, in that, however on the alert he might be, there must always be times when a crafty and determined foe could strike him down when off his guard. But here, again, motive counted for something, and here, again, motive utterly failed, as we have said. He could not call to mind that Hlangulu had the faintest occasion to owe him any sort of a grudge, and, even if it were so, he would not go to work in any such roundabout fas.h.i.+on to pay it. There was nothing for it but to set the whole thing down to its real motive, cupidity to wit.

To this had succeeded another idea. What if this concealed gold were really there, and be succeeded in obtaining it? It was then that he would have to watch his guide and companion with a jealous eye. For the whole is greater than the half, and would this covetous savage remain content with the half? He resolved to keep his eyes very wide open indeed, during the return journey.

The return journey! It was rather early to think about that, for the perils of the enterprise were only about to begin. Turning back within their shelter now, he proceeded to question Hlangulu, who was squatting against a rock, smoking a pipe--to question him once more as to the surroundings of the King's grave.

But the man's answers were mere reiterations of all that he had said before. They would soon be within touch of the guards whom, in the ordinary way, it would be impossible to pa.s.s. The snake? Yes, there was no doubt but that it was the _itongo_, or ghost of the Great Great One who sat there. Many had seen it. He, Hlangulu, had seen it twice, and had retreated, covering his face, and calling out the _sibonga_ of the dead King. It was an immense black _mamba_, and had been seen to go in and out of the grave. It was as long and again half as long as Isipau himself, he declared, looking Blachland up and down.

The latter, remembering Sybrandt's narrative, concluded that there was something decidedly creepy in bearding a particularly vicious and deadly species of serpent within a narrow cleft of rock, the beast being about nine feet long at that--which is what Hlangulu's estimate would make it.

Under any circ.u.mstances it would be bad enough, but now with all the grim and eerie adjuncts thrown in, why the whole scheme seemed to bristle with peril. And what was there to gain by it? Well, the gold.

It must not be supposed, however, that the idea of obtaining this was cherished without a qualm. Did not the whole thing look uncommonly like an act of robbery, and the meanest kind of robbery too--the robbery of a grave? The gold was not his. It had been put there by those to whom it belonged. What right to it had he? As against this he set the fact that it was lying there utterly useless to any living soul; that if he did not take it, somebody else would; that the transfer of the whole of the Matabeleland to the British flag was only a question of time, and that, during the war which should be necessary to bring about this process, others would come to hear of this buried wealth, or light on it by chance, and then, would they be more scrupulous? Not one whit.

It will be remembered that he was all eagerness to effect this weird exploration even before he had the faintest inkling that the place concealed, or might conceal, anything more valuable than a few mouldering relics--a few trumpery articles of adornment, perhaps, which might be worth bringing away as curios. Yet, strange as it may seem, his later knowledge scarcely added to that eagerness.

A curious trait in Hilary Blachland's character was a secret horror of one day failing in nerve. He could recall at least one experience in his life when this had happened to him, and that at a critical juncture, and it had left an impression on him which he had never forgotten.

There were times when it haunted him with a ghostlike horror, and under its influence he would embark in some mad and dare-devil undertaking, utterly inconsequent because utterly without rhyme, reason, or necessity. It was as though he were consumed with a feverish desire to cultivate a reputation for intrepidity, though, as a matter of actual fact, his real motive was to satisfy himself on the point. As a matter of actual fact, too, he was as courageous as the average, and possessed of more than the average amount of resolution.

”We should be starting,” said Hlangulu, coming to the entrance of their shelter, and sending a scrutinising look at the sky. ”The rain has stopped, and the clouds will all blow apart. Then there will be a moon.

We shall arrive there before daybreak.” And, without waiting for the other's consent or comment, he dived within again, and began putting together the few things they carried.

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