Part 10 (2/2)
He stood watching this optical delusion, and laughed again. Decidedly his nerves were overstrung. Well, this would not do. Facing once more within the cave, he concluded to start upon his research without further delay.
It was lighter now--indeed, but for the chastened gloom of the interior, nearly as light as it ever would be. He approached the farther end.
Mouldering old blankets crumbled under his tread. He could see the whole of the interior, and again he laughed to himself--recalling the legend of the King's Snake. There was no recess that would hide so much as a mouse. He scattered the fragments of old clothing with the stock of his rifle, laying bare layers of crumbling matting. More eagerly still he parted these when he came to the central heap. Layer by layer, he tore away the stuff-ancient hide wrappings, ornamented with worn bead-work--beneath the mats of woven gra.s.s; then something white appeared--white, and smooth, and round. Eagerly, yet carefully, he parted the wrappings; and lo, protruding from them--not lying, but in a bolt-upright position--a great grinning skull!
He stepped back a pace or two, and stood gazing at this with intense interest, not unmixed with awe. Here, then, sat the dead King-- Umzilikazi, the mighty; the founder of a great and martial nation; the scourge, the devastator of a vast region,--here he sat, the warrior King, before whose frown tens of thousands had trembled, a mere framework of fleshless bones, seated upon his last throne, here, within the heart of this vast silent rock-tomb: and the upright position of the skull, caused by the sitting att.i.tude in which Zulus are buried, seemed to lend to the Death's head something of the majesty which it had worn in life when its cavity had enclosed the indomitable and far-seeing brain, when those eye-sockets had framed the relentless, terrible eyes.
For some moments he stood gazing upon the grim face staring at him from its sightless sockets, and then, not in mockery, but moved by certain poetic instincts underlying a highly imaginative temperament, he raised his right hand, and uttered softly--
”k.u.malo!”
Yes, even as he would have saluted the living, so he saluted the remains of the dead King. Yet he had already violated and was here to plunder the dead King's grave.
What was this? Something glistening among the rotting heap of wrappings caught his eye. Bending down, he raised it eagerly. It was a large bead about the size of a marble. Two more lay beside them, the remnant of the leather lanyard on which they had been threaded, crumbling to his touch. Gold, were they? They were of solid weight. But a quick close examination convinced him that they were merely bra.s.s. Anyway, they would make valuable curios, and he slipped them into his pocket accordingly. Again he could not restrain a start as he raised his eyes.
The skull when last he beheld it, of a dull, yellowy white in the deep shadows of the gloomy place was now s.h.i.+ning like fire as it glowered at him, suffused as with a reddening incandescent glow. A wave of superst.i.tious awe thrilled him from head to heel. What on earth did it mean? And then the real reason of this startling metamorphosis came home to him.
The sun had risen. High above through a c.h.i.n.k between the huge boulders right over the entrance of the cleft, one single spear-like beam found entrance, and, piercing the gloomy shadows of the tomb, struck full upon the fleshless countenance of the dead King, illuminating it with a well-nigh supernatural glow; and with the clearing up of the mystery, the spectator was lost in admiration of the ingenuity that had contrived that the first ray of the rising sun should illuminate the countenance of the Great Great One, whom while living they hailed, among other t.i.tles of honour, as ”Light of the Sun.” Then he remembered that the coincidence was purely accidental, for he himself had uncovered the skull and exposed it to view, and the illusion vanished. And as he gazed, the beam was withdrawn, leaving the Death's head in its former shadow.
Leaning back against the rock wall, Blachland began to attune himself to the situation. At last he had explored the King's grave, he, all by himself. What a laugh he would have over Sybrandt and Pemberton bye-and-bye--they who had scouted the feat as utterly impossible. Well, he had done it, he alone, had done what no white man had ever done before him--what possibly no white man would ever do again. And--it was intensely interesting.
And now, what about the buried treasure? He had all through been sceptical as to the existence of this, but had not insisted on his scepticism to Hlangulu, lest he might cool that acquisitive savage off the undertaking. The latter's reply to his question as to how it was that others were not now in the know as well as he--that the matter was _hlonipa_, i.e. veiled, forbidden of mention--had not struck him as satisfactory. Well, as he was here he might as well take a thorough look round and make sure.
Acting upon this idea he once more approached the skeleton of the dead King, but a careful search all around it revealed nothing. All around it? Not quite, for he had not tried behind it. There was a dark recess extending perhaps three or four yards behind it--to where the cleft ended, and this too, seemed spread with old and mouldering wrappings.
These he began, as with the others, raking aside with the b.u.t.t of his rifle. Then, suddenly his foothold began to tremble--then to move violently from under him. Was there no end to the weird surprises of this uncanny place, was the thought that flashed lightning-like through his mind; and then, as with a superlative effort he just managed to keep his footing--while staggering back a few paces, there befel something so appalling that his blood seemed to run ice within him, and the very hair of his head to stand up.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
THE KING'S SNAKE.
A loud, awful hiss of ear-splitting stridency--and simultaneously there shot up, from the very ground as it were, a long, writhing, sinuous length of black neck, glistening as the half light played upon it-- swaying in the gloom of the recess. It was surmounted by a horrible head, with two scintillating eyes. The forked tongue was darting in and out between the widely parted fangs, as the head, waving to and fro was suddenly drawn back as if to strike. And the man had been actually standing upon the hidden coils of this huge and terrible reptile.
For a moment Blachland stood as one petrified, as well he might be by the awfulness and suddenness of this blasting apparition. Then, instinctively, he drew his revolver, as being more sure at close quarters than the rifle, the while stepping back cautiously, and keeping his face turned to the reptile.
The fury of the latter seemed in no wise to diminish. Hissing hideously, its eyes glared, as more and more of its horrible length rose into view, and the further floor of the cave heaved and trembled with the still concealed coils.
Blachland had now drawn back as far as he could, short of clambering out of the place altogether, and, his blood all curdling with horror and dread, he stood watching the monster with a kind of fell fascination.
He dared not fire. The cavernous echoes of the report would go booming forth over all the land so to say, and bring an entire hornet's nest about his ears from which there would be no escape. The King's Snake!
He recalled the utter derision wherewith he had received Sybrandt's statement on the subject--and yet it was only too fearfully true. A black _imamba_, Sybrandt had said, and this was one, and an enormous one at that. He knew, moreover, that this species was the most deadly and ferocious of serpents. No, he would stay here no longer--not another moment. Better meet death a hundred times in the ordinary way at the hand of enemies in the open, than remain here, shut up in a charnel house, with this awful black fiend.
Acting on this idea, he began to feel for a firm hold of the stone parapet, intending to spring out quickly and at all risks, but still keeping his eyes on the reptile. It, strange to say, still remained where it was, just behind the skeleton of the King, and though still hissing furiously, made no movement forward to attack him. Encouraged by this, he got a firm grip on the topmost stone, and hoisted himself carefully up. Then he let himself down again. For simultaneously with the appearance of his head above the stones, a shout had broken forth from beneath, then another and another. His presence there had been discovered. Well, he had a choice of two deaths, both equally horrible.
Was there not a third, however, which was less so? There was. He might blow out his own brains. That would be quicker at any rate.
But almost immediately upon the idea came the consciousness that these were no hostile shouts that rose booming, full-voiced, to raise the echoes of the King's grave.
”_k.u.malo!
Ho, inyoka 'nkulu!
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