Jasper Lyle Part 20

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 shining 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.

In the bustle and excitement attending the recovery of their property, the farmers had, as I have shown, paid but little attention to the singular situation of the young deserter and the Kafir girl; but, after securing the cattle _en ma.s.se_, five or six of the most daring cantered to the little eminence in rear of Umlala's hut, and discovered Amayeka stretched on the gra.s.s alone. She had fainted, and Gray had left her to procure some water to moisten her parched lips, and was hastening at full speed from a vley in the hollow to tell his miserable tale to the white men.

He could see them from the vley, but they, wholly intent on rescuing the girl--whom, indeed, they were inclined to consider one of the Griqua race, from her soft hair and regular features--were in too great haste and too much excited to await the appearance of a white man, who had vanished, as they supposed, with the rest of the throng, leaving the wretched victim of superst.i.tion and fraud to escape as she could, or lie powerless till her tormentors returned.

At the impulse of the moment, a young Boer--the party consisted of Dutch farmers from the Stormberg, who, worn out in trying to obtain redress for acc.u.mulated grievances, had taken the law in their own hands--bent from his horse, and, lifting the light, insensible form of Amayeka to his saddle, bore her off.

Another, reckless of danger, lingered to seize a brand from the still burning embers, and, following his comrade with the flaming stick, cast it at random on the roof of a particularly well-built hut, and joined his companions. They sped on, their cheers and laughter rousing the mocking echoes as they retraced their steps up to the mouth of the gorge, whence they had descended on the Kraal.

What made Gray draw back, and fly with extraordinary speed towards the river? What made him shout the Kafir cry "Izapa! Izapa!" to the women and children still occupying the ground?

They looked out from the low doors of their huts, and saw in an instant the cause of his warning.

It was one of the huts containing ammunition which had caught fire from the random brand.

They tried to fly, but some were too late!

The cattle herds on the hills set up a terrific yell, which made the colonists look back from the elevation they had just reached. Gray had crossed the stream, and was at a safe distance from the scene ere the fire touched the flooring of the hut in which the gunpowder was buried.

He turned to take a last look of the plain; the poor little meercat was sitting, in its old posture, at the door of Amayeka's hut, just where the sunlight fell brightest,--a rumbling noise, like the muttering of distant thunder, woke the neighbouring echoes; the wind, which was beginning to gather from all quarters, caught the burning embers, and scattered them in all directions--several huts took fire--the unhappy women and children scoured over the plain, hardly knowing where to go in their blind terror. Some, as I have said, lingering about their dwellings to save their miserable property, and unconscious of the imminence of the peril, paid the penalty of their ignorance; for finally a great tongue of flame shot upwards, a loud explosion shook the earth, and from the mountain ridge Gray beheld the whole Kraal on fire.

He could not help feeling, since he had every hope of Amayeka's safety, a glow of exultation, as he beheld the destruction of the scene of his late sorrows, and waved his hand in token of a glad farewell to some people huddled together and watching him from the upper drift: horrified as he was at the issue of the day's events, he was so utterly disgusted at the part both women and children had taken in the torture scene, that he could not pity them as he might have done before it took place.

He resolved at all hazards on delivering himself into the hands of the colonists, and pressed forward to a tuft of trees crowning the apex of the hill.

Shading his eyes from the glare of the sun, he gazed intently into the valley on the other side. It was a scene of perfect repose. There were no groups of cattle to give life to the picture, these had long vanished from the open locations to the dark ravines of Kafirland; the Kraal filling the centre of the valley was deserted, and not even a _pauw_, or secretary-bird, was to be seen stalking solemnly along in the glow.

It was useless to descend the steep at random; he continued to scan the paths with careful eye. Suddenly he thought he saw the little band of hors.e.m.e.n, with the cattle in front, wending their way on the side of a hill, beneath a krantz of granite. He was not sure of this till they reached the sharp bluff or angle of the mountain range; they turned it, and he was left alone in the wilderness.

Note 1. Kraal indicates a hamlet of huts, as well as a solitary dwelling: I have endeavoured to distinguish the one from the other by prefixing a large K to the former.

END OF VOLUME ONE.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

ELEANOR'S STORY.

But Frankfort is sitting in the hush of midnight--before him lies the ma.n.u.script. It is addressed to "Major Frankfort."

When the heart is very full, it is difficult to know how or where to begin a recital, which it is due to you as well as to myself to lay before you. It would hara.s.s you, nay, I think it would make your heart ache, were you to know, before reading it, all the pangs it has cost me to write this.

An old diary lies before me--old to me, who have lived through so much since I penned the first page, three years ago. I remember that I opened it to begin my task of journalist at a little road-side inn at the close of the first day's journey from home. I was going, with my father, to visit Lady Amabel Fairfax, at Cape Town. I was sorry to leave home and my young sister. I was sorry to think that, for the first time in my life, I should not say "Good night" to my mother.

On the other hand, I was pleased at the prospect of staying with Lady Amabel; and, although my mother had made the most careful arrangements for me, I fancied she cared less at my leaving her than I did. At that time, I think she loved Marion best.

Yet, I need not dwell on this point--I turn to another leaf.