The Sign of the Spider Part 31

Tyisandhlu made no reply, but reaching out his hand he took up a whistle and blew a double note upon it. Immediately there entered an _inceku_.

"Let no man approach until this note shall again sound," said the king.

"Preserve clear a wide s.p.a.ce around, lest the ear that opens too wide be removed from its owner's head. Go."

The man saluted humbly and withdrew. And then for long did they sit together and talk in a low tone, the barbarian monarch and the white adventurer--and the subject of their talk seemed fraught with some surprise to the latter, but with satisfaction to both.

"See now, Nyonyoba," concluded the king. "They have brought you here, here whence no man ever returned; and you would become one of us. Well, be it so. There is that about you I trust."

"Whence no man ever returned?" echoed Laurence.

"Surely. Ha! A white man found his way hither once, but--he was a preacher--and I love not such. He never returned."

"But what of my two friends? You will not harm them, Ndabezita, because they are my friends, and we have fought together many a long year,"

urged Laurence.

"I will spare them for that reason. They shall be led from the country with their eyes covered, lest they find the way back again. But--if they do--they likewise shall never depart from it. And now, Nyonyoba, all I have told you is between ourselves alone. Breathe not a whisper of it or anything about me even to your friends. For the present, farewell, and good fortune be yours."

FOOTNOTE:

[5] Founder of the Zulu dynasty, and of course patriarchally greater than the royal house of this Zulu-originated tribe.

CHAPTER XXV.

HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND.

Now, if Laurence Stanninghame's prospects were brightening, and his lines beginning to fall in pleasant places,--relatively speaking, that is, for everything is relative in the conditions of life,--the same held not good as regards the other twain of our trio of adventurers. Both were kept prisoners in Nondwana's kraal, and, save that they were not ill-treated, no especial consideration was shown them. They were allowed to wander about the open s.p.a.ce outside, but watchful eyes were ever upon them, and did they venture beyond certain limits, they were speedily made aware of the fact. No such distractions as joining in the hunting parties, or coming and going at will such as their more fortunate comrade enjoyed, were allowed them, and against the deadly monotony of the life--in conjunction with a boding suspense as to their ultimate fate--did Holmes' restless spirit mightily chafe; indeed, at times he felt sore and resentful towards Laurence. At such times Hazon's judicious counsel would step in.

"Shall we never make a philosopher of you, Holmes?" he would say. "Do you think, for instance, that Stanninghame, faring no better than ourselves, would improve our own lot any? No; rely upon it, his standing in with the king and the rest of them is doing us no harm in the long run."

"I suppose you're right, Hazon; and it's beastly selfish of one to look upon it any other way," poor Holmes would reply wearily. "But, O Lord, this is deadly work. Is there no way of getting away from here?"

"Not any at present. Yet you don't suppose I'm keeping my eyes or ears shut, do you? We must watch our chances, and see and hear all we can. I believe Tyisandhlu is a decent fellow all round, and mind, you do come across plenty of pretty good fellows even among savages, whatever bosh some men may talk to the contrary. But I don't care for Nondwana. I believe he'd make short work of us if he dared. Possibly the king may be watching his opportunity of smuggling us out of the country. At any rate, I don't think he means us any harm, if only by reason of the astonishing fancy he seems to have taken to Stanninghame!"

This, as we know, was very near the truth, though far more so than the speakers guessed. For Laurence, moved both by inclination and expediency, had rigidly adhered to his promise of secrecy. If it seemed hard that he should be compelled to shut his companions out of his entire confidence, he consoled himself with the certainty that their admission into it, though it might encourage them mentally, could in no wise benefit them materially--very much the reverse, indeed, for it would probably bring about their destruction.

"Well, if anything is going to be done, it had better be soon or not at all. It wouldn't take much to send me clean off my chump," said Holmes dejectedly. "Every day I feel more inclined to break out--to run amuck in a crowd, if only for the sake of a little excitement. Anything for a little excitement!"

The two were strolling up and down outside Nondwana's kraal. It was a still, hot morning; oppressive as though a storm were brooding. A filmy haze lay upon the lower valley bottom, and the ground gave forth a shimmer of heat. Even the amphitheatre of dazzling snow-peaks omitted to look cool against the cloudless blue, while the coppery-terraced cliffs seemed actually to glow as though red hot.

"I hate this," growled Holmes, looking around upon as magnificent a scene of nature's grandeur as the earth could show, "positively hate it.

I shall never be able to stand the sight of a mountain again as long as I live--once we are out of this. Oh, Heavens, look! What a brute!"

His accents of shuddering disgust were explained. Something was moving among the stones in front--something with great, hairy, shoggling legs, and a body the size of a thrush and much the same colour. A spider, could it be, of such enormous size? Yet it was; and as truly repulsive and horrible-looking a monster as ever made human flesh creep at beholding.

Whack! The stone flung by Holmes struck the ground beside the creature; struck it hard.

"Hold, you infernal fool," half snarled, half yelled Hazon. But before he could arrest the other's arm, whack!--went a second stone. The aim was true, the grisly beast, crushed and maimed, lay contracting and unfolding its horrible legs in the muscular writhings of its death throes.

"What's the row, eh?" grumbled Holmes, staring open-mouthed, under the impression that his comrade had gone mad, and at first sight not without reason, for Hazon's face had gone a swarthy white, and his eyes seemed to glare forth from it like blazing coals.

"Row? You fool, you've signed our death-warrant, that's all. Here, quick, pretend to be throwing stones on to it, as if we were playing at some game. Don't you see? The name of this tribe--People of the Spider!

They venerate the beast. If we have been seen, nothing can save us."

"Oh, Heavens!" cried Holmes, aghast as the whole ugly truth dawned upon him, setting to with a will to pile stones upon the remains of the slain and shattered monster.

"Too late!" growled Hazon. "We have been seen! Look."

Several women were running stealthily and in alarm towards the gate, and immediately a frightful uproar arose from within. Armed with sticks and spears, the warriors came pouring forth, and in a moment had surrounded the two--a howling, infuriated, threatening mob.

Although expecting nothing less than instant death, with the emergency Hazon's coolness had returned. He stood in the midst of the appalling uproar, apparently unmoved. Holmes, on the other hand, looked wildly around, but less in fear than in desperation. He was calculating his chances of being able to s.n.a.t.c.h a weapon from one of them, and to lay about him in the last fierce battle for life. "Anything for a little excitement!" he had said. In very truth his aspiration was realized.

There was excitement enough in the brandished spears and blazing eyeb.a.l.l.s, in the infuriated demoniacal faces, in the deafening, roaring clamour.

"This is no matter for you," cried Hazon in firm, ringing tones. "Take us to the king. We can explain. The affair was an accident."

At this the ferocious tumult redoubled. An accident! They had lifted their hand against the great tutelary Spider that guarded Nondwana's house! An accident!

"Hold! To the king let them be taken!" interposed a strong, deep voice.

And extending his hands, as though to arrest the uplifted weapons, Nondwana himself stalked into the circle.

There was no gainsaying the mandate of one so great. Weapons were lowered, but still vociferating horrible threats, the crowd, with the two offenders in its midst, moved in the direction of Imvungayo.

But it seemed as though the wild, pealing shouts of rage and consternation were a very tocsin; for now from every kraal, near and far, the inhabitants came surging forth, streaming down the hillsides over the face of the plain like swarming ants--and before they reached Imvungayo the two whites seemed to move in the midst of a huge sea of gibing, infuriated faces, as the dark crowd, gathering volume, poured onward, rending the air with deafening shouts of execration and menace.

But the royal guards barred the gate, suffering no entrance save on the part of the two white men, together with Nondwana and a few of the greater among the people.

"This is the tightest place we have been in yet," murmured Hazon. "To tread on the superst.i.tions of any race is to thrust one's head into the jaws of a starved lion."

"D---- their filthy superst.i.tion," said Holmes, savagely desperate.

"Well, I did the thing, so I suppose I shall be the one to suffer."

The other said nothing. He had a shrewd suspicion that more than one life would be required in atonement. But he and death had stared each other in the face so frequently that once more or less did not greatly matter.

On learning the cause of the tumult, Tyisandhlu had come forth, and now sat, as he frequently did, to administer justice at the head of the great central s.p.a.ce. When the shouts of "_bonga!_" which greeted his presence had subsided, he ordered that the two whites should be brought forward.

This was the first time the latter had seen the king, and now, as they beheld his stately, commanding bearing, calm and judicial, both of them, Holmes especially, began to hope. They would explain the matter, and offer ample apologies. The owner of that fine, intellectual countenance, savage though he might be called, he, surely, had a soul above the debased superst.i.tions of his subjects. Hitherto he had spared their lives--surely now he would not sacrifice them to the clamour of a mob.

Yet, as Hazon had said, to tread on the superst.i.tions of any race was the most fatal thing on earth.

"What is this that has been done?" spoke the king, when he had heard all that the accusers had to say. "Surely no such deed has been wrought among us since the Ba-gcatya have been a nation."

There was a sternness, a menace even, in the full, deep voice, that dispelled all hope in the minds of the two thus under judgment. They had committed the one unpardonable sin. In vain Hazon elaborately explained the whole affair, diplomatically setting forth that the act being accidental, and done by strangers and white people, in ignorance, no ill-luck need befall the nation, as might be the case were the symbol of its veneration offended by its own people. The voice of the king was more stern than before--almost jeering.

"Accidental!" he repeated. "Even though it be so, accidents often bring greater evil in their results than the most deliberate wrong-doing--for such is the rule of life."

"That is so!" buzzed the indunas grouped on either side of the king.

"_Au!_ hear the wisdom of the Burning North Wind!"