Tween Snow and Fire Part 29

"Is thy bed a comfortable one, Vudana?" replied the barbarian thus apostrophised, with a sneer. And picking up a handful of the venomous insects he scattered them upon the tortured man's face with a brutal laugh.

For all his defiant fort.i.tude the latter was undergoing agonies. The ants were swarming all over his body, crawling into his nostrils and ears, biting everywhere, eating the rims of his eyelids, his lips, his throat, and he was powerless to move a hand or foot. The spectators crowded around, mocking and jeering at him. A few minutes ago he was a man of consideration--now all pushed and fought for the front places to witness his sufferings, all heaped execrations upon him as they gloated over the horrible punishment of one who had been denounced as a wizard.

"Whose magic is the greatest, Vudana--thine or mine?" jeered Ngcenika, bending over her victim until her face was close to his. But the proximity of that repulsive countenance infuriated even the helpless victim. With a roar of rage he spat full into it, vociferating:

"Thou sp.a.w.n of a Fingo dog! Thine hour is come. I have put my mark upon thee. Before many moons are dead thou too shalt die, and thy death shall be even as mine. I, Vudana, say it. Hear ye my words all!"

"He has confessed," shouted the crowd. "He is a wizard. He has confessed. Let him die the death!"

With a yell of fury Ngcenika started back, and glared vengefully around as if inquest of some means whereby to add to the sufferer's agony.

Then she remembered that it would hardly bear adding to under the circ.u.mstances, and contented herself with a satanic laugh.

Nor would it. In a short time the miserable man's body was black with the repulsive insects. They swarmed into his ears and nostrils. His struggles became fearful, as he writhed in the excruciating torment of their poisonous bites. He foamed at the mouth. His eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled and strained in their sockets, and he shook his head and roared like a beast. It would be impossible to exaggerate the agonies he was undergoing. His frantic struggles availed not to shake off a single one of the myriad insects swarming upon him. Already his eyes were half eaten away.

It was a fiendish and appalling spectacle. The man was now raving mad.

He gnashed his teeth and howled. His contortions were fearful to witness. Yet no spark of pity or compunction did the sight awaken in the ferocious hearts of the spectators, many of whom were, up to the moment of the fatal denunciation, his kindred and his friends. But since his treatment of the witch-doctress all were chary of venturing too close. Many of the superst.i.tious barbarians had already began to look upon Ngcenika with decreased respect. Vudana, suffering as a wizard, had spat in her face, accompanying the act with a prophecy and a curse. On no consideration would they run the risk of exposing themselves to like treatment.

Eustace, forced to be a spectator of this blood-curdling scene, felt his head swim with horror and disgust. The chastened gloom of the forest, the gibing crowd of armed savages, the weird shrill singing of the witch-doctress, and the frightful contortions and beast-like roars of the miserable victim, who was being literally devoured alive, made up a picture likely to haunt a man in his dreams for the rest of his life, to start him suddenly awake in a cold sweat of terror. Still he remembered that any exhibition of feeling would be in the highest degree dangerous, and controlled himself accordingly.

All this had taken some time and now the frantic struggles of the sufferer had subsided. A convulsive shudder would now and then run through his limbs, and his sightless eyeb.a.l.l.s would roll in a manner hideous to behold, and ever the disgusting insects swarmed over him in a horrible moving ma.s.s, now red with blood, and smothered beneath gouts of saliva which had flown from the maniac's lips. Upon his violent struggles had followed exhaustion--mercifully, the exhaustion of approaching death.

"He is dying!" cried several, bending over the victim. "_Hau_! A man like Vudana should have taken much longer to die."

This was said in a disappointed tone. The barbarous appet.i.te of these savages was thoroughly roused--whetted for further atrocities. A shout arose.

"The white man! The white man! What shall we do with him?"

Well might Eustace start, in horror and dismay. But a glance served to show that the object of attention was not himself, but somebody at the other end of the crowd, in which direction all heads were turned. Then as the crowd parted a moment he caught a glimpse of something--somebody rather--which evoked a second start, this time one of very unequivocal amazement. Could he believe his eyes?

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

A STRANGE DUEL.

In the midst of the savage throng was another white man, also a prisoner, who had been forced to a.s.sist at the barbarous scene just detailed. His lot, however, had been cast in far worse lines than that of Eustace, for his hands were tightly fastened behind his back and a _reim_ connected his ankles in such wise that he could only take short steps--which painful fact he would every now and then forget, with the result of just so many ignominious "croppers." Whereat his dusky tormentors would shout with gleeful laughter.

In addition to his bonds the unfortunate man appeared to have undergone considerable maltreatment. His hair and beard were matted with dust and blood, and his head was rudely bandaged with rags of the filthiest description. He was clad in a greasy and tattered shirt, and trousers to match--his own clothes having been impounded by his captors.

Moreover there were livid wales upon his face and hands, and such parts of his person as were visible through his ragged apparel, which showed that he had been unmercifully beaten. Well might Eustace start in amazement, absolute and unfeigned. In this pitiable object he recognised Tom Carhayes.

He gazed at him speechless--as at one who has risen from the dead. If ever he could have sworn to any man's death it would have been to that of the man before him. He had seen the a.s.segais flash in the air and descend--had heard the dull, sickening blows of the kerries which had beaten the life out of his unfortunate cousin. Yet, here stood the latter--not exactly unhurt, but yet full of life.

"_Hau_, Umlilwane!" said Hlangani, who was standing beside the latter-- grinning hideously into his victim's face. "You are not near enough to see well. The black ants bite--harder than the shot from your gun," he went on, with grim meaning, beckoning to those who stood by to drag the prisoner nearer to the body of the unfortunate Vudana, which lay, raw and b.l.o.o.d.y, the veins exposed in many places by the bites of the myriad swarming insects. Carhayes gazed upon the horrid sight with a shudder of disgust. Then raising his eyes he encountered those of Eustace. A shout of astonishment escaped him.

"How did you get here?" he cried. "Thought you were rubbed out if ever any fellow was. Suppose you thought the same of me. Well, well. It'll come to that soon. These d.a.m.ned black devils have bested me, just as I reckoned I was besting them. They've been giving me h.e.l.l already. But I say, Eustace, you seem to be in clover," noticing the other's freedom from bonds or ill-treatment. Then he added bitterly, "I forgot; you always did stand in well with them."

"That isn't going to help me much now, I'm afraid," answered Eustace.

"I've just made a fool of the witch-doctress and she won't let things rest there, depend upon it. My case isn't much more hopeful than yours.

Have you tried the bribery trick?"

"No. How do you mean?"

"Offer some big-wig, like our particular friend there--I won't mention names--a deuce of a lot of cattle to let you escape. Try and work it-- only you must be thundering careful."

The Kafirs, who had been attentively listening to the conversation between the two white men, here deemed that enough had been said.

Dialogue in an unknown tongue must represent just so much plotting, argued their suspicious natures. So they interposed.

"See there," said Hlangani, with a meaning glance at the fearfully contorted features of the miserable victim of the witch-doctress. "See there, Umlilwane, and remember my `word' to you the day you shot my white hunting dog and wounded me in the shoulder. _You had better first have cut off your right hand, for it is better to lose a hand than one's mind. Hau_! You laughed then. Who laughs now?"

To Eustace those words now stood out in deadly significance. The wretched Vudana had died raving mad. This, then, was the promised vengeance. Whatever his own fate might be, that of his cousin was sealed. Nothing short of a miracle could save him. Carhayes, noting the deadly and implacable expression upon the dark countenance of his enemy, realised something of this, and fearless as he habitually was, it was all he could do to keep from betraying some misgiving.

At this juncture a mandate arrived from Kreli that the warriors should once more a.s.semble within the temporary kraal, and that the white prisoners should again be brought before him. Singing, chatting, laughing, administering many a sly kick or cuff to poor Carhayes, the savages swarmed back to the open s.p.a.ce, dragging that unfortunate along in rough, unceremonious fashion. Soon the glade was empty, save for the body of the miserable victim of their blindly superst.i.tious ferocity.

It lay there, stark, mangled, and hideous.

The Paramount Chief and his councillors still sat in a group apart.

They had borne no part in, betrayed no interest in, the barbarous tragedy which had just taken place. Such a matter as the punishment of a wizard was entirely beneath their notice--in theory at any rate. They still sat in grave and dignified impa.s.siveness.

Eustace, noting the difference between his own treatment and that of his cousin--the one bound with unnecessary rigour, hustled and kicked, the other, though disarmed, treated with a certain amount of consideration-- began to entertain strong hopes on his own account. But tending materially to dash them was the fact that Ngcenika, standing before the chief and the _amapakati_, was favouring that august a.s.semblage with a very fierce and denunciatory harangue.

There were two white men, she said--two prisoners. One of these was a man of some power, who had been able to oppose her magic with his own; only for a time, however--the hag took care to add. This man it might be well to keep for a little while longer at any rate; there were several experiments which she herself intended to try upon him. But the other--he had always been a bitter enemy of their race. Many had fallen at his hands. Had he not cut a notch upon his gun-stock for every fighting man of the race of Xosa whom he had slain? There was the gun-stock and there were the notches. There were many of them, let the Great Chief--let the _amapakati_ count.

At the production of this d.a.m.ning "_piece de conviction_," a shout of fury rose from the ranks of the warriors.

"To the fire!" they cried. "To the fire with him!"

The situation was appalling, yet Carhayes never quailed. The desperate pluck of the man bore him up even then. He scowled contemptuously upon the lines of dark and threatening faces, then turned erect and fearless towards the chief.

For a few moments they confronted each other thus in silence. The Englishman, somewhat weak and unsteady from exhaustion and ill-treatment, could still look the arbiter of his fate straight in the eyes without blenching. They might do their worst and be d.a.m.ned, he said to himself. He, Tom Carhayes, was not going to whine for mercy to any n.i.g.g.e.r--even if that "n.i.g.g.e.r" was the Chief Paramount of all the Amaxosa tribes.

The latter, for his part, was not without respect for the white man's intrepidity, but he had no intention of sparing him for all that. He had been debating with his chiefs and councillors, and they had decided that Carhayes ought to be sacrificed as an uncompromising and determined enemy of their race. The other it might be expedient to keep a little longer and see how events would turn.

"What have you to say, _umlungu_?" said Kreli at length.

"Nothing. Not a d.a.m.n thing," broke in Carhayes, in a loud, harsh tone.

"Tom, for G.o.d's sake don't be such a fool," whispered Eustace, who was near enough to be heard. "Can't you be civil for once?"

"No, I can't; not to any infernal black scoundrel," roared the other savagely. "It's different with you, Eustace," changing his tone to a bitter sneer. "d.a.m.n it, man, you're about half a Kafir already. Why don't you ask old Kreli for a couple of his daughters and set up a kraal here among them, eh?"

A sounding whack across the ear with the haft of an a.s.segai choked the words in his throat. He stood, literally foaming with fury.

"Attend, thou white dog," cried a great deep-toned voice. "Attend when the Great Chief is talking to thee. _Au_!"

An infuriated mastiff straining at his chain is a pretty good exemplification of impotent wrath, but even he is nothing to the aspect and demeanour of Carhayes as he turned to the perpetrator of this indignity. The veins rolled in his forehead as if they would burst.

The muscles stood out upon his neck like cords as he strove by a superhuman effort to burst his bonds. But Hlangani only sneered.

"Listen when the Great Chief is talking to thee, thou jackal, or I will strike thee again," he said.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n the Great Chief!" roared poor Tom, his voice rising to a hurricane shriek of fury under this shameful indignity, which he was powerless to resent. "And you, Hlangani, you dog, if I stood unbound I would kill you at this moment--kill you all unarmed as I am. Coward!