A Frontier Mystery

“Now walk,” whispered the Xosa. “Let each keep hold of the one in front of him. But – before all – silence!”

In this way we advanced, Jan Boom leading, I keeping a hand on his shoulder, Kendrew doing ditto as to mine, while Falkner brought up the rear. The place was not a cave, for every now and again we could see a star or two glimmering high above. It seemed like a deep fissure or crevasse seaming the ground, but what on earth it was like above I had no idea.

We walked lightly and on our toes in order to ensure silent progress. A few minutes of this and the Xosa halted. The fissure had widened out, and now a puff of fresh air bore token that we were getting into the light of day, or rather of night, once more. Nor were we sorry, for our subterranean progress was suggestive of snakes and all kinds of horrors. I, for one, knew by a certain feel in the air that we were approaching water.

A little further and again we halted. A patch of stars overhead, and against it the black loom of what was probably a krantz or at any rate a high bluff. The murmur of running water, also sounding from overhead, at the same time smote upon our ears.

It was getting lighter. The moon was rising at last, and as we strained our gaze through the thick bushy screen behind which we had halted, this is what we saw.

We were looking down upon a circular pool whose surface reflected the twinkling of the stars. On three sides of it ran an amphitheatre of rock, varying from six to twenty feet in height. At the upper end where the water fell into it in a thin stream, the rock dipped to the form of a letter “V.” All this we could make out in the dim light of the stars, for as yet the face of the rock was in dark shadow. And yet, and yet – as I gazed I could descry a striking resemblance to our own waterhole except that this was more shut in.

“Remember,” whispered the Xosa, impressively. “There is to be no shooting. They are to be taken alive.”

We promised, wondering the while where “they” were. A tension of excitement, and eagerness for the coming struggle was upon all three of us. For me I rebelled against the agreement which should deter me from battering the life out of the black villains who had brought my darling to this horrible place. What terrors must she not have endured? What ghastly rites of devil worship were enacted here?

Foot by foot the light crept downwards, revealing the face of the rock as the moon rose higher and higher. Then a violent nudge from Falkner, at my side – but I had already seen.

The water was pouring down upon the head of what had once been a human being. Now it was a dreadful, glistening slimy thing, half worn away by the action of the running water. It was fixed in a crucified attitude, facing outwards, bound by the wrists to a thick pole which was stretched across horizontally from side to side of the pool, the feet resting upon a rock ledge beneath. It needed not the agonised stare upon that awful upturned face – or rather what once had been a face – to tell in what unspeakable torture this wretched being had died. To my mind and to Falkner’s came the recollection of our gruesome find that grey afternoon in the northern wilds of Zululand.

Two more bodies, one little better than a skeleton, were bound similarly on each side of the central one. As we gazed, spellbound with horror, we saw that which pointed to one of these being the body of a white man.

Now a dark figure appeared on the brink above the central victim, appeared so silently and suddenly as to lend further horror to this demon haunted spot. We watched it in curdling horror as it stooped, then reached down and cut the thongs which held first one wrist then the other. The body thus released toppled heavily into the pool with a dull splash that echoed among the overhanging rocks. Then it disappeared.

The figure, straightened up now, stood watching the troubled surface for a moment. Standing there full in the moonlight I thought to recognise the face. It was that of one of Tyingoza’s people whom I knew by sight, but could not fit with a name. Then he turned to clamber back, crooning as he did so, a strange weird song. It was not very intelligible, but was full of sibongo to the Water Spirit, who should now delight in a fresh victim, a rare victim, one by the side of which all former sacrifices were but poor. Then would the land have rain again – would drink all the rain it needed.

Now the blood seemed to rush to my brain as though to burst it. A red mist came before my eyes, and my heart seemed to hammer within me as though it would betray our place of concealment without fail. For I realised who this new victim – this rare victim – was to be, the victim who was to take the place of the ghastly shapeless horror which we had seen disappear beneath that awful surface. A warning touch from Jan Boom brought me back to recollection and sanity again.

Through our concealing screen we saw the man who had released the corpse drop down the rock. Another had joined him, and now the two crouched down in the shadow with an air of eager expectancy as though waiting for something or somebody. One held in his hand a coiled thong. Then we heard voices, one a full, sonorous, male tone talking in the Zulu; and another, rich, musical, feminine – and it I recognised with a tightening of the heart. Both were approaching, in such wise as would bring the speakers almost within touch of us.

And the two fiends, the one with the coiled thong, and the other, crouched – waiting.

Chapter Thirty.

The Latest Victim

There she stood – Aïda, my love. I could see every line of the sweet pale face, turned full towards me in the moonlight, but it wore a half-dazed look as that of one who walks and talks in her sleep. But it bore no sign of fear.

“This is the third night, Inkosikazi, and it is time to restore you to your own people,” Ukozi was saying. “You will tell them that we have not harmed you, but that your presence was necessary for three nights, to render perfect our múti.”

She looked as if she but half understood him, and nodded her head. They were but a few paces from us, and where they had emerged from we could not make out. Their backs were toward the horrid remains, and also toward the two crouching figures.

“So now we are ready. Come.”

This was clearly a signal, for the two crouching figures sprang up and forward to seize her. The first went down like a felled bullock, under a judiciously planted whack from Jan Boom’s knobkerrie as we leapt from our concealment. Falkner had grappled with the witch doctor, but Ukozi was a muscular and powerful savage, and it taxed all his younger foeman’s athletic resources to hold him. He writhed and struggled, and the two were rolling over and over on the ground. Then Jan Boom seizing his chance, let out again with his formidable knobkerrie, bringing it down bang in the middle of Ukozi’s skull. He, too, flattened out. The third, held at the point of Kendrew’s pistol, had already surrendered.

“Better tie them up sharp before they come to,” said Falkner. “Here goes for Mr Witch Doctor anyhow.”

All this had happened in a moment. In it I had borne no active part, my first care and attention had been given to Aïda. It was remarkable that she showed but little surprise at the sight of me.

“Is that you, dear? And you have come to take me home? I am rather relieved, for I was beginning to get a little frightened I believe. But – what is it all about? These people have done me no harm.”

“No – thank the Lord and we four,” said Falkner grimly. “Not yet, but we were only in the nick of time. There – you evil beast. You can come to now, as soon as you like.”

This to the fellow whom Jan Boom had first stunned and whom he had just finished tying up in the most masterly manner. The Xosa had effected the same process with the third, under cover of Kendrew’s pistol.

“Don’t look round, Aïda,” I said. “There’s a sight it’ll be as well for you not to see. In fact I’ll take you away as soon as Jan Boom is ready to show us the way out.”

But Jan Boom was apparently not ready. He stood glaring down upon the prostrate and unconscious witch doctor with an expression of vindictive hatred upon his countenance that was positively devilish.

“Not killed,” he muttered in his own tongue. “No – no – not killed. That were too sweet and easy for him.”

“Ha-ha, Jan,” guffawed Falkner. “You were so keen on capturing the brute alive, and now you’ve killed him yourself.”

“He not dead,” answered the Xosa in English. “Zulu nigga’s skull damn hard. He come to directly.”

“Well it wasn’t much of a scrap anyway,” grumbled Falkner. “Are there any more of them?”

“Only two women up there at the huts,” said Aïda. “But I don’t understand. They’ve done me no harm.”

“No, exactly. You don’t understand, but we do,” answered Falkner grimly. “And, now, by the way, where are the said huts?”

“Up above there. You go by the way you saw me come in. Through that passage.”

Now we saw a narrow passage similar to the one we had entered by. It seemed to lead upward.

“Quite sure it’s all there are?” he said.

“Yes. There are only a couple of huts there, and I don’t think there’s any way out, that side. Oh – What is that?”

The words came out in a sort of shriek. As ill luck would have it she had turned and caught sight of the remains of the other two victims. She covered her face with her hands.

“Oh take me out of this horrible place. Now I begin to see,” and she shivered all over.

“Be brave now, darling,” I whispered. “We will go at once. I didn’t want you to see that, but – it’s only a way they have of burying their dead,” I added under a swift inspiration that a lie of that sort was highly expedient, and even then I don’t think she more than half believed me.

Jan Boom the while, together with Kendrew, had been acting in a thoroughly practical manner, by way of rendering the situation more secure. They had tied the three prisoners together by the leg, in addition to their other bonds, and this was as well, for the pair who had been stunned were showing signs of returning consciousness. Then we held a council of war. It was arranged that Jan Boom was to return with Aïda and myself to my place, thence he was to take one of the horses and ride straight on to Major Sewin’s and return with the police. The while Kendrew and Falkner would remain, and mount guard over the prisoners.

“Mind you sing out loud enough when you come back, Jan,” said Falkner meaningly. “Because we are going to blow the head off the very first nigger that happens to poke his nose in upon us through either of those holes, and that without warning too.”

The Xosa grinned broadly.

“No fear, I’ll sing out, sir,” he said in English. “But you look after Ukozi. Witch doctor damn smart nigga. Plaps he get away.”

“If he does he’s welcome to,” rejoined Falkner, poking the muzzle of his pistol against the shaven head of the principal prisoner, who having now recovered consciousness was staring stupidly about him. “Eh, my buck? But we won’t cheat the hangman in your case, no fear.”

I was unspeakably glad on Aïda’s account, to find ourselves through the horrid tunnel-like way by which we had entered, and out in the wholesome night air again. She seemed none the worse for her adventures, and was wonderfully plucky. She never could feel anything but safe with me, she declared.

The way was much easier now in the clear moonlight than when we had come, under the light of the stars, and as we walked she told me as well as she was able, what had befallen her on the afternoon of her solitary walk. When I chided her for undertaking a solitary walk she answered that she could not imagine harm overtaking her with so powerful a protector as Arlo.

“I don’t know why,” she went on, “but I felt a half unconscious inclination to go over that way we came together that evening before you went. Suddenly I discovered that Arlo was no longer with me. I called him but he didn’t come. This was strange, so I turned back, still calling him. Then I saw him lying as if he was dead, and bending over him were two natives. They started up at the sound of my voice, and I recognised Ivondwe and the witch doctor.”

“Ivondwe? Ah!” I interrupted, for a new light had now struck me. “Yes. Go on.”

“They called to me to come – and I advanced, dreadfully concerned about poor Arlo, and then I don’t know how it was, whether some instinct warned me, or whether it was a look I saw pass between them, but – I acted like an idiot. I turned and ran. You see, I lost my head completely.”

For answer I pressed the hand that rested on my arm closer to my side.

“Well, and what then?” I said.

“As soon as I began to run they came after me. As I say – I had lost my head completely, and hardly knew where I was going. Then, suddenly, I found myself on the brink of the waterhole; in fact I had nearly fallen into it. I turned, and the two were right upon me. ‘Why had I run away?’ they asked. ‘There was surely nothing to be afraid of. Surely I knew them both well enough. My dog was lying there dead and they had been trying to see what they could do for him.’

“I was unaccountably frightened, and dreadfully out of breath after the run. I felt half faint. Then just as I began to think I had behaved like a fool something was thrown over my head from behind, something that seemed saturated with some particularly overpowering and nauseous drug. Then I became unconscious, and only recovered when I found myself at the place we have just come from – or rather in a small kraal in a hollow just above it.”

“And you have been there all the time. Aïda, you are sure they have not injured you?”

“Oh yes. On the contrary they were quite deferential, the witch doctor especially. He told me my presence was necessary for a certain time on account of an important rain-making ceremony he was engaged in. After that I should be taken home again. Well I thought it advisable to make a virtue of necessity, and conciliate them. I even began to enter into the adventure of the thing, and supposed I was going to witness some quaint and rare native superstition. Another thing. The drug that at first overpowered me had left a strange effect – I believe it is a little upon me still. It was a sort of half drowsy apathetic feeling, as if it was too much trouble to think about anything. The women there took care of me, great care; they were Ukozi’s wives they said. Well, this evening he came to me and said the moon was right, and with my help, he had accomplished all he wanted, and it would soon rain abundantly. The time had come to take me home and he would guide me there. Do you know, he can talk English quite well?”

“No – by Jove I didn’t. He’s kept it remarkably dark hitherto. Yet he wasn’t talking English when you appeared.”

“No he wasn’t. I’ve got to understand them rather well by this time. Well, then you all burst out upon us and here I am.”

“Thank God for that!” I said fervently. “There’s another, too, of whom the same holds good, Jan Boom here.”

The Xosa, who was walking a little ahead of us, paused at the sound of his name and waited for us.

“Nkose,” he said, speaking in the vernacular. “Did you promise to tell me before three moons were dead, whether you were sorry you had kept me in your service or not?”

“That I did, Jan Boom, and you know the answer. Nor will you find me forgetful —impela!”

“Nkose!” he ejaculated and walked on.

“I have yet to get the whole mystery out of him,” I said in a low tone, “but for that I must wait his own time.”

There was another “time” for which I meant to wait. Not yet would I reveal to Aïda the horrible fate to which the repulsive superstition of the witch doctor had consigned her. That she would learn in due course. At present I wanted her to recover completely from the effects of her experience.

It was close upon dawn when we reached my place, and as I attended to the refreshment and comfort of my love, after her trying and perilous experience, it was as a foretaste of the future. Her people would be here as soon as they could possibly arrive, meanwhile she was under my care. And she needed sleep.

Tom, now cut loose from his night’s bonds, but none the worse, came up looking very sulky and foolish, and muttering vengeance against the Xosa, who for his part cared not a straw for such. A judicious present however soon altered that mood, and I believe he would have been quite willing to undergo the same treatment over again on the same terms, and bustled about making himself generally useful with renewed zest.

Ah, how fair arose that morning’s dawn. All that I held precious – my whole world as it were – lay peacefully sleeping within that hut, and while I kept guard outside, half fearing lest again that priceless gem should be stolen from its casket, an overwhelming rush of intense thankfulness surged deep through my heart. What had I done – what could I ever do – to deserve such a gift, now valued, if possible, a hundredfold by reason of the awful agony and blank of a temporary loss?

Far down in the river-bed lay waves of fleecy mist, and the rising sun gilded the heights with his early splendour. Birds piped and flashed among the dewy bush sprays, and the low of cattle and bark of a dog from a distant kraal floated upward. All was fair and bright and peaceful – and within – my love still slept on, serene, quiet, secure.

Chapter Thirty One.

The Brotherhood of the Dew

Aïda looked none the worse for her adventures as she came forth into the clear freshness of the morning. The lethargic effect of the drug seemed to have left her entirely, and she was quite her old self, bright, sunny, fascinating as ever. But scarcely had we begun to talk than we saw three persons approaching on horseback.

“They haven’t lost much time coming for you,” I said, as I made out the rest of the family. “And I wanted you all to myself a little longer.”

“You mustn’t say that, dear,” she answered, with a return pressure from the hand I was holding. “They are perhaps just a little bit fond of me too.”

“Hallo, Glanton,” sung out the Major, breathless with excitement, as he rode up. “What the dickens is this cock and bull yarn your fellow has been spinning us. I can’t make head or tail of it and I didn’t stop to try. Anyhow, there’s my little girl again all safe and sound. She is safe and sound? Eh?”

“Absolutely, father,” answered Aïda, for herself. And then there was a good deal of bugging and kissing all round, and some crying; by the way, it seems that the women, dear creatures, can’t be brought to consider any ceremony complete unless they turn on the hose; for they turn it on when they’re happy, just as readily as when they’re not. For instance – there we were, all jolly together again – what the deuce was there to cry about? Yet cry they did.

I had breakfast set out in the open on the shady side of the store, with the broad view of the Zulu country lying beneath in the distance, and they declared it reminded them of that memorable time when the contre temps as to Tyingoza’s head-ring had befallen. And then when Aïda had given her adventures once more in detail, through sheer reaction we were all intensely happy after the dreadful suspense and gloom of the last three days. At length it was I who proposed we should make a move down, for it would be as well to be on hand when the others returned with the police and the prisoners.

“By Jove, Glanton, but you were right when you advised me to have nothing to do with that rascally witch doctor,” said the Major, as we rode along. “One consolation. I suppose he’s bound to be hung. Eh?”

“That depends on how we work the case,” I said. “And it’ll take a great deal of working.”

Hardly had we returned than the others arrived, bringing the three prisoners, and two more in the shape of the women of whom Aïda had told us. These however were kept entirely separate from Ukozi and his companions. No conversation between them was allowed.

Ukozi was sullen and impassive, but the younger prisoners glared around with a savage scowl which deepened as it rested on Falkner. He for response only grinned.

“All right my bucks,” he said. “There’s a rope and a long drop sticking out for you. By George, but this has been a ripping bit of fun for one night.”

“That’s all right,” I said rather shortly. “But you might remember that the reason for it hasn’t been fun by any means.”

“No, not for you, that’s understood,” he sneered, turning away, for he was still more than a little sore over my success.

“Glanton, I’ve something devilish rum to tell you.”

The speaker was Kendrew. “Come out of the crowd,” he went on. “Yes, it just is rum, and it gave me a turn, I can tell you. First of all, that nest of murderers we tumbled into, is bang on the edge of – if not within – my own place. Yes, it is my own place now – beyond a shadow of doubt. For we’ve unearthed something there.”

“You don’t mean – ” I began, beginning to get an inkling.

He nodded.

“Yes, I do. The furthest of those two poor devils stuck up there against the rock – ugh! – was poor old Hensley – my old uncle.”

“Good lord!”

“Yes indeed. I was able to identify him by several things – ugh, but it wasn’t a nice job, you understand. But the mystery is not how he couldn’t be found at the time, but how the deuce such a neat little devil hole could exist on the place at all, unknown to any of us. Why, you can’t get in – or out of it – at all from the top, only through the hole we slipped in by. It’s like a false bottom to a box by Jove. Yes – it’s rum how such a place could exist.”

I thought so too. So now poor old Hensley’s disappearance stood explained; and the explanation was pitiable. He had been beguiled – or forcibly brought – to the hell pit of cruelty where these demons performed the dark rites of some secret superstition, and there horribly done to death by the water torture. When I thought of the one who had been destined to succeed him, and who by the mercy of Providence had been snatched from their fiendish hands just in the nick of time, a sort of “seeing red” feeling came over me, and had they been in my power, I could have massacred all four of the prisoners with my own hand.

“Let’s see if we can get anything out of them, Kendrew,” I said. “Manvers won’t mind.”

But Inspector Manvers did mind – at first. Then he agreed. They would be started off for the Police Camp that night; however, as they were here we could talk to them.

We might just as well have saved ourselves the trouble. Ivondwe, who had been kept apart from the others, smiled sweetly and wondered what all the bother was about. He could not imagine why he had been seized and tied up. However that would soon come right. Government was his father, but it had made a mistake. However he, as its child, could not complain even if his father had made a mistake. It would all come right.

The witch doctor simply refused to speak at all, but the young men jeered. One of these I seemed to recognise.

“Surely I have seen thee before?” I said. “Where?”

“Kwa ’Sipanga?”

“I remember. Atyisayo is thy name. ‘Hot water.’ And I warned thee not to get into any more hot water – as the whites say.”

He laughed at this – but evilly, and no further word could I get out of either of them.

But if they would reveal nothing there was another who would, and that was Jan Boom. Him I had refrained from questioning until we should be all quiet again.

The police, with the exception of three men, who had been detailed to remain on the spot and keep their eyes and ears open, started off that same evening with their prisoners. Later, Jan Boom came to the house and gave me to understand he had something to tell me. The family had just gone to bed, and Kendrew and I were sitting out on the stoep smoking a last pipe.

“Nkose, the time has now come,” he said, “to tell you what will sound strange to your ears. I would not tell it before, no, not till the Amapolise had gone. The Amapolise are too fond of asking many questions – foolish questions – asking them, too, as if they thought you were trying to throw sand in their eyes when all the time you are trying to help them. Now is that encouraging to one who would help them?”

I readily admitted that it was not.

“So now, Nkose, if you will come forth with me where we shall not be heard – yes, the nephew of Nyamaki may come, too – for my tale is not for all ears, you shall hear it.”