In the Whirl of the Rising

“Yes. But I shall have a day’s rest at Skrine’s Store, where I have to look after some of our people.”

“Thirty-five miles. You will hardly get him there – certainly not to-night. You had better come home with me.”

The other feared that this was impossible, as, after they had journeyed together up to a certain point, it would be right in the contrary direction. But he ceased to combat Lamont’s offer to relieve him of some of the load.

“You don’t travel light, Father,” laughed Lamont, as he finished strapping the valise across his own saddle.

“But this is not my own luggage. I have been on a round of visitation, and wherever I find some of our people they are glad of the opportunity to hear Mass. It is the ornaments required for the Mass that are in these saddle-bags.”

“Oh, I understand now,” said Lamont. “I thought it was camping outfit. Well, that is shepherding the flock and no mistake – and that over a pretty wide run.”

“That is what we are here for, Mr Lamont. It is possible we may miss some, but we try not to.”

“I’m sure you do,” assented Lamont heartily. “Why, you are proverbial in this country as models of energy.”

“That is pleasant to know. But, speaking personally, I like the life. I am strong, and it does me no harm.”

They chatted of other things and everything. The priest was a cultured man, and as they covered mile after mile of hot, steamy Matabeleland, both he and his companion hardly noticed it, for they were back in the various centres of artistic Europe, discussing its treasures with eagerness and appreciation. They off-saddled for half an hour, then on again.

“I think we are getting near where my road turns off,” said Father Mathias at last. “But, Mr Lamont, I am so glad we have been able to travel together. I have not noticed the distance at all.”

Lamont cordially replied that the same held good of himself. Then, looking quickly up —

“We are going to have a change, and if it means rain – why then, hooray! Otherwise I don’t like the look of it ahead – no, not at all.”

In their conversation as they rode along they had, as we have said, lost sight of outside features. Now a deep, low growl of thunder recalled such. Over the range of hills they were skirting peered a ridge of black cloud, mounting higher and higher to the zenith in a huge solid pillar, spreading in black masses, lighted fitfully with the gleam of quickly successive flashes. The sun had already gone down.

“We are in for it,” said Lamont, looking up. “We shall get an exemplary ducking, unless – but then you might not care about that – we were to take shelter in Zwabeka’s kraal. It’s only just the other side of that bend in front.”

“Let us do that,” said the priest. “Zwabeka is a considerable chief, is he not? I would like to see him.”

“This is going to be no fool of a storm,” went on Lamont, again looking upward. “The sooner we get under cover the better.”

The booming growl had changed into a well-nigh unintermittent roar, as the huge cloud, towering pillar-like, now spread its black wings in a dark canopy in every direction. The horses pricked up their ears and snorted with alarm at each blinding flash. So far no rain had fallen, and there was a smell of burning in the very air.

Now a barking of dogs sounded between the rolls of thunder, and rounding a spur they came in sight of a large kraal, lying at the mouth of a lateral kloof, densely bushed and extending far up into the range of hills. The conical huts stood within the strong encircling stockade, and among them dark forms stood about in groups, gazing skyward, and indulging in deep-toned speculation as to the probability of a copious and welcome rain to relieve the parched-up and drooping crops in the lands. But the two white men, as they rode in through the still open gateway, thought to detect an unwonted sullenness instead of the cheerful greeting of welcome which should have been theirs. A ringed man came forward.

“Greeting, Gudhlusa,” called out Lamont, to whom the man was known. “We would shelter, and have a talk at the same time with Zwabeka the chief. Is he in his house?”

“I see you, Lamonti. Au! Zwabeka? He is asleep.”

“No matter. It will do when he wakes. Meanwhile we will go into a hut, for the rain will be great.”

“’M – ’m!” assented the bystanders in a guttural hum. “The rain will be great. Ah! ah! The rain will be great!”

There was a significance in the repetition hardly observed at the time by the new arrivals. One of them, at any rate, was to appreciate it later. To one of them, also, the utter absence of geniality on the part of the people supplied food for thought, combined too as it was with the use of his native name – in this instance a corruption of his own – instead of the more respectful ‘Nkose.’ But then Zwabeka’s people were mostly Abezantsi – or those of the old, pure-blooded Zulu stock, and therefore proud.

“Come this way, Amakosi,” said the man he had addressed as Gudhlusa, pointing to a small enclosure. “We will put your horses there, and give them grain. Yonder is a new hut with the thatch but just on. There will ye rest.”

“That is good, Gudhlusa,” said Lamont, giving him some tobacco. “Later, when the chief is awake we will talk with him.”

The new hut proved to be a very new one, which was a huge advantage in that it ensured immunity from the swarming cockroaches inseparable from old ones, and even worse. On the other hand, the thatch ‘just put on,’ was not as complete as it might be, for a glint of sky visible through a hole or two in the roof did not give encouraging promise of a water-tight protection from the average thunder-shower. The saddlery and luggage was accordingly disposed in what looked likely to prove the driest side of the hut.

“Well, Father, I’m inclined to think we can see our quarters for to-night,” said Lamont cheerfully, as he filled his pipe and passed on his pouch to his companion.

“Thanks. I think so too. Well, we might do worse.”

“Oh yes. A dry camp is better than a wet one. Do you talk the Sindabele?”

“A little. Enough to make myself understood for the ordinary purposes. But I am learning it. You seem to have got it well, though.”

“I wish I had it better. You see I am a bit interested in these people. They – and their history – appeal to me. Poor devils! I can’t help sympathising with them to a certain extent. It must be rotten hard luck for a lot of these older ones, like Zwabeka for instance, who have been big-wigs in their time, having to knuckle down to a new and strange form of government in which they come out very under-dog indeed. Still, it’s the universal law and there’s no help for it. But – I’m sorry for them for all that.”

Could he have seen what was in Zwabeka’s mind, – Zwabeka, nominally asleep in one of the huts a few yards away, – could he have heard what was on Zwabeka’s tongue, yea, at that very moment, where would his sympathy have been? The course of but a few days was destined to change it, like that of many another who desired to treat the conquered race with fairness and consideration, and who like himself were sitting on the brink of the hitherto quiescent vent of a raging volcano.

Chapter Eight.

Zwabeka’s Kraal

“Isn’t that a perfect picture of savage life, set in a savage surrounding?” said Lamont, as he stood with his travelling companion before the door of the hut allotted to them. “It is artistically complete.”

“It is indeed,” was the answer.

And it was. The circle of the kraal, with its great open space and the conical huts, four deep, ringing it in: the dark, lithe forms of its occupants, unclothed save for a mútya of dangling monkey skins; or in the case of the women a greasy hide apron: the sinuous movements as the young men and boys ran in and out among the multi-coloured cattle: the reek of smoke and kine: the wild background of wooded ridge and craggy rock, and the swirling streamers of the storm-cloud above, pouring forth jetty beams of steely blue light and reverberating roll against the bushy spurs and darksome recesses. All this in the fast-gathering dusk made up a picture of sombre, impressive grandeur, the very soul of which seemed to permeate the minds of its two civilised spectators.

Then the full force of the storm broke overhead, and it was as though the whole world were on fire, and split in twain; what with the unintermittent electric glare, and the ear-splitting crashes, hardly more intermittent. But, with it all, not a drop of rain.

“It’s grand; but I’ve a notion it’s beastly dangerous,” said Lamont. “We’d better get inside. There’s more electricity in us than in a roof. They say,” he went on, as they gained their shelter, “that dry storms are more dangerous than when it rains, but that may be a popular superstition. Anyway everyone doesn’t share it, for here’s somebody coming.”

Even as he spoke, there crept through the low doorway, which had been left open, a young man followed by two girls, one bearing a basket of green mealies roasted on the ashes, the other a large bowl of tywala. The youth explained that they were sent by Gudhlusa, who was sorry he could not send meat, but the people were poor, since Government and the pestilence had killed all their cattle, and they had no meat.

“We shall do famously,” said Lamont. Then to the young man: “We thank Gudhlusa. And thou, umfane, make ready and broil these birds for us. Here is of the white man’s money; for thyself.”

“Nkose!” cried the youth delightedly, taking up the two francolins. “It shall be done. My father, Gudhlusa, also said that the chief, Zwabeka, is not able to see and talk with the Amakosi this night. He is sick.”

Lamont expressed his concern for the chief’s health, not believing a word of the above statement, and the messenger withdrew.

Half an hour or so later they were reclining snugly in their blankets, beginning on the broiled birds and roast mealies by the light of an old waggon lantern the boy had rummaged out. “The only thing wanting is salt,” pronounced Lamont. “However, just a grain of this makes a sort of substitute. Try it.”

He cut open one of his cartridges, which were made with black powder, and poured some of the latter out on to a piece of paper.

“But it does. Why, what a perfect travelling companion you are, Mr Lamont. You provide us with the salt – with the poultry – with everything.”

Lamont laughed.

“Oh, as to the last,” aiming a whack at a native dog, which was skulking in at the open door with an eye to plunder, “I always carry a shot-gun when travelling across country. It is an easily portable larder. The whole land swarms with birds, and you need only get off and shoot if you want skoff. Once, when I first came up here, I was travelling, and my horse went lame when I was about three hours from anywhere. I was in a great state of starve. Then it suddenly occurred to me that the bush was full of clucking pheasants – why the deuce didn’t I shoot one, light a fire and broil him? Well, I did, then and there. Ever since then I’ve always travelled with a shot-gun.”

“I, for one, am very glad of it, to-day especially,” laughed the priest. “These birds are delicious.”

They did ample justice to the bowl of tywala too, then lit their pipes, and lay chatting, at ease, the hollow roaring of the receding storm – or was it another approaching? – enhancing the sense of comfort within, under the influence of which conversation soon became disjointed. Father Mathias started as his half-smoked pipe dropped from his mouth, while his companion was already nodding. Both laughed.

“I think we had better say good-night,” said the latter. “For my part, I feel as if I could sleep till the crack of doom.”

The kraal was wrapped in silence, save for an indistinct hum here and there, where some of its occupants still carried on a lingering conversation. At last even it died away, and as hour followed hour the midnight silence was unbroken and profound.

Lamont was rather a light sleeper than otherwise, consequently it is not surprising that, the burden of his last waking words notwithstanding, a feeling of something half-scratching, half-tickling his ear, then his cheek, should start him wide awake. Following a natural impulse, though not perhaps a wise one, he brushed the thing off, and as he did so a shudder of loathing and repulsion ran through him, for it had a sort of feathery, leggy feel that made him guess its identity. Quickly he struck a light. Sprawling over the floor of the hut was a huge tarantula, looking more like an animal than an insect in the dim light of the burning vesta. Then, alarmed, it moved across the floor at a springy run, and before the spectator had decided how to put an end to its loathly existence it disappeared within a crevice in the side of the hut.

“Phew! what an awful-looking beast!” said Lamont to himself, with a natural shudder at the thought of how the hairy monster had been actually about to walk over his face in the darkness, and further, of what a narrow escape he must have had from its venomous nippers as he brushed it off. “They grow them large here, for that’s the biggest I’ve ever seen – by Jove it is!”

He struck another match. His companion was sleeping peacefully, but as for himself all desire for sleep had fled. With his large experience of sleeping in all sorts of places, it would have been odd if a similar disturbing incident had not come his way before, and that not once only: yet the feeling of repulsion was none the less real, none the less unpleasant, now. He would get through the remainder of the night outside. The ground was open, and there was no thatch overhead to drop hairy horrors upon him in his sleep. Taking his blanket, he crept out through the hole which did duty for a doorway.

All traces of the storm had disappeared, and overhead the stars shone forth in the blue-black vault in a myriad blaze unknown to cold northern skies. By their light he could just see the time. It was half-past one.

The night air was fresh, not to say chilly, and he shivered. No question was there of further sleep, at any rate not for some time. Wrapping his blanket around him he decided to walk about a little.

On one side of the hut which had been allotted to them was open ground, by reason of it being the site of several old habitations which had been removed to make way for new ones. This would supply him with excellent space for his sentry-like walk.

So still was the great kraal that it might have been the abode of the dead – the clustering huts so many mausoleums. Not even a dog was astir, which might be accounted for by the fact that there were but few in the place, and they probably away on the farther side. And then it occurred to Lamont that nocturnal perambulation with no external, and therefore legitimate, object, especially during the small hours, was an unpopular form of exercise among natives. Only abatagati, or evil-disposed wizards, prowled about at night, they held, wherefore his present wandering was injudicious – might even prove dangerous. He had better go in.

Now, as he arrived at this conclusion, his perambulations had brought him to the other side of the open space above described – that farthest removed from his own hut, and as he turned to carry it into effect he stopped short – a thrill of astonishment tingling through his frame. For his ear had caught the low murmur of voices and – in among them – the native version of his own name.

Yes, there it was again, distinctly – ‘U’ Lamónti.’ What did it mean? The whole kraal should by rights have been plunged in slumber, yet here was quite a conclave of its inhabitants, not only very wide awake, but engaged in some apparently earnest discussion – in which his own name seemed to hold no unimportant a place. A curious warning prescience took possession of his mind, and moved him to adopt a course from which he would, by every natural instinct, have recoiled with loathing. He was going to play eavesdropper.

The hut from which the sounds proceeded was an outer one just within the main circle, standing almost against the thorn stockade. By creeping up on this side, the shadows of both would be in his favour, and, lying flat, with his ear as close to the doorway as he dared venture, it would be hard if he could not catch at any rate the gist of their discussion.

Lying there in the darkness it seemed to the listener that the loudness of his own heart-beats must betray him, for no sooner was he in position than the very first words he caught were such as to thrill him through with excitement and eagerness.

“It is not yet the time for killing,” a voice was saying.

“Not the time?” hummed several others.

“Not the time. He has said it. Before the next moon is dead, were the words of Umlimo. And it is not yet born.”

“But that was for the eating up of all Amakiwa,” objected another voice. “These who are in our midst are only two. No one will miss them. Who saw them come into our midst? None but our own people.”

“Eh! hé!” assented the others.

“U’ Lamonti. He has fire-weapons, and we need such,” went on the last speaker. “These will be ours.”

The listener lay, cursing himself for a very complete idiot. For the mention of firearms brought back to him that at the present moment he was totally unarmed. He had unslung his revolver when he lay down to sleep, and on coming out of the hut had left it there. Did any of them discover his presence now he was defenceless!

Now it was urged that the plan of stealing upon and murdering their two guests in their sleep was a bad one, and impolitic in that it would cause inquiries to be made, and so put the other Amakiwa on their guard. Then another voice said —

“You cannot kill the white isanusi. His múti is too powerful.”

“Ha!”

“Too powerful,” went on the speaker. “Hau! he is a real isanusi this one. He has a magic house, wherein he brings down fire from the sky —lapa gu’ Buluwayo. I know, for I have seen. Impela!”

The murmur of wonder or incredulity evoked by this statement having subsided, the other continued —

“I am not lying. I saw it. The Amakiwa in that house bent to the very ground, and sang great songs in praise of that wonder – fearing it. There were captains among them too, ha! Now I would ask if the fighting Amakiwa feared this isanusi and his múti– they fearing nothing – how then shall we have power against him? It may not be.”

Notwithstanding his peril a ripple of mirth ran through the listener, as he grasped what the speaker was feeling around – and which meant that that unlearned savage had by some means or other obtained a glimpse into the church at Buluwayo what time his travelling companion was exercising his sacerdotal functions, and was now recording his impressions of that experience.

“But Qubani – he too is an isanusi” said another voice. “He can match his power against that of this white one. Is it not so, Qubani, thou wise one?”

And from the tone, the listener gathered that the man addressed was held in great respect. It inspired in him no surprise, only rekindled interest, for he had heard of this Qubani as an isanusi of some renown.

“Meddle not with the white isanusi” was the laconic but decided answer. It was received with a hum of respectful assent, followed by a moment of silence.

“And the other, U’ Lamónti. Shall we not kill him, my father?”

Again the listener’s nerves thrilled as he crept a little more forward to catch the answer. It came.

“He may not be hurt – not now. He is under the protection of the white isanusi.”

This dictum was accepted without question, and, very considerably relieved in his mind, Lamont was preparing to creep away, when a new discussion arose, and the first few words of it were of so momentous and startling a nature, that he decided to remain and hear more – and that at any risk. And such risk became graver and graver with every moment.

Chapter Nine.

What Lamont Heard

In telling Ancram that the Matabele were likely to give trouble in the event of a further extensive destruction of their cattle, Lamont had been indulging in prophecy that was a good deal in nubibus. He had thought such trouble might very likely occur, but not just yet. Now, as he lay there in the darkness, a participator, unknown to them, in the most secret counsels of the plotting savages, he was simply aghast at the magnitude and imminence of the peril which the whole white population of the country either laughed at or ignored.

“Not yet the time for killing,” went on the voice of the one who had first proposed the listener’s own death. “Hau! But something else was said by Umlimo – ah-ah – something else! When Amakiwa are killed then it will rain. So said he. Our cattle are all dead, and our crops are dying. But – it has not yet rained. When Amakiwa are killed the rain will be great. Ah! ah! The rain will be great!”

As though burned in letters of fire within his mind there flashed back upon Lamont the recollection of these words. The sullen, uncordial reception, the reiteration of these words by those who witnessed their arrival – the meaning of all was clear now. This infernal Umlimo, whose quackeries and influence already had caused some stir in the land, had promised them copious rain on condition that the whites were slain.

“But so far there is none,” went on the speaker. “The storm of this night, which should have revived our thirsting cornlands, has passed over us dry. Yet it was such a storm as should have brought with it a flood. Whou! And these two Amakiwa are in our hands. But enough of them. Há! U’ Gandela. The talk is about it.”

“Eh! hé!” assented the listeners. “The talk is about it.”

“When the sun rises to-morrow,” went on the speaker, “it will rise on a great company of fools. All the Amakiwa, for a long journey around, will be hurrying into Gandela, where they are going to race horses, and play games, and drink strong waters. The day after, the sun will rise upon all this, but – it will set on no more Amakiwa – not at Gandela.”

“No more Amakiwa! ’M – ’m!” hummed the audience.

“Yet the other plan might be better,” urged one of these. “To strike them all by twos and threes, all over our country. Thus would they be the quicker dead but with less trouble to us. How is that, Zwabeka?”

“Ours is the better way, Zazwe. You would first strike the tail of the snake, I and others the head. This is the best.”

“Zwabeka? Zazwe?” More than ever now did the listener prick up his ears. So it was Zwabeka himself – Zwabeka who was supposed to be sick – Zwabeka whose guest he was – Zwabeka the most influential chief in the Matyantatu district – who had been advocating the murder of himself and his travelling companion, and now was planning a treacherous and wholesale massacre of all the whites, when they should be gathered together wholly unsuspecting, and probably almost wholly unarmed, at the race meeting and gymkhana which was to be held at Gandela on the day after to-morrow! And Zazwe – an equally important chief located in the adjoining district of Sikumbutana! and from this he began to suspect what was in point of fact correct – that this meeting embraced some half-dozen or more of the most influential chiefs of Matabeleland. Here was a pretty sort of conspiracy he had all unconsciously been the means of getting behind.

Crouching low he listened with all his might and main. His brain seemed bursting. The very hammering of his pulses seemed to impair his sense of hearing. Oh, but it must not – it should not! Then a dog began barking on the farther side of the kraal. Oh, that infernal cur! The lives of hundreds of his unsuspecting countrymen – and women – depended on what he might hear next, and were they to be sacrificed to the yapping of an infernal mongrel cur! But still the brute yelped on.

And now as regarded his own safety this man thought nothing, he whom we have heard referred to as a ‘funkstick,’ as prone to show the white feather, and so forth. Whether the imputations were true or not, lying there now, listening for the continuation of the bloodthirsty and murderous plot, Lamont felt absolutely no shred of a sense of fear – instead, one of savage irritation. That yapping cur which interfered with his sense of hearing – could he but have strangled it with his bare hands! He was no longer Piers Lamont, an individual. He was an instrument, a delicate and subtle, though potent machine, and he felt as though the destined smoothness of his working had been interfered with and thrown out of order.