volume of information. They were, in fact, to him an open index of the new comer’s mind. While distant they indicated a mind made up, yet not altogether removed from, the verge of wavering; the possession of a purpose, yet not altogether a whole-heartedness in its carrying out. Nearer they revealed the vulgar trepidation attendant upon the mere fact of approaching a place so sinister and redoubtable as the múti den of a renowned sorcerer, and that in the dim hours of night.
For the brief twilight had long since passed, and now a golden moon, in its third quarter, hung lamplike in the sky, and, save in the shadows, its soft brilliance revealed every detail almost as clear as in the day. It fell on the form of a tall, powerfully built savage, standing there in the gateway, naked save for the mútya, unarmed save for a short, heavy knobstick. This he laid down as he drew near the wizard.
“Greeting, my father,” he uttered.
“Greeting, Nanzicele,” replied the sorcerer, without looking up.
Divested of his civilised and official trappings, the ex-sergeant of police looked what he was – a barbarian pure and simple, no whit less of a one, in fact, than those over whom he was vested with a little brief authority. Whether this visit was made in the interests of loyalty to his superiors or not may hereinafter appear.
“Hast thou brought what I desired of thee, Nanzicele?” said the wizard, coming direct to the point.
Nanzicele, who had squatted himself on the ground opposite the other, now fumbled in a skin bag which was hung around him, and produced a packet. It was small, but solid and heavy.
“What is this?” said Shiminya, counting out ten Martini-Henry cartridges. “Ten? Only ten! Au! When I promised thee vengeance it was not for such poor reward as this.”
“They are not easily obtained, my father. The men from whom I got these will be punished to-morrow for not having them; but I care not. Be content with a few, for few are better than none. And – this vengeance?”
“Thou knowest Pukele – the servant of Jonemi?”
“The son of Mambane?”
“The son of Mambane, who helped hoot thee out of his kraal when thou wouldst not offer enough lobola for Nompiza. He is to die.”
Nanzicele leaped with delight. “When? How?” he cried. “Now will my eyes have a feast indeed.”
“At thy hand. The manner and the time are of thine own choosing. To thee has Umlimo left it.”
Nanzicele’s glee was dashed. His jaw fell.
“Au! I have no wish to dance in the air at the end of a long rope,” he growled; “and such would assuredly be my fate if I slew Pukele, even as it was that of Fondosa, the son of Mbai, who was an innyanga even as thyself, my father. Whau! I saw it with these eyes. All Fondosa’s múti did not save him there, my father, and the whites hanged him dead the same as any rotten Maholi.”
“Didst thou glance over one shoulder on the way hither, Nanzicele? Didst thou see Lupiswana following thee, yea, even running at thy side? I traced thy course from here. I saw thee from the time of leaving Jonemi’s. He was waiting for thee was Lupiswana. It is not good for a man when such is the case,” said Shiminya, whose esprit de corps resented the sneering, contemptuous tone which the other had used in speaking of a member of his “cloth.”
For the event referred to was the execution of a Mashuna witch-doctor for the murder of a whole family, whose death he had ordered.
The snake-like stare of Shiminya, the appeal to his superstitions, the sinister associations of the place he was in, a stealthy, mysterious sound even then becoming audible – all told, Nanzicele looked somewhat cowed, remembering, too, how his return journey had to be effected alone and by night.
Having, in vulgar and civilised parlance, taken down his man a peg or two, Shiminya could afford to let the matter of Pukele stand over. Now he said softly —
“And the other ten cartridges, those in thy bag, Nanzicele? Give them to me, for I have a better revenge, here, ready at thy hand, and a safer one.”
“Au! They were to have been thine, my father; I was but keeping them to the last,” replied the ex-police sergeant, shamefacedly and utterly mendaciously, as he placed the packet in the wizard’s outstretched hand. “And now, what is this vengeance?”
Shiminya rose, and, beckoning the other to follow, opened and crept through the door of the hut behind him. A hollow groan rose from the inside. Nanzicele, halfway in, made an instinctive move to draw back. Then he recovered himself. “It is not a good omen to draw back when half through a doorway,” said Shiminya, as they both stood upright in the darkness. “Yet – look.”
He had struck a match, and lighted a piece of candle. Nanzicele looked down, and a start of surprise leapt through his frame.
“Whau!” he cried. “It is Nompiza!”
“And – thy vengeance,” murmured the wizard at his side.
But the sufferer heard it, and began to wail aloud —
“Thy promise, Great Innyanga! Thy promise. Give me not over to this man, for I fear him. Thou didst swear I should be allowed to depart hence; on the head of Umzilikazi thou didst swear it. Thy promise, O Great Innyanga!”
“It shall be kept, sister,” said Shiminya, softly, his eyes fairly scintillating with devilish glee. “I swore to thee that thou shouldst be taken hence, and thou shalt, for this man and I will take thee.”
The wretched creature broke into fresh outcries, which were partly drowned, for already they were dragging her, still lashed to the pole, outside.
“Ha, Nompiza!” jeered Nanzicele, bending down and peering into her face as she lay in the moonlight. “Dost remember how I was driven from thy father’s kraal with jeers? Ha! Whose jeers were the loudest? Whose mockeries the most biting? Thine. And now Kulúla will have to buy another wife. Thou hadst better have been the wife of Nanzicele than of death. Of death, is it not, my father?” turning to Shiminya, who glared a mirthless smile.
Wrought up to a pitch of frenzy by the recollection of the insults he had then received, the vindictive savage continued to taunt and terrify the wretched creature as she lay. Then he went over to pick up his great knobstick.
“Not thus, blunderer; not thus,” said Shiminya, arresting his arm. “See now. Take that end of the pole while I take the other. Go thou first.”
Lifting the pole with its helpless human burden, these bloodthirsty miscreants passed out of the kraal. Down the narrow way they hurried, for Shiminya though small was surprisingly wiry, and the powerful frame of the other felt it not, although their burden was no light one. Down through a steep winding path, and soon the thorns thinned out, giving way to forest trees.
“Well, sister, I predicted that Lupiswana would come for thee to-night,” said Shiminya, as they set their burden down to rest themselves. “And – there he is already.”
A stealthy shape, which had been following close upon their steps, glided into view for a moment and disappeared. The wretched victim saw it too, and uttered such a wild ringing shriek of despair that Nanzicele fairly shuddered.
“Au! I like not this,” he growled. “It is a deed of tagati.”
“Yet
