Nkose! They did speak, indeed, those dogs. They told how the Red Death was no new thing – at least to them – for periodically it was wont to make its appearance among the Bakoni. When it did so, it presaged the succession of a new chief; indeed, just such a manifestation had preluded the accession to the supreme chieftainship of Tauane, whom we had burned amid the ashes of his own town. The Red Death was among the darker mysteries of the Bakoni múti.
Not all at once did this tale come out, Nkose, but bit by bit, and then only when the Great Great One had threatened them with the alligators – even the stake of impalement – if they kept back aught. And I – I listening —Hau! My blood seemed first to freeze, then to boil within me, as I saw through the ending of that tale. The darker mysteries of the Bakoni múti! – preluding the accession of a new king? The countenance of the Great Great One grew black as night.
“It is enough,” he said. “Here among us, at any rate, is one to whom such mysteries are not unknown. The Queen of the Bakoni múti– who shall explain them better than she?”
The words, taken up by the izanusi and bellowed aloud, soon went rolling in chorus among the densely-packed multitude, and from every mouth went up shouts for Lalusini – the Queen of the Bakoni múti. Then, Nkose, the whole plot burst in upon my mind. Our witch doctors had always hated my inkosikazi, because she was greater than they; even as they had always hated me, because I had old Masuka on my side, and was high in the King’s favour, and therefore cared nothing about them, never making them gifts. Now their chance had come, since old Masuka was dead and could befriend me no more, and my favour in the King’s sight was waning. Moreover, they had long suspected that of Lalusini the Great Great One would fain be rid; yet not against her had they dared to venture upon the “smelling out” in the usual way, lest she proved too clever for them; for the chief of the izanusi had a lively recollection of the fate of Notalwa and Isilwana, his predecessors. Wherefore they had carefully and craftily laid their plot, using for the purpose the meanest of the conquered peoples whose very existence we had by that time forgotten.
Now the shouts for Lalusini were deafening, and should have reached my kraal, which, from where I sat, I could just see away against the hillside. But the shouters had not long to shout, for again a way was opened up, and through it there advanced she whom they sought.
No dread or misgiving was on the face of my beautiful wife, as she advanced with a step majestic and stately as became her royal blood. She drew near to the King, then halted, and, with hand upraised, uttered the “Bayéte” for no prostration or humbler mode of address was Umzilikazi wont to exact from her, the daughter of Tshaka the Terrible, by reason of her mighty birth. Thus she stood before the King, her head slightly thrown back, a smile of entire fearlessness shining from her large and lustrous eyes.
“Greeting, Daughter of the Great,” said Umzilikazi, speaking softly. “Hear you what these say?”
“I have heard them, son of Matyobane,” she answered.
“Ha! Yet they spoke low, and thou wert yet afar off,” went on the King craftily.
“What is that to me, Founder of a New Nation? Did I not hear the quiver of the spear-hafts of Mhlangana’s host long before it reached the Place of the Three Rifts?”
“The Place of the Three Rifts,” growled the King. “Hau! It seems to me we have heard overmuch of that tale. Here, however, is a new tale, not an old one. What of the Red Death? Do these dogs lie?” pointing to the grovelling Bakoni.
Lalusini glanced at them for a moment – the deepest scorn and disgust upon her royal features – the disgust felt by a real magician for those who would betray the mysteries of their nation’s magic, and I, gazing, felt I would rather encounter the most deadly frown that ever rested on the face of the King himself than meet such a look upon that of my inkosikazi, if directed against myself.
“They lie, Great Great One,” she answered shortly.
Then the King turned such a deadly look upon the crouching slaves that these cried aloud in their fear. They vociferated that they were telling the truth, and more – that they themselves had witnessed the operations of the Red Death among their own people; that Lalusini herself and her mother, Laliwa, had actually brought about the destruction of Tauane’s predecessor by its means, and that that of Tauane himself had been decreed – that it always meant the accession of a new ruler.
Now I, sitting near Umzilikazi, knew well what was passing in his mind. As he grew older he had become more and more sour and suspicious. Now he was thinking that he himself was destined to die in blood, even as that Great One, Tshaka, had died, that I, his second fighting induna, his favourite war-councillor, should succeed him, and so win back not only the seat of Matyobane, but the throne of Senzangakona for this sorceress – this splendid daughter of Tshaka the Terrible. So, too, would the death of Tshaka be avenged. And in Umzilikazi’s look I could read my own doom, and yet, Nkose, even at that moment not of myself did I think. I had only eyes for the tall, shapely form of my beautiful wife thus put upon her trial before the King and the whole nation. Then Umzilikazi spoke.
“It seems we have spared too many slaves of this race of Abatagati. Take these hence,” pointing to the grovelling Bakoni. “The alligators are hungry.”
There was a roar of delight from all who heard. The slayers flung themselves upon the shrieking slaves, dragging them away by the heels as they rolled upon the ground imploring mercy, for they were too sick with terror to stand upon their legs. Shouts of hate and wrath followed them as they were hurried away to the pool of death. Indeed, such a rain of blows and kicks fell upon them from those through whose midst they were dragged that it seemed doubtful whether most of them would ever reach the alligators alive. For, Nkose, although in dead silence and pitied by all, Hlatusa had gone through these same people to his doom, he was one of ourselves, and a brave fighter; but these were of an inferior and conquered race, and withal miserable cowards, wherefore our people could not restrain their hatred and contempt.
“Hold!” roared the King, before the slayers had quite dragged these dogs outside the kraal, and at his voice again silence fell upon the throng. “Hold! After feeding upon the flesh of a brave man I will not that my alligators be poisoned with such carrion as this. There may yet be more royal meat for them,” he put in, in a lower tone, and with a savage and deadly sneer. Then, raising his voice, “Let these dogs be taken up to yonder hill and burnt.”
A roar of delight broke from all, mingled with shouts of bonga as to the King’s justice and wisdom. And none were more pleased, I thought, than the slayers, men of fierce and savage mind, who, from constantly meting out torture and death, loved their occupation the more the farther they pursued it.
For awhile there was silence. Away upon a round-topped hillock, within sight of all, the slayers were collecting great piles of dry wood, and upon these the condemned slaves were flung, bound. Then amid the fierce roar and crackle of the flames wild tortured shrieks burst from those who writhed there and burned, and to the people the shrieks were the pleasantest of sounds, for the terror of the Red Death had strangely fastened upon all minds, and they could not but hold that these who thus died had in some way brought the curse of it upon them.
Again upon the stillness arose a long roll of thunder – this time loud and near, for the great cloud which had been lying low down upon the further sky was now towering huge and black, almost above the very spot where burned those wretches, and the pointed flash which followed seemed to dart in and out of the smoke which rose from the crackling wood pile. The multitude, watching, began to murmur about an omen.
“Talk we now of this thing of evil,” said Umzilikazi, at last. “Thou, Lalusini, art a pestilent witch. For long hast thou been among us.
