what action should be taken. Hear, then, my words, and let the chief say if they be not words of wisdom.
“I am, as you all know, not a fighting man; my wars are with the secret evil-doer, so I cannot give an opinion as to your decision to refrain from ‘eating up’ the Bomvana chief. But this thought comes to me: we have all heard the words of the war-doctor. Now, if those words be true, what is the ground for your hesitation? Did he not say that after the warriors had been sprinkled with the boiling root-broth, and had sprung through the magic smoke, they would become so terrible that a hundred of the enemy would flee from one of them? But let that pass. The chief has decided in his sagacity—or, perhaps, owing to your advice—which his father, the great Hintza, urged him to follow in important matters, that he will not make the python an occasion of war at the present time.
“It is not for me, a servant, to question the decisions of my chief, or to ask how it is, in view of the promises of the war-doctor, that you hesitate from advising that the warriors be at once led to victory. But it is my duty to reveal what was told to me in a vision. Know, then, that ‘Munyu,’ which was slain by Folodi, the European, was a messenger sent by the ‘Imishologu’ (Ancestral spirits) to convey tokens of their favour to Kreli, and that if the qualities of the serpent be wholly lost to our chief, the ‘Imishologu’ will turn their faces from us in the hour of danger.
“As to this”—here he produced the bushbuck horn sent by the Bomvana chief, and scornfully scattered its contents upon the ground, after which he hurled the horn away over the heads of his hearers.
“What, then, must be done?” he continued. “Why, this: If the chief cannot obtain the skull and gall of ‘Munyu,’ there is nothing to prevent him getting the skull and gall of ‘Munyu’s’ slayer. The European has vanquished the snake, therefore is he greater than the snake. Bring unto me this man’s head and gall, and I will prepare a draught for Kreli which will make him so wise and subtle that you will all be as children before him, and so fierce that the warriors of Umtirara will flee from before his face.”
The witch-doctor resumed his seat amid guttural murmurs of approval, and the councillors, glad to have such an easy way indicated out of a thorny situation, adopted his proposal on the spot. Nothing now remained to be done but to organise a killing party and despatch it to the residence of the unsuspecting trader.
The witch-doctor pronounced the current state of the moon to be propitious, so messengers were at once sent to warn a sufficient number of men from the surrounding kraals for immediate duty.
It is usually and mistakenly considered that Kaffirs are absolutely deficient in gratitude. If such were the case John Flood would have come to a sudden end, most probably, since his skull was required intact, by strangling with a thong. But there happened to be present at the council a man whom the trader had once successfully treated for a serious illness after the native doctors had pronounced his case to be hopeless. In the middle of the night Flood was awakened by a tap at the door of his sleeping hut. Without opening the door he asked who it was that wanted him.
“It is I, Fanti. Open the door.”
Flood at once admitted the man, who, immediately upon entering, blew out the candle which the trader held in his hand.
“Folodi,” he said, in an agitated whisper, “put the saddle on your best horse, and get to the other side of the Kei River as soon as you can.”
“Why—what have I done?” queried the astonished trader.
“It is the matter of the python which you killed, and of which the Bomvana chief drank the gall. Kreli is going to war, and he means to have your skull and to drink your gall out of it on the day the army is doctored. You are now a very great man because you slew ‘Munyu,’ and the chief wants your greatness for himself.”
“But Kreli is my friend,” said Flood, with a considerable tremor in his voice, “and I am not one of his own men to kill at his pleasure. I never heard of such a thing in my life—I—I—”
“Folodi,” interrupted Fanti in a tone which carried conviction, “the men are now on the way to kill you, led by the witch-doctor. Go or stay as you please, but I have told you the truth, and I can wait no longer to risk having my neck twisted.”
As he spoke the last words Fanti glided out of the hut, and vanished like a ghost. John Flood knew the customs of the natives better, I fear, than he knew his prayers, so he stood not upon the order of his going. He pulled down the bars of the kraal entrance so as to let the cattle go free. After this he hurriedly put on his best suit of clothes, and took down his trusty double-barrelled gun and its appurtenances from where they hung to the wattled roof. Then he saddled his best pony.
He took a last look at the goods upon his shelves. The stock had recently been added to; it was very hard to have to abandon it.
He did not awaken Nolai, who slept in the kitchen. He knew that her father would take her home, and that the law of the land required that she should be comfortably maintained until she again married, out of the dowry cattle. He was glad there were no children to complicate matters.
After he had mounted his pony, John Flood sat for a moment and gazed with emotion upon the spot where he had spent several contented years. Just as he was about to start he bethought himself of the python’s skin. He had carefully dried it, and it lay in a coil upon one of the shelves in the shop. That, at all events, he determined they should not have, so he dismounted, re-entered the hut, and fetched the trophy, which he tied with a thong to the side of his saddle. Then he turned and rode sadly, though swiftly, away.
Flood knew every inch of the country, so he had no difficulty in reaching the Colonial boundary. His first halt was made at a forest which he reached shortly before daybreak, and in which he mournfully spent the long summer’s day. The only thing which consoled him in his tribulations was the thought that he had managed to remove the skin of the python out of the reach of Kreli and the witch-doctors.
In spite of the fact that he kept this skin till the day of his death, which happened at a ripe old age, John Flood, ever after his flight, disliked pythons probably as much as the monkey whose life he was unfortunate enough to be instrumental in saving.
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