John Ames, Native Commissioner: A Romance of the Matabele Rising

But the other shook his head with a dissentient grunt.

“One blow of that heavy stick in thy belt, and that head will fly to pieces like a pumpkin rolling down a hill. Or why not cut that white throat and see the red blood flow? Au! The red blood, flowing over a white skin – a skin as white as milk – and the red of the blood – ah – ah! It will be acceptable to Umlimo, that blood. See, Nanzicele, thou hast a knife that is sharp. The red blood will flow as it did from the throat of the wife of thy captain in the hut but two nights ago.”

Again the tall barbarian grunted dissent.

“I like not this killing of women, Umtwana ’Mlimo,” he answered. “This woman has never harmed me. I will not kill her.”

“What about Nompiza?” said the small demon, with his head on one side. “Au! thou didst laugh when she splashed into the water-hole in the moonlight.”

“She did harm me, in that she scorned and mocked me. Yet, I liked not that deed either, Shiminya.”

“Yonder dogs, shall we call them and set them on to devour this white witch?” went on the sorcerer. “They are hungry, and she is defenceless. We shall laugh at her face of terror when they attack her on all sides, and then, when they rend her limb from limb – they shall eat white meat for once. Au! It will be a sacrifice pleasing to Umlimo.”

“I never heard of a sacrifice pleasing to Umlimo, or any other Great Great One, that was offered through a dog’s maw, Shiminya,” cried the other, with a great jeer; for too much association had somewhat sapped Nanzicele’s respect for the redoubted magician. The latter, conscious of having made a slip, went on.

“Nompiza scorned thee when thou wouldst take her to wife, Nanzicele. Thou art large and strong, but thou hast no cattle, son of Fondosi, therefore thou hast no wives. Here is one who comes straight to thee. She is white, it is true, yet take her.”

Of all these atrocious suggestions Nidia, standing there, was of course blissfully ignorant. The sun was declining, and she was inwardly growing somewhat impatient. Would they never have finished their indaba? Was it, perhaps, her look of absolute unconsciousness, her very helplessness, that appealed to some spark of manliness within the heart of that rough savage, as he replied?

“No, no. I want not such. They are tagati, these white women. The Amakiwa are the wisest people in the world, yet they treat such women as these as though they were gods. I have seen it – yes, I, myself. Look, too, at this woman. She is not afraid. There is a power behind her, and I will not offer her violence.”

Then the abominable wizard deemed it time to throw his trump card.

“Where is she going? To Sikumbutana,” he said, lapsing into a professional oracularism. “To whom is she going? To Jonémi. Nanzicele was a chief in the Amapolise, but he is not now. Why not? Ask Jonémi. This woman knows Jonémi – belongs to him, it may be; perhaps his sister – perhaps his wife. Jonémi was in our power, but he escaped from us. This woman is in our power; shall we let her go?”

This recapitulation of his wrongs and appeal to his vengeful feelings was not entirely without effect upon Nanzicele. He hated John Ames, whom he regarded, and rightly, as the main instrument of his own degradation. He had only spared him, in the massacre of Inglefield’s hut, for a worse fate, intending to convey him to Shiminya’s múti kraal, and put him to death in the most atrocious form that the fiendish brain of the wizard could devise. Then they had all become drunk, and John Ames had escaped, and for all the trace he had left behind him might just as well have disappeared into empty air. And now, here, ready to his hand, was a scheme of vengeance upon the man he hated. Turning his head, he looked intently at Nidia. But the aspect of her, standing there calm and fearless – fearless because entirely ignorant of what had happened at Sikumbutana, and still regarding this man, rough as he had shown himself, as her protector by reason of his Police uniform – appealed to the superstitious nature of the savage. He felt that it was even as he had said. There was a power behind her.

“I will not harm her, Shiminya,” he growled. “Au! I am sick of all this killing of women. It will bring ill chance upon us. They ought to have been shown a broad road out of the country.”

“To show a broader road to more whites to come into it by? Thy words are not words of sense, Nanzicele. Have it as thou wilt, however,” said the crafty wizard, who knew when to humour the savage and stubborn temperament of his confederate. “We will take care of her this night – ah – ah! in the only safe and secure place” – with a sinister chuckle.

“Be it so. I will not have her harmed, Shiminya,” declared the other. “It may be we shall yet obtain large reward for delivering her back to her own people in safety.”

“Will the reward be of lead or of raw-hide?” said the sorcerer, pleasantly. “And who will give it when there are no more whites in the land?”

“No more whites in the land? That will be never,” returned Nanzicele, with a great laugh. “That is a good tale for the people, Umtwana ’Mlimo. But for thee and for me —au! we know. When Makiwa sets his foot in any land, that foot is never taken up. It never has been, and never will be.”

Yes, decidedly in this case familiarity had bred contempt. The ex-police sergeant had “got behind” the mysterious cult, through his close association with one of its most influential exponents. Shiminya, for his part, was aware of this, and viewed the situation with some concern. Now he only said —

“Talk not so loudly, my son, lest ears grow on yonder bushes as well as thorns. Now we will go home.”

A look of relief came into Nidia’s face as she knew, by the rising of the two, that their conference was at an end. Then Nanzicele said —

“You go with we.”

“Can we get there to-night?” she asked eagerly.

“We try. Where you from?”

Then she told him, and about the murder of the Hollingworths; and her voice shook and her eyes filled. To her listener it was all a huge joke. He knew she was tinder the impression that she was talking to a loyal policeman. Then she began asking questions about John Ames. Was he at home? and so forth. But Nanzicele suddenly became afflicted by a strange density, an almost total ignorance of English.

For upwards of an hour they journeyed on, leaving the cultivated lands, and striking into wilder country. Once a great snake rose in their path, and went gliding away, hissing in wrath, and bright-plumaged birds darted overhead. Vast thickets of “wacht-een-bietje” thorns lined the river-bank, and these they skirted.

Nidia was becoming exhausted. So far excitement and nervous tension had kept her up. Now she felt she could hold out no longer. Just then they halted.

In front was the vast thicket. Shiminya, bending down, crawled into what was nothing more nor less than a tunnel piercing the dense thorns and just wide enough to admit the body of a man. There was something sinister in its very aspect. Nidia drew back.

“Go after him. Go after that man,” ordered Nanzicele, roughly.

“No. I don’t like it. I can’t get through there,” she answered. “This can’t be the way to Sikumbutana.”

Nanzicele snatched out the short-handled heavy knob kerrie stuck through his belt.

“Go after that man,” he roared, flourishing it over her head.

The aspect of the great savage was so terrific, the sudden change so startling, that Nidia put her hands over her eyes and shrank back with a faint cry, expecting every moment to feel the hard wood crash down upon her head. Trembling now in every limb, she obeyed without hesitation the command so startlingly emphasised, and crawled as best she could in the wake of Shiminya, Nanzicele bringing up the rear.

The tunnel did not last long, and soon they were able to proceed upright, but still between high walls of the same impenetrable thorn. Lateral passages branched out on either side in such labyrinthine tortuosity of confusion that Nidia’s first thought was how it would be possible for any one to find his way through here a second time.

Soon a low whining sound was heard in front; then the thorns seemed to meet in an arch overhead. Passing beneath this, the trio stood in a circular open space, at the upper end of which were three huts, “What place is this?” exclaimed Nidia, striving not to allow her alarm to show in her voice, for in her heart was a terrible sinking. There was that about this retreat which suggested the den of a wild beast rather than an abode of human beings, even though barbarians. How helpless, how completely at the mercy of these two she felt.

“You stay here,” replied Nanzicele. “Sikumbutana too far. Go there to-morrow. Plenty Matabele about make trouble. You stay here.”

There was plausibility about the explanation which went far to satisfy her. The situation was a nervous one for a solitary unprotected woman; but she had been through so much within the last twenty-four hours that her sensibilities were becoming blunted. They offered her some boiled corn, but she was too tired to eat. She asked for water, and they brought her some, greasy, uninviting, in a clay bowl, but her thirst was intense.

“You go in there – go to sleep,” said Nanzicele, opening one of the huts.

“But I would rather sleep outside.”

“You go in there,” he repeated, more threateningly. And Nidia, recollecting the knobstick argument, obeyed.

The hut was stuffy and close; suggestive, too, of creeping things both small and great; but, fortunately, she was too completely exhausted to allow room for nervous fears, and sleep overwhelmed her. Sleep! The ghosts of former victims done to death amid every circumstance of horror within that den arose not to appal her. She slept on in blissful ignorance; slept – within the scarce-known retreat of one of the most atrocious monsters of cruelty that ever flourished amid even a barbarous race – slept – within the web of the crafty blood-sucking human spider.

Nanzicele departed, and the sorcerer, having secured the entrances to his den with thick thorn branches, sat crouching over a small red fire, his plotting brain ever at work. He was in high good humour, for here was a new victim for him to practise some of his favourite barbarities upon. In this case they must be refined forms of barbarity, such as would torture the mind rather more acutely than the red-hot iron would the body, and a better subject for such he thought he had never seen. So he squatted there, and gleefully chuckled. Beside him crouched the wolf. “Ah, ah, Lupiswana!” he exclaimed, addressing his familiar spirit. “It may be that thou shalt sink thy fangs into white flesh – dainty delicate flesh, Lupiswana. White blood, too – white red blood – richer, more rare than that of Nompiza, and such. It is sleeping now. Come, Lupiswana; we will go forth and see.”

Taking one of the red faggots from the fire, he blew it into flame; then, rising, he went to the door of the hut wherein Nidia was asleep. Softly undoing the fastenings, he entered. The light flickered fitfully on the horrible trophies disposed around. The evil beast at his side was emitting a low, throaty growl; but neither that nor the proximity of this demon availed to awaken the sleeping girl. Calm, peaceful, she slumbered on amid her hideous surroundings. The wizard went forth again, “Ah, ah, Lupiswana! She knows not what is before her. To-morrow I think thou must have one taste of this white flesh – perhaps two.”

And the four-footed demon growled in response to the biped one.

Chapter Seventeen.

Of Peril and Fear

Nidia’s sleep had been dreamless and profound, wherefore when she awoke the next morning she felt rested and refreshed. A shudder of repulsion ran: through her as her gaze made out the hideous adornments of her grisly sleeping apartment – the skulls and bones and stuffed snake-skins – but she felt no real fear. Even the human mask, looking sufficiently horrible in the semi-darkness of the hut, failed to inspire her with the wild panic terror which the wizard had confidently reckoned upon. Waking up amid such gruesome surroundings would, he calculated, produce such a shock upon her nerves as to render her frantic with terror, and this was one of the little refinements of cruelty he had promised himself. But she had gone through too much real peril, had looked on horrors too material to be scared by such mere bogeydom as a few skulls and bones.

She lay for a little while longer thinking out the position. Though naturally not a little anxious and a trifle uneasy, she was far from realising the desperate nature of her position, and that the very man she trusted in as protector and guide was an arch-rebel who had instigated and participated in more than one treacherous and wholesale murder. She supposed they had brought her here for the reason this man had given – for better security – and that to-day he would guide her safely to Sikumbutana.

To this end she rose. A snuffling noise outside the door of the hut attracted her attention, then a low growl. Some kraal cur, was all the thought she gave it. She opened the door and went outside. The sun was well up, and the birds were twittering in the thorn thicket, but of those who had brought her there she saw no sign. The ashes of the fire over which Shiminya had squatted lay white and dead, but of himself and the other there was no sign. But the animal she had heard was lying across the entrance of the kraal. She surveyed it with some curiosity. If this was a dog she had never seen one like it before. It was more like the pictures she had seen of a hyaena.

She went back into the hut to put on her straw hat, for the sun was hot. The fact of having the hat with her reminded her of the signal escape she herself had had from the massacre which had overwhelmed the Hollingworths. But that she had felt moved to take a stroll that afternoon she would have shared their fate. Then she upbraided herself. Was it not selfish to feel any sort of satisfaction under such circumstances? Ah, but – life was life, and death was ghastly and terrible – and she was alive.

As she came forth again the brute lying across the entrance opened its yellow eyes and snarled. She called to it in a soothing tone, which caused it to snarl louder. The sun waxed hotter and hotter, yet somehow she preferred the shadeless glare to the dour interior of the hut. What had become of the two natives? She felt instinctively that they were not in the other huts, therefore they must be absent. But on what errand? She began to feel more and more uneasy.

The sun mounted higher and higher, and still no sign of their return. Were they, after all, treacherous? Yet why had they not murdered her at first? They could so easily have done so. But perhaps they had gone to fetch some more of their countrymen to enjoy the spectacle of seeing her put to death.

With such fears did poor Nidia torment herself. Then suddenly she became alive to the fact that a little more of this sort of speculation would utterly unnerve her. So she resolved by an effort of will to put such imaginings far from her, and as an initiative in that direction she would try to find something to eat, for she was growing hungry.

Rising, she went to one of the huts. The recumbent beast snarled so threateningly that she half turned. Would it fly at her? She looked around for a stick or a stone. There was nothing of the sort in sight. Still looking over her shoulder she undid the fastenings of the door. The brute lay snarling, but made no move to attack her.

The interior of the hut was close and frowsy, but looked as if it were used more as a store-room than for purposes of habitation, for it was piled up with all manner of odds and ends – blankets, rolls of “limbo,” looking-glasses, boots, hats, shirts, and articles of native clothing and adornment, all jostled up together – even a camp wash-basin and jug. The latter looked inviting. If only she could find some water. Ah, here was some! A large calabash when shaken gave forth a gurgling sound, and in a moment Nidia was plunging her face into a most refreshing basinful.

Further investigation revealed some cold boiled mealies. They were insipid and uninviting fare, and the bowl containing them was not over clean; still, they were something to eat, and poor Nidia was becoming very hungry. So she devoured them before pursuing her investigations further.

Ha! what was this? Meat it seemed like, and it was wrapped in a damp rag. Well, a steak done over the coals would not come in badly just then, she thought, reflecting how fortunate it was she had once taken lessons in a cookery school. She even smiled to herself as she pictured her dusky entertainers returning to find her in the middle of the breakfast, which certainly they had been at no pains to provide.

She undid the damp cloth. Yes; it was meat, uncooked meat – and then – She dashed the whole to the ground, and stood, with distended eyeballs, gazing at what lay there, the very personification of staring horror.

For there lay upon the ground two human hands – arms, rather – for they were attached to the forearm, which had been disjointed at the elbow. They were clearly those of a native, albeit turned almost white, as though from the action of water. This was what the damp rag had contained, these two sodden maimed limbs of a human being.

But with the discovery an idea suddenly struck root in Nidia’s mind which seemed to turn her to stone, so appalling was it in its likelihood. Were these people cannibals – secret cannibals, perhaps? The smaller of the two men had, at any rate, a totally different look to any other native she had ever seen. This, then, was why she had been brought here, was being kept here. This, too, accounted for the absence of her custodians. They had gone to fetch others to share in their feast – that feast herself.

Utterly beside herself now with the horror of this dreadful thought, she dashed from the hut – one idea in her mind – to get away from this awful place at whatever cost. But there was another who entertained different ideas concerning the disposal of her movements, and that was the wolf.

For as she approached the gap in the circular fence which constituted the exit, the brute lay and snarled. She talked soothingly, then scoldingly, as to a dog. All to no purpose. It lifted its hideous head, and snarled louder and more threateningly. But it would not budge an inch, and she could only pass through that gap over its body.

Perfectly frantic with desperation, Nidia tore a thorn bough from the fence; and, advanced upon the beast. It crouched, snarling shrilly; then, as she thrust the spiky end sharply against its face, it sprang at her open-mouthed, uttering a fiendish yell. But for the bough she would have had her throat torn out; as it was the sharp spines served as a shield between her and the infuriated brute, which, with ears thrown back and fangs bared, squirmed hither and thither to get round this thorny buckler – its eyes flashing flame, its jaws spitting foam. The struggle could not last for ever. Her strength was fast leaving her, and in her extremity a wild shriek of the most awful terror and despair pealed forth from the lips of the unhappy girl. Then another and another.

What was this? Unheard by the combatants because drowned by the savage yells and snarls of the one and the terrified screams of the other, there was a tearing, crashing sound at the upper end of the enclosure. A man dashed through the thorny fence – a white man – hatless and with clothes well-nigh in tatters – pale as death, his right hand grasping a sword-bayonet. Without a moment’s hesitation he made straight at the infuriated beast, darting such a stab with his weapon that had it gone home the wizard’s “familiar spirit” would have needed a successor. The quick movements of the animal, however, turned the blade aside – result a deep ugly gash along the ribs. But seeing it had no longer to deal with a badly frightened woman, but a strong, determined man, the skulking nature of the beast came uppermost even in the midst of its fury. With a shrill yelp of pain and fear, it fell off, and, turning, fled through the entrance like a streak of lightning.

The girl dropped the thorny bough and faced her rescuer, with a burst of half hysterical laughter. One exclamation escaped her —

“John Ames!”

Wonder, delight, relief – all entered into the tone. In the extremity of her fear and exhaustion conventionality was lost sight of – formality forgotten. The name by which she had been accustomed to designate him alone with her friend, to think of him alone with herself would out. Not another, word, though, could she utter. She stood there breathless, panting, a mist before her eyes, after the violence of her exertions, the extremity of her fear.

“Don’t try and talk,” he said – “simply rest.”

She looked at him – still panting violently – shook her head, and smiled. She was physically incapable of speaking after her exertion. But even then a contrast rose vividly before her – this man now, and when she had last seen him. They had bidden him good-bye, she and her relative, in the front door of the hotel at Wynberg, cordially – and conventionally – mutually expressing the wish to meet again soon up-country. Now, here he stood, having dropped, as it were, from the clouds, to come to her aid in her moment of sore need. And his appearance – haggard, unshaven, hatless, his clothes in tatters; yet it seemed to her sufficient at this moment that he was here at all. For some little while they sat in silence. Then he said —

“If you are sufficiently rested, tell me how it is you are here – in this place.”

“Oh yes; I can talk now. But – oh, what would I have done with that horrible fiend of an animal but for you? I should have been torn to pieces.”

“Strange, too, how it got here. I know the sort of beast. It in a kind of mongrel hyaena – Lupiswana, the natives call it. Ah! Now I begin to see.”

This as if a sudden idea had struck him. But again he repeated his request that she should tell him her experiences. And this she did – from the murder of the Hollingworths right on.

“And so you were coming to me for refuge?” he said, for she had made no secret of that part of it either. “It was well indeed you did not, for I only escaped through the fidelity of my own servant. I will tell you all about it another time. I must take care of you until we fall in with a patrol. We shall have to keep closely in hiding, you know. I am only a fugitive like yourself. The whole country is up in arms, but it is only a question of time and – ”

A bullet hummed over the speaker’s head, very near, simultaneously with the crash of a firearm, discharged from the entrance of the enclosure, where a small lean native stood already inserting another cartridge in the breach of his smoking rifle. But John Ames was upon him with a tiger spring, just in time to strike up the barrel and send the bullet humming into space.

“No, no! You don’t go like that,” he said in Sindabele, gripping the other’s wrists. The savage, small and thin, was no match for the tall muscular white man; yet even he was less puny than he appeared and was striving for an opportunity to slide, eel-like, from that grasp, and make good his escape. “Gahle, gahle! or I will break your wrists.”

Then the native gave in, whining that Jonémi was his father, and he shot at him in mistake, seeing him in his kraal. He had retired there in peace, in order to keep out of all the trouble that was being made.

“Yes; thou knowest me, and I know thee, Shiminya,” was the answer. “In the mean time I will take thy rifle – which belongs to the Government – and cartridges. That’s it. Now, go and sit over there, and if thou movest I will shoot thee dead, for I can shoot better than thou.”

The discomfited sorcerer, now the odds were against him, did as he was told, turning the while to Nidia and adjuring her to speak for him. His was the kraal that had taken her in. He had housed and fed her. This very day he had intended to take her to Sikumbutana. He had gone forth to see that the way was clear so that he might do so in safety, and, returning, had found Jonémi, whom, mistaking for some plunderer, he had fired at.

Nidia, of course, understood not a word of this, but John Ames had let the rascal’s tongue run on. He more than suspected Shiminya to be an instigator of the murder of the Inglefields, and was sure that he was aware of it. For the rest, it certainly seemed as he had said. Nidia’s own tale was in keeping. They had been somewhat rough in their manner to her, but had given her food and shelter, and had done her no serious harm. As for her ghastly find within the hut, John Ames had speedily quieted her fears on that head. This Shiminya was a wizard of note, and portions of the human anatomy were occasionally used by such in their disgusting and superstitious rites.