CHAPTER XIV
THE PLAY
The doomed three were driven by their murderers into the centre of the
depression, within a few yards of which Hans and I were standing.
After them came the head executioner, a great brute who wore a curiously
shaped leopard-skin cap--I suppose as a badge of office--and held in his
hand a heavy kerry, the shaft of which was scored with many notches,
each of them representing a human life.
"See, White Man," he shouted, "here is the bait which the king sends to
draw the holy birds to you. Had it not been that you needed such bait,
perhaps these wizards would have escaped. But the Black One said the
little Son of George, who is named Macumazahn, needs them that he may
show his magic, and therefore they must die to-day."
Now, at this information I turned positively sick. Nor did it make me
feel better when the youngest of the victims, hearing the executioner's
words, flung himself upon his knees, and began to implore me to spare
him. His grandfather also addressed me, saying:
"Chief, will it not be enough if I die? I am old, and my life does not
matter. Or if one is not sufficient, take me and my son, and let the
lad, my grandson, go free. We are all of us innocent of any witchcraft,
and he is not even old enough to practise such things, being but an
unmarried boy. Chief, you, also, are young. Would not your heart be
heavy if you had to be slain when the sun of your life was still new in
the sky? Think, White Chief, what your father would feel, if you have
one, should he be forced to see you killed before his eyes, that some
stranger might use your body to show his skill with a magic weapon by
slaying the wild things that would eat it."
Now, almost with tears, I broke in, explaining to the venerable man as
well as I could that their horrible fate had nothing to do with me. I
told him that I was innocent of their blood, who was forced to be there
to try to shoot vultures on the wing in order to save my white
companions from a doom similar to their own. He listened attentively,
asking a question now and again, and when he had mastered my meaning,
said with a most dignified calmness:
"Now I understand, White Man, and am glad to learn that you are not
cruel, as I thought. My children," he added, turning to the others,
"let us trouble this Inkoos no more. He only does what he must do to
save the lives of his brethren by his skill, if he can. If we continue
to plead with him and stir his heart to pity, the sorrow swelling in it
may cause his hand to shake, and then they will die also, and their
blood be on his head and ours. My children, it is the king's will that
we should be slain. Let us make ready to obey the king, as men of our
House have always done. White lord, we thank you for your good words.
May you live long, and may good fortune sleep in your hut to the end.
May you shoot straight, also, with your magic tool, and thereby win the
lives of your company out of the hand of the king. Farewell, Inkoos,"
and since he could not lift his bound hands in salutation, he bowed to
me, as did the others.
Then they walked to a little distance, and, seating themselves on the
ground, began to talk together, and after a while to drone some strange
chant in unison. The executioners and the guards also sat down not far
away, laughing, chatting, and passing a horn of snuff from hand to hand.
Indeed, I observed that the captain of them even took some snuff to the
victims, and held it in his palm beneath their noses while they drew it
up their nostrils and politely thanked him between the sneezes.
As for myself, I lit a pipe and smoked it, for I seemed to require a
stimulant, or, rather, a sedative. Before it was finished Hans, who was
engaged in doctoring his scratches made by the vultures' beaks with a
concoction of leaves which he had been chewing, exclaimed suddenly in
his matter-of-fact voice:
"See, baas, here they come, the white people on one side and the black
on the other, just like the goats and the sheep at Judgment Day in the
Book."
I looked, and there to my right appeared the party of Boers, headed by
the Vrouw Prinsloo, who held the remnants of an old umbrella over her
head. To the left advanced a number of Zulu nobles and councillors, in
front of whom waddled Dingaan arrayed in his bead dancing dress. He was
supported by two stalwart body-servants, whilst a third held a shield
over his head to protect him from the sun, and a fourth carried a large
stool, upon which he was to sit. Behind each party, also, I perceived a
number of Zulus in their war-dress, all of them armed with broad
stabbing spears.
The two parties arrived at the stone upon which I was sitting almost
simultaneously, as probably it had been arranged that they should do,
and halted, staring at each other. As for me, I sat still upon my stone
and smoked on.
"Allemachte! Allan," puffed the Vrouw Prinsloo, who was breathless with
her walk up the hill, "so here you are! As you did not come back, I
thought you had run away and left us, like that stinkcat Pereira."
"Yes, Tante (aunt), here I am," I answered gloomily, "and I wish to
heaven that I was somewhere else."
Just then Dingaan, having settled his great bulk upon the stool and
recovered his breath, called to the lad Halstead, who was with him, and
said:
"O Tho-maas, ask your brother, Macumazahn, if he is ready to try to
shoot the vultures. If not, as I wish to be fair, I will give him a
little more time to make his magic medicine."
I replied sulkily that I was as ready as I was ever likely to be.
Then the Vrouw Prinsloo, understanding that the king of the Zulus was
before her, advanced upon him, waving her umbrella. Catching hold of
Halstead, who understood Dutch, she forced him to translate an harangue,
which she addressed to Dingaan.
Had he rendered it exactly as it came from her lips, we should all have
been dead in five minutes, but, luckily, that unfortunate young man had
learnt some of the guile of the serpent during his sojourn among the
Zulus, and varied her vigorous phrases. The gist of her discourse was
that he, Dingaan, was a black-hearted and bloody-minded villain, with
whom the Almighty would come even sooner or later (as, indeed, He did),
and that if he dared to touch one hair of her or of her companions'
heads, the Boers, her countrymen, would prove themselves to be the
ministers of the Almighty in that matter (as, indeed, they did). As
translated by Halstead into Zulu, what she said was that Dingaan was the
greatest king in the whole world; in fact, that there was not, and never
had been, any such a king either in power, wisdom, or personal beauty,
and that if she and her companions had to die, the sight of his glory
consoled them for their deaths.
"Indeed," said Dingaan suspiciously, "if that is what this man-woman
says, her eyes tell one story and her lips another. Oh! Tho-maas, lie
no more. Speak the true words of the white chieftainess, lest I should
find them out otherwise, and give you to the slayers."
Thus adjured, Halstead explained that he had not yet told all the words.
The "man-woman," who was, as he, Dingaan, supposed, a great
chieftainess among the Dutch, added that if he, the mighty and glorious
king, the earth-shaker, the world-eater, killed her or any of her
subjects, her people would avenge her by killing him and his people.
"Does she say that?" said Dingaan. "Then, as I thought, these Boers are
dangerous, and not the peaceful folk they make themselves out to be,"
and he brooded for a while, staring at the ground. Presently he lifted
his head and went on: "Well, a bet is a bet, and therefore I will not
wipe out this handful, as otherwise I would have done at once. Tell the
old cow of a chieftainess that, notwithstanding her threats, I stick to
my promise. If the little Son of George, Macumazahn, can shoot three
vultures out of five by help of his magic, then she and her servants
shall go free. If not, the vultures which he has missed shall feed on
them, and afterwards I will talk with her people when they come to
avenge her. Now, enough of this indaba. Bring those evildoers here
that they may thank and praise me, who give them so merciful an end."
So the grandfather, the father, and the son were hustled before Dingaan
by the soldiers, and greeted him with the royal salute of "bayete."
"O king," said the old man, "I and my children are innocent. Yet if it
pleases you, O king, I am ready to die, and so is my son. Yet we pray
you to spare the little one. He is but a boy, who may grow up to do you
good service, as I have done to you and your House for many years."
"Be silent, you white-headed dog!" answered Dingaan fiercely. "This lad
is a wizard, like the rest of you, and would grow up to bewitch me and
to plot with my enemies. Know that I have stamped out all your family,
and shall I then leave him to breed another that would hate me? Begone
to the World of Spirits, and tell them how Dingaan deals with
sorcerers."
The old man tried to speak again, for evidently he loved this grandchild
of his, but a soldier struck him in the face, and Dingaan shouted:
"What! Are you not satisfied? I tell you that if you say more I will
force you to kill the boy with your own hand. Take them away."
Then I turned and hid my face, as did all the white folk. Presently I
heard the old man, whom they had saved to the last that he might witness
the deaths of his descendants, cry in a loud voice:
"On the night of the thirtieth full moon from this day I, the
far-sighted, I, the prophet, summon thee, Dingaan, to meet me and mine
in the Land of Ghosts, and there to pay--"
Then with a roar of horror the executioners fell on him and he died.
When there was silence I looked up, and saw that the king, who had
turned a dirty yellow hue with fright, for he was very superstitious,
was trembling and wiping the sweat from his brow.
"You should have kept the wizard alive," he said in a shaky voice to the
head slayer, who was engaged in cutting three more nicks on the handle
of his dreadful kerry. "Fool, I would have heard the rest of his lying
message."
The man answered humbly that he thought it best it should remain
unspoken, and got himself out of sight as soon as possible. Here I may
remark that by an odd coincidence Dingaan actually was killed about
thirty moons from that time. Mopo, his general, who slew his brother
Chaka, slew him also with the help of Umslopogaas, the son of Chaka. In
after years Umslopogaas told me the story of the dreadful ghost-haunted
death of this tyrant, but, of course, he could not tell me exactly upon
what day it happened. Therefore I do not know whether the prophecy was
strictly accurate.*
[*--For the history of the death of Dingaan, see the Author's "Nada the
Lily."]
The three victims lay dead in the hollow of the Hill of Death.
Presently the king, recovering himself, gave orders that the spectators
should be moved back to places where they could see what happened
without frightening the vultures. So the Boers, attended by their band
of soldiers, who were commanded to slay them at once if they attempted
to escape, went one way, and Dingaan and his Zulus went the other,
leaving Hans and myself alone behind our bush. As the white people
passed me, Vrouw Prinsloo wished me good luck in a cheerful voice,
although I could see that her poor old hand was shaking, and she was
wiping her eyes with the vatdoek. Henri Marais, also in broken tones,
implored me to shoot straight for his daughter's sake. Then came Marie,
pale but resolute, who said nothing, but only looked me in the eyes, and
touched the pocket of her dress, in which I knew the pistol lay hid. Of
the rest of them I took no notice.
The moment, that dreadful moment of trial, had come at last; and oh! the
suspense and the waiting were hard to bear. It seemed an age before the
first speck, that I knew to be a vulture, appeared thousands of feet
above me and began to descend in wide circles.
"Oh, baas," said poor Hans, "this is worse than shooting at the geese in
the Groote Kloof. Then you could only lose your horse, but now--"
"Be silent," I hissed, "and give me the rifle."
The vulture wheeled and sank, sank and wheeled. I glanced towards the
Boers, and saw that they were all of them on their knees. I glanced
towards the Zulus, and saw that they were watching as, I think, they had
never watched anything before, for to them this was a new excitement.
Then I fixed my eyes upon the bird.
Its last circle was accomplished. Before it pounced it hung on wide,
outstretched wings, as the others had done, its head towards me. I drew
a deep breath, lifted the rifle, got the foresight dead upon its breast,
and touched the hair-trigger. As the charge exploded I saw the aasvogel
give a kind of backward twist. Next instant I heard a loud clap, and a
surge of joy went through me, for I thought that the bullet had found
its billet. But alas! it was not so.
The clap was that of the air disturbed by the passing of the ball and
the striking of this air against the stiff feathers of the wings.
Anyone who has shot at great birds on the wing with a bullet will be
acquainted with the sound. Instead of falling the vulture recovered
itself. Not knowing the meaning of this unaccustomed noise, it dropped
quietly to earth and sat down near the bodies, pitching forward in the
natural way and running a few paces, as the others had done that
afternoon. Evidently it was quite unhurt.
"Missed!" gasped Hans as he grasped the rifle to load it. "Oh! why did
you not throw a stone on to the first heap?"
I gave Hans a look that must have frightened him; at any rate, he spoke
no more. From the Boers went up a low groan. Then they began to pray
harder than ever, while the Zulus clustered round the king and whispered
to him. I learned afterwards that he was giving heavy odds against me,
ten to one in cattle, which they were obliged to take, unwillingly
enough.
Hans finished loading, capped and cocked the rifle, and handed it to me.
By now other vultures were appearing. Being desperately anxious to get
the thing over one way or another, at the proper moment I took the first
of them. Again I covered it dead and pressed. Again as the gun
exploded I saw that backward lurch of the bird, and heard the clap of
the air upon its wings. Then--oh horror!--this aasvogel turned quietly,
and began to mount the ladder of the sky in the same fashion as it had
descended. I had missed once more.
"The second heap of stones has done this, baas," said Hans faintly, and
this time I did not even look him. I only sat down and buried my face
in my hands. One more such miss, and then--
Hans began to whisper to me.
"Baas," he said, "those aasvogels see the flash of the gun, and shy at
it like a horse. Baas, you are shooting into their faces, for they all
hang with their beaks toward you before they drop. You must get behind
them, and fire into their tails, for even an aasvogel cannot see with
its tail."
I let fall my hands and stared at him. Surely the poor fellow had been
inspired from on high! I understood it all now. While their beaks were
towards me, I might fire at fifty vultures and never hit one, for each
time they would swerve from the flash, causing the bullet to miss them,
though but by a little.
"Come," I gasped, and began to walk quickly round the edge of the
depression to a rock, which I saw opposite about a hundred yards away.
My journey took me near the Zulus, who mocked me as I passed, asking
where my magic was, and if I wished to see the white people killed
presently. Dingaan was now offering odds of fifty cattle to one against
me, but no one would take the bet even with the king.
I made no answer; no, not even when they asked me "if I had thrown down
my spear and was running away." Grimly, despairingly, I marched on to
the rock, and took shelter behind it with Hans. The Boers, I saw, were
still upon their knees, but seemed to have ceased praying. The children
were weeping; the men stared at each other; Vrouw Prinsloo had her arm
about Marie's waist. Waiting there behind the rock, my courage returned
to me, as it sometimes does in the last extremity. I remembered my
dream and took comfort. Surely God would not be so cruel as to suffer
me to fail and thereby bring all those poor people to their deaths.
Snatching the rifle from Hans, I loaded it myself; nothing must be
trusted to another. As I put on the cap a vulture made its last circle.
It hung in the air just as the others had done, and oh! its tail was
towards me. I lifted, I aimed between the gathered-up legs, I pressed
and shut my eyes, for I did not dare to look.
I heard the bullet strike, or seem to strike, and a few seconds later I
heard something else--the noise of a heavy thud upon the ground. I
looked, and there with outstretched wings lay the foul bird dead, stone
dead, eight or ten paces from the bodies.
"Allemachte! that's better," said Hans. "You threw stones on to _all_
the other heaps, didn't you, baas?"
The Zulus grew excited, and the odds went down a little. The Boers
stretched out their white faces and stared at me; I saw them out of the
corner of my eye as I loaded again. Another vulture came; seeing one of
its companions on the ground, if in a somewhat unnatural attitude,
perhaps it thought that there could be nothing to fear. I leaned
against my rock, aimed, and fired, almost carelessly, so sure was I of
the result. This time I did not shut my eyes, but watched to see what
happened.
The bullet struck the bird between its thighs, raked it from end to end,
and down it came like a stone almost upon the top of its fellow.
"Good, good!" said Hans with a guttural chuckle of delight. "Now, baas,
make no mistake with the third, and 'als sall recht kommen' (all shall
be well)."
"Yes," I answered; "_if_ I make no mistake with the third."
I loaded the rifle again myself, being very careful to ram down the
powder well and to select a bullet that fitted perfectly true to the
bore. Moreover, I cleared the nipple with a thorn, and shook a little
fine powder into it, so as to obviate any chance of a miss-fire. Then I
set on the cap and waited. What was going on among the Boers or the
Zulus I do not know. In this last crisis of all our fates I never
looked, being too intent upon my own part in the drama.
By now the vultures appeared to have realised that something unusual was
in progress, which threatened danger to them. At any rate, although by
this time they had collected in hundreds from east, west, north, and
south, and were wheeling the heavens above in their vast, majestic
circles, none of them seemed to care to descend to prey upon the bodies.
I watched, and saw that among their number was that great king bird
which had bitten Hans in the face; it was easy to distinguish him,
because he was so much larger than the others. Also, he had some white
at the tips of his wings. I observed that certain of his company drew
near to him in the skies, where they hung together in a knot, as though
in consultation.
They separated out again, and the king began to descend, deputed
probably to spy out the land. Down he came in ever-narrowing turns,
till he reached the appointed spot for the plunge, and, according to the
immemorial custom of these birds, hung a while before he pounced with
his head to the south and his great, spreading tail towards me.
This was my chance, and, rejoicing in having so large a mark, I got the
sight upon him and pulled. The bullet thudded, some feathers floated
from his belly, showing that it had gone home, and I looked to see him
fall as the others had done. But alas! he did not fall. For a few
seconds he rocked to and fro upon his great wings, then commenced to
travel upwards in vast circles, which grew gradually more narrow, till
he appeared to be flying almost straight into the empyrean. I stared
and stared. Everybody stared, till that enormous bird became, first a
mere blot upon the blue, and at length but a speck. Then it vanished
altogether into regions far beyond the sight of man.
"Now there is an end," I said to Hans.
"Ja, baas," answered the Hottentot between his chattering teeth, "there
is an end. You did not put in enough powder. Presently we shall all be
dead."
"Not quite," I said with a bitter laugh. "Hans, load the rifle, load it
quick. Before they die there shall be another king in Zululand."
"Good, good!" he exclaimed as he loaded desperately. "Let us take that
fat pig of a Dingaan with us. Shoot him in the stomach, baas; shoot him
in the stomach, so that he too may learn what it is to die slowly. Then
cut my throat, here is my big knife, and afterwards cut your own, if you
have not time to load the gun again and shoot yourself, which is
easier."
I nodded, for it was in my mind to do these things. Never could I stand
still and see those poor Boers killed, and I knew that Marie would look
after herself.
Meanwhile, the Zulus were coming towards me, and the soldiers who had
charge of them were driving up Marais's people, making pretence to
thrust them through with their assegais, and shouting at them as men do
at cattle. Both parties arrived in the depression at about the same
time, but remained separated by a little space. In this space lay the
corpses of the murdered men and the two dead aasvogels, with Hans and
myself standing opposite to them.
"Well, little Son of George," puffed Dingaan, "you have lost your bet,
for you did but kill two vultures out of five with your magic, which was
good as far as it went, but not good enough. Now you must pay, as I
would have paid had you won."
Then he stretched out his hand, and issued the dreadful order of "Bulala
amalongu!" (Kill the white people). "Kill them one by one, that I may
see whether they know how to die, all except Macumazahn and the tall
girl, whom I keep."
Some of the soldiers made a dash and seized the Vrouw Prinsloo, who was
standing in front of the party.
"Wait a little, King," she called out as the assegais were lifted over
her. "How do you know that the bet is lost? He whom you call
Macumazahn hit that last vulture. It should be searched for before you
kill us."
"What does the old woman say?" asked Dingaan, and Halstead translated
slowly.
"True," said Dingaan. "Well, now I will send her to search for the
vulture in the sky. Come back thence, Fat One, and tell us if you find
it."
The soldiers lifted their assegais, waiting the king's word. I
pretended to look at the ground, and cocked my rifle, being determined
that if he spoke it, it should be his last. Hans stared upwards--I
suppose to avoid the sight of death--then suddenly uttered a wild yell,
which caused everyone, even the doomed people, to turn their eyes to
him. He was pointing to the heavens, and they looked to see at what he
pointed.
This was what they saw. Far, far above in that infinite sea of blue
there appeared a tiny speck, which his sharp sight had already
discerned, a speck that grew larger and larger as it descended with
terrific and ever-growing speed.
_It was the king vulture falling from the heavens--dead!_
Down it came between the Vrouw Prinsloo and the slayers, smashing the
lifted assegai of one of them and hurling him to the earth. Down it
came, and lay there a mere mass of pulp and feathers.
"O Dingaan," I said in the midst of the intense silence that followed,
"it seems that it is I who have won the bet, not you. I killed this
king of birds, but being a king it chose to die high up and alone, that
is all."
Dingaan hesitated, for he did not wish to spare the Boers, and I, noting
his hesitation, lifted my rifle a little. Perhaps he saw it, or perhaps
his sense of honour, as he understood the word, overcame his wish for
their blood. At any rate, he said to one of his councillors:
"Search the carcase of that vulture and see if there is a bullet hole in
it."
The man obeyed, feeling at the mass of broken bones and flesh. By good
fortune he found, not the hole, for that was lost in the general
destruction of the tissues, but the ball itself, which, having pierced
the thick body from below upwards, had remained fast in the tough skin
just by the back-bone where the long, red neck emerges from between the
wings. He picked it out, for it was only hanging in the skin, and held
it up for all to see.
"Macumazahn has won his bet," said Dingaan. "His magic has conquered,
though by but a very little. Macumazahn, take these Boers, they are
yours, and begone with them out of my country."
