CHAPTER XV
NOMA COMES TO HAFELA
Hokosa advanced to the verandah and bowed to the white man with grave
dignity.
"Be seated," said Owen. "Will you not eat? though I have nothing to
offer you but these," and he pushed the basket of fruits towards him,
adding, "The best of them, I fear, are already gone."
"I thank you, no, Messenger; such fruits are not always wholesome at
this season of the year. I have known them to breed dysentery."
"Indeed," said Owen. "If so, I trust that I may escape. I have
suffered from that sickness, and I think that another bout of it would
kill me. In future I will avoid them. But what do you seek with me,
Hokosa? Enter and tell me," and he led the way into a little sitting-
room.
"Messenger," said the wizard, with deep humility, "I am a proud man; I
have been a great man, and it is no light thing to me to humble myself
before the face of my conqueror. Yet I am come to this. To-day when I
was in audience with the king, craving a small boon of his
graciousness, he spoke to me sharp and bitter words. He told me that
he had been minded to put me on trial for my life because of various
misdoings which are alleged against me in the past, but that you had
pleaded for me and that for this cause he spared me. I come to thank
you for your gentleness, Messenger, for I think that had I been in
your place I should have whispered otherwise in the ear of the king."
"Say no more of it, friend," said Owen kindly, "We are all of us
sinners, and it is my place to push back your ancient sins, not to
drag them into the light of day and clamour for their punishment. It
is true I know that you plotted with the Prince Hafela to poison
Umsuka the King, for it was revealed to me. It chanced, however, that
I was able to recover Umsuka from his sickness, and Hafela is fled, so
why should I bring up the deed against you? It is true that you still
practise witchcraft, and that you hate and strive against the holy
Faith which I preach; but you were brought up to wizardry and have
been the priest of another creed, and these things plead for you.
"Also, Hokosa, I can see the good and evil struggling in your soul,
and I pray and I believe that in the end the good will master the
evil; that you who have been pre-eminent in sin will come to be pre-
eminent in righteousness. Oh! be not stubborn, but listen with your
ear, and let your heart be softened. The gate stands open, and I am
the guide appointed to show you the way without reward or fee. Follow
them ere it be too late, that in time to come when my voice is stilled
you also may be able to direct the feet of wanderers into the paths of
peace. It is the hour of prayer; come with me, I beg of you, and
listen to some few words of the message of my lips, and let your
spirit be nurtured with them, and the Sun of Truth arise upon its
darkness."
Hokosa heard, and before this simple eloquence his wisdom sank
confounded. More, his intelligence was stirred, and a desire came upon
him to investigate and examine the canons of a creed that could
produce such men as this. He made no answer, but waiting while Owen
robed himself, he followed him to the chapel. It was full of new-made
Christians who crowded even the doorways, but they gave place to him,
wondering. Then the service began--a short and simple service. First
Owen offered up some prayer for the welfare of the infant Church, for
the conversion of the unbelieving, for the safety of the king and the
happiness of the people. Then John, the Messenger's first disciple,
read aloud from a manuscript a portion of the Scripture which his
master had translated. It was St. Paul's exposition of the
resurrection from the dead, and the grandeur of its thoughts and
language were by no means lost upon Hokosa, who, savage and heathen
though he might be, was also a man of intellect.
The reading over, Owen addressed the congregation, taking for his
text, "Thy sin shall find thee out." Being now a master of the
language, he preached very well and earnestly, and indeed the subject
was not difficult to deal with in the presence of an audience many of
whose pasts had been stepped in iniquities of no common kind. As he
talked of judgment to come for the unrepentant, some of his hearers
groaned and even wept; and when, changing his note, he dwelt upon the
blessed future state of those who earned forgiveness, their faces were
lighted up with joy.
But perhaps among all those gathered before him there were none more
deeply interested than Hokosa and one other, that woman to whom he had
sold the poison, and who, as it chanced, sat next to him. Hokosa,
watching her face as he was skilled to do, saw the thrusts of the
preacher go home, and grew sure that already in her jealous haste she
had found opportunity to sprinkle the medicine upon her rival's food.
She believed it to be but a charm indeed, yet knowing that in using
such charms she had done wickedly, she trembled beneath the words of
denunciation, and rising at length, crept from the chapel.
"Truly, her sin will find her out," thought Hokosa to himself, and
then in a strange half-impersonal fashion he turned his thoughts to
the consideration of his own case. Would /his/ sin find him out? he
wondered. Before he could answer that question, it was necessary first
to determine whether or no he had committed a sin. The man before him
--that gentle and yet impassioned man--bore in his vitals the seed of
death which he, Hokosa, had planted there. Was it wrong to have done
this? It depended by which standard the deed was judged. According to
his own code, the code on which he had been educated and which
hitherto he had followed with exactness, it was not wrong. That code
taught the necessity of self-aggrandisement, or at least and at all
costs the necessity of self-preservation. This white preacher stood in
his path; he had humiliated him, Hokosa, and in the end, either of
himself or through his influences, it was probable that he would
destroy him. Therefore he must strike before in his own person he
received a mortal blow, and having no other means at his command, he
struck through treachery and poison.
That was his law which for many generations had been followed and
respected by his class with the tacit assent of the nation. According
to this law, then, he had done no wrong. But now the victim by the
altar, who did not know that already he was bound upon the altar,
preached a new and a very different doctrine under which, were it to
be believed, he, Hokosa, was one of the worst of sinners. The matter,
then, resolved itself to this: which of these two rules of life was
the right rule? Which of them should a man follow to satisfy his
conscience and to secure his abiding welfare? Apart from the motives
that swayed him, as a mere matter of ethics, this problem interested
Hokosa not a little, and he went homewards determined to solve it if
he might. That could be done in one way only--by a close examination
of both systems. The first he knew well; he had practised it for
nearly forty years. Of the second he had but an inkling. Also, if he
would learn more of it he must make haste, seeing that its exponent in
some short while would cease to be in a position to set it out.
"I trust that you will come again," said Owen to Hokosa as they left
the chapel.
"Yes, indeed, Messenger," answered the wizard; "I will come every day,
and if you permit it, I will attend your private teachings also, for I
accept nothing without examination, and I greatly desire to study this
new doctrine of yours, root and flower and fruit."
*****
On the morrow Noma started upon her journey. As the matrons who
accompanied her gave out with a somewhat suspicious persistency, its
ostensible object was to visit the Mount of Purification, and there by
fastings and solitude to purge herself of the sin of having given
birth to a stillborn child. For amongst savage peoples such an
accident is apt to be looked upon as little short of a crime, or, at
the least, as indicating that the woman concerned is the object of the
indignation of spirits who need to be appeased. To this Mount, Noma
went, and there performed the customary rites.
"Little wonder," she thought to herself, "that the spirits were angry
with her, seeing that yonder in the burying-ground of kings she had
dared to break in upon their rest."
From the Place of Purification she travelled on ten days' journey with
her companions till they reached the mountain fastness where Hafela
had established himself. The town and its surroundings were of
extraordinary strength, and so well guarded that it was only after
considerable difficulty and delay that the women were admitted.
Hearing of her arrival and that she had words for him, Hafela sent for
Noma at once, receiving her by night and alone in his principal hut.
She came and stood before him, and he looked at her beauty with
admiring eyes, for he could not forget the woman whom the cunning of
Hokosa had forced him to put away.
"Whence come you, pretty one?" he asked, "and wherefore come you? Are
you weary of your husband, that you fly back to me? If so, you are
welcome indeed; for know, Noma, that I still love you."
"Ay, Prince, I am weary of my husband sure enough; but I do not fly to
you, for he holds me fast to him with bonds that you cannot
understand, and fast to him while he lives I must remain."
"What hinders, Noma, that having got you here I should keep you here?
The cunning and magic of Hokosa may be great, but they will need to be
still greater to win you from my arms."
"This hinders, Prince, that you are playing for a higher stake than
that of a woman's love, and if you deal thus by me and my husband,
then of a surety you will lose the game."
"What stake, Noma?"
"The stake of the crown of the People of Fire."
"And why should I lose if I take you as a wife?"
"Because Hokosa, seeing that I do not return and learning from his
spies why I do not return, will warn the king, and by many means bring
all your plans to nothing. Listen now to the words of Hokosa that he
has set between my lips to deliver to you"--and she repeated to him
all the message without fault or fail.
"Say it again," he said, and she obeyed.
Then he answered:--
"Truly the skill of Hokosa is great, and well he knows how to set a
snare; but I think that if by his counsel I should springe the bird,
he will be too clever a man to keep upon the threshold of my throne.
He who sets one snare may set twain, and he who sits by the threshold
may desire to enter the house of kings wherein there is no space for
two to dwell."
"Is this the answer that I am to take back to Hokosa?" asked Noma. "It
will scarcely bind him to your cause, Prince, and I wonder that you
dare to speak it to me who am his wife."
"I dare to speak it to you, Noma, because, although you be his wife,
all wives do not love their lords; and I think that, perchance in days
to come, you would choose rather to hold the hand of a young king than
that of a witch-doctor sinking into eld. Thus shall you answer Hokosa:
You shall say to him that I have heard his words and that I find them
very good, and will walk along the path which he has made. Here before
you I swear by the oath that may not be broken--the sacred oath,
calling down ruin upon my head should I break one word of it--that if
by his aid I succeed in this great venture, I will pay him the price
he asks. After myself, the king, he shall be the greatest man among
the people; he shall be general of the armies; he shall be captain of
the council and head of the doctors, and to him shall be given half
the cattle of Nodwengo. Also, into his hand I will deliver all those
who cling to this faith of the Christians, and, if it pleases him, he
shall offer them as a sacrifice to his god. This I swear, and you,
Noma, are witness to the oath. Yet it may chance that after he,
Hokosa, has gathered up all this pomp and greatness, he himself shall
be gathered up by Death, that harvest-man whom soon or late will
garner every ear;" and he looked at her meaningly.
"It may be so, Prince," she answered.
"It may be so," he repeated, "and when----"
"When it is so, then, Prince, we will talk together, but not till
then. Nay, touch me not, for were he to command me, Hokosa has this
power over me that I must show him all that you have done, keeping
nothing back. Let me go now to the place that is made ready for me,
and afterwards you shall tell me again and more fully the words that I
must say to Hokosa my husband."
*****
On the morrow Hafela held a secret council of his great men, and the
next day an embassy departed to Nodwengo the king, taking to him that
message which Hokosa, through Noma his wife, had put into the lips of
the prince. Twenty days later the embassy returned saying that it
pleased the king to grant the prayer of his brother Hafela, and
bringing with it the tidings that the white man, Messenger, had fallen
sick, and it was thought that he would die.
So in due course the women and children of the people of Hafela
started upon their journey towards the new land where it was given out
that they should live, and with them went Noma, purposing to leave
them as they drew near the gates of the Great Place of the king. A
while after, Hafela and his /impis/ followed with carriers bearing
their fighting shields in bundles, and having their stabbing spears
rolled up in mats.
