CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
THE SILVER BOX.
Throughout the night their march continued. Towards dawn, however, ashort halt was made, to no one more welcome than to the captive himself;the fact being that poor Eustace was deadly tired, and, but for theexpediency of keeping up his character for invulnerability, would haverequested the chief, as a favour, to allow him some rest before then.As it was, however, he was glad of the opportunity; but, although he hadnot tasted food since the previous midday, he could not eat. He feltfeverish and ill.
Day was breaking as the party resumed its way. And now the features ofthe country had undergone an entire change. The wide, sweeping,mimosa-dotted dales had been left behind--had given place to wild forestcountry, whose rugged grandeur of desolation increased with every step.Great rocks overhung each dark ravine, and the trunks of hoaryyellow-wood trees, from whose gigantic and spreading limbs dependedlichens and monkey ropes, showed through the cool semi-gloom like themassive columns of cathedral aisles. An undergrowth of dense bushhemmed in the narrow, winding path they were pursuing, and its tangleddepths were ever and anon resonant with the piping whistle of birds, andthe shrill, startled chatter of monkeys swinging aloft among thetree-tops, skipping away from bough to bough with marvellous alacrity.Once a sharp hiss was heard in front, causing the foremost of the partyto halt abruptly, with a volley of excited ejaculations, as a _hugerinkhaals_, lying in the middle of the narrow track, slowly unwound hisblack coils, and, with hood inflated, raised his head in the air as ifchallenging his human foes. But these, by dint of shouting and beatingthe ground with sticks, induced him to move off--for, chiefly frommotives of superstition, Kafirs will not kill a snake if they canpossibly help it--and the hideous reptile was heard lazily rustling hisway through the jungle in his retreat.
They had been toiling up the steep, rugged side of a ravine. Suddenlyan exclamation of astonishment from those in front, who had alreadygained the ridge, brought up the rest of the party at redoubled speed.
"_Hau! Istimele_!" [The steamer] echoed several, as the cause of theprevailing astonishment met their eyes.
The ridge was of some elevation. Beyond the succession of forest-cladvalleys and rock-crowned divides lay a broad expanse of blue sea, andaway near the offing stretched a long line of dark smoke. Eustace couldmake out the masts and funnel of a large steamer, steering to theeastward.
And what a sense of contrast did the sight awaken in his mind. Thevessel was probably one of the Union Company's mail steamships, coastinground to Natal. How plainly he would conjure up the scene upon herdecks, the passengers striving to while away the tediousness of theirfloating captivity with chess and draughts--the latter of divers kinds--with books and tobacco, with chat and flirtation; whereas, here he was,at no very great distance either, undergoing, in this savage wilderness,a captivity which was terribly real--a prisoner of war among a tribe ofsullen and partially crushed barbarians, with almost certain death, as asacrifice to their slain compatriots, staring him in the face, and astrong probability of that death being a cruel and lingering one withal.And the pure rays of the newly risen sun shone forth joyously upon thatblue surface, and a whiff of strong salt air seemed borne in upon themfrom the bosom of the wide, free ocean.
For some minutes the Kafirs stood, talking, laughing like children asthey gazed upon the long, low form of the distant steamship, concerningwhich many of their quaint remarks and conjectures would have beenamusing enough at any other time. And, as if anything was wanting tokeep him alive to the peril of his position, Hlangani, stepping to theprisoner's side, observed:
"The time has come to blind you, Ixeshane."
The words were grim enough in all conscience--frightful enough to morethan justify the start which Eustace could not repress, as he turned tothe speaker. But a glance was enough to reassure him. The chiefadvanced toward him, holding nothing more formidable than a foldedhandkerchief.
To the ordeal of being blindfolded Eustace submitted without a word. Herecognised its force. They were nearing their destination. Even acaptive, probably foredoomed to death, was not to be allowed to takemental notes of the approaches to the present retreat of the ParamountChief. Besides, by insuring such ignorance, they would render anychance of his possible escape the more futile. But as he walked,steered by one of his escort, who kept a hand on his shoulder, heconcentrated every faculty, short of the sight of which he wastemporarily deprived, upon observations relating to the lay of theground. One thing he knew. Wherever they might be they were at nogreat distance from the sea coast. That was something.
Suddenly a diversion occurred. A long, loud, peculiar cry sounded fromsome distance in front. It was a signal. As it was answered by thereturning warriors, once more the wild war-song was raised, and beingtaken up all along the line, the forest echoed with the thunderous roarof the savage strophe, and the clash of weapons beating time to theweird and thrilling chant. For some minutes thus they marched; then bythe sound Eustace knew that his escort was forming up in martial arrayaround him; knew moreover, from this circumstance, that the forest hadcome to an end. Then the bandage was suddenly removed from his eyes.
The abrupt transition from darkness to light was bewildering. But hemade out that he was standing in front of a hut, which his captors wereordering him to enter. In the momentary glance which he could obtain hesaw that other huts were standing around, and beyond the crowd of armedmen which encompassed him he could descry the faces of women andchildren gazing at him with mingled curiosity and wonder. Then,stooping, he crept through the low doorway. Two of his guards enteredwith him, and to his unspeakable gratification their first act was torelieve him of the _reim_ which secured his arms. This done, a womanappeared bearing a calabash of curdled milk and a little reed basket ofstamped mealies.
"Here is food for you, _Umlungu_," said one of them. "And now you canrest until--until you are wanted. But do not go outside," he added,shortly, and with a significant grip of his assegai. Then they wentout, fastening the wicker screen that served as a door behind them, andEustace was left alone.
The interior of the hut was cool, if a trifle grimy, and there wererather fewer cockroaches than usual disporting themselves among thedomed thatch of the roof--possibly owing to the tenement being of recentconstruction. But Eustace was dead tired and the shelter and solitudewere more than welcome to him just then. The curdled milk and mealieswere both refreshing and satisfying. Having finished his meal helighted his pipe, for his captors had deprived him of nothing but hisweapons, and proceeded to think out the situation. But nature assertedherself. Before he had taken a dozen whiffs he fell fast asleep.
How long he slept he could not tell, but it must have been some hours.He awoke with a start of bewilderment, for his slumber had been a heavyand dreamless one: the slumber of exhaustion. Opening his eyes to thesubdued gloom of the hut he hardly knew where he was. The atmosphere ofthat primitive and ill-ventilated tenement was stuffy and oppressivewith an effluvium of grease and smoke, and the cockroaches were runningover his face and hands. Then the situation came back to him with arush. He was a prisoner.
There was not much doing outside, to judge by the tranquillity thatreigned. He could hear the deep inflections of voices carrying on alanguid conversation, and occasionally the shrill squall of an infant.His watch had stopped, but he guessed it to be about the middle of theafternoon.
He was about to make an attempt at undoing the door, but remembering theparting injunction of his guard, he judged it better not. At the sametime it occurred to him that he had not yet investigated the cause ofthe saving of his life. Here was a grand opportunity.
Cautiously, and with one ear on the alert for interruption, he took thesilver box from the inside pocket in which it was kept. Removing thechamois leather covering, which showed a clean cut an inch long, hegazed with astonishment upon, the box itself. The assegai had struck itfair, and there in the centre of the lid its point, broken off flush,remained firml
y embedded. He turned the box over. The point had justindented the other side but not sufficiently to show through.
For some minutes he sat gazing upon it, with a strange mixture offeeling, and well he might. This last gift of Eanswyth's had been themeans of saving his life--it and it alone. It had lain over his heart,and but for its intervention that sure and powerfully directed strokewould have cleft his heart in twain. That was absolutely a fact, andone established beyond any sort of doubt.
Her hand had averted the death-stroke--the shield of her love had stoodbetween him and certain destruction. Surely--surely that love could notbe so unlawful--so accursed a thing. It had availed to save him--tosave him for itself. Eustace was not a superstitious man, but even hemight, to a certain extent, feel justified in drawing a highlyfavourable augury from the circumstance. Yet he was not out of hisdifficulties--his perils--yet. They had, in fact, only just begun; andthis he knew.
So far his captors had not ill-treated him, rather the reverse. Butthis augured next to nothing either way. The Gcalekas had sufferedsevere losses. Even now they were in hiding. They were not likely tobe in a very merciful mood in dealing with a white prisoner, one of thehated race which had shot down their righting men, driven them fromtheir country, and carried off most of their cattle. The people wouldclamour for his blood, the chiefs would hardly care to run counter totheir wish--he would probably be handed over to the witch-doctors andput to some hideous and lingering death.
It was a frightful thought, coming upon him alone and helpless. Betterthat the former blow had gone home. He would have met with a swift andmerciful death in the excitement of battle--whereas now? And then itcrossed his mind that the interposition of the silver box might not havebeen a blessing after all, but quite the reverse. What if it had onlyavailed to preserve him for a death amid lingering torments? But no, hewould not think that. If her love had been the means of preserving himthus far, it had preserved him for itself. Yet it was difficult to feelsanguine with the odds so terribly against him.
What would she do when she heard that Tom had been killed and himselfcaptured by the savages? "Were anything to befall you, my heart wouldbe broken," had been almost her last words, and the recollection of themtortured him like a red-hot iron, for he had only his own fool-hardinessto thank that he was in this critical position at all. Fortunately itdid not occur to him that he might be reported dead, instead of merelymissing.
His reflections were interrupted. A great noise arose without--voices--then the steady tramp of feet--the clash of weapons--and over and aboveall, the weird, thrilling rhythmical chant of the war-song. He had justtime to restore the silver box to its place, when the door of the hutwas flung open and there entered three Kafirs fully armed. They orderedhim to rise immediately and pass outside.