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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wizard, by H. Rider Haggard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wizard
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #2893]
+Last Updated: May 20, 2021
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIZARD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers; Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WIZARD
+
+by H. Rider Haggard
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To the Memory of the Child
+
+Nada Burnham,
+
+who “bound all to her” and, while her father cut his way through the
+hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war
+at Buluwayo on 19th May, 1896, I dedicate these tales--and more
+particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and
+death.
+
+H. Rider Haggard.
+
+Ditchingham.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR’S NOTE
+
+Of the three stories that comprise this volume[*], one, “The Wizard,” a
+tale of victorious faith, first appeared some years ago as a Christmas
+Annual. Another, “Elissa,” is an attempt, difficult enough owing to the
+scantiness of the material left to us by time, to recreate the life of
+the ancient Phœnician Zimbabwe, whose ruins still stand in Rhodesia,
+and, with the addition of the necessary love story, to suggest
+circumstances such as might have brought about or accompanied its fall
+at the hands of the surrounding savage tribes. The third, “Black Heart
+and White Heart,” is a story of the courtship, trials and final union of
+a pair of Zulu lovers in the time of King Cetywayo.
+
+     [*] This text was prepared from a volume published in 1900
+     titled “Black Heart and White Heart, and Other Stories.”--
+     JB.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WIZARD
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE DEPUTATION
+
+Has the age of miracle quite gone by, or is it still possible to the
+Voice of Faith calling aloud upon the earth to wring from the dumb
+heavens an audible answer to its prayer? Does the promise uttered by the
+Master of mankind upon the eve of the end--“Whoso that believeth in Me,
+the works that I do he shall do also . . . and whatsoever ye shall ask
+in My name, that will I do;”--still hold good to such as do ask and do
+believe?
+
+Let those who care to study the history of the Rev. Thomas Owen, and
+of that strange man who carried on and completed his work, answer this
+question according to their judgment.
+
+*****
+
+The time was a Sunday afternoon in summer, and the place a church in
+the Midland counties. It was a beautiful church, ancient and spacious;
+moreover, it had recently been restored at great cost. Seven or eight
+hundred people could have found sittings in it, and doubtless they
+had done so when Busscombe was a large manufacturing town, before the
+failure of the coal supply and other causes drove away its trade. Now
+it was much what it had been in the time of the Normans, a little
+agricultural village with a population of 300 souls. Out of this
+population, including the choir boys, exactly thirty-nine had elected to
+attend church on this particular Sunday; and of these, three were fast
+asleep and four were dozing.
+
+The Rev. Thomas Owen counted them from his seat in the chancel, for
+another clergyman was preaching; and, as he counted, bitterness and
+disappointment took hold of him. The preacher was a “Deputation,” sent
+by one of the large missionary societies to arouse the indifferent to
+a sense of duty towards their unconverted black brethren in Africa, and
+incidentally to collect cash to be spent in the conversion of the
+said brethren. The Rev. Thomas Owen himself suggested the visit of the
+Deputation, and had laboured hard to secure him a good audience. But
+the beauty of the weather, or terror of the inevitable subscription,
+prevailed against him. Hence his disappointment.
+
+“Well,” he thought, with a sigh, “I have done my best, and I must make
+it up out of my own pocket.”
+
+Then he settled himself to listen to the sermon.
+
+The preacher, a battered-looking individual of between fifty and sixty
+years of age, was gaunt with recent sickness, patient and unimaginative
+in aspect. He preached extemporarily, with the aid of notes; and it
+cannot be said that his discourse was remarkable for interest, at any
+rate in its beginning. Doubtless the sparse congregation, so prone to
+slumber, discouraged him; for offering exhortations to empty benches is
+but weary work. Indeed he was meditating the advisability of bringing
+his argument to an abrupt conclusion when, chancing to glance round, he
+became aware that he had at least one sympathetic listener, his host,
+the Rev. Thomas Owen.
+
+From that moment the sermon improved by degrees, till at length it
+reached a really high level of excellence. Ceasing from rhetoric, the
+speaker began to tell of his own experience and sufferings in the Cause
+amongst savage tribes; for he himself was a missionary of many years
+standing. He told how once he and a companion had been sent to a
+nation, who named themselves the Sons of Fire because their god was the
+lightning, if indeed they could be said to boast any gods other than
+the Spear and the King. In simple language he narrated his terrible
+adventures among these savages, the murder of his companion by command
+of the Council of Wizards, and his own flight for his life; a tale
+so interesting and vivid that even the bucolic sleepers awakened and
+listened open-mouthed.
+
+“But this is by the way,” he went on; “for my Society does not ask you
+to subscribe towards the conversion of the Children of Fire. Until that
+people is conquered--which very likely will not be for generations,
+seeing that they live in Central Africa, occupying a territory that
+white men do not desire--no missionary will dare again to visit them.”
+
+At this moment something caused him to look a second time at Thomas
+Owen. He was leaning forward in his place listening eagerly, and a
+strange light filled the large, dark eyes that shone in the pallor of
+his delicate, nervous face.
+
+“There is a man who would dare, if he were put to it,” thought the
+Deputation to himself. Then he ended his sermon.
+
+That evening the two men sat at dinner in the rectory. It was a very
+fine rectory, beautifully furnished; for Owen was a man of taste which
+he had the means to gratify. Also, although they were alone, the dinner
+was good--so good that the poor broken-down missionary, sipping his
+unaccustomed port, a vintage wine, sighed aloud in admiration and
+involuntary envy.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked Owen.
+
+“Nothing, Mr. Owen;” then, of a sudden thawing into candour, he
+added: “that is, everything. Heaven forgive me; but I, who enjoy your
+hospitality, am envious of you. Don’t think too hardly of me; I have a
+large family to support, and if only you knew what a struggle my life
+is, and has been for the last twenty years, you would not, I am sure.
+But you have never experienced it, and could not understand. ‘The
+labourer is worthy of his hire.’ Well, my hire is under two hundred a
+year, and eight of us must live--or starve--on it. And I have worked,
+ay, until my health is broken. A labourer indeed! I am a very hodman, a
+spiritual Sisyphus. And now I must go back to carry my load and roll
+my stone again and again among those hopeless savages till I die of
+it--till I die of it!”
+
+“At least it is a noble life and death!” exclaimed Owen, a sudden fire
+of enthusiasm burning in his dark eyes.
+
+“Yes, viewed from a distance. Were you asked to leave this living of two
+thousand a year--I see that is what they put it at in Crockford--with
+its English comforts and easy work, that _you_ might lead that life and
+attain that death, then you would think differently. But why should
+I bore you with such talk? Thank Heaven that your lines are cast in
+pleasant places. Yes, please, I will take one more glass; it does me
+good.”
+
+“Tell me some more about that tribe you were speaking of in your sermon,
+the ‘Sons of Fire’ I think you called them,” said Owen, as he passed him
+the decanter.
+
+So, with an eloquence induced by the generous wine and a quickened
+imagination, the Deputation told him--told him many strange things and
+terrible. For this people was an awful people: vigorous in mind
+and body, and warriors from generation to generation, but
+superstition-ridden and cruel. They lived in the far interior, some
+months’ journey by boat and ox-waggon from the coast, and of white men
+and their ways they knew but little.
+
+“How many of them are there?” asked Owen.
+
+“Who can say?” he answered. “Nearly half-a-million, perhaps; at least
+they pretend that they can put sixty thousand men under arms.”
+
+“And did they treat you badly when you first visited them?”
+
+“Not at first. They received us civilly enough; and on a given day we
+were requested to explain to the king and the Council of Wizards the
+religion which we came to teach. All that day we explained and all
+the next--or rather my friend did, for I knew very little of the
+language--and they listened with great interest. At last the chief of
+the wizards and the first prophet to the king rose to question us. He
+was named Hokosa, a tall, thin man, with a spiritual face and terrible
+calm eyes.
+
+“‘You speak well, son of a White Man,’ he said, ‘but let us pass from
+words to deeds. You tell us that this God of yours, whom you desire that
+we should take as our God, so that you may become His chief prophets in
+the land, was a wizard such as we are, though greater than we are; for
+not only did He know the past and the future as we do, but also He could
+cure those who were smitten with hopeless sickness, and raise those
+who were dead, which we cannot do. You tell us, moreover, that by faith
+those who believe on Him can do works as great as He did, and that you
+do believe on Him. Therefore we will put you to the proof. Ho! there,
+lead forth that evil one.’
+
+“As he spoke a man was placed before us, one who had been convicted of
+witchcraft or some other crime.
+
+“‘Kill him!’ said Hokosa.
+
+“There was a faint cry, a scuffle, a flashing of spears, and the man lay
+still before us.
+
+“‘Now, followers of the new God,’ said Hokosa, ‘raise him from the dead
+as your Master did!’
+
+“In vain did we offer explanations.
+
+“‘Peace!’ said Hokosa at length, ‘your words weary us. Look now, either
+you have preached to us a false god and are liars, or you are traitors
+to the King you preach, since, lacking faith in Him, you cannot do such
+works as He gives power to do to those who have faith in Him. Out of
+your own mouths are you judged, White Men. Choose which horn of the bull
+you will, you hang to one of them, and it shall pierce you. This is
+the sentence of the king, I speak it who am the king’s mouth: That you,
+White Man, who have spoken to us and cheated us these two weary days,
+be put to death, and that you, his companion who have been silent, be
+driven from the land.’
+
+“I can hardly bear to tell the rest of it, Mr. Owen. They gave my poor
+friend ten minutes to ‘talk to his Spirit,’ then they speared him before
+my face. After it was over, Hokosa spoke to me, saying:--
+
+“‘Go back, White Man, to those who sent you, and tell them the words of
+the Sons of Fire: That they have listened to the message of peace,
+and though they are a people of warriors, yet they thank them for that
+message, for in itself it sounds good and beautiful in their ears, if it
+be true. Tell them that having proved you liars, they dealt with you as
+all honest men seek that liars should be dealt with. Tell them that they
+desire to hear more of this matter, and if one can be sent to them who
+has no false tongue; who in all things fulfills the promises of his
+lips, that they will hearken to him and treat him well, but that for
+such as you they keep a spear.’”
+
+“And who went after you got back?” asked Owen, who was listening with
+the deepest interest.
+
+“Who went? Do you suppose that there are many mad clergymen in Africa,
+Mr. Owen? Nobody went.”
+
+“And yet,” said Owen, speaking more to himself than to his guest, “the
+man Hokosa was right, and the Christian who of a truth believes the
+promises of our religion should trust to them and go.”
+
+“Then perhaps you would like to undertake the mission, Mr. Owen,” said
+the Deputation briskly; for the reflection stung him, unintentional as
+it was.
+
+Owen started.
+
+“That is a new idea,” he said. “And now perhaps you wish to go to bed;
+it is past eleven o’clock.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THOMAS OWEN
+
+Thomas Owen went to his room, but not to bed. Taking a Bible from the
+table, he consulted reference after reference.
+
+“The promise is clear,” he said aloud presently, as he shut the
+book; “clear and often repeated. There is no escape from it, and no
+possibility of a double meaning. If it is not true, then it would seem
+that nothing is true, and that every Christian in the world is tricked
+and deluded. But if it _is_ true, why do we never hear of miracles?
+The answer is easy: Because we have not faith enough to work them. The
+Apostles worked miracles; for they had seen, therefore their faith was
+perfect. Since their day nobody’s faith has been quite perfect; at least
+I think not. The physical part of our nature prevents it. Or perhaps the
+miracles still happen, but they are spiritual miracles.”
+
+Then he sat down by the open window, and gazing at the dreamy beauty of
+the summer night, he thought, for his soul was troubled. Once before
+it had been troubled thus; that was nine years ago, for now he was but
+little over thirty. Then a call had come to him, a voice had seemed to
+speak to his ears bidding him to lay down great possessions to follow
+whither Heaven should lead him. Thomas Owen had obeyed the voice;
+though, owing to circumstances which need not be detailed, to do so he
+was obliged to renounce his succession to a very large estate, and to
+content himself with a younger son’s portion of thirty thousand pounds
+and the reversion to the living which he had now held for some five
+years.
+
+Then and there, with singular unanimity and despatch, his relations came
+to the conclusion that he was mad. To this hour, indeed, those who stand
+in his place and enjoy the wealth and position that were his by right,
+speak of him as “poor Thomas,” and mark their disapprobation of his
+peculiar conduct by refusing with an unvarying steadiness to subscribe
+even a single shilling to a missionary society. How “poor Thomas” speaks
+of them in the place where he is we may wonder, but as yet we cannot
+know--probably with the gentle love and charity that marked his every
+action upon earth. But this is by the way.
+
+He had entered the Church, but what had he done in its shadow? This was
+the question which Owen asked himself as he sat that night by the open
+window, arraigning his past before the judgment-seat of conscience. For
+three years he had worked hard somewhere in the slums; then this living
+had fallen to him. He had taken it, and from that day forward his record
+was very much of a blank. The parish was small and well ordered; there
+was little to do in it, and the Salvation Army had seized upon and
+reclaimed two of the three confirmed drunkards it could boast.
+
+His guest’s saying echoed in his brain like the catch of a tune--“that
+_you_ might lead that life and attain that death.” Supposing that
+he were bidden so to do now, this very night, would he indeed “think
+differently”? He had become a priest to serve his Maker. How would it be
+were that Maker to command that he should serve Him in this extreme and
+heroic fashion? Would he flinch from the steel, or would he meet it as
+the martyrs met it of old?
+
+Physically he was little suited to such an enterprise, for in appearance
+he was slight and pale, and in constitution delicate. Also, there was
+another reason against the thing. High Church and somewhat ascetic in
+his principles, in the beginning he had admired celibacy, and in secret
+dedicated himself to that state. But at heart Thomas was very much a
+man, and of late he had come to see that that which is against nature is
+presumably not right, though fanatics may not hesitate to pronounce
+it wrong. Possibly this conversion to more genial views of life was
+quickened by the presence in the neighbourhood of a young lady whom
+he chanced to admire; at least it is certain that the mere thought of
+seeing her no more for ever smote him like a sword of sudden pain.
+
+*****
+
+That very night--or so it seemed to him, and so he believed--the Angel
+of the Lord stood before him as he was wont to stand before the men of
+old, and spoke a summons in his ear. How or in what seeming that summons
+came Thomas Owen never told, and we need not inquire. At the least he
+heard it, and, like the Apostles, he arose and girded his loins to obey.
+For now, in the hour of trial, it proved that this man’s faith partook
+of the nature of their faith. It was utter and virgin; it was not
+clogged with nineteenth-century qualifications; it had never dallied
+with strange doctrines, or kissed the feet of pinchbeck substitutes for
+God. In his heart he believed that the Almighty, without intermediary,
+but face to face, had bidden him to go forth into the wilderness there
+to perish. So he bowed his head and went.
+
+On the following morning at breakfast Owen had some talk with his friend
+the Deputation.
+
+“You asked me last night,” he said quietly, “whether I would undertake
+a mission to that people of whom you were telling me--the Sons of Fire.
+Well, I have been thinking it over, and come to the conclusion that I
+will do so----”
+
+At this point the Deputation, concluding that his host must be mad,
+moved quietly but decidedly towards the door.
+
+“Wait a moment,” went on Owen, in a matter-of-fact voice, “the dog-cart
+will not be round for another three-quarters of an hour. Tell me, if it
+were offered to you, and on investigation you proved suitable, would you
+care to take over this living?”
+
+“Would I care to take over this living?” gasped the astonished
+Deputation. “Would I care to walk down that garden and find myself in
+Heaven? But why are you making fun of me?”
+
+“I am not making fun of you. If I go to Africa I must give up the
+living, of which I own the advowson, and it occurred to me that it might
+suit you--that is all. You have done your share; your health is broken,
+and you have many dependent upon you. It seems right, therefore, that
+you should rest, and that I should work. If I do no good yonder, at the
+least you and yours will be a little benefited.”
+
+*****
+
+That same day Owen chanced to meet the lady who has been spoken of as
+having caught his heart. He had meant to go away without seeing her, but
+fortune brought them together. Hitherto, whilst in reality leading him
+on, she had seemed to keep him at a distance, with the result that he
+did not know that it was her fixed intention to marry him. To her,
+with some hesitation, he told his plans. Surprised and frightened into
+candour, the lady reasoned with him warmly, and when reason failed to
+move him she did more. By some subtle movement, with some sudden word,
+she lifted the veil of her reserve and suffered him to see her heart.
+“If you will not stay for aught else,” said her troubled eyes, “then,
+love, stay for me.”
+
+For a moment he was shaken. Then he answered the look straight out, as
+was his nature.
+
+“I never guessed,” he said. “I did not presume to hope--now it is too
+late! Listen! I will tell you what I have told no living soul, though
+thereafter you may think me mad. Weak and humble as I am, I believe
+myself to have received a Divine mission. I believe that I shall execute
+it, or bring about its execution, but at the ultimate cost of my own
+life. Still, in such a service two are better than one. If you--can care
+enough--if you----”
+
+But the lady had already turned away, and was murmuring her farewell in
+accents that sounded like a sob. Love and faith after this sort were not
+given to her.
+
+Of all Owen’s trials this was the sharpest. Of all his sacrifices this
+was the most complete.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE TEMPTATION
+
+Two years have gone by all but a few months, and from the rectory in a
+quiet English village we pass to a scene in Central, or South Central,
+Africa.
+
+On the brow of a grassy slope dotted over with mimosa thorns, and close
+to a gushing stream of water, stands a house, or rather a hut, built
+of green brick and thatched with grass. Behind this hut is a fence of
+thorns, rough but strong, designed to protect all within it from the
+attacks of lions and other beasts of prey. At present, save for a
+solitary mule eating its provender by the wheel of a tented ox-waggon,
+it is untenanted, for the cattle have not yet been kraaled for the
+night. Presently Thomas Owen enters this enclosure by the back door of
+the hut, and having attended to the mule, which whinnies at the sight
+of him, goes to the gate and watches there till he sees his native boys
+driving the cattle up the slope of the hill. At length they arrive, and
+when he has counted them to make sure that none are missing, and in a
+few kind words commended the herds for their watchfulness, he walks
+to the front of the house and, seating himself upon a wooden stool set
+under a mimosa tree that grows near the door, he looks earnestly towards
+the west.
+
+The man has changed somewhat since last we saw him. To begin with, he
+has grown a beard, and although the hot African sun has bronzed it
+into an appearance of health, his face is even thinner than it was, and
+therein the great spiritual eyes shine still more strangely.
+
+At the foot of the slope runs a wide river, just here broken into rapids
+where the waters make an angry music. Beyond this river stretches a
+vast plain bounded on the horizon by mountain ranges, each line of them
+rising higher than the other till their topmost and more distant peaks
+melt imperceptibly into the tender blue of the heavens. This is the land
+of the Sons of Fire, and yonder amid the slopes of the nearest hills is
+the great kraal of their king, Umsuka, whose name, being interpreted,
+means The Thunderbolt.
+
+In the very midst of the foaming rapids, and about a thousand yards
+from the house lies a space of rippling shallow water, where, unless it
+chances to be in flood, the river can be forded. It is this ford that
+Owen watches so intently.
+
+“John should have been back twelve hours ago,” he mutters to himself. “I
+pray that no harm has befallen him at the Great Place yonder.”
+
+Just then a tiny speck appears far away on the plain. It is a man
+travelling towards the water at a swinging trot. Going into the hut,
+Owen returns with a pair of field-glasses, and through them scrutinises
+the figure of the man.
+
+“Heaven be praised! It is John,” he mutters, with a sigh of relief.
+“Now, I wonder what answer he brings?”
+
+Half an hour later John stands before him, a stalwart native of the
+tribe of the Amasuka, the People of Fire, and with uplifted hand salutes
+him, giving him titles of honour.
+
+“Praise me not, John,” said Owen; “praise God only, as I have taught you
+to do. Tell me, have you seen the king, and what is his word?”
+
+“Father,” he answered, “I journeyed to the great town, as you bade me,
+and I was admitted before the majesty of the king; yes, he received me
+in the courtyard of the House of Women. With his guards, who stood at
+a distance out of hearing, there were present three only; but oh! those
+three were great, the greatest in all the land after the king. They were
+Hafela, the king that is to come, the prince Nodwengo, his brother, and
+Hokosa the terrible, the chief of the wizards; and I tell you, father,
+that my blood dried up and my heart shrivelled when they turned their
+eyes upon me, reading the thoughts of my heart.”
+
+“Have I not told you, John, to trust in God, and fear nothing at the
+hands of man?”
+
+“You told me, father, but still I feared,” answered the messenger
+humbly. “Yet, being bidden to it, I lifted my forehead from the dust
+and stood upon my feet before the king, and delivered to him the message
+which you set between my lips.”
+
+“Repeat the message, John.”
+
+“‘O King,’ I said, ‘beneath whose footfall the whole earth shakes, whose
+arms stretch round the world and whose breath is the storm, I, whose
+name is John, am sent by the white man whose name is Messenger’--for by
+that title you bade me make you known--‘who for a year has dwelt in the
+land that your spears have wasted beyond the banks of the river. These
+are the words which he spoke to me, O King, that I pass on to you with
+my tongue: “To the King Umsuka, lord of the Amasuka, the Sons of Fire,
+I, Messenger, who am the servant and the ambassador of the King of
+Heaven, give greeting. A year ago, King, I sent to you saying that the
+message which was brought by that white man whom you drove from your
+land had reached the ears of Him whom I serve, the High and Holy One,
+and that, speaking in my heart, He had commanded me to take up the
+challenge of your message. Here am I, therefore, ready to abide by the
+law which you have laid down; for if guile or lies be found in me, then
+let me travel from your land across the bridge of spears. Still, I would
+dwell a little while here where I am before I pass into the shadow of
+your rule and speak in the ears of your people as I have been bidden.
+Know, King, that first I would learn your tongue, and therefore I demand
+that one of your people may be sent to dwell with me and to teach me
+that tongue. King, you heard my words and you sent me a man to dwell
+with me, and that man has taught me your tongue, and I also have taught
+him, converting him to my faith and giving him a new name, the name of
+John. King, now I seek your leave to visit you, and to deliver into your
+ears the words with which I, Messenger, am charged. I have spoken.”’
+
+“Thus I, John, addressed the great ones, my father, and they listened
+in silence. When I had done they spoke together, a word here and a word
+there. Then Hokosa, the king’s mouth, answered me, telling the thought
+of the king: ‘You are a bold man, you whose name is John, but who once
+had another name--you, my servant, who dare to appear before me, and to
+make it known to me that you have been turned to a new faith and serve
+another king than I. Yet because you are bold, I forgive you. Go back
+now to that white man who is named Messenger and who comes upon an
+embassy to me from the Lord of Heaven, and bid him come in peace. Yet
+warn him once again that here also we know something of the Powers that
+are not seen, here also we have our wizards who draw wisdom from the
+air, who tame the thunderbolt and compel the rain, and that he must
+show himself greater than all of these if he would not pass hence by the
+bridge of spears. Let him, therefore, take counsel with his heart and
+with Him he serves, if such a One there is, and let him come or let him
+stay away as it shall please him.’”
+
+“So be it,” said Owen; “the words of the king are good, and to-morrow we
+will start for the Great Place.”
+
+John heard and assented, but without eagerness.
+
+“My father,” he said, in a doubtful and tentative voice, “would it not
+perhaps be better to bide here awhile first?”
+
+“Why?” asked Owen. “We have sown, and now is the hour to reap.”
+
+“Quite so, my father, but as I ran hither, full of the king’s words, it
+came into my mind that now is not the time to convert the Sons of Fire.
+There is trouble brewing at the Great Place, father. Listen, and I will
+tell you; as I have heard, so I will tell you. You know well that our
+King Umsuka has two sons, Hafela and Nodwengo; and of these Hafela is
+the heir-apparent, the fruit of the chief wife of the king, and Nodwengo
+is sprung from another wife. Now Hafela is proud and cruel, a warrior of
+warriors, a terrible man, and Nodwengo is gentle and mild, like to his
+mother whom the king loves. Of late it has been discovered that Hafela,
+weary of waiting for power, has made a plot to depose his father and to
+kill Nodwengo, his brother, so that the land and those who dwell in it
+may become his without question. This plot the king knows--I had it from
+one of his women, who is my sister--and he is very wroth, yet he dare do
+little, for he grows old and timid, and seeks rest, not war. Yet he is
+minded, if he can find the heart, to go back upon the law and to
+name Nodwengo as his heir before all the army at the feast of the
+first-fruits, which shall be held on the third day from to-night. This
+Hafela knows, and Nodwengo knows it also, and each of them has summoned
+his following, numbering thousands and tens of thousands of spears, to
+attend this feast of the first-fruits. That feast may well be a feast
+of vultures, my father, and when the brothers and their regiments rush
+together fighting for the throne, what will chance to the white man who
+comes at such a moment to preach a faith of peace, and to his servant,
+one John, who led him there?”
+
+“I do not know,” answered Owen, “and it troubles me not at all. I go to
+carry out my mission, and in this way or in that it will be carried out.
+John, if you are fearful or unbelieving leave me to go alone.”
+
+“Nay, father, I am not fearful; yet, father, I would have you
+understand. Yonder there are men who can work wizardry. _Wow!_ I know,
+for I have seen it, and they will demand from you magic greater than
+their magic.”
+
+“What of it, John?”
+
+“Only this, my father, that if they ask and you fail to give, they will
+kill you. You teach beautiful things, but say, are you a wizard? When
+the child of a woman yonder lay dead, you could not raise it as did the
+Christ; when the oxen were sick with the pest, you could not cure them;
+or at least, my father, you did not, although you wept for the child and
+were sorry at the loss of the oxen. Now, my father, if perchance
+they ask you to do such things as these yonder, or die, say what will
+happen?”
+
+“One of two things, John: either I shall die or I shall do the things.”
+
+“But”--hesitated John--“surely you do not believe that----” and he broke
+off.
+
+Owen turned round and looked at his disciple with kindling eyes. “I do
+believe, O you of little faith!” he said. “I do believe that yonder I
+have a mission, and that He Whom I serve will give me power to carry
+out that mission. You are right, I can work no miracles; but He can work
+miracles Whom everything in heaven and earth obeys, and if there is need
+He will work them through me, His instrument. Or perhaps He will
+not work them, and I shall die, because thus His ends will best be
+forwarded. At the least I go in faith, fearing nothing, for what has he
+to fear who knows the will of God and does it? But to you who doubt, I
+say--leave me!”
+
+The man spread out his hands in deprecation; his thick lips trembled a
+little, and something like a tear appeared at the corners of his eyes.
+
+“Father,” he said, “am I a coward that you should talk to me thus?
+I, who for twenty years have been a soldier of my king and for ten a
+captain in my regiment? These scars show whether or no I am a coward,”
+ and he pointed to his breast, “but of them I will not speak. I am no
+coward, else I had not gone upon that errand of yours. Why, then, should
+you reproach me because my ears are not so open as yours, as my heart
+has not understanding? I worship that God of Whom you have taught me,
+but He never speaks to me as He does to you. I never meet Him as I walk
+at night; He leaves me quite alone. Therefore it is that I fear that
+when the hour of trial comes He may desert you; and unless He covers you
+with His shield, of this I am sure, that the spear is forged which shall
+blush red in your heart, my father. It is for you that I fear, who are
+so gentle and tender; not for myself, who am well accustomed to look in
+the eyes of Death, and who expect no more than death.”
+
+“Forgive me,” said Owen hastily, for he was moved; “and be sure that
+the shield will be over us till the time comes for us to pass whither we
+shall need none.”
+
+*****
+
+That night Owen rose from the task at which he was labouring slowly and
+painfully--a translation of passages from the Gospel of St. John into
+the language of the Amasuka--and going to the open window-place of the
+hut, he rested his elbows upon it and thought, staring with empty eyes
+into the blackness of the night. Now it was as he sat thus that a great
+agony of doubt took possession of his soul. The strength which hitherto
+had supported him seemed to be withdrawn, and he was left, as John
+had said, “quite alone.” Strange voices seemed to whisper in his ears,
+reproaching and reviling him; temptations long ago trampled under foot
+rose again in might, alluring him.
+
+“Fool,” said the voices, “get you hence before it is too late. You have
+been mad; you who dreamed that for your sake, to satisfy your pride, the
+Almighty will break His silence and strain His law. Are you then better,
+or greater, or purer than millions who have gone before you, that for
+you and you alone this thing should be done? Why, were it not that you
+are mad, you would be among the chief of sinners; you who dare to ask
+that the Powers of Heaven should be set within your feeble hand, that
+the Angels of Heaven should wait upon your mortal breath. Worm that you
+are, has God need of such as you? If it is His will to turn the heart
+of yonder people He will do it, but not by means of _you_. You and the
+servant whom you are deluding to his death will perish miserably, and
+this alone shall be the fruit of your presumptuous sin. Get you back out
+of this wilderness before the madness takes you afresh. You are still
+young, you have wealth; look where She stands yonder whom you desire.
+Get you back, and forget your folly in her arms.”
+
+These thoughts, and many others of like nature, tore Owen’s soul in
+that hour of strange and terrible temptation. He seemed to see himself
+standing before the thousands of the savage nation he went to save, and
+to hear the mocking voices of their witch-finders commanding him, if he
+were a true man and the servant of that God of Whom he prated, to
+give them a sign, only a little sign; perhaps to move a stone without
+touching it with his hand, or to cause a dead bough to blossom.
+
+Then he would beseech Heaven with frantic prayers, and in vain, till at
+length, amidst a roar of laughter, he, the false prophet and the liar,
+was led out to his doom. He saw the piteous wondering look of the
+believer whom he had betrayed to death; he saw the fierce faces and
+the spears on high. Seeing all this his spirit broke, and, just as the
+little clock in the room behind him struck the first stroke of midnight,
+with a great and bitter cry to God to give him back the faith and
+strength that he had lost, Owen’s head fell forward and he sank into a
+swoon there upon the window-place.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE VISION
+
+Was it swoon or sleep?
+
+At least it seemed to Owen that presently once again he was gazing into
+the dense intolerable blackness of the night. Then a marvel came to
+pass, for the blackness opened, or rather on it, framed and surrounded
+by it, there appeared a vision. It was the vision of a native town,
+having a great bare space in the centre of it encircled by hundreds or
+thousands of huts. But there was no one stirring about the huts, for
+it was night--not this his night of trial indeed, since now the sky was
+strewn with innumerable stars. Everything was silent about that town,
+save that now and again a dog barked or a fretful child wailed within
+a hut, or the sentries as they passed saluted each other in the name of
+the king.
+
+Among all those hundreds of huts, to Owen it seemed that his attention
+was directed to one which stood apart surrounded with a fence. Now the
+interior of the hut opened itself to him. It was not lighted, yet with
+his spirit sense he could see its every detail: the polished floor, the
+skin rugs, the beer gourds, the shields and spears, the roof-tree of red
+wood, and the dried lizard hanging from the thatch, a charm to ward off
+evil. In this hut, seated face to face halfway between the centre-post
+and the door-hole, were two men. The darkness was deep about them, and
+they whispered to each other through it; but in his dream this was no
+bar to Owen’s sight. He could discern their faces clearly.
+
+One of them was that of a man of about thirty-five years of age. In
+stature he was almost a giant. He wore a kaross of leopard skins, and on
+his wrists and ankles were rings of ivory, the royal ornaments. His face
+was fierce and powerful; his eyes, which were set far apart, rolled
+so much that at times they seemed all white; and his fingers played
+nervously with the handle of a spear that he carried in his right hand.
+His companion was of a different stamp; a person of more than fifty
+years, he was tall and spare in figure, with delicately shaped hands
+and feet. His hair and little beard were tinged with grey, his face was
+strikingly handsome, nervous and expressive, and his forehead both broad
+and high. But more remarkable still were his eyes, which shone with a
+piercing brightness, almost grey in colour, steady as the flame of a
+well-trimmed lamp, and so cold that they might have been precious stones
+set in the head of a statue.
+
+“Must I then put your thoughts in words?” said this man in a clear
+quick whisper. “Well, so be it; for I weary of sitting here in the dark
+waiting for water that will not flow. Listen, Prince; you come to talk
+to me of the death of a king--is it not so? Nay do not start. Why are
+you affrighted when you hear upon the lips of another the plot that
+these many months has been familiar to your breast?”
+
+“Truly, Hokosa, you are the best of wizards, or the worst,” answered
+the great man huskily. “Yet this once you are mistaken,” he added with a
+change of voice. “I came but to ask you for a charm to turn my father’s
+heart----”
+
+“To dust? Prince, if I am mistaken, why am I the best of wizards, or the
+worst, and why did your jaw drop and your face change at my words, and
+why do you even now touch your dry lips with your tongue? Yes, I know
+that it is dark here, yet some can see in it, and I am one of them. Ay,
+Prince, and I can see your mind also. You would be rid of your father:
+he has lived too long. Moreover his love turns to Nodwengo, the good and
+gentle; and perhaps--who can say?--it is even in his thought, when all
+his regiments are about him two days hence, to declare that you, Prince,
+are deposed, and that your brother, Nodwengo, shall be king in your
+stead. Now, Nodwengo you cannot kill; he is too well loved and too well
+guarded. If he died suddenly, his dead lips would call out ‘Murder!’ in
+the ears of all men; and, Prince, all eyes would turn to you, who alone
+could profit by his end. But if the king should chance to die--why he is
+old, is he not? and such things happen to the old. Also he grows feeble,
+and will not suffer the regiments to be doctored for war, although day
+by day they clamour to be led to battle; for he seeks to end his years
+in peace.”
+
+“I say that you speak folly,” answered the prince with vehemence.
+
+“Then, Son of the Great One, why should you waste time in listening to
+me? Farewell, Hafela the Prince, first-born of the king, who in a day to
+come shall carry the shield of Nodwengo; for he is good and gentle, and
+will spare your life--if I beg it of him.”
+
+Hafela stretched out his hand through the darkness, and caught Hokosa by
+the wrist.
+
+“Stay,” he whispered, “it is true. The king must die; for if he does not
+die within three days, I shall cease to be his heir. I know it through
+my spies. He is angry with me; he hates me, and he loves Nodwengo
+and the mother of Nodwengo. But if he dies before the last day of the
+festival, then that decree will never pass his lips, and the regiments
+will never roar out the name of Nodwengo as the name of the king to
+come. He must die, I tell you, Hokosa, and--by your hand.”
+
+“By _my_ hand, Prince! Nay; what have you to offer me in return for such
+a deed as this? Have I not grown up in Umsuka’s shadow, and shall I cut
+down the tree that shades me?”
+
+“What have I to offer you? This: that next to myself you shall be the
+greatest in the land, Hokosa.”
+
+“That I am already, and whoever rules it, that I must always be. I, who
+am the chief of wizards; I, the reader of men’s hearts; I, the hearer
+of men’s thoughts! I, the lord of the air and the lightning; I, the
+invulnerable. If you would murder, Prince, then do the deed; do it
+knowing that I have your secret, and that henceforth you who rule shall
+be my servant. Nay, you forget that I can see in the dark; lay down that
+assegai, or, by my spirit, prince as you are, I will blast you with a
+spell, and your body shall be thrown to the kites, as that of one who
+would murder his king and father!”
+
+The prince heard and shook, his cheeks sank in, the muscles of his great
+form seemed to collapse, and he grovelled on the floor of the hut.
+
+“I know your magic,” he groaned; “use it for me, not against me! What
+is there that I can offer you, who have everything except the throne,
+whereon you cannot sit, seeing that you are not of the blood-royal?”
+
+“Think,” said Hokosa.
+
+For a while the prince thought, till presently his form straightened
+itself, and with a quick movement he lifted up his head.
+
+“Is it, perchance, my affianced wife?” he whispered; “the lady Noma,
+whom I love, and who, according to our custom, I shall wed as the queen
+to be after the feast of first-fruits? Oh! say it not, Hokosa.”
+
+“I say it,” answered the wizard. “Listen, Prince. The lady Noma is the
+only child of my blood-brother, my friend, with whom I was brought up,
+he who was slain at my side in the great war with the tribes of the
+north. She was my ward: she was more; for through her--ah! you know
+not how--I held my converse with the things of earth and air, the very
+spirits that watch us now in this darkness, Hafela. Thus it happened,
+that before ever she was a woman, her mind grew greater than the mind
+of any other woman, and her thought became my thought, and my thought
+became her thought, for I and no other am her master. Still I waited
+to wed her till she was fully grown; and while I waited I went upon an
+embassy to the northern tribes. Then it was that you saw the maid in
+visiting at my kraal, and her beauty and her wit took hold of you; and
+in the council of the king, as you have a right to do, you named her as
+your head wife, the queen to be.
+
+“The king heard and bowed his head; he sent and took her, and placed her
+in the House of the Royal Women, there to abide till this feast of the
+first-fruits, when she shall be given to you in marriage. Yes, he sent
+her to that guarded house wherein not even I may set my foot. Although
+I was afar, her spirit warned me, and I returned, but too late; for she
+was sealed to you of the blood-royal, and that is a law which may not be
+broken.
+
+“Hafela, I prayed you to return her to me, and you mocked me. I would
+have brought you to your death, but it could not have availed me: for
+then, by that same law, which may not be broken, she who was sealed to
+you must die with you; and though thereafter her spirit would sit with
+me till I died also, it was not enough, since I who have conquered all,
+yet cannot conquer the fire that wastes my heart, nor cease to long by
+night and day for a woman who is lost to me. Then it was, Hafela, that
+I plotted vengeance against you. I threw my spell over the mind of the
+king, till he learnt to hate you and your evil deeds; and I, even I,
+have brought it about that your brother should be preferred before you,
+and that you shall be the servant in his house. This is the price that
+you must pay for her of whom you have robbed me; and by my spirit and
+her spirit you shall pay! Yet listen. Hand back the girl, as you may
+do--for she is not yet your wife--and choose another for your queen, and
+I will undo all that I have done, and I will find you a means, Hafela,
+to carry out your will. Ay, before six suns have set, the regiments
+rushing past you shall hail you King of the Nation of the Amasuka, Lord
+of the ancient House of Fire!”
+
+“I cannot,” groaned the prince; “death were better than this!”
+
+“Ay, death were better; but you shall not die, you shall live a servant,
+and your name shall become a mockery, a name for women to make rhymes
+on.”
+
+Now the prince sprang up.
+
+“Take her!” he hissed; “take her! you, who are an evil ghost; you,
+beneath whose eyes children wail, and at whose passing the hairs on the
+backs of hounds stand up! Take her, priest of death and ill; but take my
+curse with her! Ah! I also can prophecy; and I tell you that this
+woman whom you have taught, this witch of many spells, whose glance can
+shrivel the hearts of men, shall give you to drink of your own medicine;
+ay, she shall dog you to the death, and mock you while you perish by an
+end of shame!”
+
+“What,” laughed the wizard, “have I a rival in my own arts? Nay, Hafela,
+if you would learn the trade, pay me well and I will give you lessons.
+Yet I counsel you not; for you are flesh, nothing but flesh, and he who
+would rule the air must cultivate the spirit. Why, I tell you, Prince,
+that even the love for her who is my heart, the lady whom we both would
+wed, partaking of the flesh as, alas! it does, has cost me half my
+powers. Now let us cease from empty scoldings, and strike our bargain.
+
+“Listen. On the last day of the feast, when all the regiments are
+gathered to salute the king there in his Great Place according to
+custom, you shall stand forth before the king and renounce Noma, and she
+shall pass back to the care of my household. You yourself shall bring
+her to where I stand, and as I take her from you I will put into your
+hand a certain powder. Then you shall return to the side of the
+king, and after our fashion shall give him to drink the bowl of the
+first-fruits; but as you stir the beer, you will let fall into it that
+powder which I have given you. The king will drink, and what he leaves
+undrunk you will throw out upon the dust.
+
+“Now he will rise to give out to the people his royal decree, whereby,
+Prince, you are to be deposed from your place as heir, and your brother,
+Nodwengo, is to be set in your seat. But of that decree never a word
+shall pass his lips; if it does, recall your saying and take back the
+lady Noma from where she stands beside me. I tell you that never a word
+will pass his lips; for even as he rises a stroke shall take him, such
+a stroke as often falls upon the fat and aged, and he will sink to the
+ground snoring through his nostrils. For a while thereafter--it may be
+six hours, it may be twelve--he shall lie insensible, and then a cry
+will arise that the king is dead!”
+
+“Ay,” said Hafela, “and that I have poisoned him!”
+
+“Why, Prince? Few know what is in your father’s mind, and with those,
+being king, you will be able to deal. Also this is the virtue of the
+poison which I choose, that it is swift, yet the symptoms of it are the
+symptoms of a natural sickness. But that your safety and mine may be
+assured, I have made yet another plan, though of this there will be
+little need. You were present two days since when a runner came from the
+white man who sojourns beyond our border, he who seeks to teach us, the
+Children of Fire, a new faith, and gives out that he is the messenger of
+the King of heaven. This runner asked leave for the white man to visit
+the Great Place, and, speaking in the king’s name, I gave him leave. But
+I warned his servant that if his master came, a sign should be required
+of him to show that he was a true man, and had of the wisdom of the King
+of Heaven; and that if he failed therein, then that he should die as
+that white liar died who visited us in bygone years.
+
+“Now I have so ordered that this white man, passing through the Valley
+of Death yonder, shall reach the Great Place not long before the king
+drinks of the cup of the first-fruits. Then if any think that something
+out of nature has happened to the king, they will surely think also that
+this strange prayer-doctor has wrought the evil. Then also I will call
+for a sign from the white man, praying of him to recover the king of his
+sickness; and when he fails, he shall be slain as a worker of spells and
+the false prophet of a false god, and so we shall be rid of him and
+his new faith, and you shall be cleared of doubt. Is not the plan good,
+Prince?”
+
+“It is very good, Hokosa--save for one thing only.”
+
+“For what thing?”
+
+“This: the white man who is named Messenger might chance to be a true
+prophet of a true God, and to recover the king.”
+
+“Oho, let him do it, if he can; but to do it, first he must know the
+poison and its antidote. There is but one, and it is known to me only
+of all men in this land. When he has done that, then I, yes, even I,
+Hokosa, will begin to inquire concerning this God of his, who shows
+Himself so mighty in person of His messenger.” And he laughed low and
+scornfully.
+
+“Prince, farewell! I go forth alone, whither you dare not follow at this
+hour, to seek that which we shall need. One word--think not to play
+me false, or to cheat me of my price; for whate’er betides, be sure of
+this, that hour shall be the hour of your dooming. Hail to you, Son of
+the King! Hail! and farewell.” Then, removing the door-board, the wizard
+passed from the hut and was gone.
+
+*****
+
+The vision changed. Now there appeared a valley walled in on either side
+with sloping cliffs of granite; a desolate place, sandy and, save for a
+single spring, without water, strewn with boulders of rock, some of them
+piled fantastically one upon the other. At a certain spot this valley
+widened out, and in the mouth of the space thus formed, midway between
+the curved lines of the receding cliffs, stood a little hill or koppie,
+also built up of boulders. It was a place of death; for all around the
+hill, and piled in hundreds between the crevices of its stones, lay the
+white bones of men.
+
+Nor was this all. Its summit was flat, and in the midst of it stood
+a huge tree. Even had it not been for the fruit which hung from its
+branches, the aspect of that tree must have struck the beholder as
+uncanny, even as horrible. The bark on its great bole was leprous white;
+and from its gaunt and spreading rungs rose branches that subdivided
+themselves again and again, till at last they terminated in round green
+fingers, springing from grey, flat slabs of bark, in shape not unlike
+that of a human palm. Indeed, from a little distance this tree,
+especially if viewed by moonlight, had the appearance of bearing on
+it hundreds or thousands of the arms and hands of men, all of them
+stretched imploringly to Heaven.
+
+Well might they seem to do so, seeing that to its naked limbs hung the
+bodies of at least twenty human beings who had suffered death by order
+of the king or his captains, or by the decree of the company of wizards,
+whereof Hokosa was the chief. There on the Hill of Death stood the Tree
+of Death; and that in its dank shade, or piled upon the ground beneath
+it, hung and lay the pitiful remnants of the multitudes who for
+generations had been led thither to their doom.
+
+Now, in Owen’s vision a man was seen approaching by the little pathway
+that ran up the side of the mount--the Road of Lost Footsteps it was
+called. It was Hokosa the wizard. Outside the circle of the tree he
+halted, and drawing a tanned skin from a bundle of medicines which he
+carried, he tied it about his mouth; for the very smell of that tree is
+poisonous and must not be suffered to reach the lungs.
+
+Presently he was under the branches, where once again he halted; this
+time it was to gaze at the body of an old man which swung to and fro in
+the night breeze.
+
+“Ah! friend,” he muttered, “we strove for many years, but it seems that
+I have conquered at the last. Well, it is just; for if you could have
+had your way, your end would have been my end.”
+
+Then very leisurely, as one who is sure that he will not be interrupted,
+Hokosa began to climb the tree, till at length some of the green fingers
+were within his reach. Resting his back against a bough, one by one he
+broke off several of them, and averting his face so that the fumes of
+it might not reach him, he caused the thick milk-white juice that they
+contained to trickle into the mouth of a little gourd which was hung
+about his neck by a string. When he had collected enough of the poison
+and carefully corked the gourd with a plug of wood, he descended the
+tree again. At the great fork where the main branches sprang from the
+trunk, he stood a while contemplating a creeping plant which ran up
+them. It was a plant of naked stem, like the tree it grew upon; and,
+also like the tree, its leaves consisted of bunches of green spikes
+having a milky juice.
+
+“Strange,” he said aloud, “that Nature should set the bane and the
+antidote side by side, the one twined about the other. Well, so it is in
+everything; yes, even in the heart of man. Shall I gather some of this
+juice also? No; for then I might repent and save him, remembering that
+he has loved me, and thus lose her I seek, her whom I must win back or
+be withered. Let the messenger of the King of Heaven save him, if he
+can. This tree lies on his path; perchance he may prevail upon its dead
+to tell him of the bane and of the antidote.” And once more the wizard
+laughed mockingly.
+
+*****
+
+The vision passed. At this moment Thomas Owen, recovering from his
+swoon, lifted his head from the window-place. The night before him was
+as black as it had been, and behind him the little American clock
+was still striking the hour of midnight. Therefore he could not have
+remained insensible for longer than a few seconds.
+
+A few seconds, yet how much he had seen in them. Truly his want of
+faith had been reproved--truly he also had been “warned of God in a
+dream,”--truly “his ears had been opened and his instruction sealed.”
+ His soul had been “kept back from the pit,” and his life from “perishing
+by the sword;” and the way of the wicked had been made clear to him “in
+a dream, in a vision of the night when deep sleep falleth upon men.”
+
+Not for nothing had he endured that agony, and not for nothing had he
+struggled in the grip of doubt.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FEAST OF THE FIRST-FRUITS
+
+On the third morning from this night whereof the strange events have
+been described, an ox-waggon might have been seen outspanned on the
+hither side of those ranges of hills that were visible from the river.
+These mountains, which although not high are very steep, form the outer
+barrier and defence of the kingdom of the Amasuka. Within five hundred
+yards of where the waggon stood, however, a sheer cliffed gorge,
+fire-riven and water-hewn, pierced the range, and looking on it, Owen
+knew it for the gorge of his dream. Night and day the mouth of it was
+guarded by a company of armed soldiers, whose huts were built high on
+outlook places in the mountains, whence their keen eyes could scan the
+vast expanses of plain. A full day before it reached them, they had seen
+the white-capped waggon crawling across the veldt, and swift runners had
+reported its advent to the king at his Great Place.
+
+Back came the word of the king that the white man, with the waggon and
+his servant, were to be led on towards the Great Place at such speed as
+would bring him there in time for him to behold the last ceremony of the
+feast of first-fruits; but, for the present, that the waggon itself
+and the oxen were to be left at the mouth of the gorge, in charge of a
+guard, who would be answerable for them.
+
+Now, on this morning the captain of the guard and his orderlies advanced
+to the waggon and stood in front of it. They were splendid men, armed
+with great spears and shields, and adorned with feather head-dresses and
+all the wild finery of their regiment. Owen descended from the waggon
+and came to meet them, and so for a few moments they remained, face to
+face, in silence. A strange contrast they presented as they stood there;
+the bare-headed white man frail, delicate, spiritual of countenance, and
+the warriors great, grave, powerful, a very embodiment of the essence
+of untamed humanity, an incarnate presentation of the spirit of savage
+warfare.
+
+“How are you named, White Man?” asked the captain.
+
+“Chief, I am named Messenger.”
+
+“The peace of the king be with you, Messenger,” said the captain,
+lifting his spear.
+
+“The peace of God be with you, Chief,” answered Owen, holding up his
+hands in blessing.
+
+“Who is God?” asked the captain.
+
+“Chief, He is the King I serve, and His word is between my lips.”
+
+“Then pass on, Messenger of God, and deliver the word of God your King
+into the ears of my king, at his Great Place yonder. Pass on riding the
+beast you have brought with you, for the way is rough; but your waggon,
+your oxen, and your servants, save this man only who is of the Children
+of Fire, must stay here in my keeping. Fear not, Messenger, I will hold
+them safe.”
+
+“I do not fear, Chief, there is honour in your eyes.”
+
+*****
+
+Some hours later, Owen, mounted on his mule, was riding through the
+gorge, a guard in front of and behind him, and with them carriers who
+had been sent to bear his baggage. At his side walked his disciple John,
+and his face was sad.
+
+“Why are you still afraid?” asked Owen.
+
+“Ah! father, because this is a place of fear. Here in this valley men
+are led to die; presently you will see.”
+
+“I have seen,” answered Owen. “Yonder where we shall halt is a mount,
+and on that mount stands a tree; it is called the Tree of Death, and it
+stretches a thousand hands to Heaven, praying for mercy that does not
+come, and from its boughs there hangs fruit, a fruit of dead men--yes,
+twenty of them hang there this day.”
+
+“How know you these things, my father,” asked the man amazed, “seeing
+that I have never spoken to you of them?”
+
+“Nay,” he answered, “God has spoken to me. My God and your God.”
+
+Another hour passed, and they were resting by the spring of water, near
+to the shadow of the dreadful tree, for in that gorge the sun burned
+fiercely. John counted the bodies that swung upon it, and again looked
+fearfully at Owen, for there were twenty of them.
+
+“I desire to go up to that tree,” Owen said to the guard.
+
+“As you will, Messenger,” answered their leader; “I have no orders to
+prevent you from so doing. Still,” he added with a solemn smile, “it is
+a place that few seek of their own will, and, because I like you well,
+Messenger, I pray it may never be my duty to lead you there of the
+king’s will.”
+
+Then Owen went up to the tree and John with him, only John would not
+pass beneath the shadow of its branches; but stood by wondering, while
+his master bound a handkerchief about his mouth.
+
+“How did he know that the breath of the tree is poisonous?” John
+wondered.
+
+Owen walked to the bole of the tree, and breaking off some of the
+finger-like leaves of the creeper that twined about it, he pressed
+their milky juice into a little bottle that he had made ready. Then he
+returned quickly, for the sights and odours of the place were not to be
+borne.
+
+Outside the circle of the branches he halted, and removed the
+handkerchief from his mouth.
+
+“Be of good cheer,” he said to John, “and if it should chance that I am
+called away before my words come true, yet remember my words. I tell
+you that this Tree of Death shall become the Tree of Life for all the
+children of your people. Look! there above you is its sign and promise.”
+
+John lifted his eyes, following the line of Owen’s outstretched hand,
+and saw this. High up upon the tree, and standing clear of all the other
+branches, was one straight, dead limb, and from this dead limb two
+arms projected at right angles, also dead and snapped off short. Had a
+carpenter fashioned a cross of wood and set it there, its proportions
+could not have been more proper and exact. It was very strange to find
+this symbol of the Christian hope towering above that place of human
+terror, and stranger still was the purpose which it must serve in a day
+to come.
+
+Owen and John returned to the guard in silence, and presently they set
+forward on their journey. At length, passing beneath a natural arch of
+rock, they were out of the Valley of Death, and before them, not five
+hundred paces away, appeared the fence of the Great Place.
+
+This Great Place stood upon a high plateau, in the lap of the
+surrounding hills, all of which were strongly fortified with schanses,
+pitfalls, and rough walls of stone. That plateau may have measured
+fifteen miles in circumference, and the fence of the town itself was
+about four miles in circumference. Within the fence and following its
+curve, for it was round, stood thousands of dome-shaped huts carefully
+set out in streets. Within these again was a stout stockade of timber,
+enclosing a vast arena of trodden earth, large enough to contain all
+the cattle of the People of Fire in times of danger, and to serve as a
+review ground for their _impis_ in times of peace or festival.
+
+At the outer gate of the kraal there was a halt, while the keepers of
+the gate despatched a messenger to their king to announce the advent of
+the white man. Of this pause Owen took advantage to array himself in the
+surplice and hood which he had brought with him in readiness for that
+hour. Then he gave the mule to John to lead behind him.
+
+“What do you, Messenger?” asked the leader of the guard, astonished.
+
+“I clothe myself in my war-dress,” he answered.
+
+“Where then is your spear, Messenger?”
+
+“Here,” said Owen, presenting to his eyes a crucifix of ivory, most
+beautifully carved.
+
+“I perceive that you are of the family of wizards,” said the man, and
+fell back.
+
+Now they entered the kraal and passed for three hundred yards or more
+through rows of huts, till they reached the gate of the stockade, which
+was opened to them. Once within it, Owen saw a wonderful sight, such a
+sight as few white men have seen. The ground of the enormous oval before
+him was not flat. Either from natural accident or by design it sloped
+gently upwards, so that the spectator, standing by the gate or at
+the head of it before the house of the king, could take in its whole
+expanse, and, if his sight were keen enough, could see every individual
+gathered there.
+
+On the particular day of Owen’s arrival it was crowded with regiments,
+twelve of them, all dressed in their different uniforms and bearing
+shields to match, not one of which was less than 2500 strong. At this
+moment the regiments were massed in deep lines, each battalion by
+itself, on either side of the broad roadway that ran straight up the
+kraal to where the king, his sons, his advisers and guards, together
+with the company of wizards, were placed in front of the royal house.
+
+There they stood in absolute silence, like tens of thousands of bronze
+statues, and Owen perceived that either they were resting or that they
+were gathered thus to receive him. That the latter was the case soon
+became evident, for as he appeared, a white spot at the foot of the
+slope, countless heads turned and myriads of eyes fastened themselves
+upon him. For an instant he was dismayed; there was something terrifying
+in this numberless multitude of warriors, and the thought of the task
+that he had undertaken crushed his spirit. Then he remembered, and
+shaking off his fear and doubt, alone, save for his disciple John,
+holding the crucifix aloft, he walked slowly up the wide road towards
+the place where he guessed that the king must be. His arm was weary ere
+ever he reached it, but at length he found himself standing before a
+thickset old man, who was clad in leopard skins and seated upon a stool
+of polished wood.
+
+“It is the king,” whispered John behind him.
+
+“Peace be to you,” said Owen, breaking the silence.
+
+“The wish is good, may it be fulfilled,” answered the king in a deep
+voice, sighing as he said the words. “Yet yours is a strange greeting,”
+ he added. “Whence came you, White Man, how are you named, and what is
+your mission to me and to my people?”
+
+“King, I come from beyond the sea; I am named Messenger, and my mission
+is to deliver to you the saying of God, my King and--yours.”
+
+At these words a gasp of astonishment went up from those who stood
+within hearing, expecting as they did to see them rewarded by instant
+death. But Umsuka only said:--
+
+“‘My King and yours’? Bold words, Messenger. Where then is this King to
+whom I, Umsuka, should bow the knee?”
+
+“He is everywhere--in the heavens, on the earth, and below the earth.”
+
+“If He is everywhere, then He is here. Show me the likeness of this
+King, Messenger.”
+
+“Behold it,” Owen answered, thrusting forward the crucifix.
+
+Now all the great ones about the king stared at this figure of a dying
+man crowned with thorns and hanging on a cross, and then drew up their
+lips to laugh. But that laugh never left them; a sudden impulse, a
+mysterious wave of feeling choked it in their throats. A sense of the
+strangeness of the contrast between themselves in their armed multitudes
+and this one white-robed man in his loneliness took hold of them, and
+with it another sense of something not far removed from fear.
+
+“A wizard indeed,” they thought in their hearts, and what they thought
+the king uttered.
+
+“I perceive,” he said, “that you are either mad, White Man, or you are
+a prince of wizards. Mad you do not seem to be, for your eyes are calm,
+therefore a wizard you must be. Well, stand behind me: by-and-by I will
+hear your message and ask of you to show me your powers; but before then
+there are things which I must do. Are the lads ready? Ho, you, loose the
+bull!”
+
+At the command a line of soldiers moved from the right, forming itself
+up in front of the king and his attendants, revealing a number of
+youths, of from sixteen to seventeen years of age, armed with sticks
+only, who stood in companies outside a massive gate. Presently this gate
+was opened, and through it, with a mad bellow, rushed a wild buffalo
+bull. On seeing them the brute halted, and for a few moments stood
+pawing the earth and tearing it with its great horns. Then it put down
+its head and charged. Instead of making way for it, uttering a shrill
+whistling sound, the youths rushed at the beast, striking with their
+sticks.
+
+Another instant, and one of them appeared above the heads of his
+companions, thrown high into the air, to be followed by a second and a
+third. Now the animal was through the throng and carrying a poor boy on
+its horn, whence presently he fell dead; through and through the ranks
+of the regiments it charged furiously backward and forward.
+
+Watching it fascinated, Owen noted that it was a point of honour for
+no man to stir before its rush; there they stood, and if the bull gored
+them, there they fell. At length, exhausted and terrified, the brute
+headed back straight up the lane where the main body of the youths were
+waiting for it. Now it was among them, and, reckless of wounds or death,
+they swarmed about it like bees, seizing it by legs, nose, horns and
+tail, till with desperate efforts they dragged it to the ground and beat
+the life out of it with their sticks. This done, they formed up before
+the king and saluted him.
+
+“How many are killed?” he asked.
+
+“Eight in all,” was the answer, “and fifteen gored.”
+
+“A good bull,” he said with a smile; “that of last year killed but five.
+Well, the lads fought him bravely. Let the dead be buried, the hurt
+tended, or, if their harms are hopeless, slain, and to the rest give a
+double ration of beer. Ho, now, fall back, men, and make a space for the
+Bees and the Wasps to fight in.”
+
+Some orders were given and a great ring was formed, leaving an arena
+clear that may have measured a hundred and fifty yards in diameter. Then
+suddenly, from opposite sides, the two regiments, known as the Bees
+and the Wasps respectively, rushed upon each other, uttering their
+war-cries.
+
+“I put ten head of cattle on the Bees; who wagers on the Wasps?” cried
+the king.
+
+“I, Lord,” answered the Prince Hafela, stepping forward.
+
+“You, Prince!” said the king with a quick frown. “Well, you are right to
+back them, they are your own regiment. Ah! they are at it.”
+
+By this time the scene was that of a hell broken loose upon the earth.
+The two regiments, numbering some 5000 men in all, had come together,
+and the roar of their meeting shields was like the roar of thunder. They
+were armed with kerries only, and not with spears, for the fight was
+supposed to be a mimic one; but these weapons they used with such effect
+that soon hundreds of them were down dead or with shattered skulls and
+bruised limbs. Fiercely they fought, while the whole army watched, for
+their rivalry was keen and for many months they had known that they were
+to be pitted one against the other on this day. Fiercely they fought,
+while the captains cried their orders, and the dust rose up in clouds
+as they swung to and fro, breast thrusting against breast. At length the
+end came; the Bees began to give, they fell back ever more quickly till
+their retreat was a rout, and, leaving many stretched upon the ground,
+amid the mocking cries of the army they were driven to the fence, by
+touching which they obtained peace at the hands of their victors.
+
+The king saw, and his somewhat heavy, quiet face grew alive with rage.
+
+“Search and see,” he said, “if the captain of the Bees is alive and
+unhurt.”
+
+Messengers went to do his bidding, and presently they returned, bringing
+with them a man of magnificent appearance and middle age, whose left arm
+had been broken by a blow from a kerry. With his right hand he saluted
+first the king, then the Prince Nodwengo, a kindly-faced, mild-eyed man,
+in whose command he was.
+
+“What have you to say?” asked the king, in a cold voice of anger. “Know
+you that you have cost me ten head of the royal white cattle?”
+
+“King, I have nothing to say,” answered the captain calmly, “except that
+my men are cowards.”
+
+“That is certainly so,” said the king. “Let all the wounded among
+them be carried away; and for you, captain, who turn my soldiers into
+cowards, you shall die a dog’s death, hanging to-morrow on the Tree of
+Doom. As for your regiment, I banish it to the fever country, there to
+hunt elephants for three years, since it is not fit to fight with men.”
+
+“It is well,” replied the captain, “since death is better than shame.
+Only King, I have done you good service in the past; I ask that it may
+be presently and by the spear.”
+
+“So be it,” said the king.
+
+“I crave his life, father,” said the Prince Nodwengo; “he is my friend.”
+
+“A prince should not choose cowards for his friends,” replied the king;
+“let him be killed, I say.”
+
+Then Owen, who had been watching and listening, his heart sick with
+horror, stood forward and said:--
+
+“King, in the name of Him I serve, I conjure you to spare this man and
+those others that are hurt, who have done no crime except to be driven
+back by soldiers stronger than themselves.”
+
+“Messenger,” answered the king, “I bear with you because you are
+ignorant. Know that, according to our customs, this crime is the
+greatest of crimes, for here we show no mercy to the conquered.”
+
+“Yet you should do so,” said Owen, “seeing that you also must ere long
+be conquered by death, and then how can you expect mercy who have shown
+none?”
+
+“Let him be killed!” said the king.
+
+“King!” cried Owen once more, “do this deed, and I tell you that before
+the sun is down great evil will overtake you.”
+
+“Do you threaten me, Messenger? Well, we will see. Let him be killed, I
+say.”
+
+Then the man was led away; but, before he went he found time to thank
+Owen and Nodwengo the prince, and to call down good fortune upon them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE DRINKING OF THE CUP
+
+Now the king’s word was done, the anger went out of his eyes, and once
+more his countenance grew weary. A command was issued, and, with the
+most perfect order, moving like one man, the regiments changed their
+array, forming up battalion upon battalion in face of the king, that
+they might give him the royal salute so soon as he had drunk the cup of
+the first-fruits.
+
+A herald stood forward and cried:--
+
+“Hearken, you Sons of Fire! Hearken, you Children of Umsuka, Shaker of
+the Earth! Have any of you a boon to ask of the king?”
+
+Men stood forward, and having saluted, one by one asked this thing or
+that. The king heard their requests, and as he nodded or turned his head
+away, so they were granted or refused.
+
+When all had done, the Prince Hafela came forward, lifted his spear, and
+cried:--
+
+“A boon, King!”
+
+“What is it?” asked his father, eyeing him curiously.
+
+“A small matter, King,” he replied. “A while ago I named a certain
+woman, Noma, the ward of Hokosa the wizard, and she was sealed to me
+to fill the place of my first wife, the queen that is to be. She passed
+into the House of the Royal Women, and, by your command, King, it was
+fixed that I should marry her according to our customs to-morrow,
+after the feast of the first-fruits is ended. King, my heart is changed
+towards that woman; I no longer desire to take her to wife, and I pray
+that you will order that she shall now be handed back to Hokosa her
+guardian.”
+
+“You blow hot and cold with the same mouth, Hafela,” said Umsuka, “and
+in love or war I do not like such men. What have you to say to this
+demand, Hokosa?”
+
+Now Hokosa stepped forward from where he stood at the head of the
+company of wizards. His dress, like that of his companions, was simple,
+but in its way striking. On his shoulders he wore a cloak of shining
+snakeskin; about his loins was a short kilt of the same material; and
+round his forehead, arms and knees were fillets of snakeskin. At his
+side hung his pouch of medicines, and in his hand he held no spear, but
+a wand of ivory, whereof the top was roughly carved so as to resemble
+the head of a cobra reared up to strike.
+
+“King,” he said, “I have heard the words of the prince, and I do not
+think that this insult should have been put upon the Lady Noma, my ward,
+or upon me, her guardian. Still, let it be, for I would not that
+one should pass from under the shadow of my house whither she is not
+welcome. Without my leave the prince named this woman as his queen, as
+he had the right to do; and without my leave he unnames her, as he has
+the right to do. Were the prince a common man, according to custom he
+should pay a fine of cattle to be held by me in trust for her whom he
+discards; but this is a matter that I leave to you, King.”
+
+“You do well, Hokosa,” answered Umsuka, “to leave this to me. Prince,
+you would not wish the fine that you should pay to be that of any common
+man. With the girl shall be handed over two hundred head of cattle.
+More, I will do justice: unless she herself consents, she shall not be
+put away. Let the Lady Noma be summoned.”
+
+Now the face of Hafela grew sullen, and watching, Owen saw a swift
+change pass over that of Hokosa. Evidently he was not certain of the
+woman. Presently there was a stir, and from the gates of the royal house
+the Lady Noma appeared, attended by women, and stood before the king.
+She was a tall and lovely girl, and the sunlight flashed upon her
+bronze-hued breast and her ornaments of ivory. Her black hair was
+fastened in a knot upon her neck, her features were fine and small, her
+gait was delicate and sure as that of an antelope, and her eyes were
+beautiful and full of pride. There she stood before the king, looking
+round her like a stag. Seeing her thus, Owen understood how it came
+about that she held two men so strangely different in the hollow of her
+hand, for her charm was of a nature to appeal to both of them--a charm
+of the spirit as well as of the flesh. And yet the face was haughty, a
+face that upon occasion might even become cruel.
+
+“You sent for me and I am here, O King,” she said, in a slow and quiet
+voice.
+
+“Listen, girl,” answered the king. “A while ago the Prince Hafela, my
+son, named you as her who should be his queen, whereon you were taken
+and placed in the House of the Royal Women, to abide the day of your
+marriage, which should be to-morrow.”
+
+“It is true that the prince has honoured me thus, and that you have been
+pleased to approve of his choice,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “What
+of it, O King?”
+
+“This, girl: the prince who was pleased to honour you is now pleased to
+dishonour you. Here, in the presence of the council and army, he prays
+of me to annul his sealing to you, and to send you back to the house of
+your guardian, Hokosa the wizard.”
+
+Noma started, and her face grew hard.
+
+“Is it so?” she said. “Then it would seem that I have lost favour in the
+eyes of my lord the prince, or that some fairer woman has found it.”
+
+“Of these matters I know nothing,” replied the king; “but this I know,
+that if you seek justice you shall have it. Say but the word, and he to
+whom you were promised in marriage shall take you in marriage, whether
+he wills or wills it not.”
+
+At this speech, the face of Hafela was suddenly lit up as with the fire
+of hope, while over that of Hokosa there passed another subtle change.
+The girl glanced at them both and was silent for a while. Her breast
+heaved and her white teeth bit upon her lip. To Owen, who noted all, it
+was clear that rival passions were struggling in her heart: the passion
+of power and the passion of love, or of some emotion which he did not
+understand. Hokosa fixed his calm eyes upon her with a strange intensity
+of gaze, and while he gazed his form quivered with a suppressed
+excitement, much as a snake quivers that is about to strike its prey.
+To the careless eye there was nothing remarkable about his look
+and attitude; to the observer it was evident that both were full of
+extraordinary purpose. He was talking to the girl, not with words, but
+in some secret language that he and she understood alone. She started as
+one starts who catches the tone of a well-remembered voice in a crowd of
+strangers, and lifting her eyes from the ground, whither she had turned
+them in meditation, she looked up at Hokosa.
+
+Instantly her face began to change. The haughtiness and anger went out
+of it, it grew troubled, the lips parted in a sigh. First she bent her
+head and body towards him, then without more ado she walked to where he
+stood and took him by the hand. Here, at some whispered word or sign,
+she seemed to recover herself, and again resuming the character of a
+proud offended beauty, she curtseyed to Umsuka, and spoke:--
+
+“O King, as you see, I have made my choice. I will not force myself upon
+a man who scorns me, no, not even to share his place and power, though
+it is true that I love them both. Nay, I will return to Hokosa my
+guardian, and to his wife, Zinti, who has been as my mother, and with
+them be at peace.”
+
+“It is well,” said the king, “and perhaps, girl, your choice is wise;
+perhaps your loss is not so great as you have thought. Hafela, take you
+the hand of Hokosa and release the girl back to him according to the
+law, promising in the ears of men before the first month of winter to
+pay him two hundred head of cattle as forfeit, to be held by him in
+trust for the girl.”
+
+In a sullen voice, his lips trembling with rage, Hafela did as the
+king commanded; and when the hands of the conspirators unclasped, Owen
+perceived that in that of the prince lay a tiny packet.
+
+“Mix me the cup of the first-fruits, and swiftly,” said the king again,
+“for the sun grows low in the heavens, and ere it sinks I have words to
+say.”
+
+Now a polished gourd filled with native beer was handed to Nodwengo, the
+second son of the king, and one by one the great councillors approached,
+and, with appropriate words, let fall into it offerings emblematic of
+fertility and increase. The first cast in a grain of corn; the second,
+a blade of grass; the third, a shaving from an ox’s horn; the fourth,
+a drop of water; the fifth, a woman’s hair; the sixth, a particle
+of earth; and so on, until every ingredient was added to it that was
+necessary to the magic brew.
+
+Then Hokosa, as chief of the medicine men, blessed the cup according
+to the ancient forms, praying that he whose body was the heavens, whose
+eyes were lightning, and whose voice was thunder, the spirit whom they
+worshipped, might increase and multiply to them during the coming year
+all those fruits and elements that were present in the cup, and that
+every virtue which they contained might comfort the body of the king.
+
+His prayer finished, it was the turn of Hafela to play his part as the
+eldest born of the king. Kneeling over the cup which stood upon the
+ground, a spear was handed to him that had been made red hot in the
+fire. Taking the spear, he stabbed with it towards the four quarters
+of the horizon; then, muttering some invocation, he plunged it into the
+bowl, stirring its contents till the iron grew black. Now he threw aside
+the spear, and lifting the bowl in both hands, he carried it to his
+father and offered it to him.
+
+Although he had been unable to see him drop the poison into the cup,
+a glance at Hafela told Owen that it was there; for though he kept his
+face under control, he could not prevent his hands from twitching or the
+sweat from starting upon his brow and breast.
+
+The king rose, and taking the bowl, held it on high, saying:--
+
+“In this cup, which I drink on behalf of the nation, I pledge you, my
+people.”
+
+It was the signal for the royal salute, for which each regiment had been
+prepared. As the last word left the king’s lips, every one of the thirty
+thousand men present in that great place began to rattle his kerry
+against the surface of his ox-hide shield. At first the sound produced
+resembled that of the murmur of the sea; but by slow and just degrees
+it grew louder and ever louder, till the roar of it was like the deepest
+voice of thunder, a sound awe-inspiring, terrible.
+
+Suddenly, when its volume was most, four spears were thrown into the
+air, and at this signal every man ceased to beat upon his shield. In the
+place itself there was silence, but from the mountains around the echoes
+still crashed and volleyed. When the last of them had died away, the
+king brought the cup to the level of his lips. Owen saw, and knowing its
+contents, was almost moved to cry out in warning. Indeed, his arm was
+lifted and his mouth was open, when by chance he noted Hokosa watching
+him, and remembered. To act now would be madness, his time had not yet
+come.
+
+The cup touched the king’s lips, and at the sign from every throat
+in that countless multitude sprang the word “_King!_” and every foot
+stamped upon the ground, shaking the solid earth. Thrice the monarch
+drank, and thrice this tremendous salute, the salute of the whole nation
+to its ruler, was repeated, each time more loudly than the last. Then
+pouring the rest of the liquor on the ground, Umsuka set aside the cup,
+and in the midst of a silence that seemed deep after the crash of the
+great salute, he began to address the multitude:--
+
+“Hearken, Councillors and Captains, and you, my people, hearken. As you
+know, I have two sons, calves of the Black Bull, princes of the land--my
+son Hafela, the eldest born, and my son Nodwengo, his half-brother----”
+
+At this point the king began to grow confused. He hesitated, passing his
+hand over his eyes, then slowly and with difficulty repeated those words
+which he had already said.
+
+“We hear you, Father,” cried the councillors in encouragement, as for
+the second time he paused. While they still spoke, the veins in the
+king’s neck were seen to swell suddenly, foam flecked with blood burst
+from his lips, and he fell headlong to the ground.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE RECOVERY OF THE KING
+
+For a moment there was silence, then a great cry arose--a cry of “Our
+father is dead!” Presently with it were mingled other and angrier shouts
+of “The king is murdered!” and “He is bewitched, the white wizard
+has bewitched the king! He prophesied evil upon him, and now he has
+bewitched him!”
+
+Meanwhile the captains and councillors formed a ring about Umsuka, and
+Hokosa bending over him examined him.
+
+“Princes and Councillors,” he said presently, “your father yet lives,
+but his life is like the life of a dying fire and soon he must be dead.
+This is sure, that one of two things has befallen him: either the heat
+has caused the blood to boil in his veins and he is smitten with a
+stroke from heaven, such as men who are fat and heavy sometimes die of;
+or he has been bewitched by a wicked wizard. Yonder stands one,” and he
+pointed to Owen, “who not an hour ago prophesied that before the sun was
+down great evil should overtake the king. The sun is not yet down, and
+great evil has overtaken him. Perchance, Princes and Councillors, this
+white prophet can tell us of the matter.”
+
+“Perchance I can,” answered Owen calmly.
+
+“He admits it!” cried some. “Away with him!”
+
+“Peace!” said Owen, holding the crucifix towards those whose spears
+threatened his life.
+
+They shrank back, for this symbol of a dying man terrified them who
+could not guess its significance.
+
+“Peace,” went on Owen, “and listen. Be sure of this, Councillors, that
+if I die, your king will die; whereas if I live, your king may live. You
+ask me of this matter. Where shall I begin? Shall I begin with the tale
+of two men seated together some nights ago in a hut so dark that no eyes
+could see in it, save perchance the eyes of a wizard? What did they talk
+of in that hut, and who were those men? They talked, I think, of the
+death of a king and of the crowning of a king. They talked of a price
+to be paid for a certain medicine; and one of them had a royal air, and
+one----”
+
+“Will ye hearken to this wild babbler while your king lies dying before
+your eyes?” broke in Hokosa, in a shrill, unnatural voice; for almost
+palsied with fear as he was at Owen’s mysterious words, he still
+retained his presence of mind. “Listen now: what is he, and what did he
+say? He is one who comes hither to preach a new faith to us; he comes,
+he says, on an embassy from the King of Heaven, who has power over
+all things, and who, so these white men preach, can give power to His
+servants. Well, let this one cease prating and show us his strength,
+as he has been warned he would be called upon to do. Let him give us a
+sign. There before you lies your king, and he is past the help of man;
+even I cannot help him. Therefore, let this messenger cure him, or call
+upon his God to cure him; that seeing, we may know him to be a true
+messenger, and one sent by that King of whom he speaks. Let him do this
+now before our eyes, or let him perish as a wizard who has bewitched the
+king. Do you hear my words, Messenger, and can you draw this one back
+from between the Gates of Death?”
+
+“I hear them,” answered Owen quietly; “and I can--or if I cannot, then
+I am willing to pay the penalty with my life. You who are a doctor say
+that your king is as one who is already dead, so that whatever I may do
+I cannot hurt him further. Therefore I ask this of you, that you stand
+round and watch, but molest me neither by word nor deed while I attempt
+his cure. Do you consent?”
+
+“It is just; we consent,” said the councillors. “Let us see what the
+white man can do, and by the issue let him be judged.” But Hokosa stared
+at Owen wondering, and made no answer.
+
+“Bring some clean water to me in a gourd,” said Owen.
+
+It was brought and given to him. He looked round, searching the faces of
+those about him. Presently his eye fell upon the Prince Nodwengo, and he
+beckoned to him, saying:--
+
+“Come hither, Prince, for you are honest, and I would have you to help
+me, and no other man.”
+
+The prince stepped forward and Owen gave him the gourd of water. Then
+he drew out the little bottle wherein he had stored the juice of the
+creeper, and uncorking it, he bade Nodwengo fill it up with water. This
+done, he clasped his hands, and lifting his eyes to heaven, he prayed
+aloud in the language of the Amasuka.
+
+“O God,” he prayed, “upon whose business I am here, grant, I beseech
+Thee, that by Thy Grace power may be given to me to work this miracle in
+the face of these people, to the end that I may win them to cease from
+their iniquities, to believe upon Thee, the only true God, and to save
+their souls alive. Amen.”
+
+Having finished his prayer, he took the bottle and shook it; then he
+commanded Nodwengo to sit upon the ground and hold his father’s head
+upon his knee. Now, as all might see by many signs, the king was upon
+the verge of death, for his lips were purple, his breathing was rare and
+stertorous, and his heart stood well-nigh still.
+
+“Open his mouth and hold down the tongue,” said Owen.
+
+The prince obeyed, pressing down the tongue with a snuff spoon. Then
+placing the neck of the bottle as far into the throat as it would reach,
+Owen poured the fluid it contained into the body of the king, who made a
+convulsive movement and instantly seemed to die.
+
+“He is dead,” said one; “away with the false prophet!”
+
+“It may be so, or it may not be so,” answered Owen. “Wait for the half
+of an hour; then, if he shows no sign of life, do what you will with
+me.”
+
+“It is well,” they said; “so be it.”
+
+Slowly the minutes slipped by, while the king lay like a corpse before
+them, and outside of that silent ring the soldiers murmured as the wind.
+The sun was sinking fast, and Hokosa watched it, counting the seconds.
+At length he spoke:--
+
+“The half of the hour that you demanded is dead, White Man, as dead
+as the king; and now the time has come for you to die also,” and he
+stretched out his hand to take him.
+
+Owen looked at his watch and replied:--
+
+“There is still another minute; and you, Hokosa, who are skilled in
+medicines, may know that this antidote does not work so swiftly as the
+bane.”
+
+The shot was a random one, but it told, for Hokosa fell back and was
+silent.
+
+The seconds passed on as the minute hand of the watch went round from
+ten to twenty, from twenty to thirty, from thirty to forty. A few
+more instants and the game was played. Had that dream of his been vain
+imagining, and was all his faith nothing but a dream wondered Owen?
+Well, if so, it would be best that he should die. But he did not believe
+that it was so; he believed that the Power above him would intervene to
+save--not him, indeed, but all this people.
+
+“Let us make an end,” said Hokosa, “the time is done.”
+
+“Yes,” said Owen, “the time is done--and _the king lives!_”
+
+Even as he spoke the pulses in the old man’s forehead were seen to
+throb, and the veins in his neck to swell as they had swollen after he
+had swallowed the poison; then once more they shrank to their natural
+size. Umsuka stirred a hand, groaned, sat up, and spoke:--
+
+“What has chanced to me?” he said. “I have descended into deep darkness,
+now once again I see light.”
+
+No one answered, for all were staring, terrified and amazed, at the
+Messenger--the white wizard to whom had been given power to bring men
+back from the gate of death. At length Owen said:--
+
+“This has chanced to you, King: that evil which I prophesied to you if
+you refused to listen to the voice of mercy has fallen upon you. By now
+you would have been dead, had it not pleased Him Whom I serve, working
+through me, His messenger, to bring you back to look upon the sun. Thank
+Him, therefore, and worship Him, for He alone is Master of the Earth,”
+ and he held the crucifix before his eyes.
+
+The humbled monarch lifted his hand--he who for many years had made
+obeisance to none--and saluted the symbol, saying:--
+
+“Messenger, I thank Him and I worship Him, though I know Him not. Say
+now, how did His magic work upon me to make me sick to death and to
+recover me?”
+
+“By the hand of man, King, and by the virtues that lie hid in Nature.
+Did you not drink of a cup, and were not many things mixed in the
+draught? Was it not but now in your mind to speak words that should
+bring down the head of pride and evil, and lift up the head of truth and
+goodness?”
+
+“O White Man, how know you these things?” gasped the king.
+
+“I know them, it is enough. Say, who was it that stirred the bowl, King,
+and who gave you to drink?”
+
+Now Umsuka staggered to his feet, and cried aloud in a voice that was
+thick with rage:--
+
+“By my head and the heads of my fathers I smell the plot! My son, the
+Prince Hafela, has learned my counsel, and would have slain me before I
+said words that should set him beneath the feet of Nodwengo. Seize him,
+captains, and let him be brought before me for judgment!”
+
+Men looked this way and that to carry out the command of the king, but
+Hafela was gone. Already he was upon the hillside, running as a man has
+rarely run before--his face set towards that fastness in the mountains
+where he could find refuge among his mother’s tribesmen and the
+regiments which he commanded. Of late they had been sent thither by the
+king that they might be far from the Great Place when their prince was
+disinherited.
+
+“He is fled,” said one; “I saw him go.”
+
+“Pursue him and bring him back, dead or alive!” thundered the king.
+“A hundred head of cattle to the man who lays hand upon him before he
+reaches the _impi_ of the North, for they will fight for him!”
+
+“Stay!” broke in Owen. “Once before this day I prayed of you, King, to
+show mercy, and you refused it. Will you refuse me a second time? Leave
+him his life who has lost all else.”
+
+“That he may rebel against me? Well, White Man, I owe you much, and for
+this time your wisdom shall be my guide, though my heart speaks against
+such gentleness. Hearken, councillors and people, this is my decree:
+that Hafela, my son, who would have murdered me, be deposed from his
+place as heir to my throne, and that Nodwengo, his brother, be set in
+that place, to rule the People of Fire after me when I die.”
+
+“It is good, it is just!” said the council. “Let the king’s word be
+done.”
+
+“Hearken again,” said Umsuka. “Let this white man, who is named
+Messenger, be placed in the House of Guests and treated with all honour;
+let oxen be given him from the royal herds and corn from the granaries,
+and girls of noble blood for wives if he wills them. Hokosa, into your
+hand I deliver him, and, great though you are, know this, that if but
+a hair of his head is harmed, with your goods and your life you shall
+answer for it, you and all your house.”
+
+“Let the king’s word be done,” said the councillors again.
+
+“Heralds,” went on Umsuka, “proclaim that the feast of the first-fruits
+is ended, and my command is that every regiment should seek its
+quarters, taking with it a double gift of cattle from the king, who has
+been saved alive by the magic of this white man. And now, Messenger,
+farewell, for my head grows weary. To-morrow I will speak with you.”
+
+Then the king was led away into the royal house, and save those who were
+quartered in it, the regiments passed one by one through the gates of
+the kraal, singing their war-songs as they went. Darkness fell upon the
+Great Place, and through it parties of men might be seen dragging thence
+the corpses of those who had fallen in the fight with sticks, or been
+put to death thereafter by order of the king.
+
+“Messenger,” said Hokosa, bowing before Owen, “be pleased to follow
+me.” Then he led him to a little kraal numbering five or six large and
+beautifully made huts, which stood by itself, within its own fence, at
+the north end of the Great Place, not far from the house of the king.
+In front of the centre hut a fire was burning, and by its light women
+appeared cleaning out the huts and bringing food and water.
+
+“Here you may rest in safety, Messenger,” said Hokosa, “seeing that
+night and day a guard from the king’s own regiment will stand before
+your doors.”
+
+“I do not need them,” answered Owen, “for none can harm me till my hour
+comes. I am a stranger here and you are a great man; yet, Hokosa, which
+of us is the safest this night?”
+
+“Your meaning?” said Hokosa sharply.
+
+“O man!” answered Owen, “when in a certain hour you crept up the valley
+yonder, and climbing the Tree of Death gathered its poison, went I not
+with you? When, before that hour, you sat in yonder hut bargaining with
+the Prince Hafela--the death of a king for the price of a girl--was I
+not with you? Nay, threaten me not--in your own words I say it--‘lay
+down that assegai, or by my spirit your body shall be thrown to the
+kites, as that of one who would murder the king’--and the king’s guest!”
+
+“White Man,” whispered Hokosa throwing down the spear, “how can these
+things be? I was alone in the hut with the prince, I was alone beneath
+the Tree of Doom, and you, as I know well, were beyond the river. Your
+spies must be good, White Man.”
+
+“My spirit is my only spy, Hokosa. My spirit watched you, and from your
+own lips he learned the secret of the bane and of the antidote. Hafela
+mixed the poison as you taught him; I gave the remedy, and saved the
+king alive.”
+
+Now the knees of Hokosa grew weak beneath him, and he leaned against the
+fence of the kraal for support.
+
+“I have skill in the art,” he said hoarsely; “but, Messenger, your magic
+is more than mine, and my life is forfeit to you. To-morrow morning,
+you will tell the king all, and to-morrow night I shall hang upon the
+dreadful Tree. Well, so be it; I am overmatched at my own trade, and it
+is best that I should die. You have plotted well and you have conquered,
+and to you belong my place and power.”
+
+“It was you who plotted, and not I, Hokosa. Did you not contrive that I
+should reach the Great Place but a little before the poison was given to
+the king, so that upon me might be laid the crime of his bewitching? Did
+you not plan also that I should be called upon to cure him--a thing
+you deemed impossible--and when I failed that I should be straightway
+butchered?”
+
+“Seeing that it is useless to lie to you, I confess that it was so,”
+ answered Hokosa boldly.
+
+“It was so,” repeated Owen; “therefore, according to your law your life
+is forfeit, seeing that you dug a pit to snare the innocent feet. But
+I come to tell you of a new law, and that which I preach I practise.
+Hokosa, I pardon you, and if you will put aside your evil-doing, I
+promise you that no word of all your wickedness shall pass my lips.”
+
+“It has not been my fashion to take a boon at the hand of any man, save
+of the king only,” said the wizard in a humble voice; “but now it seems
+that I am come to this. Tell me, White Man, what is the payment that you
+seek of me?”
+
+“None, Hokosa, except that you cease from evil and listen with an open
+heart to that message which I am sworn to deliver to you and to all your
+nation. Also you would do well to put away that fair woman whose price
+was the murder of him that fed you.”
+
+“I cannot do it,” answered the wizard. “I will listen to your teaching,
+but I will not rob my heart of her it craves alone. White Man, I am not
+like the rest of my nation. I have not sought after women; I have but
+one wife, and she is old and childless. Now, for the first time in my
+days, I love this girl--ah, you know not how!--and I will take her, and
+she shall be the mother of my children.”
+
+“Then, Hokosa, you will take her to your sorrow,” answered Owen
+solemnly, “for she will learn to hate you who have robbed her of royalty
+and rule, giving her wizardries and your grey hairs in place of them.”
+
+And thus for that night they parted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FIRST TRIAL BY FIRE
+
+On the following day, while Owen sat eating his morning meal with a
+thankful heart, a messenger arrived saying that the king would receive
+him whenever it pleased him to come. He answered that he would be with
+him before noon, for already he had learned that among natives one loses
+little by delay. A great man, they think, is rich in time, and hurries
+only to wait upon his superiors.
+
+At the appointed hour a guard came to lead him to the royal house, and
+thither Owen went, followed by John bearing a Bible. Umsuka was seated
+beneath a reed roof supported by poles and open on all sides; behind him
+stood councillors and attendants, and by him were Nodwengo the prince,
+and Hokosa, his mouth and prophet. Although the day was hot, he wore a
+kaross or rug of wild catskins, and his face showed that the effects
+of the poisoned draught were still upon him. At the approach of Owen he
+rose with something of an effort, and, shaking him by the hand, thanked
+him for his life, calling him “doctor of doctors.”
+
+“Tell me, Messenger,” he added, “how it was that you were able to cure
+me, and who were in the plot to kill me? There must have been more than
+one,” and he rolled his eyes round with angry suspicion.
+
+“King,” answered Owen, “if I knew anything of this matter, the Power
+that wrote it on my mind has wiped it out again, or, at the least, has
+forbidden me to speak of its secret. I saved you, it is enough; for the
+rest, the past is the past, and I come to deal with the present and the
+future.”
+
+“This white man keeps his word,” thought Hokosa to himself, and he
+looked at him thanking him with his eyes.
+
+“So be it,” answered the king; “after all, it is wise not to stir a
+dung-heap, for there we find little beside evil odours and the nests of
+snakes. Now, what is your business with me, and why do you come from the
+white man’s countries to visit me? I have heard of those countries, they
+are great and far away. I have heard of the white men also--wonderful
+men who have all knowledge; but I do not desire to have anything to do
+with them, for whenever they meet black people they eat them up, taking
+their lands and making them slaves. Once, some years ago, two of you
+white people visited us here, but perhaps you know that story.”
+
+“I know it,” answered Owen; “one of those men you murdered, and the
+other you sent back with a message which he delivered into my ears
+across the waters, thousands of miles away.”
+
+“Nay,” answered the king, “we did not murder him; he came to us with the
+story of a new God who could raise the dead and work other miracles, and
+gave such powers to His servants. So a man was slain and we begged of
+him to bring him back to life; and since he could not, we killed him
+also because he was a liar.”
+
+“He was no liar,” said Owen; “since he never told you that he had power
+to open the mouth of the grave. Still, Heaven is merciful, and although
+you murdered him that was sent to you, his Master has chosen me to
+follow in his footsteps. Me also you may murder if you will, and then
+another and another; but still the messengers shall come, till at
+last your ears are opened and you listen. Only, for such deeds your
+punishment must be heavy.”
+
+“What is the message, White Man?”
+
+“A message of peace, of forgiveness, and of life beyond the grave, of
+life everlasting. Listen, King. Yesterday you were near to death; say
+now, had you stepped over the edge of it, where would you be this day?”
+
+Umsuka shrugged his shoulders. “With my fathers, White Man.”
+
+“And where are your fathers?”
+
+“Nay, I know not--nowhere, everywhere: the night is full of them; in the
+night we hear the echo of their voices. When they are angry they haunt
+the thunder-cloud, and when they are pleased they smile in the sunshine.
+Sometimes also they appear in the shape of snakes, or visit us in
+dreams, and then we offer them sacrifice. Yonder on the hillside is a
+haunted wood; it is full of their spirits, White Man, but they cannot
+talk, they only mutter, and their footfalls sound like the dropping of
+heavy rain, for they are strengthless and unhappy, and in the end they
+fade away.”
+
+“So you say,” answered Owen, “who are not altogether without
+understanding, yet know little, never having been taught. Now listen to
+me,” and very earnestly he preached to him and those about him of peace,
+of forgiveness, and of life everlasting.
+
+“Why should a God die miserably upon a cross?” asked the king at length.
+
+“That through His sacrifice men might become as gods,” answered Owen.
+“Believe in Him and He will save you.”
+
+“How can we do that,” asked the king again, “when already we have a god?
+Can we desert one god and set up another?”
+
+“What god, King?”
+
+“I will show him to you, White Man. Let my litter be brought.”
+
+The litter was brought and the king entered it with labouring breath.
+Passing through the north gate of the Great Place, the party ascended a
+slope of the hill that lay beyond it till they reached a flat plain some
+hundreds of yards in width. On this plain vegetation grew scantily, for
+here the bed rock of ironstone, denuded with frequent and heavy rains,
+was scarcely hidden by a thin crust of earth. On the further side of the
+plain, however, and separated from it by a little stream, was a green
+bank of deep soft soil, beyond which lay a gloomy valley full of great
+trees, that for many generations had been the burying-place of the kings
+of the Amasuka.
+
+“This is the house of the god,” said the king.
+
+“A strange house,” answered Owen, “and where is he that dwells in it?”
+
+“Follow me and I will show you, Messenger; but be swift, for already the
+sky grows dark with coming tempest.”
+
+Now at the king’s command the bearers bore him across the sere plateau
+towards a stone that lay almost in its centre. Presently they halted,
+and, pointing to this mass, the king said:--
+
+“Behold the god!”
+
+Owen advanced and examined the object. A glance told him that this god
+of the Amasuka was a meteoric stone of unusual size. Most of such stones
+are mere shapeless lumps, but this one bore a peculiar resemblance to
+a seated human being holding up one arm towards the sky. So strange was
+this likeness that, other reasons apart, it seemed not wonderful that
+savages should regard the thing with awe and veneration. Rather would it
+have been wonderful had they not done so.
+
+“Say now,” said Owen to the king when he had inspected the stone, “what
+is the history of this dumb god of yours, and why do you worship him?”
+
+“Follow me across the stream and I will tell you, Messenger,” answered
+the king, again glancing at the sky. “The storm gathers, and when it
+breaks none are safe upon this plain except the heaven doctors such as
+Hokosa and his companions who can bind the lightning.”
+
+So they went and when they reached the further side of the stream Umsuka
+descended from his litter.
+
+“Messenger,” he said, “this is the story of the god as it has come down
+to us. From the beginning our land has been scourged with lightning
+above all other lands, and with the floods of rain that accompany the
+lightning. In the old days the Great Place of the king was out yonder
+among the mountains, but every year fire from heaven fell upon it,
+destroying much people: and at length in a great tempest the house of
+the king of that day was smitten and burned, and his wives and children
+were turned to ashes. Then that king held a council of his wizards
+and fire-doctors, and these having consulted the spirits of their
+forefathers, retired into a place apart to fast and pray; yes, it was
+in yonder valley, the burying ground of kings, that they hid themselves.
+Now on the third night the God of Fire appeared to the chief of the
+doctors in his sleep, and he was shaped like a burning brand and smoke
+went up from him. Out of the smoke he spoke to the doctor, saying: ‘For
+this reason it is that I torment your people, that they hate me and
+curse at me and pay me little honour.’
+
+“In his dream the doctor answered: ‘How can the people honour a god that
+they do not see?’ Then the god said: ‘Rise up now in the night, all the
+company of you, and go take your stand upon the banks of yonder stream,
+and I will fall down in fire from heaven, and there on the plain you
+shall find my image. Then let your king move his Great Place into the
+valley beneath the plain, and henceforth my bolts shall spare it and
+him. Only, month by month you shall make prayers and offerings to me;
+moreover, the name of the people shall be changed, for it shall be
+called the People of Fire.’
+
+“Now the doctor rose, and having awakened his companions, he told them
+of his vision. Then they all of them went down to the banks of this
+stream where we now stand. And as they waited there a great tempest
+burst over them, and in the midst of that tempest they saw the flaming
+figure of a man descend from heaven, and when he touched the earth it
+shook. The morning came and there upon the plain before them, where
+there had been nothing, sat the likeness of the god as it sits to-day
+and shall sit for ever. So the name of this people was changed, and the
+king’s Great Place was built where it now is.
+
+“Since that day, Messenger, no hut has been burned and no man killed
+in or about the Great Place by fire from heaven, which falls only here
+where the god is, though away among the mountains and elsewhere men are
+sometimes killed. But wait a while and you shall see with your eyes.
+Hokosa, do you, whom the lightning will not touch, take that pole of
+dead wood and set it up yonder in the crevice of the rock not far from
+the figure of the god.”
+
+“I obey,” said Hokosa, “although I have brought no medicines with me.
+Perhaps,” he added with a faint sneer, “the white man, who is so great a
+wizard, will not be afraid to accompany me.”
+
+Now Owen saw that all those present were looking at him curiously.
+It was evident they believed that he would not dare to accept the
+challenge. Therefore he answered at once and without hesitation:--
+
+“Certainly I will come; the pole is heavy for one man to carry, and
+where Hokosa goes, there I can go also.”
+
+“Nay, nay, Messenger,” said the king, “the lightning knows Hokosa and
+will turn from him, but you are a stranger to it and it will eat you
+up.”
+
+“King,” answered Owen, “I do not believe that Hokosa has any power over
+the lightning. It may strike him or it may strike me; but unless my God
+so commands, it will strike neither of us.”
+
+“On your head be it, White Man,” said Hokosa, with cold anger. “Come,
+aid me with the pole.”
+
+Then they lifted the dead tree, and between them carried it into the
+middle of the plain, where they set it up in a crevice of the rock. By
+this time the storm was almost over them, and watching it Owen perceived
+that the lightnings struck always along the bank of the stream,
+doubtless following a hidden line of the bed of ironstone.
+
+“It is but a very little storm,” said Hokosa contemptuously, “such as
+visit us almost every afternoon at this period of the year. Ah! White
+Man, I would that you could see one of our great tempests, for these are
+worth beholding. This I fear, however, that you will never do, seeing it
+is likely that within some few minutes you will have passed back to that
+King who sent you here, with a hole in your head and a black mark down
+your spine.”
+
+“That we shall learn presently, Hokosa,” answered Owen; “for my part, I
+pray that no such fate may overtake you.”
+
+Now Hokosa moved himself away, muttering and pointing with his fingers,
+but Owen remained standing within about thirty yards of the pole.
+Suddenly there came a glare of light, and the pole was split into
+fragments; but although the shock was perceptible, they remained unhurt.
+Almost immediately a second flash leaped from the cloud, and Owen saw
+Hokosa stagger and fall to his knees. “The man is struck,” he thought
+to himself, but it was not so, for recovering his balance, the wizard
+walked back to the stream.
+
+Owen never stirred. From boyhood courage had been one of his good
+qualities, but it was a courage of the spirit rather than of the flesh.
+For instance, at this very moment, so far as his body was concerned,
+he was much afraid, and did not in the least enjoy standing upon an
+ironstone plateau at the imminent risk of being destroyed by lightning.
+But even if he had not had an end to gain, he would have scorned to give
+way to his human frailties; also, now as always, his faith supported
+him. As it happened the storm, which was slight, passed by, and no more
+flashes fell. When it was over he walked back to where the king and his
+court were standing.
+
+“Messenger,” said Umsuka, “you are not only a great doctor, you are also
+a brave man, and such I honour. There is no one among us here, not being
+a lord of the lightning, who would have dared to stand upon that place
+with Hokosa while the flashes fell about him. Yet you have done it; it
+was Hokosa who was driven away. You have passed the trial by fire, and
+henceforth, whether we refuse your message or accept it, you are great
+in this land.”
+
+“There is no need to praise me, King,” answered Owen. “The risk is
+something; but I knew that I was protected from it, seeing that I shall
+not die until my hour comes, and it is not yet. Listen now: your god
+yonder is nothing but a stone such as I have often seen before, for
+sometimes in great tempests they come to earth from the clouds. You are
+not the first people that have worshipped such a stone, but now we know
+better. Also this plain before you is full of iron, and iron draws
+the lightning. That is why it never strikes your town below. The iron
+attracts it more strongly than earth and huts of straw. Again, while the
+pole stood I was in little danger, for the lightning strikes the highest
+thing; but after the pole was shattered and Hokosa wisely went away,
+then I was in some danger, only no flashes fell. I am not a magician,
+King, but I know some things that you do not know, and I trust in One
+whom I shall lead you to trust also.”
+
+“We will talk of this more hereafter,” said the king hurriedly, “for one
+day, I have heard and seen enough. Also I do not believe your words,
+for I have noted ever that those who are the greatest wizards of all say
+continually that they have no magic power. Hokosa, you have been famous
+in your day, but it seems that henceforth you who have led must follow.”
+
+“The battle is not yet fought, King,” answered Hokosa. “To-day I met the
+lightnings without my medicines, and it was a little storm; when I
+am prepared with my medicines and the tempest is great, then I will
+challenge this white man to face me yonder, and then in that hour _my_
+god shall show his strength and _his_ God shall not be able to save
+him.”
+
+“That we shall see when the time comes,” answered Owen, with a smile.
+
+That night as Owen sat in his hut working at the translation of St.
+John, the door was opened and Hokosa entered.
+
+“White Man,” said the wizard, “you are too strong for me, though whence
+you have your power I know not. Let us make a bargain. Show me your
+magic and I will show you mine, and we will rule the land between us.
+You and I are much akin--we are great; we have the spirit sight; we
+know that there are things beyond the things we see and hear and feel;
+whereas, for the rest, they are fools, following the flesh alone. I have
+spoken.”
+
+“Very gladly will I show you my magic, Hokosa,” answered Owen
+cheerfully, “since, to speak truth, though I know you to be wicked, and
+guess that you would be glad to be rid of me by fair means or foul; yet
+I have taken a liking for you, seeing in you one who from a sinner may
+grow into a saint.
+
+“This then is my magic: To love God and serve man; to eschew wizardry,
+wealth, and power; to seek after holiness, poverty and humility; to
+deny your flesh, and to make yourself small in the sight of men, that so
+perchance you may grow great in the sight of Heaven and save your soul
+alive.”
+
+“I have no stomach for that lesson,” said Hokosa.
+
+“Yet you shall live to hunger for it,” answered Owen. And the wizard
+went away angered but wondering.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE CRISIS
+
+Now, day by day for something over a month Owen preached the Gospel
+before the king, his councillors, and hundreds of the head men of the
+nation. They listened to him attentively, debating the new doctrine
+point by point; for although they might be savages, these people were
+very keen-witted and subtle. Very patiently did Owen sow, and at length
+to his infinite joy he also gathered in his first-fruit. One night as he
+sat in his hut labouring as usual at the work of translation, wherein
+he was assisted by John whom he had taught to read and write, the Prince
+Nodwengo entered and greeted him. For a while he sat silent watching the
+white man at his task, then he said:--
+
+“Messenger, I have a boon to ask of you. Can you teach me to understand
+those signs which you set upon the paper, and to make them also as does
+John your servant?”
+
+“Certainly,” answered Owen; “if you will come to me at noon to-morrow,
+we will begin.”
+
+The prince thanked him, but he did not go away. Indeed, from his manner
+Owen guessed that he had something more upon his mind. At length it came
+out.
+
+“Messenger,” he said, “you have told us of baptism whereby we are
+admitted into the army of your King; say, have you the power of this
+rite?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“And is your servant here baptised?”
+
+“He is.”
+
+“Then if he who is a common man can be baptised, why may not I who am a
+prince?”
+
+“In baptism,” answered Owen, “there is no distinction between the
+highest and the lowest; but if you believe, then the door is open and
+through it you can join the company of Heaven.”
+
+“Messenger, I do believe,” answered the prince humbly.
+
+Then Owen was very joyful, and that same night, with John for a witness,
+he baptised the prince, giving him the new name of Constantine, after
+the first Christian emperor.
+
+On the following day Nodwengo, in the presence of Owen, who on this
+point would suffer no concealment, announced to the king that he had
+become a Christian. Umsuka heard, and for a while sat silent. Then he
+said in a troubled voice:--
+
+“Truly, Messenger, in the words of that Book from which you read to us,
+I fear that you have come hither to bring, ‘not peace but a sword.’ Now
+when the witch-doctors and the priests of fire learn this, that he whom
+I have chosen to succeed me has become the servant of another faith,
+they will stir up the soldiers and there will be civil war. I pray you,
+therefore, keep the matter secret, at any rate for a while, seeing that
+the lives of many are at stake.”
+
+“In this, my father,” answered the prince, “I must do as the Messenger
+bids me; but if you desire it, take from me the right of succession and
+call back my brother from the northern mountains.”
+
+“That by poison or the spear he may put all of us to death, Nodwengo!
+Be not afraid; ere long when he learns all that is happening here, your
+brother Hafela will come from the northern mountains, and the spears of
+his _impis_ shall be countless as the stars of the sky. Messenger, you
+desire to draw us to the arms of your God--and myself, I am at
+times minded to follow the path of my son Nodwengo and seek a refuge
+there--but say, will they be strong enough to protect us from Hafela and
+the warriors of the north? Already he gathers his clans, and already
+my captains desert to him. By-and-by, in the spring-time--may I be dead
+before the day--he will roll down upon us like a flood of water----”
+
+“To fall back like waters from a wall of rock,” answered Owen. “‘Let not
+your heart be troubled,’ for my Master can protect His servants, and He
+will protect you. But first you must confess Him openly, as your son has
+done.”
+
+“Nay, I am too old to hurry,” said the king with a sigh. “Your tale
+seems full of promise to one who is near the grave; but how can I know
+that it is more than a dream? And shall I abandon the worship of my
+fathers and change, or strive to change, the customs of my people to
+follow after dreams? Nodwengo has chosen his part, and I do not blame
+him; yet, for the present I beseech you both to keep silence on this
+matter, lest to save bloodshed I should be driven to side against you.”
+
+“So be it, King,” said Owen; “but I warn you that Truth has a loud
+voice, and that it is hard to hide the shining of a light in a dark
+place, nor does it please my Lord to be denied by those who confess
+Him.”
+
+“I am weary,” replied the old king, and they saluted him and went.
+
+In obedience to the wish of Umsuka his father, the conversion of
+Nodwengo was kept secret, and yet--none knew how--the thing leaked out.
+Soon the women in their huts, and the soldiers by their watch-fires,
+whispered it in each other’s ears that he who was appointed to be
+their future ruler had become a servant of the unknown God. That he had
+forsworn war and all the delights of men; that he would take but one
+wife and appear before the army, not in the uniform of a general, but
+clad in a white robe, and carry, not the broad spear, but a cross of
+wood. Swiftly the strange story flew from mouth to mouth, yet it was not
+altogether believed till it chanced that one day when he was reviewing a
+regiment, a soldier who was drunk with beer openly insulted the prince,
+calling him “a coward who worshipped a coward.”
+
+Now men held their breaths, waiting to see this fool led away to die by
+torture of the ant-heap or some other dreadful doom. But the prince only
+answered:
+
+“Soldier, you are drunk, therefore I forgive you your words. Whether He
+Whom you blaspheme will forgive you, I know not. Get you gone!”
+
+The warriors stared and murmured, for by those words, wittingly or
+unwittingly, their general had confessed his faith, and that day they
+made ribald songs about him in the camp. But on the morrow when they
+learned how that the man whom the prince spared had been seized by
+a lion and taken away as he sat at night with his companions in the
+bivouac, his mouth full of boasting of his own courage in offering
+insult to the prince and the new faith, then they looked at each other
+askance and said little more of the matter. Doubtless it was chance, and
+yet this Spirit Whom the Messenger preached was one of Whom it seemed
+wisest not to speak lightly.
+
+But still the trouble grew, for by now the witch-doctors, with Hokosa
+at the head of them, were frightened for their place and power, and
+fomented it both openly and in secret. Of the women they asked what
+would become of them when men were allowed to take but one wife? Of the
+heads of kraals, how they would grow wealthy when their daughters ceased
+to be worth cattle? Of the councillors and generals, how the land could
+be protected from its foes when they were commanded to lay down the
+spear? Of the soldiers, whose only trade was war, how it would please
+them to till the fields like girls? Dismay took hold of the nation, and
+although they were much loved, there was open talk of killing or driving
+away the king and Nodwengo who favoured the white man, and of setting up
+Hafela in their place.
+
+At length the crisis came, and in this fashion. The Amasuka, like many
+other African tribes, had a strange veneration for certain varieties
+of snakes which they declared to be possessed by the spirits of their
+ancestors. It was a law among them that if one of these snakes entered
+a kraal it must not be killed, or even driven away, under pain of death,
+but must be allowed to share with the human occupants any hut that
+it might select. As a result of this enforced hospitality deaths from
+snake-bite were numerous among the people; but when they happened in
+a kraal its owners met with little sympathy, for the doctors explained
+that the real cause of them was the anger of some ancestral spirit
+towards his descendants. Now, before John was despatched to instruct
+Owen in the language of the Amasuka a certain girl was sealed to him
+as his future wife, and this girl, who during his absence had been
+orphaned, he had married recently with the approval of Owen, who at
+this time was preparing her for baptism. On the third morning after his
+marriage John appeared before his master in the last extremity of grief
+and terror.
+
+“Help me, Messenger!” he cried, “for my ancestral spirit has entered our
+hut and bitten my wife as she lay asleep.”
+
+“Are you mad?” asked Owen. “What is an ancestral spirit, and how can it
+have bitten your wife?”
+
+“A snake,” gasped John, “a green snake of the worst sort.”
+
+Then Owen remembered the superstition, and snatching blue-stone and
+spirits of wine from his medicine chest, he rushed to John’s hut. As it
+happened, he was fortunately in time with his remedies and succeeded
+in saving the woman’s life, whereby his reputation as a doctor and a
+magician, already great, was considerably enlarged.
+
+“Where is the snake?” he asked when at length she was out of danger.
+
+“Yonder, under the kaross,” answered John, pointing to a skin rug which
+lay in the corner.
+
+“Have you killed it?”
+
+“No, Messenger,” answered the man, “I dare not. Alas! we must live with
+the thing here in the hut till it chooses to go away.”
+
+“Truly,” said Owen, “I am ashamed to think that you who are a Christian
+should still believe so horrible a superstition. Does your faith teach
+you that the souls of men enter into snakes?”
+
+Now John hung his head; then snatching a kerry, he threw aside the
+kaross, revealing a great green serpent seven or eight feet long. With
+fury he fell upon the reptile, killed it by repeated blows, and hurled
+it into the courtyard outside the house.
+
+“Behold, father,” he said, “and judge whether I am still superstitious.”
+ Then his countenance fell and he added: “Yet my life must pay for this
+deed, for it is an ancient law among us that to harm one of these snakes
+is death.”
+
+“Have no fear,” said Owen, “a way will be found out of this trouble.”
+
+That afternoon Owen heard a great hubbub outside his kraal, and going to
+see what was the matter, he found a party of the witch-doctors dragging
+John towards the place of judgment, which was by the king’s house.
+Thither he followed to discover that the case was already in course of
+being opened before the king, his council, and a vast audience of
+the people. Hokosa was the accuser. In brief and pregnant sentences,
+producing the dead snake in proof of his argument, he pointed out the
+enormity of the offence against the laws of the Amasuka wherewith the
+prisoner was charged, demanding that the man who had killed the house of
+his ancestral spirit should instantly be put to death.
+
+“What have you to say?” asked the king of John.
+
+“This, O King,” replied John, “that I am a Christian, and to me that
+snake is nothing but a noxious reptile. It bit my wife, and had it not
+been for the medicine of the Messenger, she would have perished of the
+poison. Therefore I killed it before it could harm others.”
+
+“It is a fair answer,” said the king. “Hokosa, I think that this man
+should go free.”
+
+“The king’s will is the law,” replied Hokosa bitterly; “but if the law
+were the king’s will, the decision would be otherwise. This man has
+slain, not a snake, but that which held the spirit of an ancestor, and
+for the deed he deserves to die. Hearken, O King, for the business is
+larger than it seems. How are we to be governed henceforth? Are we to
+follow our ancient rules and customs, or must we submit ourselves to a
+new rule and a new custom? I tell you, O King, that the people murmur;
+they are without light, they wander in the darkness, they cannot
+understand. Play with us no more, but let us hear the truth that we may
+judge of this matter.”
+
+Umsuka looked at Owen, but made no reply.
+
+“I will answer you, Hokosa,” said Owen, “for I am the spring of all this
+trouble, and at my command that man, my disciple, killed yonder snake.
+What is it? It is nothing but a reptile; no human spirit ever dwelt
+within it as you imagine in your superstition. You ask to hear the
+truth; day by day I have preached it in your ears and you have not
+listened, though many among you have listened and understood. What is it
+that you seek?”
+
+“We seek, Messenger, to be rid of you, your fantasies and your religion;
+and we demand that our king should expel you and restore the ancient
+laws, or failing this, that you should prove your power openly before us
+all. Your word, O King!”
+
+Umsuka thought for a while and answered:--
+
+“This is my word, Hokosa: I will not drive the Messenger from the land,
+for he is a good man; he saved my life, and there is virtue in his
+teaching, towards which I myself incline. Yet it is just that he should
+be asked to prove his power, so that an end may be put to doubt and all
+of us may learn what god we are to worship.”
+
+“How can I prove my power,” asked Owen, “further than I have proved it
+already? Does Hokosa desire to set up his god against my God--the false
+against the true?”
+
+“I do,” answered the wizard with passion, “and according to the issue
+let the judgment be. Let us halt no longer between two opinions, let us
+become wholly Christian or rest wholly heathen, for to be divided is to
+be destroyed. The magic of the Messenger is great; once and for all let
+us learn if it is more than our magic. Let us put him and his doctrines
+to the trial by fire.”
+
+“What is the trial by fire?” asked Owen.
+
+“You have seen something of it, White Man, but not much. This is the
+trial by fire: to stand yonder before the face of the god of thunder
+when a great tempest rages--not such a storm as you saw, but a storm
+that splits the heavens--and to come thence unscathed. Listen: I who
+am a ‘heaven-herd,’ I who know the signs of the weather, tell you that
+within two days such a tempest as this will break upon us. Then White
+Man, I and my companions will be ready to meet you on the plain. Take
+the cross by which you swear and set it up yonder and stand by it, and
+with you your converts, Nodwengo the prince, and this man whom you have
+named John, if they dare to go. Over against you, around the symbol of
+the god by which we swear, will stand I and my company, and we will pray
+our god and you shall pray your God. Then the storm will break upon us,
+and when it is ended we shall learn which of us remain alive. If you and
+your cross are shattered, to us will be the victory; if we are laid low,
+take it for your own. Your judgment, King!”
+
+Again Umsuka thought and answered:--
+
+“So be it. Messenger, hear me. There is no need for you to accept this
+challenge; but if you will not accept it, then go from my country in
+peace, taking with you those who cleave to you. If on the other hand
+you do accept it, these shall be the stakes: that if you pass the trial
+unharmed, and the fire-doctors are swept away, your creed shall be my
+creed and the creed of the land; but if the fire-doctors prevail against
+you, then it shall be death or banishment to any who profess that creed.
+Now choose!”
+
+“I have chosen,” said Owen. “I will meet Hokosa and his company on the
+Place of fire whenever he may appoint, but for the others I cannot say.”
+
+“We will come with you,” said Nodwengo and John, with one voice; “where
+you go, Messenger, we will surely follow.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SECOND TRIAL BY FIRE
+
+When this momentous discussion was finished, as usual Owen preached
+before the king, expounding the Scriptures and taking for his subject
+the duty of faith. As he went back to his hut he saw that the snake
+which John had killed had been set upon a pole in that part of the
+Great Place which served as a market, and that hundreds of natives were
+gathered beneath it gesticulating and talking excitedly.
+
+“See the work of Hokosa,” he thought to himself. “Moses set up a serpent
+to save the people; yonder wizard sets up one to destroy them.”
+
+That evening Owen had no heart for his labours, for his mind was heavy
+at the prospect of the trial which lay before him. Not that he cared for
+his own life, for of this he scarcely thought; it was the prospects of
+his cause which troubled him. It seemed much to expect that Heaven again
+should throw over him the mantle of its especial protection, and yet
+if it did not do so there was an end of his mission among the People of
+Fire. Well, he did not seek this trial--he would have avoided it if
+he could, but it had been thrust upon him, and he was forced to choose
+between it and the abandonment of the work which he had undertaken with
+such high hopes and pushed so far toward success. He did not choose the
+path, it had been pointed out to him to walk upon; and if it ended in a
+precipice, at least he would have done his best.
+
+As he thought thus John entered the hut, panting.
+
+“What is the matter?” Owen asked.
+
+“Father, the people saw and pursued me because of the death of that
+accursed snake. Had I not run fast and escaped them, I think they would
+have killed me.”
+
+“At least you have escaped, John; so be comforted and return thanks.”
+
+“Father,” said the man presently, “I know that you are great, and can do
+many wonderful things, but have you in truth power over lightning?”
+
+“Why do you ask?”
+
+“Because a great tempest is brewing, and if you have not we shall
+certainly be killed when we stand yonder on the Place of Fire.”
+
+“John,” he said, “I cannot speak to the lightning in a voice which it
+can hear. I cannot say to it ‘go yonder,’ or ‘come hither,’ but He Who
+made it can do so. Why do you tempt me with your doubts? Have I not
+told you the story of Elijah the prophet and the priests of Baal? Did
+Elijah’s Master forsake him, and shall He forsake us? Also this is
+certain, that all the medicine of Hokosa and his wizards will not turn a
+lightning flash by the breadth of a single hair. God alone can turn it,
+and for the sake of His cause among these people I believe that He will
+do so.”
+
+Thus Owen spoke on till, in reproving the weakness of another, he felt
+his own faith come back to him and, remembering the past and how he
+had been preserved in it, the doubt and trouble went out of his mind to
+return no more.
+
+The third day--the day of trial--came. For sixty hours or more the
+heat of the weather had been intense; indeed, during all that time the
+thermometer in Owen’s hut, notwithstanding the protection of a thick
+hatch, had shown the temperature to vary between a maximum of 113 and a
+minimum of 101 degrees. Now, in the early morning, it stood at 108.
+
+“Will the storm break to-day?” asked Owen of Nodwengo, who came to visit
+him.
+
+“They say so, Messenger, and I think it by the feel of the air. If so,
+it will be a very great storm, for the heaven is full of fire. Already
+Hokosa and the doctors are at their rites upon the plain yonder, but
+there will be no need to join them till two hours after midday.”
+
+“Is the cross ready?” asked Owen.
+
+“Yes, and set up. It is a heavy cross; six men could scarcely carry it.
+Oh! Messenger, I am not afraid--and yet, have you no medicine? If not,
+I fear that the lightning will fall upon the cross as it fell upon the
+pole and then----”
+
+“Listen, Nodwengo,” said Owen, “I know a medicine, but I will not use
+it. You see that waggon chain? Were one end of it buried in the ground
+and the other with a spear blade made fast to it hung to the top of the
+cross, we could live out the fiercest storm in safety. But I say that
+I will not use it. Are we witch doctors that we should take refuge in
+tricks? No, let faith be our shield, and if it fail us, then let us die.
+Pray now with me that it may not fail us.”
+
+*****
+
+It was afternoon. All round the Field of Fire were gathered thousands
+upon thousands of the people of the Amasuka. The news of this duel
+between the God of the white man and their god had travelled far and
+wide, and even the very aged who could scarcely crawl and the little
+ones who must be carried were collected there to see the issue. Nor had
+they need to fear disappointment, for already the sky was half hidden
+by dense thunder-clouds piled ridge on ridge, and the hush of the coming
+tempest lay upon the earth. Round about the meteor stone which they
+called a god, each of them stirring a little gourd of medicine that was
+placed upon the ground before him, but uttering no word, were gathered
+Hokosa and his followers to the number of twenty. They were all of them
+arrayed in their snakeskin dresses and other wizard finery. Also each
+man held in his hand a wand fashioned from a human thigh-bone. In front
+of the stone burned a little fire, which now and again Hokosa fed with
+aromatic leaves, at the same time pouring medicine from his bowl upon
+the holy stone. Opposite the symbol of the god, but at a good distance
+from it, a great cross of white wood was set up in the rock by a spot
+which the witch-doctors themselves had chosen. Upon the banks of the
+stream, in the place apart, were the king, his councillors and the
+regiment on guard, and with them Owen, the Prince Nodwengo and John.
+
+“The storm will be fierce,” said the king uneasily, glancing at the
+western sky, upon whose bosom the blue lightnings played with an
+incessant flicker. Then he bade those about him stand back, and calling
+Owen and the prince to him, said: “Messenger, my son tells me that your
+wisdom knows a plan whereby you may be preserved from the fury of the
+tempest. Use it, I pray of you, Messenger, that your life may be saved,
+and with it the life of the only son who is left to me.”
+
+“I cannot,” answered Owen, “for thus by doubting Him I should tempt my
+Master. Still, it is not laid upon the prince to accompany through this
+trial. Let him stay here, and I alone will stand beneath the cross.”
+
+“Stay, Nodwengo,” implored the old man.
+
+“I did not think to live to hear my father bid me, one of the royal
+blood of the Amasuka, to desert my captain in the hour of battle and
+hide myself in the grass like a woman,” answered the prince with a
+bitter smile. “Nay, it may be that death awaits me yonder, but nothing
+except death shall keep me back from the venture.”
+
+“It is well spoken,” said the king; “be it as you will.”
+
+Now the company of wizards, leaving their medicine-pots upon the ground,
+formed themselves in a treble line, and marching to where the king
+stood, they saluted him. Then they sang the praises of their god, and in
+a song that had been prepared, heaped insult upon the God of the
+white man and upon the messenger who preached Him. To all of this Owen
+listened in silence.
+
+“He is a coward!” cried their spokesman; “he has not a word to say. He
+skulks there in his white robes behind the majesty of the king. Let him
+go forth and stand by his piece of wood. He dare not go! He thinks the
+hillside safer. Come out, little White Man, and we will show you how
+we manage the lightnings. Ah! they shall fly about you like spears in
+battle. You shall throw yourself upon the ground and shriek in terror,
+and then they will lick you up and you shall be no more, and there will
+be an end of you and the symbol of your God.”
+
+“Cease your boastings,” said the king shortly, “and get you back to your
+place, knowing that if it should chance that the white man conquers you
+will be called upon to answer for these words.”
+
+“We shall be ready, O King,” they cried; and amidst the cheers of the
+vast audience they marched back to their station, still singing the
+blasphemous mocking song.
+
+Now to the west all the heavens were black as night, though the
+eastern sky still showed blue and cloudless. Nature lay oppressed with
+silence--silence intense and unnatural; and so great was the heat that
+the air danced visibly above the ironstone as it dances about a glowing
+stove. Suddenly the quietude was broken by a moaning sound of wind;
+the grass stirred, the leaves of the trees began to shiver, and an icy
+breath beat upon Owen’s brow.
+
+“Let us be going,” he said, and lifting the ivory crucifix above his
+head, he passed the stream and walked towards the wooden cross. After
+him came the Prince Nodwengo, wearing his royal dress of leopard skin,
+and after him, John, arrayed in a linen robe.
+
+As the little procession appeared to their view some of the soldiers
+began to mock, but almost instantly the laughter died away. Rude as
+they were, these savages understood that here was no occasion for their
+mirth, that the three men indeed seemed clothed with a curious dignity.
+Perhaps it was their slow and quiet gait, perhaps a sense of the errand
+upon which they were bound; or it may have been the strange unearthly
+light that fell upon them from over the edge of the storm cloud; at the
+least, as the multitude became aware, their appearance was impressive.
+They reached the cross and took up their stations there, Owen in front
+of it, Nodwengo to the right, and John to the left.
+
+Now a sharp squall of strong wind swept across the space, and with it
+came a flaw of rain. It passed by, and the storm that had been muttering
+and growling in the distance began to burst. The great clouds seemed to
+grow and swell, and from the breast of them swift lightnings leapt, to
+be met by other lightnings rushing upwards from the earth. The air was
+filled with a tumult of uncertain wind and a hiss as of distant rain.
+Then the batteries of thunder were opened, and the world shook with
+their volume. Down from on high the flashes fell blinding and incessant,
+and by the light of them the fire-doctors could be seen running to and
+fro, pointing now here and now there with their wands of human bones,
+and pouring the medicines from their gourds upon the ground and upon
+each other. Owen and his two companions could be seen also, standing
+quietly with clasped hands, while above them towered the tall white
+cross.
+
+At length the storm was straight over head. Slowly it advanced in
+its awe-inspiring might as flash after flash, each more fantastic and
+horrible than the last, smote upon the floor of ironstone. It played
+about the shapes of the doctors, who in the midst of it looked like
+devils in an inferno. It crept onwards towards the station of the cross,
+but--_it never reached the cross_.
+
+One flash struck indeed within fifty paces of where Owen stood. Then of
+a sudden a marvel happened, or something which to this day the People of
+Fire talk of as a marvel, for in an instant the rain began to pour like
+a wall of water stretching from earth to heaven, and the wind changed.
+It had been blowing from the west, now it blew from the east with the
+force of a gale.
+
+It blew and rolled the tempest back upon itself, causing it to return
+to the regions whence it had gathered. At the very foot of the cross
+its march was stayed; there was the water-line, as straight as if it had
+been drawn with a rule. The thunder-clouds that were pressed forward met
+the clouds that were pressed back, and together they seemed to come
+to earth, filling the air with a gloom so dense that the eye could not
+pierce it. To the west was a wall of blackness towering to the heavens;
+to the east, light, blue and unholy, gleamed upon the white cross and
+the figures of its watchers.
+
+For some seconds--twenty or more--there was a lull, and then it
+seemed as though all hell had broken loose upon the world. The wall of
+blackness became a wall of flame, in which strange and ardent shapes
+appeared ascending and descending; the thunder bellowed till the
+mountains rocked, and in one last blaze, awful and indescribable, the
+skies melted into a deluge of fire. In the flare of it Owen thought that
+he saw the figures of men falling this way and that, then he staggered
+against the cross for support and his senses failed him.
+
+*****
+
+When they returned again, he perceived the storm being drawn back from
+the face of the pale earth like a pall from the face of the dead, and he
+heard a murmur of fear and wonder rising from ten thousand throats.
+
+*****
+
+Well might they fear and wonder, for of the twenty and one wizards
+eleven were dead, four were paralysed by shock, five were flying in
+their terror, and one, Hokosa himself, stood staring at the fallen, a
+very picture of despair. Nor was this all, for the meteor stone with a
+human shape which for generations the People of Fire had worshipped as a
+god, lay upon the plain in fused and shattered fragments.
+
+The people saw, and a sound as of a hollow groan of terror went up from
+them. Then they were silent. For a while Owen and his companions were
+silent also, since their hearts were too full for speech. Then he
+said:--
+
+“As the snake fell harmless from the hand of Paul, so has the lightning
+turned back from me, who strive to follow in his footsteps, working
+death and dismay among those who would have harmed us. May forgiveness
+be theirs who were without understanding. Brethren, let us return and
+make report to the king.”
+
+Now, as they had come, so they went back; first Owen with the crucifix,
+next to him Nodwengo, and last of the three John. They drew near to the
+king, when suddenly, moved by a common impulse, the thousands of the
+people upon the banks of the stream with one accord threw themselves
+upon their knees before Owen, calling him God and offering him worship.
+Infected by the contagion, Umsuka, his guard and his councillors
+followed their example, so that of all the multitude Hokosa alone
+remained upon his feet, standing by his dishonoured and riven deity.
+
+“Rise!” cried Owen aghast. “Would you do sacrilege, and offer worship to
+a man? Rise, I command you!”
+
+Then the king rose, saying:--
+
+“You are no man, Messenger, you are a spirit.”
+
+“He is a spirit,” repeated the multitude after him.
+
+“I am _not_ a spirit, I am yet a man,” cried Owen again, “but the Spirit
+Whom I serve has made His power manifest in me His servant, and your
+idols are smitten with the sword of His power, O ye Sons of Fire! Hokosa
+still lives, let him be brought hither.”
+
+They fetched Hokosa, and he stood before them.
+
+“You have seen, Wizard,” said the king. “What have you to say?”
+
+“Nothing,” answered Hokosa, “save that victory is to the Cross, and to
+the white man who preaches it, for his magic is greater than our magic.
+By his command the tempest was stayed, and the boasts we hurled fell
+back upon our heads and the head of our god to destroy us.”
+
+“Yes,” said the king, “victory is to the Cross, and henceforth the Cross
+shall be worshipped in this land, or at least no other god shall be
+worshipped. Let us be going. Come with me, Messenger, Lord of the
+Lightning.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WISDOM OF THE DEAD
+
+On the morrow Owen baptised the king, many of his councillors, and
+some twenty others whom he considered fit to receive the rite. Also he
+despatched his first convert John, with other messengers, on a three
+months’ journey to the coast, giving them letters acquainting the bishop
+and others with his marvellous success, and praying that missionaries
+might be sent to assist him in his labours.
+
+Now day by day the Church grew till it numbered hundreds of souls, and
+thousands more hovered on its threshold. From dawn to dark Owen toiled,
+preaching, exhorting, confessing, gathering in his harvest; and from
+dark to midnight he pored over his translation of the Scriptures,
+teaching Nodwengo and a few others how to read and write them. But
+although his efforts were crowned with so signal and extraordinary a
+triumph, he was well aware of the dangers that threatened the life of
+the infant Church. Many accepted it indeed, and still more tolerated
+it; but there remained multitudes who regarded the new religion with
+suspicion and veiled hatred. Nor was this strange, seeing that the
+hearts of men are not changed in an hour or their ancient customs easily
+overset.
+
+On one point, indeed, Owen had to give way. The Amasuka were a
+polygamous people; all their law and traditions were interwoven with
+polygamy, and to abolish that institution suddenly and with violence
+would have brought their social fabric to the ground. Now, as he knew
+well, the missionary Church declares in effect that no man can be both a
+Christian and a polygamist; therefore among the followers of that custom
+the missionary Church makes but little progress. Not without many qualms
+and hesitations, Owen, having only the Scriptures to consult, came to a
+compromise with his converts. If a man already married to more than one
+wife wished to become a Christian, he permitted him to do so upon the
+condition that he took no more wives; while a man unmarried at the time
+of his conversion might take one wife only. This decree, liberal as it
+was, caused great dissatisfaction among both men and women. But it was
+as nothing compared to the feeling that was evoked by Owen’s preaching
+against all war not undertaken in self-defence, and against the strict
+laws which he prevailed upon the king to pass, suppressing the practice
+of wizardry, and declaring the chief or doctor who caused a man to
+be “smelt out” and killed upon charges of witchcraft to be guilty of
+murder.
+
+At first whenever Owen went abroad he was surrounded by thousands of
+people who followed him in the expectation that he would work miracles,
+which, after his exploits with the lightning, they were well persuaded
+that he could do if he chose. But he worked no more miracles; he only
+preached to them a doctrine adverse to their customs and foreign to
+their thoughts.
+
+So it came about that in time, when the novelty was gone off and the
+story of his victory over the Fire-god had grown stale, although the
+work of conversion went on steadily, many of the people grew weary of
+the white man and his doctrines. Soon this weariness found expression in
+various ways, and in none more markedly than by the constant desertions
+from the ranks of the king’s regiments. At first, by Owen’s advice,
+the king tolerated these desertions; but at length, having obtained
+information that an entire regiment purposed absconding at dawn,
+he caused it to be surrounded and seized by night. Next morning he
+addressed that regiment, saying:--
+
+“Soldiers, you think that because I have become a Christian and will not
+permit unnecessary bloodshed, I am also become a fool. I will teach
+you otherwise. One man in every twenty of you shall be killed, and
+henceforth any soldier who attempts to desert will be killed also!”
+
+The order was carried out, for Owen could not find a word to say against
+it, with the result that desertions almost ceased, though not before the
+king had lost some eight or nine thousand of his best soldiers. Worst of
+all, these soldiers had gone to join Hafela in his mountain fastnesses;
+and the rumour grew that ere long they would appear again, to claim the
+crown for him or to take it by force of arms.
+
+Now too a fresh complication arose. The old king sickened of his last
+illness, and soon it became known that he must die. A month later die
+he did, passing away peacefully in Owen’s arms, and with his last
+breath exhorting his people to cling to the Christian religion; to take
+Nodwengo for their king and to be faithful to him.
+
+The king died, and that same day was buried by Owen in the gloomy
+resting-place of the blood-royal of the People of Fire, where a
+Christian priest now set foot for the first time.
+
+On the morrow Nodwengo was proclaimed king with much ceremony in face of
+the people and of all the army that remained to him. One captain raised
+a cry for Hafela his brother. Nodwengo caused him to be seized and
+brought before him.
+
+“Man,” he said, “on this my coronation day I will not stain my hand with
+blood. Listen. You cry upon Hafela, and to Hafela you shall go, taking
+him this message. Tell him that I, Nodwengo, have succeeded to the crown
+of Umsuka, my father, by his will and the will of the people. Tell him
+it is true that I have become a Christian, and that Christians follow
+not after war but peace. Tell him, however, that though I am a Christian
+I have not forgotten how to fight or how to rule. It has reached my
+ears that it is his purpose to attack me with a great force which he is
+gathering, and to possess himself of my throne. If he should choose to
+come, I shall be ready to meet him; but I counsel him against coming,
+for it will be to find his death. Let him stay where he is in peace, and
+be my subject; or let him go afar with those that cleave to him, and set
+up a kingdom of his own, for then I shall not follow him; but let him
+not dare to lift a spear against me, his sovereign, since if he does so
+he shall be treated as a rebel and find the doom of a rebel. Begone, and
+show your face here no more!”
+
+The man crept away crestfallen; but all who heard that speech broke into
+cheering, which, as its purport was repeated from rank to rank, spread
+far and wide; for now the army learned that in becoming a Christian,
+Nodwengo had not become a woman. Of this indeed he soon gave them ample
+proof. The old king’s grip upon things had been lax, that of Nodwengo
+was like iron. He practised no cruelties, and did injustice to none;
+but his discipline was severe, and soon the regiments were brought to a
+greater pitch of proficiency than they had ever reached before, although
+they were now allowed to marry when they pleased, a boon that hitherto
+had been denied to them. Moreover, by Owen’s help, he designed an
+entirely new system of fortification of the kraal and surrounding hills,
+which would, it was thought, make the place impregnable. These and many
+other acts, equally vigorous and far-seeing, put new heart into the
+nation. Also the report of them put fear into Hafela, who, it was
+rumoured, had now given up all idea of attack.
+
+Some there were, however, who looked upon these changes with little
+love, and Hokosa was one of them. After his defeat in the duel by fire,
+for a while his spirit was crushed. Hitherto he had more or less been
+a believer in the protecting influence of his own god or fetish, who
+would, as he thought, hold his priests scatheless from the lightning.
+Often and often had he stood in past days upon that plain while the
+great tempests broke around his head, and returned thence unharmed,
+attributing to sorcery a safety that was really due to chance. From time
+to time indeed a priest was killed; but, so his companions held, the
+misfortune resulted invariably from the man’s neglect of some rite, or
+was a mark of the anger of the heavens.
+
+Now Hokosa had lived to see all these convictions shattered: he had seen
+the lightning, which he pretended to be able to control, roll back
+upon him from the foot of the Christian cross, reducing his god to
+nothingness and his companions to corpses.
+
+At first Hokosa was dismayed, but as time went on hope came back to him.
+Stripped of his offices and power, and from the greatest in the nation,
+after the king, become one of small account, still no harm or violence
+was attempted towards him. He was left wealthy and in peace, and living
+thus he watched and listened with open eyes and ears, waiting till the
+tide should turn. It seemed that he would not have long to wait, for
+reasons that have been told.
+
+“Why do you sit here like a vulture on a rock,” asked the girl Noma,
+whom he had taken to wife, “when you might be yonder with Hafela,
+preparing him by your wisdom for the coming war?”
+
+“Because I am a king-vulture, and I wait for the sick bull to die,” he
+answered, pointing to the Great Place beneath him. “Say, why should I
+bring Hafela to prey upon a carcase I have marked down for my own?”
+
+“Now you speak well,” said Noma; “the bull suffers from a strange
+disease, and when he is dead another must lead the herd.”
+
+“That is so,” answered her husband, “and, therefore, I am patient.”
+
+It was shortly after this conversation that the old king died, with
+results very different from those which Hokosa had anticipated. Although
+he was a Christian, to his surprise Nodwengo showed that he was also a
+strong ruler, and that there was little chance of the sceptre slipping
+from his hand--none indeed while the white teacher was there to guide
+him.
+
+“What will you do now, Hokosa?” asked Noma his wife upon a certain day.
+“Will you turn to Hafela after all?”
+
+“No,” answered Hokosa; “I will consult my ancient lore. Listen. Whatever
+else is false, this is true: that magic exists, and I am its master. For
+a while it seemed to me that the white man was greater at the art than I
+am; but of late I have watched him and listened to his doctrines, and I
+believe that this is not so. It is true that in the beginning he read my
+plans in a dream, or otherwise; it is true that he hurled the lightning
+back upon my head; but I hold that these things were accidents. Again
+and again he has told us that he is not a wizard; and if this be so, he
+can be overcome.”
+
+“How, husband?”
+
+“How? By wizardry. This very night, Noma, with your help I will consult
+the dead, as I have done in bygone time, and learn the future from their
+lips which cannot lie.”
+
+“So be it; though the task is hateful to me, and I hate you who force me
+to it.”
+
+Noma answered thus with passion, but her eyes shone as she spoke: for
+those who have once tasted the cup of magic are ever drawn to drink of
+it again, even when they fear the draught.
+
+****
+
+It was midnight, and Hokosa with his wife stood in the burying-ground of
+the kings of the Amasuka. Before Owen came upon his mission it was death
+to visit this spot except upon the occasion of the laying to rest of one
+of the royal blood, or to offer the annual sacrifice to the spirits
+of the dead. Even beneath the bright moon that shone upon it the place
+seemed terrible. Here in the bosom of the hills was an amphitheatre,
+surrounded by walls of rock varying from five hundred to a thousand feet
+in height. In this amphitheatre grew great mimosa thorns, and above
+them towered pillars of granite, set there not by the hand of man but by
+nature. It would seem that the Amasuka, led by some fine instinct, had
+chosen these columns as fitting memorials of their kings, at the least a
+departed monarch lay at the foot of each of them.
+
+The smallest of these unhewn obelisks--it was about fifty feet
+high--marked the resting-place of Umsuka; and deep into its granite
+Owen with his own hand had cut the dead king’s name and date of death,
+surmounting his inscription with a symbol of the cross.
+
+Towards this pillar Hokosa made his way through the wet grass, followed
+by Noma his wife. Presently they were there, standing one upon each
+side of a little mound of earth more like an ant-heap than a grave; for,
+after the custom of his people, Umsuka had been buried sitting. At the
+foot of each of the pillars rose a heap of similar shape, but many
+times as large. The kings who slept there were accompanied to their
+resting-places by numbers of their wives and servants, who had
+been slain in solemn sacrifice that they might attend their Lord
+whithersoever he should wander.
+
+“What is that you desire and would do?” asked Noma, in a hushed voice.
+Bold as she was, the place and the occasion awed her.
+
+“I desire wisdom from the dead!” he answered. “Have I not already told
+you, and can I not win it with your help?”
+
+“What dead, husband?”
+
+“Umsuka the king. Ah! I served him living, and at the last he drove me
+away from his side. Now he shall serve me, and out of the nowhere I will
+call him back to mine.”
+
+“Will not this symbol defeat you?” and Noma pointed at the cross hewn in
+the granite.
+
+At her words a sudden gust of rage seemed to shake the wizard. His still
+eyes flashed, his lips turned livid, and with them he spat upon the
+cross.
+
+“It has no power,” he said. “May it be accursed, and may he who believes
+therein hang thereon! It has no power; but even if it had, according to
+the tale of that white liar, such things as I would do have been done
+beneath its shadow. By it the dead have been raised--ay! dead kings have
+been dragged from death and forced to tell the secrets of the grave.
+Come, come, let us to the work.”
+
+“What must I do, husband?”
+
+“You shall sit you there, even as a corpse sits, and there for a little
+while you shall die--yes, your spirit shall leave you--and I will fill
+your body with the soul of him who sleeps beneath; and through your
+lips I will learn his wisdom, to whom all things are known.”
+
+“It is terrible! I am afraid!” she said. “Cannot this be done
+otherwise?”
+
+“It cannot,” he answered. “The spirits of the dead have no shape or
+form; they are invisible, and can speak only in dreams or through the
+lips of one in whose pulses life still lingers, though soul and body be
+already parted. Have no fear. Ere his ghost leaves you it shall recall
+your own, which till the corpse is cold stays ever close at hand. I did
+not think to find a coward in you, Noma.”
+
+“I am not a coward, as you know well,” she answered passionately, “for
+many a deed of magic have we dared together in past days. But this is
+fearsome, to die that my body may become the home of the ghost of a
+dead man, who perchance, having entered it, will abide there, leaving
+my spirit houseless, or perchance will shut up the doors of my heart in
+such fashion that they never can be opened. Can it not be done by trance
+as aforetime? Tell me, Hokosa, how often have you thus talked with the
+dead?”
+
+“Thrice, Noma.”
+
+“And what chanced to them through whom you talked?”
+
+“Two lived and took no harm; the third died, because the awakening
+medicine lacked power. Yet fear nothing; that which I have with me is of
+the best. Noma, you know my plight: I must win wisdom or fall for ever,
+and you alone can help me; for under this new rule, I can no longer buy
+a youth or maid for purposes of witchcraft, even if one could be found
+fitted to the work. Choose then: shall we go back or forward? Here
+trance will not help us; for those entranced cannot read the future, nor
+can they hold communion with the dead, being but asleep. Choose, Noma.”
+
+“I have chosen,” she answered. “Never yet have I turned my back upon a
+venture, nor will I do so now. Come life, come death, I will submit me
+to your wish, though there are few women who would dare as much for any
+man. Nor in truth do I do this for you, Hokosa; I do it because I seek
+power, and thus only can we win it who are fallen. Also I love all
+things strange, and desire to commune with the dead and to know that,
+if for some few minutes only, at least my woman’s breast has held the
+spirit of a king. Yet, I warn you, make no fault in your magic; for
+should I die beneath it, then I, who desire to live on and to be great,
+will haunt you and be avenged upon you!”
+
+“Oh! Noma,” he said, “if I believed that there was any danger for you,
+should I ask you to suffer this thing?--I, who love you more even than
+you love power, more than my life, more than anything that is or ever
+can be.”
+
+“I know it, and it is to that I trust,” the woman answered. “Now begin,
+before my courage leaves me.”
+
+“Good,” he said. “Seat yourself there upon the mound, resting your head
+against the stone.”
+
+She obeyed; and taking thongs of hide which he had made ready, Hokosa
+bound her wrists and ankles, as these people bind the wrists and ankles
+of corpses. Then he knelt before her, staring into her face with his
+solemn eyes and muttering: “Obey and sleep.”
+
+Presently her limbs relaxed, and her head fell forward.
+
+“Do you sleep?” he asked.
+
+“I sleep. Whither shall I go? It is the true sleep--test me.”
+
+“Pass to the house of the white man, my rival. Are you with him?”
+
+“I am with him.”
+
+“What does he?”
+
+“He lies in slumber on his bed, and in his slumber he mutters the name
+of a woman, and tells her that he loves her, but that duty is more than
+love. Oh! call me back I cannot stay; a Presence guards him, and thrusts
+me thence.”
+
+“Return,” said Hokosa starting. “Pass through the earth beneath you and
+tell me what you see.”
+
+“I see the body of the king; but were it not for his royal ornaments
+none would know him now.”
+
+“Return,” said Hokosa, “and let the eyes of your spirit be open. Look
+around you and tell me what you see.”
+
+“I see the shadows of the dead,” she answered; “they stand about you,
+gazing at you with angry eyes; but when they come near you, something
+drives them back, and I cannot understand what it is they say.”
+
+“Is the ghost of Umsuka among them?”
+
+“It is among them.”
+
+“Bid him prophesy the future to me.”
+
+“I have bidden him, but he does not answer. If you would hear him
+speak, it must be through the lips of my body; and first my body must be
+emptied of my ghost, that his may find a place therein.”
+
+“Say, can his spirit be compelled?”
+
+“It can be compelled, or that part of it which still hover near this
+spot, if you dare to speak the words you know. But first its house
+must be made ready. Then the words must be spoken, and all must be done
+before a man can count three hundred; for should the blood begin to clot
+about my heart, it will be still for ever.”
+
+“Hearken,” said Hokosa. “When the medicine that I shall give does its
+work, and the spirit is loosened from your body, let it not go afar, no,
+whatever tempts or threatens it, and suffer not that the death-cord be
+severed, lest flesh and ghost be parted for ever.”
+
+“I hear, and I obey. Be swift, for I grow weary.”
+
+Then Hokosa took from his pouch two medicines: one a paste in a box, the
+other a fluid in a gourd. Taking of the paste he knelt upon the grave
+before the entranced woman and swiftly smeared it upon the mucous
+membrane of the mouth and throat. Also he thrust pellets of it into the
+ears, the nostrils, and the corners of the eyes.
+
+The effect was almost instantaneous. A change came over the girl’s
+lovely face, the last awful change of death. Her cheeks fell in, her
+chin dropped, her eyes opened, and her flesh quivered convulsively. The
+wizard saw it all by the bright moonlight. Then he took up his part in
+this unholy drama.
+
+All that he did cannot be described, because it is indescribable. The
+Witch of Endor repeated no formula, but she raised the dead; and so did
+Hokosa the wizard. But he buried his face in the grey dust of the grave,
+he blew with his lips into the dust, he clutched at the dust with his
+hands, and when he raised his face again, lo! it was grey like the
+dust. Now began the marvel; for, though the woman before him remained a
+corpse, from the lips of that corpse a voice issued, and its sound
+was horrible, for the accent and tone of it were masculine, and the
+instrument through which it spoke--Noma’s throat--was feminine. Yet it
+could be recognised as the voice of Umsuka the dead king.
+
+“Why have you summoned me from my rest, Hokosa?” muttered the voice from
+the lips of the huddled corpse.
+
+“Because I would learn the future, Spirit of the king,” answered the
+wizard boldly, but saluting as he spoke. “You are dead, and to your
+sight all the Gates are opened. By the power that I have, I command you
+to show me what you see therein concerning myself, and to point out to
+me the path that I should follow to attain my ends and the ends of her
+in whose breast you dwell.”
+
+At once the answer came, always in the same horrible voice:--
+
+“Hearken to your fate for this world, Hokosa the wizard. You shall
+triumph over your rival, the white man, the messenger; and by your hand
+he shall perish, passing to his appointed place where you must meet
+again. By that to which you cling you shall be betrayed, ah! you shall
+lose that which you love and follow after that which you do not desire.
+In the grave of error you shall find truth, from the deeps of sin you
+shall pluck righteousness. When these words fall upon your ears again,
+then, Wizard, take them for a sign and let your heart be turned. That
+which you deem accursed shall lift you up on high. High shall you be
+set above the nation and its king, and from age to age the voice of the
+people shall praise you. Yet in the end comes judgment; and there shall
+the sin and the atonement strive together, and in that hour, Wizard, you
+shall----”
+
+Thus the voice spoke, strongly at first, but growing ever more feeble as
+the sparks of life departed from the body of the woman, till at length
+it ceased altogether.
+
+“What shall chance to me in that hour?” Hokosa asked eagerly, placing
+his ears against Noma’s lips.
+
+No answer came; and the wizard knew that if he would drag his wife back
+from the door of death he must delay no longer. Dashing the sweat from
+his eyes with one hand, with the other he seized the gourd of fluid
+that he had placed ready, and thrusting back her head, he poured of its
+contents down her throat and waited a while. She did not move. In an
+extremity of terror he snatched a knife, and with a single cut severed
+a vein in her arm, then taking some of the fluid that remained in the
+gourd in his hand, he rubbed it roughly upon her brow and throat and
+heart. Now Noma’s fingers stirred, and now, with horrible contortions
+and every symptom of agony, life returned to her. The blood flowed from
+her wounded arm, slowly at first, then more fast, and lifting her head
+she spoke.
+
+“Take me hence,” she cried, “or I shall go mad; for I have seen and
+heard things too terrible to be spoken!”
+
+“What have you seen and heard?” he asked, while he cut the thongs which
+bound her wrists and feet.
+
+“I do not know,” Noma answered weeping; “the vision of them passes
+from me; but all the distances of death were open to my sight; yes, I
+travelled through the distances of death. In them I met him who was the
+king, and he lay cold within me, speaking to my heart; and as he passed
+from me he looked upon the child which I shall bear and cursed it, and
+surely accursed it shall be. Take me hence, O you most evil man, for of
+your magic I have had enough, and from this day forth I am haunted!”
+
+“Have no fear,” answered Hokosa; “you have made the journey whence but
+few return; and yet, as I promised you, you have returned to wear the
+greatness you desire and that I sent you forth to win; for henceforth
+we shall be great. Look, the dawn is breaking--the dawn of life and the
+dawn of power--and the mists of death and of disgrace roll back before
+us. Now the path is clear, the dead have shown it to me, and of wizardry
+I shall need no more.”
+
+“Ay!” answered Noma, “but night follows dawn as the dawn follows
+night; and through the darkness and the daylight, I tell you, Wizard,
+henceforth I am haunted! Also, be not so sure, for though I know not
+what the dead have spoken to you, yet it lingers on my mind that their
+words have many meanings. Nay, speak to me no more, but let us fly from
+this dread home of ghosts, this habitation of the spirit-folk which we
+have violated.”
+
+So the wizard and his wife crept from that solemn place, and as they
+went they saw the dawn-beams lighting upon the white cross that was
+reared in the Plain of Fire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE MESSAGE OF HOKOSA
+
+The weeks passed by, and Hokosa sat in his kraal weaving a great plot.
+None suspected him any more, for though he did not belong to it, he was
+heard to speak well of the new faith, and to acknowledge that the god of
+fire which he had worshipped was a false god. He was humble also towards
+the king, but he craved to withdraw himself from all matters of the
+State, saying that now he had but one desire--to tend his herds and
+garden, and to grow old in peace with the new wife whom he had chosen
+and whom he loved. Owen, too, he greeted courteously when he met him,
+sending him gifts of corn and cattle for the service of his church.
+Moreover, when a messenger came from Hafela, making proposals to him, he
+drove him away and laid the matter before the council of the king. Yet
+that messenger, who was hunted from the kraal, took back a secret word
+for Hafela’s ear.
+
+“It is not always winter,” was the word, “and it may chance that in
+the springtime you shall hear from me.” And again, “Say to the Prince
+Hafela, that though my face towards him is like a storm, yet behind the
+clouds the sun shines ever.”
+
+At length there came a day when Noma, his wife, was brought to bed.
+Hokosa, her husband, tended her alone, and when the child was born
+he groaned aloud and would not suffer her to look upon its face. Yet,
+lifting herself, she saw.
+
+“Did I not tell you it was accursed?” she wailed. “Take it away!” and
+she sank back in a swoon. So he took the child, and buried it deep in
+the cattle-yard by night.
+
+After this it came about that Noma, who, though her mind owned the sway
+of his, had never loved him over much, hated her husband Hokosa. Yet he
+had this power over her that she could not leave him. But he loved her
+more and more, and she had this power over him that she could always
+draw him to her. Great as her beauty had ever been, after the birth of
+the child it grew greater day by day, but it was an evil beauty, the
+beauty of a witch; and this fate fell upon her, that she feared the dark
+and would never be alone after the sun had set.
+
+When she was recovered from her illness, Noma sat one night in her hut,
+and Hokosa sat there also watching her. The evening was warm, but a
+bright fire burned in the hut, and she crouched upon a stool by the
+fire, glancing continually over her shoulder.
+
+“Why do you bide by the fire, seeing that it is so hot, Noma?” he asked.
+
+“Because I fear to be away from the light,” she answered; adding, “Oh,
+accursed man! for your own ends you have caused me to be bewitched, ah!
+and that which was born of me also, and bewitched I am by those shadows
+that you bade me seek, which now will never leave me. Nor, is this all.
+You swore to me that if I would do your will I should become great, ay!
+and you took me from one who would have made me great and whom I should
+have pushed on to victory. But now it seems that for nothing I made that
+awful voyage into the deeps of death; and for nothing, yet living, am
+I become the sport of those that dwell there. How am I greater than I
+was--I who am but the second wife of a fallen witch-doctor, who sits
+in the sun, day by day, while age gathers on his head like frost upon a
+bush? Where are all your high schemes now? Where is the fruit of wisdom
+that I gathered for you? Answer, Wizard, whom I have learned to hate,
+but from whom I cannot escape!”
+
+“Truly,” said Hokosa in a bitter voice, “for all my sins against them
+the heavens have laid a heavy fate upon my head, that thus with flesh
+and spirit I should worship a woman who loathes me. One comfort only is
+left to me, that you dare not take my life lest another should be added
+to those shadows who companion you, and what I bid you, that you must
+still do. Ay, you fear the dark, Noma; yet did I command you to rise
+and go stand alone through the long night yonder in the burying-place of
+kings, why, you must obey. Come, I command you--go!”
+
+“Nay, nay!” she wailed in an extremity of terror. Yet she rose and
+went towards the door sideways, for her hands were outstretched in
+supplication to him.
+
+“Come back,” he said, “and listen: If a hunter has nurtured up a fierce
+dog, wherewith alone he can gain his livelihood, he tries to tame that
+dog by love, does he not? And if it will not become gentle, then, the
+brute being necessary to him, he tames it by fear. I am the hunter and,
+Noma, you are the hound; and since this curse is on me that I cannot
+live without you, why I must master you as best I may. Yet, believe me,
+I would not cause you fear or pain, and it saddens me that you should
+be haunted by these sick fancies, for they are nothing more. I have seen
+such cases before to-day, and I have noted that they can be cured by
+mixing with fresh faces and travelling in new countries. Noma, I think
+it would be well that, after your late sickness, according to the custom
+of the women of our people, you should part from me a while, and go upon
+a journey of purification.”
+
+“Whither shall I go and who will go with me?” she asked sullenly.
+
+“I will find you companions, women discreet and skilled. And as to
+where you shall go, I will tell you. You shall go upon an embassy to the
+Prince Hafela.”
+
+“Are you not afraid that I should stop there?” she asked again, with a
+flash of her eyes. “It is true that I never learned all the story, yet
+I thought that the prince was not so glad to hand me back to you as you
+would have had me to believe. The price you paid for me must have been
+good, Hokosa, and mayhap it had to do with the death of a king.”
+
+“I am not afraid,” he answered, setting his teeth, “because I know that
+whatever your heart may desire, my will follows you, and while I live
+that is a cord you cannot break unless I choose to loose it, Noma. I
+command you to be faithful to me and to return to me, and these commands
+you must obey. Hearken: you taunted me just now, saying that I sat like
+a dotard in the sun and advanced you nothing. Well, I will advance you,
+for both our sakes, but mostly for your own, since you desire it, and it
+must be done through the Prince Hafela. I cannot leave this kraal, for
+day and night I am watched, and before I had gone an hour’s journey
+I should be seized; also here I have work to do. But the Place of
+Purification is secret, and when you reach it you need not bide there,
+you can travel on into the mountains till you come to the town of the
+Prince Hafela. He will receive you gladly, and you shall whisper this
+message in his ear:--
+
+“‘These are the words of Hokosa, my husband, which he has set in my
+mouth to deliver to you, O Prince. Be guided by them and grow great;
+reject them and die a wanderer, a little man of no account. But first,
+this is the price that you shall swear by the sacred oath to pay to
+Hokosa, if his wisdom finds favour in your sight and through it you come
+to victory: That after you, the king, he, Hokosa, shall be the first man
+in our land, the general of the armies, the captain of the council, the
+head of the doctors, and that to him shall be given half the cattle of
+Nodwengo, who now is king. Also to him shall be given power to stamp out
+the new faith which overruns the land like a foreign weed, and to deal
+as he thinks fit with those who cling thereto.’
+
+“Now, Noma, when he has sworn this oath in your ear, calling down ruin
+upon his own head, should he break one word of it, and not before, you
+shall continue the message thus: ‘These are the other words that Hokosa
+set in my mouth: “Know, O Prince, that the king, your brother, grows
+very strong, for he is a great soldier, who learned his art in bygone
+wars; also the white man that is named Messenger has taught him many
+things as to the building of forts and walls and the drilling and
+discipline of men. So strong is he that you can scarcely hope to conquer
+him in open war--yet snakes may crawl where men cannot walk. Therefore,
+Prince, let your part be that of a snake. Do you send an embassy to the
+king, your brother and say to him:--
+
+“‘My brother, you have been preferred before me and set up to be king in
+my place, and because of this my heart is bitter, so bitter that I have
+gathered my strength to make war upon you. Yet, at the last, I have
+taken another council, bethinking me that, if we fight, in the end it
+may chance that neither of us will be left alive to rule, and that the
+people also will be brought to nothing. To the north there lies a good
+country and a wide, where but few men live, and thither I would go,
+setting the mountains and the river between us; for there, far beyond
+your borders, I also can be a king. Now, to reach this country, I must
+travel by the pass that is not far from your Great Place, and I pray
+you that you will not attack my _impis_ or the women and children that I
+shall send, and a guard before them, to await me in the plain beyond the
+mountains, seeing that these can only journey slowly. Let us pass by in
+peace, my brother, for so shall our quarrel be ended; but if you do so
+much as lift a single spear against me, then I will give you battle,
+setting my fortune against your fortune and my god against your God!’
+
+“Such are the words that the embassy shall deliver into the ears of
+the king, Nodwengo, and it shall come about that when he hears them,
+Nodwengo, whose heart is gentle and who seeks not war, shall answer
+softly, saying:--
+
+“‘Go in peace, my brother, and live in peace in that land which you
+would win.’
+
+“Then shall you, Hafela, send on the most of your cattle and the women
+and the children through that pass in the mountains, bidding them to
+await you in the plain, and after a while you shall follow them with
+your _impis_. But these shall not travel in war array, for carriers must
+bear their fighting shields in bundles and their stabbing spears shall
+be rolled up in mats. Now, on the sixth day of your journey you shall
+camp at the mouth of the pass which the cattle and the women have
+already travelled, and his outposts and spies will bring it to the ears
+of the king that your force is sleeping there, purposing to climb the
+pass on the morrow.
+
+“But on that night, so soon as the darkness falls, you must rise up with
+your captains and your regiments, leaving your fires burning and men
+about your fires, and shall travel very swiftly across the valley, so
+that an hour before the dawn you reach the second range of mountains,
+and pass it by the gorge which is the burying-place of kings. Here you
+shall light a fire, which those who watch will believe to be but the
+fire of a herdsman who is acold. But I, Hokosa, also shall be watching,
+and when I see that fire I will creep, with some whom I can trust, to
+the little northern gate of the outer wall, and we will spear those
+that guard it and open the gate, that your army may pass through. Then,
+before the regiments can stand to their arms or those within it are
+awakened, you must storm the inner walls and by the light of the burning
+huts, put the dwellers in the Great Place to the spear, and the rays of
+the rising sun shall crown you king.
+
+“Follow this counsel of mine, O Prince Hafela, and all will go well
+with you. Neglect it and be lost. There is but one thing which you need
+fear--it is the magic of the Messenger, to whom it is given to read the
+secret thoughts of men. But of him take no account, for he is my charge,
+and before ever you set a foot within the Great Place he shall have
+taken his answer back to Him Who sent him.”
+
+Hokosa finished speaking.
+
+“Have you heard?” he said to Noma.
+
+“I have heard.”
+
+“Then speak the message.”
+
+She repeated it word for word, making no fault. “Have no fear,” she
+added, “I shall forget nothing when I stand before the prince.”
+
+“You are a woman, but your counsel is good. What think you of the plan,
+Noma?”
+
+“It is deep and well laid,” she answered, “and surely it would succeed
+were it not for one thing. The white man, Messenger, will be too clever
+for you, for as you say, he is a reader of the thoughts of men.”
+
+“Can the dead read men’s thoughts, or if they can, do they cry them on
+the market-place or into the ears of kings?” asked Hokosa. “Have I not
+told you that, before I see the signal-fire yonder, the Messenger shall
+sleep sound? I have a medicine, Noma, a slow medicine that none can
+trace.”
+
+“The Messenger may sleep sound, Hokosa, and yet perchance he may pass
+on his message to another and, with it, his magic. Who can say? Still,
+husband, strike on for power and greatness and revenge, letting the blow
+fall where it will.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BASKET OF FRUIT
+
+Three days later it was announced that according to the custom of the
+women of the People of Fire, Noma having given birth to a still-born
+child, was about to start upon a journey to the Mount of Purification.
+Here she would abide awhile and make sacrifice to the spirits of her
+ancestors, that they might cease to be angry with her and in future
+protect her from such misfortunes. This not unusual domestic incident
+excited little comment, although it was remarked that the four matrons
+by whom she was to be accompanied, in accordance with the tribal
+etiquette, were all of them the wives of soldiers who had deserted to
+Hafela. Indeed, the king himself noticed as much when Hokosa made the
+customary formal application to him to sanction the expedition.
+
+“So be it,” he said, “though myself I have lost faith in such rites.
+Also, Hokosa, I think it likely that although your wife goes out with
+company, she will return alone.”
+
+“Why, King?” asked Hokosa.
+
+“For this reason--that those who travel with her have husbands yonder at
+the town of the Prince Hafela, and the Mount of Purification is on the
+road thither. Having gone so far, they may go farther. Well, let
+them go, for I desire to have none among my people whose hearts turn
+otherwhere, and it would not be wonderful if they should choose to seek
+their lords. But perchance, Hokosa, there are some in this town who may
+use them as messengers to the prince”--and he looked at him keenly.
+
+“I think not, King,” said Hokosa. “None but a fool would make use of
+women to carry secret words or tidings. Their tongues are too long and
+their memories too bad, or too uncertain.”
+
+“Yet I have heard, Hokosa, that you have made use of women in many a
+strange work. Say now, what were you doing upon a night a while ago
+with that fair witch-wife of yours yonder in the burying-place of kings,
+where it is not lawful that you should set your foot? Nay, deny it not.
+You were seen to enter the valley after midnight and to return thence
+at the dawn, and it was seen also that as she came homewards your wife
+walked as one who is drunken, and she, whom it is not easy to frighten,
+wore a face of fear. Man, I do not trust you, and were I wise I should
+hunt you hence, or keep you so close that you could scarcely move
+without my knowledge.
+
+“Why should I trust you?” Nodwengo went on vehemently. “Can a wizard
+cease from wizardry, or a plotter from his plots? No, not until the
+waters run upward and the sun shines at night; not until repentance
+touches you and your heart is changed, which I should hold as much a
+marvel. You were my father’s friend and he made you great; yet you could
+plan with my brother to poison him, your king. Nay, be silent; I know
+it, though I have said nothing of it because one that is dear to me has
+interceded for you. You were the priest of the false god, and with that
+god are fallen from your place, yet you have not renounced him. You sit
+still in your kraal and pretend to be asleep, but your slumber is that
+of the serpent which watches his time to strike. How do I know that
+you will not poison me as you would have poisoned my father, or stir up
+rebellion against me, or bring my brother’s _impis_ on my head?”
+
+“If the King thinks any of these things of his servant,” answered Hokosa
+in a humble voice, but with dignity, “his path is plain: let him put me
+to death and sleep in peace. Who am I that I should full the ears of
+a king with my defence against these charges, or dare to wrangle with
+him?”
+
+“Long ago I should have put you to death, Hokosa,” answered Nodwengo
+sternly, “had it not been that one has pleaded for you, declaring that
+in you there is good which will overcome the evil, and that you who now
+are an axe to cut down my throne, in time to come shall be a roof-tree
+for its support. Also, the law that I obey does not allow me to take
+the blood of men save upon full proof, and against you as yet I have
+no proof. Still, Hokosa, be warned in time and let your heart be turned
+before the grave claims your body and the Wicked One your soul.”
+
+“I thank you, King, for your gentle words and your tender care for my
+well-being both on earth and after I shall leave it. But I tell you,
+King, that I had rather die as your father would have killed me in the
+old days, or your brother would kill me now, did either of them hate or
+fear me, than live on in safety, owing my life to a new law and a new
+mercy that do not befit the great ones of the world. King, I am your
+servant,” and giving him the royal salute, Hokosa rose and left his
+presence.
+
+“At the least there goes a man,” said Nodwengo, as he watched him
+depart.
+
+“Of whom do you speak, King?” asked Owen, who at that moment entered the
+royal house.
+
+“Of him whom you must have touched in the door-way, Messenger, Hokosa
+the wizard,” answered the king, and he told him of what had passed
+between them. “I said,” he added, “that he was a man, and so he is; yet
+I hold that I have done wrong to listen to your pleading and to spare
+him, for I am certain that he will bring bloodshed upon me and trouble
+on the Faith. Think now, Messenger, how full must be that man’s heart of
+secret rage and hatred, he who was so great and is now so little! Will
+he not certainly strive to grow great again? Will he not strive to be
+avenged upon those who humbled him and the religion they have chosen?”
+
+“It may be,” answered Owen, “but if so, he will not conquer. I tell
+you, King, that like water hidden in a rock there is good in this man’s
+heart, and that I shall yet find a rod wherewith to cause it to gush out
+and refresh the desert.”
+
+“It is more likely that he will find a spear wherewith to cause your
+blood to gush out and refresh the jackals,” answered the king grimly;
+“but be it as you will. And now, what of your business?”
+
+“This, King: John, my servant, has returned from the coast countries,
+and he brings me a letter saying that before long three white teachers
+will follow him to take up the work which I have begun. I pray that when
+they come, for my sake and for the sake of the truth that I have taught
+you, you will treat them kindly and protect them, remembering that at
+first they can know little of your language or your customs.”
+
+“I will indeed,” said the king, with much concern. “But tell me,
+Messenger, why do you speak of yourself as of one who soon will be but a
+memory? Do you purpose to leave us?”
+
+“No, King, but I believe that ere long I shall be recalled. I have given
+my message, my task is well-nigh ended and I must be turning home. Save
+for your sakes I do not sorrow at this, for to speak truth I grow very
+weary,” and he smiled sadly.
+
+*****
+
+Hokosa went home alarmed and full of bitterness, for he had never
+guessed that the “servant of the Messenger,” as he called Nodwengo the
+King, knew so much about him and his plans. His fall was hard to him,
+but to be thus measured up, weighed, and contemptuously forgiven was
+almost more than he could bear. It was the white prophet who had done
+this thing; he had told Nodwengo of his, Hokosa’s, share in the plot to
+murder the late King Umsuka, though how he came to know of that matter
+was beyond guessing. He had watched him, or caused him to be watched,
+when he went forth to consult spirits in the place of the dead; he had
+warned Nodwengo against him. Worst of all, he had dared to treat him
+with contempt; had pleaded for his life and safety, so that he was
+spared as men spare a snake from which the charmer has drawn the fangs.
+When they met in the gate of the king’s house yonder this white thief,
+who had stolen his place and power, had even smiled upon him and greeted
+him kindly, and doubtless while he smiled, by aid of the magic he
+possessed, had read him through and gone on to tell the story to the
+king. Well, of this there should be an end; he would kill the Messenger,
+or himself be killed.
+
+When Hokosa reached his kraal he found Noma sitting beneath a fruit tree
+that grew in it, idly employed in stringing beads, for the work of the
+household she left to his other wife, Zinti, an old and homely woman who
+thought more of the brewing of the beer and the boiling of the porridge
+than of religions or politics or of the will of kings. Of late Noma had
+haunted the shadow of this tree, for beneath it lay that child which had
+been born to her.
+
+“Does it please the king to grant leave for my journey?” she asked,
+looking up.
+
+“Yes, it pleases him.”
+
+“I am thankful,” she answered, “for I think that if I bide here much
+longer, with ghosts and memories for company, I shall go mad,” and
+she glanced at a spot near by, where the earth showed signs of recent
+disturbance.
+
+“He gives leave,” Hokosa went on, taking no notice of her speech, “but
+he suspects us. Listen----” and he told her of the talk that had passed
+between himself and the king.
+
+“The white man has read you as he reads in his written books,” she
+answered, with a little laugh. “Well, I said that he would be too clever
+for you, did I not? It does not matter to me, for to-morrow I go upon my
+journey, and you can settle it as you will.”
+
+“Ay!” answered Hokosa, grinding his teeth, “it is true that he has read
+me; but this I promise you, that all books shall soon be closed to him.
+Yet how is it to be done without suspicion or discovery? I know many
+poisons, but all of them must be administered, and let him work never so
+cunningly, he who gives a poison can be traced.”
+
+“Then cause some other to give it and let him bear the blame,” suggested
+Noma languidly.
+
+Hokosa made no answer, but walking to the gate of the kraal, which was
+open, he leaned against it lost in thought. As he stood thus he saw a
+woman advancing towards him, who carried on her head a small basket of
+fruit, and knew her for one of those whose business it was to wait upon
+the Messenger in his huts, or rather in his house, for by now he had
+built himself a small house, and near it a chapel. This woman saw Hokosa
+also and looked at him sideways, as though she would like to stop and
+speak to him, but feared to do so.
+
+“Good morrow to you, friend,” he said. “How goes it with your husband
+and your house?”
+
+Now Hokosa knew well that this woman’s husband had taken a dislike to
+her and driven her from his home, filling her place with one younger and
+more attractive. At the question the woman’s lips began to tremble, and
+her eyes swam with tears.
+
+“Ah! great doctor,” she said, “why do you ask me of my husband? Have you
+not heard that he has driven me away and that another takes my place?”
+
+“Do I hear all the gossip of this town?” asked Hokosa, with a smile.
+“But come in and tell me the story; perchance I may be able to help you,
+for I have charms to compel the fancy of such faithless ones.”
+
+The woman looked round, and seeing that there was no one in sight, she
+slipped swiftly through the gate of the kraal, which he closed behind
+her.
+
+“Noma,” said Hokosa, “here is one who tells me that her husband has
+deserted her, and who comes to seek my counsel. Bring her milk to
+drink.”
+
+“There are some wives who would not find that so great an evil,” replied
+Noma mockingly, as she rose to do his bidding.
+
+Hokosa winced at the sarcasm, and turning to his visitor, said:--
+
+“Now tell me your tale; but say first, why are you so frightened?”
+
+“I am frightened, master,” she answered, “lest any should have seen
+me enter here, for I have become a Christian, and the Christians are
+forbidden to consult the witch-doctors, as we were wont to do. For my
+case, it is----”
+
+“No need to set it out,” broke in Hokosa, waving his hand. “I see it
+written on your face; your husband has put you away and loves another
+woman, your own half-sister whom you brought up from a child.”
+
+“Ah! master, you have heard aright.”
+
+“I have not heard, I look upon you and I see. Fool, am I not a wizard?
+Tell me----” and taking dust into his hand, he blew the grains this way
+and that, regarding them curiously. “Yes, it is so. Last night you crept
+to your husband’s hut--do you remember, a dog growled at you as you
+passed the gate?--and there in front of the hut he sat with his new
+wife. She saw you coming, but pretending not to see, she threw her arms
+about his neck, kissing and fondling him before your eyes, till you
+could bear it no longer, and revealed yourself, upbraiding them. Then
+your rival taunted you and stirred up the man with bitter words, till at
+length he took a stick and beat you from the door, and there is a mark
+of it upon your shoulder.”
+
+“It is true, it is too true!” she groaned.
+
+“Yes, it is true. And now, what do you wish from me?”
+
+“Master, I wish a medicine to make my husband hate my rival and to draw
+his heart back to me.”
+
+“That must be a strong medicine,” said Hokosa, “which will turn a man
+from one who is young and beautiful to one who is past her youth and
+ugly.”
+
+“I am as I am,” answered the poor woman, with a touch of natural
+dignity, “but at least I have loved him and worked for him for fifteen
+long years.”
+
+“And that is why he would now be rid of you, for who cumbers his kraal
+with old cattle?”
+
+“And yet at times they are the best, Master. Wrinkles and smooth skin
+seem strange upon one pillow,” she added, glancing at Noma, who came
+from the hut carrying a bowl of milk in her hand.
+
+“If you seek counsel,” said Hokosa quickly, “why do you not go to the
+white man, that Messenger in whom you believe, and ask him for a potion
+to turn your husband’s heart?”
+
+“Master, I have been to him, and he is very good to me, for when I was
+driven out he gave me work to do and food. But he told me that he had no
+medicine for such cases, and that the Great Man in the sky alone could
+soften the breast of my husband and cause my sister to cease from her
+wickedness. Last night I went to see whether He would do it, and you
+know what befell me there.”
+
+“That befell you which befalls all fools who put their trust in words
+alone. What will you pay me, woman, if I give you the medicine which you
+seek?”
+
+“Alas, master, I am poor. I have nothing to offer you, for when I would
+not stay in my husband’s kraal to be a servant to his new wife, he took
+the cow and the five goats that belonged to me, as, I being childless,
+according to our ancient law he had the right to do.”
+
+“You are bold who come to ask a doctor to minister to you, bearing no
+fee in your hand,” said Hokosa. “Yet, because I have pity on you, I will
+be content with very little. Give me that basket of fruit, for my wife
+has been sick and loves its taste.”
+
+“I cannot do that, Master,” answered the woman, “for it is sent by my
+hand as a present to the Messenger, and he knows this and will eat of it
+after he has made prayer to-day. Did I not give it to him, it would be
+discovered that I had left it here with you.”
+
+“Then begone without your medicine,” said Hokosa, “for I need such
+fruit.”
+
+The woman rose and said, looking at him wistfully:--
+
+“Master, if you will be satisfied with other fruits of this same sort, I
+know where I can get them for you.”
+
+“When will you get them?”
+
+“Now, within an hour. And till I return I will leave these in pledge
+with you; but these and no other I must give to the Messenger, for he
+has already seen them and might discover the difference; also I have
+promised so to do.”
+
+“As you will,” said Hokosa. “If you are with the fruit within an hour,
+the medicine will be ready for you, a medicine that shall not fail.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE EATING OF THE FRUIT
+
+The woman slipped away secretly. When she had gone Hokosa bade his wife
+bring the basket of fruit into the hut.
+
+“It is best that the butcher should kill the ox himself,” she answered
+meaningly.
+
+He carried in the basket and set it on the floor.
+
+“Why do you speak thus, Noma?” he asked.
+
+“Because I will have no hand in the matter, Hokosa. I have been the tool
+of a wizard, and won little joy therefrom. The tool of a murderer I will
+not be!”
+
+“If I kill, it is for the sake of both of us,” he said passionately.
+
+“It may be so, Hokosa, or for the sake of the people, or for the sake
+of Heaven above--I do not know and do not care; but I say, do your own
+killing, for I am sure that even less luck will hang to it than hangs to
+your witchcraft.”
+
+“Of all women you are the most perverse!” he said, stamping his foot
+upon the ground.
+
+“Thus you may say again before everything is done, husband; but if it
+be so, why do you love me and tie me to you with your wizardry? Cut the
+knot, and let me go my way while you go yours.”
+
+“Woman, I cannot; but still I bid you beware, for, strive as you will,
+my path must be your path. Moreover, till I free you, you cannot lift
+voice or hand against me.”
+
+Then, while she watched him curiously, Hokosa fetched his medicines and
+took from them some powder fine as dust and two tiny crowquills. Placing
+a fruit before him, he inserted one of these quills into its substance,
+and filling the second with the powder, he shook its contents into it
+and withdrew the tube. This process he repeated four times on each of
+the fruits, replacing them one by one in the basket. So deftly did he
+work upon them, that however closely they were scanned none could guess
+that they had been tampered with.
+
+“Will it kill at once?” asked Noma.
+
+“No, indeed; but he who eats these fruits will be seized on the third
+day with dysentery and fever, and these will cling to him till within
+seven weeks--or if he is very strong, three months--he dies. This is the
+best of poisons, for it works through nature and can be traced by none.”
+
+“Except, perchance, by that Spirit Whom the white man worships, and Who
+also works through nature, as you learned, Hokosa, when He rolled the
+lightning back upon your head, shattering your god and beating down your
+company.”
+
+Then of a sudden terror seized the wizard, and springing to his feet, he
+cursed his wife till she trembled before him.
+
+“Vile woman, and double-faced!” he said, “why do you push me forward
+with one hand and with the other drag me back? Why do you whisper evil
+counsel into one ear and into the other prophesy of misfortunes to come?
+Had it not been for you, I should have let this business lie; I should
+have taken my fate and been content. But day by day you have taunted me
+with my fall and grieved over the greatness that you have lost, till
+at length you have driven me to this. Why cannot you be all good or all
+wicked, or at the least, through righteousness and sin, faithful to my
+interest and your own?”
+
+“Because I hate you, Hokosa, and yet can strike you only through my
+tongue and your mad love for me. I am fast in your power, but thus at
+least I can make you feel something of my own pain. Hark! I hear that
+woman at the gate. Will you give her back the basket, or will you not?
+Whatever you may choose to do, do not say in after days that I urged you
+to the deed.”
+
+“Truly you are great-hearted!” he answered, with cold contempt; “one for
+whom I did well to enter into treachery and sin! So be it: having gone
+so far upon it, come what may, I will not turn back from this journey.
+Let in that fool!”
+
+Presently the woman stood before them, bearing with her another basket
+of fruit.
+
+“These are what you seek, Master,” she said, “though I was forced to win
+them by theft. Now give me my own and the medicine and let me go.”
+
+He gave her the basket, and with it, wrapped in a piece of kidskin, some
+of the same powder with which he had doctored the fruits.
+
+“What shall I do with this?” she asked.
+
+“You must find means to sprinkle it upon your sister’s food, and
+thereafter your husband shall come to hate even the sight of her.”
+
+“But will he come to love me again?”
+
+Hokosa shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I know not,” he answered; “that is for you to see to. Yet this is sure,
+that if a tree grows up before the house of a man, shutting it off from
+the sunlight, when that tree is cut down the sun shines upon his house
+again.”
+
+“It is nothing to the sun on what he shines,” said the woman.
+
+“If the saying does not please you, then forget it. I promise you this
+and no more, that very soon the man shall cease to turn to your rival.”
+
+“The medicine will not harm her?” asked the woman doubtfully. “She has
+worked me bitter wrong indeed, yet she is my sister, whom I nursed
+when she was little, and I do not wish to do her hurt. If only he will
+welcome me back and treat me kindly, I am willing even that she should
+dwell on beneath my husband’s roof, bearing his children, for will they
+not be of my own blood?”
+
+“Woman,” answered Hokosa impatiently, “you weary me with your talk. Did
+I say that the charm would hurt her? I said that it would cause your
+husband to hate the sight of her. Now begone, taking or leaving it, and
+let me rest. If your mind is troubled, throw aside that medicine, and go
+soothe it with such sights as you saw last night.”
+
+On hearing this the woman sprang up, hid away the poison in her hair,
+and taking her basket of fruit, passed from the kraal as secretly as she
+had entered it.
+
+“Why did you give her death-medicine?” asked Noma of Hokosa, as he stood
+staring after her. “Have you a hate to satisfy against the husband or
+the girl who is her rival?”
+
+“None,” he answered, “for they have never crossed my path. Oh, foolish
+woman! cannot you read my plan?”
+
+“Not altogether, Husband.”
+
+“Listen then: this woman will give to her sister a medicine of which in
+the end she must die. She may be discovered or she may not, but it is
+certain that she will be suspected, seeing that the bitterness of the
+quarrel between them is known. Also she will give to the Messenger
+certain fruits, after eating of which he will be taken sick and in due
+time die, of just such a disease as that which carries off the woman’s
+rival. Now, if any think that he is poisoned, which I trust none will,
+whom will they suppose to have poisoned him, though indeed they can
+never prove the crime?”
+
+“The plan is clever,” said Noma with admiration, “but in it I see a
+flaw. The woman will say that she had the drug from you, or, at the
+least, will babble of her visit to you.”
+
+“Not so,” answered Hokosa, “for on this matter the greatest talker in
+the world would keep silence. Firstly, she, being a Christian, dare not
+own that she has visited a witch-doctor. Secondly, the fruit she brought
+in payment was stolen, therefore she will say nothing of it. Thirdly,
+to admit that she had medicine from me would be to admit her guilt, and
+that she will scarcely do even under torture, which by the new law it is
+not lawful to apply. Moreover, none saw her come here, and I should deny
+her visit.”
+
+“The plan is very clever,” said Noma again.
+
+“It is very clever,” he repeated complacently; “never have I made a
+better one. Now throw those fruits to the she goats that are in the
+kraal, and burn the basket, while I go and talk to some in the Great
+Place, telling them that I have returned from counting my cattle on the
+mountain, whither I went after I had bowed the knee in the house of the
+king.”
+
+*****
+
+Two hours later, Hokosa, having made a wide detour and talked to sundry
+of his acquaintances about the condition of his cattle, might have been
+seen walking slowly along the north side of the Great Place towards his
+own kraal. His path lay past the chapel and the little house that Owen
+had built to dwell in. This house was furnished with a broad verandah,
+and upon it sat the Messenger himself, eating his evening meal. Hokosa
+saw him, and a great desire entered his heart to learn whether or no
+he had partaken of the poisoned fruit. Also it occurred to him that it
+would be wise if, before the end came, he could contrive to divert all
+possible suspicion from himself, by giving the impression that he was
+now upon friendly terms with the great white teacher and not disinclined
+even to become a convert to his doctrine.
+
+For a moment he hesitated, seeking an excuse. One soon suggested itself
+to his ready mind. That very morning the king had told him not obscurely
+that Owen had pleaded for his safety and saved him from being put upon
+his trial on charges of witchcraft and murder. He would go to him, now
+at once, playing the part of a grateful penitent, and the White Man’s
+magic must be keen indeed if it availed to pierce the armour of his
+practised craft.
+
+So Hokosa went up and squatted himself down native fashion among a
+little group of converts who were waiting to see their teacher upon one
+business or another. He was not more than ten paces from the verandah,
+and sitting thus he saw a sight that interested him strangely. Having
+eaten a little of a dish of roasted meat, Owen put out his hand and
+took a fruit from a basket that the wizard knew well. At this moment he
+looked up and recognised Hokosa.
+
+“Do you desire speech with me, Hokosa?” he asked in his gentle voice.
+“If so, be pleased to come hither.”
+
+“Nay, Messenger,” answered Hokosa, “I desire speech with you indeed, but
+it is ill to stand between a hungry man and his food.”
+
+“I care little for my food,” answered Owen; “at the least it can wait,”
+ and he put down the fruit.
+
+Then suddenly a feeling to which the wizard had been for many years a
+stranger took possession of him--a feeling of compunction. That man was
+about to partake of what would cause his death--of what he, Hokosa, had
+prepared in order that it should cause his death. He was good, he was
+kindly, none could allege a wrong deed against him; and, foolishness
+though it might be, so was the doctrine that he taught. Why should he
+kill him? It was true that never till that moment had he hesitated, by
+fair means or foul, to remove an enemy or rival from his path. He
+had been brought up in this teaching; it was part of the education of
+wizards to be merciless, for they reigned by terror and evil craft.
+Their magic lay chiefly in clairvoyance and powers of observation
+developed to a pitch that was almost superhuman, and the best of
+their weapons was poison in infinite variety, whereof the guild alone
+understood the properties and preparation. Therefore there was nothing
+strange, nothing unusual in this deed of devilish and cunning murder
+that the sight of its doing should stir him thus, and yet it did stir
+him. He was minded to stop the plot, to let things take their course.
+
+Some sense of the futility of all such strivings came home to him, and
+as in a glass, for Hokosa was a man of imagination, he foresaw their
+end. A little success, a little failure, it scarcely mattered which, and
+then--that end. Within twenty years, or ten, or mayhap even one, what
+would this present victory or defeat mean to him? Nothing so far as
+he was concerned; that is, nothing so far as his life of to-day was
+concerned. Yet, if he had another life, it might mean everything. There
+was another life; he knew it, who had dragged back from its borders the
+spirits of the dead, though what might be the state and occupations of
+those dead he did not know. Yet he believed--why he could not tell--that
+they were affected vitally by their acts and behaviour here; and his
+intelligence warned him that good must always flow from good, and evil
+from evil. To kill this man was evil, and of it only evil could come.
+
+What did he care whether Hafela ruled the nation or Nodwengo, and
+whether it worshipped the God of the Christians or the god of Fire--who,
+by the way, had proved himself so singularly inefficient in the hour of
+trial. Now that he thought of it, he much preferred Nodwengo to Hafela,
+for the one was a just man and the other a tyrant; and he himself was
+more comfortable as a wealthy private person than he had been as a head
+medicine-man and a chief of wizards. He would let things stand; he would
+prevent the Messenger from eating of that fruit. A word could do it; he
+had but to suggest that it was unripe or not wholesome at this season of
+the year, and it would be cast aside.
+
+All these reflections, or their substance, passed through Hokosa’s
+mind in a few instants of time, and already he was rising to go to
+the verandah and translate their moral into acts, when another thought
+occurred to him--How should he face Noma with this tale? He could give
+up his own ambitions, but could he bear her mockery, as day by day
+she taunted him with his faint-heartedness and reproached him with his
+failure to regain greatness and to make her great? He forgot that he
+might conceal the truth from her; or rather, he did not contemplate such
+concealment, of which their relations were too peculiar and too intimate
+to permit. She hated him, and he worshipped her with a half-inhuman
+passion--a passion so unnatural, indeed, that it suggested the horrid
+and insatiable longings of the damned--and yet their souls were naked
+to each other. It was their fate that they could hide nothing each from
+each--they were cursed with the awful necessity of candour.
+
+It would be impossible that he should keep from Noma anything that he
+did or did not do; it would be still more impossible that she should
+conceal from him even such imaginings and things as it is common for
+women to hold secret. Her very bitterness, which it had been policy for
+her to cloak or soften, would gush from her lips at the sight of him;
+nor, in the depth of his rage and torment, could he, on the other hand,
+control the ill-timed utterance of his continual and overmastering
+passion. It came to this, then: he must go forward, and against his
+better judgment, because he was afraid to go back, for the whip of
+a woman’s tongue drove him on remorselessly. It was better that the
+Messenger should die, and the land run red with blood, than that he
+should be forced to endure this scourge.
+
+So with a sigh Hokosa sank back to the ground and watched while Owen ate
+three of the poisoned fruits. After a pause, he took a fourth and bit
+into it, but not seeming to find it to his taste, he threw it to a child
+that was waiting by the verandah for any scraps which might be left over
+from his meal. The child caught it, and devoured it eagerly.
+
+Then, smiling at the little boy’s delight, the Messenger called to
+Hokosa to come up and speak with him.
+
+
+
+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 steeped 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE REPENTANCE OF HOKOSA
+
+Hokosa kept his promise. On the morrow of his first attendance there he
+was again to be seen in the chapel, and after the service was over he
+waited on Owen at his house and listened to his private teaching. Day
+by day he appeared thus, till at length he became master of the whole
+doctrine of Christianity, and discovered that that which at first had
+struck him as childish and even monstrous, now presented itself to him
+in a new and very different light. The conversion of Hokosa came upon
+him through the gate of reason, not as is usual among savages--and some
+who are not savage--by that of the emotions. Given the position of a
+universe torn and groaning beneath the dual rule of Good and Evil,
+two powers of well-nigh equal potency, he found no great difficulty in
+accepting this tale of the self-sacrifice of the God of Good that He
+might wring the race He loved out of the conquering grasp of the god of
+Ill. There was a simple majesty about this scheme of redemption which
+appealed to one side of his nature. Indeed, Hokosa felt that under
+certain conditions and in a more limited fashion he would have been
+capable of attempting as much himself.
+
+Once his reason was satisfied, the rest followed in a natural sequence.
+Within three weeks from the hour of his first attendance at the chapel
+Hokosa was at heart a Christian.
+
+He was a Christian, although as yet he did not confess it; but he was
+also the most miserable man among the nation of the Sons of Fire. The
+iniquities of his past life had become abominable to him; but he had
+committed them in ignorance, and he understood that they were not beyond
+forgiveness. Yet high above them all towered one colossal crime which,
+as he believed, could never be pardoned to him in this world or the
+next. He was the treacherous murderer of the Messenger of God; he was
+in the very act of silencing the Voice that had proclaimed truth in the
+dark places of his soul and the dull ears of his countrymen.
+
+The deed was done; no power on earth could save his victim. Within a
+week from the day of eating that fatal fruit Owen began to sicken, then
+the dysentery had seized him which slowly but surely was wasting out
+his life. Yet he, the murderer, was helpless, for with this form of the
+disease no medicine could cope. With agony in his heart, an agony that
+was shared by thousands of the people, Hokosa watched the decrease of
+the white man’s strength, and reckoned the days that would elapse before
+the end. Having such sin as this upon his soul, though Owen entreated
+him earnestly, he would not permit himself to be baptised. Twice he
+went near to consenting, but on each occasion an ominous and terrible
+incident drove him from the door of mercy.
+
+Once, when the words “I will” were almost on his lips, a woman broke in
+upon their conference bearing a dying boy in her arms.
+
+“Save him,” she implored, “save him, Messenger, for he is my only son!”
+
+Owen looked at him and shook his head.
+
+“How came he like this?” he asked.
+
+“I know not, Messenger, but he has been sick ever since he ate of a
+certain fruit which you gave to him;” and she recalled to his mind
+the incident of the throwing of a fruit to the child, which she had
+witnessed.
+
+“I remember,” said Owen. “It is strange, but I also have been sick from
+the day that I ate of those fruits; yes, and you, Hokosa, warned me
+against them.”
+
+Then he blessed the boy and prayed over him till he died; but when
+afterwards he looked round for Hokosa, it was to find that he had gone.
+
+Some eight days later, having to a certain extent recovered from this
+shock, Hokosa went one morning to Owen’s house and talked to him.
+
+“Messenger,” he said, “is it necessary to baptism that I should confess
+all my sins to you? If so, I can never be baptised, for there is
+wickedness upon my hands which I am unable to tell into the ear of
+living man.”
+
+Owen thought and answered:--
+
+“It is necessary that you should repent all of your sins, and that
+you should confess them to heaven; it is not necessary that you should
+confess them to me, who am but a man like yourself.”
+
+“Then I will be baptised,” said Hokosa with a sigh of relief.
+
+At this moment, as it chanced, their interview was again interrupted,
+for runners came from the king requesting the immediate presence of the
+Messenger, if he were well enough to attend, upon a matter connected
+with the trial of a woman for murder. Thinking that he might be of
+service, Owen, leaning on the shoulder of Hokosa, for already he was too
+weak to walk far, crept to the litter which was waiting for him, and was
+borne to the place of judgment that was before the house of the king.
+Hokosa followed, more from curiosity than for any other reason, for
+he had heard of no murder being committed, and his old desire to be
+acquainted with everything that passed was still strong on him. The
+people made way for him, and he seated himself in the first line of
+spectators immediately opposite to the king and three other captains
+who were judges in the case. So soon as Owen had joined the judges,
+the prisoner was brought before them, and to his secret horror Hokosa
+recognised in her that woman to whom he had given the poison in exchange
+for the basket of fruit.
+
+Now it seemed to Hokosa that his doom was on him, for she would
+certainly confess that she had the drug from him. He thought of flight
+only to reject the thought, for to fly would be to acknowledge himself
+an accessory. No, he would brazen it out, for after all his word was as
+good as hers. With the prisoner came an accuser, her husband, who seemed
+sick, and he it was who opened the case against her.
+
+“This woman,” he said, “was my wife. I divorced her for barrenness, as
+I have a right to do according to our ancient law, and I took another
+woman to wife, her half-sister. This woman was jealous; she plagued me
+continually, and insulted her sister, so that I was forced to drive her
+away. After that she came to my house, and though they said nothing
+of it at the time, she was seen by two servants of mine to sprinkle
+something in the bowl wherein our food was cooking. Subsequently my
+wife, this woman’s half-sister, was taken ill with dysentery. I also
+was taken ill with dysentery, but I still live to tell this story before
+you, O King, and your judges, though I know not for how long I live. My
+wife died yesterday, and I buried her this morning. I accuse the woman
+of having murdered her, either by witchcraft or by means of a medicine
+which she sprinkled on the food, or by both. I have spoken.”
+
+“Have you anything to say?” asked the king of the prisoner. “Are you
+guilty of the crime whereof this man who was your husband charges you,
+or does he lie?”
+
+Then the woman answered in a low and broken voice:--
+
+“I am guilty, King. Listen to my story:” and she told it all as she told
+it to Hokosa. “I am guilty,” she added, “and may the Great Man in the
+sky, of Whom the Messenger has taught us, forgive me. My sister’s blood
+is upon my hands, and for aught I know the blood of my husband yonder
+will also be on my hands. I seek no mercy; indeed, it is better that I
+should die; but I would say this in self-defence, that I did not think
+to kill my sister. I believed that I was giving to her a potion which
+would cause her husband to hate her and no more.”
+
+Here she looked round and her eyes met those of Hokosa.
+
+“Who told you that this was so?” asked one of the judges.
+
+“A witch-doctor,” she answered, “from whom I bought the medicine in the
+old days, long ago, when Umsuka was king.”
+
+Hokosa gasped. Why should this woman have spared him?
+
+No further question was asked of her, and the judges consulted together.
+At length the king spoke.
+
+“Woman,” he said, “you are condemned to die. You will be taken to the
+Doom Tree, and there be hanged. Out of those who are assembled to try
+you, two, the Messenger and myself, have given their vote in favour of
+mercy, but the majority think otherwise. They say that a law has been
+passed against murder by means of witchcraft and secret medicine, and
+that should we let you go free, the people will make a mock of that law.
+So be it. Go in peace. To-morrow you must die, and may forgiveness await
+you elsewhere.”
+
+“I ask nothing else,” said the woman. “It is best that I should die.”
+
+Then they led her away. As she passed Hokosa she turned and looked him
+full in the eyes, till he dropped his head abashed. Next morning she was
+executed, and he learned that her last words were: “Let it come to
+the ears of him who sold me the poison, telling me that it was but
+a harmless drug, that as I hope to be forgiven, so I forgive him,
+believing that my silence may win for him time for repentance, before he
+follows on the road I tread.”
+
+Now, when Hokosa heard these words he shut himself up in his house for
+three days, giving out that he was sick. Nor would he go near to Owen,
+being altogether without hope, and not believing that baptism or any
+other rite could avail to purge such crimes as his. Truly his sin had
+found him out, and the burden of it was intolerable. So intolerable did
+it become, that at length he determined to be done with it. He could
+live no more. He would die, and by his own hand, before he was called
+upon to witness the death of the man whom he had murdered. To this end
+he made his preparations. For Noma he left no message; for though his
+heart still hungered after her, he knew well that she hated him and
+would rejoice at his death.
+
+When all was ready he sat down to think a while, and as he thought, a
+man entered his hut saying that the Messenger desired to see him. At
+first he was minded not to go, then it occurred to him that it would be
+well if he could die with a clean heart. Why should he not tell all to
+the white man, and before he could be delivered up to justice take
+that poison which he had prepared? It was impossible that he should be
+forgiven, yet he desired that his victim should learn how deep was his
+sorrow and repentance, before he proved it by preceding him to death. So
+he rose and went.
+
+He found Owen in his house, lying in a rude chair and propped up by
+pillows of bark. Now he was wasted almost to a shadow, and in the pale
+pinched face his dark eyes, always large and spiritual, shone with
+unnatural lustre, while his delicate hands were so thin that when he
+held them up in blessing the light showed through them.
+
+“Welcome, friend,” he said. “Tell me, why have you deserted me of late?
+Have you been ill?”
+
+“No, Messenger,” answered Hokosa, “that is, not in my body. I have been
+sick at heart, and therefore I have not come.”
+
+“What, Hokosa, do your doubts still torment you? I thought that my
+prayers had been heard, and that power had been given me to set them at
+rest for ever. Man, let me hear the trouble, and swiftly, for cannot you
+who are a doctor see that I shall not be here for long to talk with you?
+My days are numbered, Hokosa, and my work is almost done.”
+
+“I know it,” answered Hokosa. “And, Messenger, _my_ days are also
+numbered.”
+
+“How is this?” asked Owen, “seeing that you are well and strong. Does an
+enemy put you in danger of your life?”
+
+“Yes, Messenger, and I myself am that enemy; for to-day I, who am no
+longer fit to live, must die by my own hand. Nay, listen and you will
+say that I do well, for before I go I would tell you all. Messenger, you
+are doomed, are you not? Well, it was I who doomed you. That fruit which
+you ate a while ago was poisoned, and by my hand, for I am a master of
+such arts. From the beginning I hated you, as well I might, for had you
+not worsted me and torn power from my grasp, and placed the people and
+the king under the rule of another God? Therefore, when all else failed,
+I determined to murder you, and I did the deed by means of that woman
+who not long ago was hung for the killing of her sister, though in truth
+she was innocent.” And he told him what had passed between himself and
+the woman, and told him also of the plot which he had hatched to kill
+Nodwengo and the Christians, and to set Hafela on the throne.
+
+“She was innocent,” he went on, “but I am guilty. How guilty you and I
+know alone. Do you remember that day when you ate the fruit, how
+after it I accompanied you to the church yonder and listened to your
+preaching? ‘Your sin shall find you out,’ you said, and of a surety mine
+has found me out. For, Messenger, it came about that in listening to
+you then and afterwards, I grew to love you and to believe the words you
+taught, and therefore am I of all men the most miserable, and therefore
+must I, who have been great and the councillor of kings, perish
+miserably by the death of a dog.
+
+“Now curse me, and let me go.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE LOOSING OF NOMA
+
+When Owen heard that it was Hokosa who had poisoned him, he groaned and
+hid his face in his hands, and thus he remained till the evil tale was
+finished. Now he lifted his head and spoke, but not to Hokosa.
+
+“O God,” he said, “I thank Thee that at the cost of my poor life Thou
+hast been pleased to lead this sinner towards the Gate of Righteousness,
+and to save alive those whom Thou hast sent me to gather to Thy Fold.”
+
+Then he looked at Hokosa and said:--
+
+“Unhappy man, is not your cup full enough of crime, and have you not
+sufficiently tempted the mercy of Heaven, that you would add to all your
+evil deeds that of self-murder?”
+
+“It is better to die to-day by my own hand,” answered Hokosa, “than
+to-morrow among the mockery of the people to fall a victim to your
+vengeance, Messenger.”
+
+“Vengeance! Did I speak to you of vengeance? Who am I that I should take
+vengeance upon one who has repented? Hokosa, freely do I forgive you
+all, even as in some few days I hope to be forgiven. Freely and fully
+from my heart do I forgive you, nor shall my lips tell one word of the
+sin that you have worked against me.”
+
+Now, when Hokosa heard those words, for a moment he stared stupefied;
+then he fell upon his knees before Owen, and bowing his head till it
+touched the teacher’s feet, he burst into bitter weeping.
+
+“Rise and hearken,” said Owen gently. “Weep not because I have shown
+kindness to you, for that is my duty and no more, but for your sins in
+your own heart weep now and ever. Yet for your comfort I tell you that
+if you do this, of a surety they shall be forgiven to you. _Hokosa, you
+have indeed lost that which you loved, and henceforth you must follow
+after that which you did not desire. In the very grave of error you have
+found truth, and from the depths of sin you shall pluck righteousness.
+Ay, that Cross which you deemed accursed shall lift you up on high, for
+by it you shall be saved._”
+
+Hokosa heard and shivered.
+
+“Who set those words between your lips, Messenger?” he whispered.
+
+“Who set them, Hokosa? Nay, I know not--or rather, I know well. He set
+them Who teaches us to speak all things that are good.”
+
+“It must be so, indeed,” replied Hokosa. “Yet I have heard them before;
+I have heard them from the lips of the dead, and with them went this
+command: that when they fell upon my ears again I should ‘take them for
+a sign, and let my heart be turned.’”
+
+“Tell me that tale,” said Owen.
+
+So he told him, and this time it was the white man who trembled.
+
+“Horrible has been your witchcraft, O Son of Darkness!” said Owen, when
+he had finished; “yet it would seem that it was permitted to you to find
+truth in the pit of sorcery. Obey, obey, and let your heart be turned.
+The dead told you that you should be set high above the nation and its
+king, and that saying I cannot read, though it may be fulfilled in some
+fashion of which to-day you do not think. At the least, the other saying
+is true, that in the end comes judgment, and that there shall the
+sin and the atonement strive together; therefore for judgment prepare
+yourself. And now depart, for I must talk with the king as to this
+matter of the onslaught of Hafela.”
+
+“Then, that will be the signal for my death, for what king can forgive
+one who has plotted such treachery against him?” said Hokosa.
+
+“Fear not,” answered Owen, “I will soften his heart. Go you into the
+church and pray, for there you shall be less tempted; but before you go,
+swear to me that you will work no evil on yourself.”
+
+“I swear it, Messenger, since now I desire to live, if only for awhile,
+seeing that death shuts every door.”
+
+Then he went to the church and waited there. An hour later he was
+summoned, and found the king seated with Owen.
+
+“Man,” said Nodwengo, “I am told by the Messenger here that you have
+knowledge of a plot which my brother the Prince Hafela has made to fall
+treacherously upon me and put me and my people to the spear. How you
+come to be acquainted with the plot, and what part you have played
+in it, I will not now inquire, for so much have I promised to the
+Messenger. Yet I warn you it will be well that you should tell me all
+you know, and that should you lie to me or attempt to deceive me, then
+you shall surely die.”
+
+“King, hear all the truth,” answered Hokosa in a voice of desperate
+calm. “I have knowledge of the plot, for it was I who wove it; but
+whether or not Hafela will carry it out altogether I cannot say, for
+as yet no word has reached me from him. King, this was the plan that I
+made.” And he told him everything.
+
+“It is fortunate for you, Hokosa,” said Nodwengo grimly when he had
+finished, “that I gave my word to the Messenger that no harm should come
+to you, seeing that you have repented and confessed. This is certain,
+that Hafela has listened to your evil counsels, for I gave my consent to
+his flight from this land with all his people, and already his women
+and children have crossed the mountain path in thousands. Well, this
+I swear, that their feet shall tread it no more, for where they are
+thither he shall go to join them, should he chance to live to do so.
+Hokosa, begone, and know that day and night you will be watched. Should
+you so much as dare to approach one of the gates of the Great Place,
+that moment you shall die.”
+
+“Have no fear, O King,” said Hokosa humbly, “for I have emptied all my
+heart before you. The past is the past, and cannot be recalled. For the
+future, while it pleases you to spare me, I am the most loyal of your
+servants.”
+
+“Can a man empty a spring with a pitcher?” asked the king
+contemptuously. “By to-morrow this heart of yours may be full again
+with the blackest treachery, O master of sin and lies. Many months ago I
+spared you at the prayer of the Messenger; and now at his prayer I spare
+you again, yet in doing so I think that I am foolish.”
+
+“Nay, I will answer for him,” broke in Owen. “Let him stay here with me,
+and set your guard without my gates.”
+
+“How do I know that he will not murder you, friend?” asked the king.
+“This man is a snake whom few can nurse with safety.”
+
+“He will not murder me,” said Owen smiling, “because his heart is turned
+from evil to good; also, there is little need to murder a dying man.”
+
+“Nay, speak not so,” said the king hastily; “and as for this man, be it
+as you will. Come, I must take counsel with my captains, for our danger
+is near and great.”
+
+So it came about that Hokosa stayed in the house of Owen.
+
+On the morrow the Great Place was full of the bustle of preparation, and
+by dawn of the following day an _impi_ of some seventeen thousand spears
+had started to ambush Hafela and his force in a certain wooded defile
+through which he must pass on his way to the mountain pass where his
+women and children were gathered. The army was not large, at least in
+the eyes of the People of Fire who, before the death of Umsuka and the
+break up of the nation, counted their warriors by tens of thousands.
+But after those events the most of the regiments had deserted to Hafela,
+leaving to Nodwengo not more than two-and-twenty thousand spears upon
+which he could rely. Of these he kept less than a third to defend the
+Great Place against possible attacks, and all the rest he sent to fall
+upon Hafela far away, hoping there to make an end of him once and for
+all. This counsel the king took against the better judgment of many of
+his captains, and as the issue proved, it was mistaken.
+
+When Owen told Hokosa of it, that old general shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“The king would have done better to keep his regiments at home,” he
+said, “and fight it out with Hafela here, where he is well prepared.
+Yonder the country is very wide, and broken, and it may well chance that
+the _impi_ will miss that of Hafela, and then how can the king defend
+this place with a handful, should the prince burst upon him at the head
+of forty thousand men? But who am I that I should give counsel for which
+none seek?”
+
+“As God wills, so shall it befall,” answered Owen wearily; “but oh! the
+thought of all this bloodshed breaks my heart. I trust that its beatings
+may be stilled before my eyes behold the evil hour.”
+
+On the evening of that day Hokosa was baptised. The ceremony took place,
+not in the church, for Owen was too weak to go there, but in the
+largest room of his house and before some few witnesses chosen from the
+congregation. Even as he was being signed with the sign of the cross,
+a strange and familiar attraction caused the convert to look up, and
+behold, before him, watching all with mocking eyes, stood Noma his wife.
+At length the rite was finished, and the little audience melted away,
+all save Noma, who stood silent and beautiful as a statue, the light of
+mockery still gleaming in her eyes. Then she spoke, saying:--
+
+“I greet you, Husband. I have returned from doing your business afar,
+and if this foolishness is finished, and the white man can spare you, I
+would talk with you alone.”
+
+“I greet you, Wife,” answered Hokosa. “Say out your say, for none are
+present save us three, and from the Messenger here I have no secrets.”
+
+“What, Husband, none? Do you ever talk to him of certain fruit that you
+ripened in a garden yonder?”
+
+“From the Messenger I have no secrets,” repeated Hokosa in a heavy
+voice.
+
+“Then his heart must be full of them indeed, and it is little wonder
+that he seems sick,” replied Noma, gibing. “Tell me, Hokosa, is it true
+that you have become a Christian, or would you but fool the white man
+and his following?”
+
+“It is true.”
+
+At the words her graceful shape was shaken with a little gust of silent
+laughter.
+
+“The wizard has turned saint,” she said. “Well, then, what of the
+wizard’s wife?”
+
+“You were my wife before I became Christian; if the Messenger permits
+it, you can still abide with me.”
+
+“If the Messenger permits it! So you have come to this, Hokosa, that you
+must ask the leave of another man as to whether or no you should keep
+your own wife! There is no other thing that I could not have thought of
+you, but this I would never have believed had I not heard it from your
+lips. Say now, do you still love me, Hokosa?”
+
+“You know well that I love you, now and always,” he answered, in a voice
+that sounded like a groan; “as you know that for love of you I have done
+many sins from which otherwise I should have turned aside.”
+
+“Grieve not over them, Hokosa; after all, in such a count as yours they
+will make but little show. Well, if you love me, I hate you, though
+through your witchcraft your will yet has the mastery of mine. I demand
+of you now that you should loose that bond, for I do not desire to
+become a Christian; and surely, O most good and holy man, having one
+wife already, it will not please you henceforth to live in sin with a
+heathen woman.”
+
+Now Hokosa turned to Owen:--
+
+“In the old days,” he said, “I could have answered her; but now I am
+fallen; or raised up--at the least I am changed and cannot. O prophet of
+Heaven, tell me what I shall do.”
+
+“Sever the bond that you have upon her and let her go,” answered Owen.
+“This love of yours is unnatural, unholy and born of witchcraft; have
+done with it, or if you cannot, at the least deny it, for such a woman,
+a woman who hates you, can work you no good. Moreover, since she is a
+second wife, you being a Christian, are bound to free her should she so
+desire.”
+
+“She can work me no good, Messenger, that I know; but I know also that
+while she struggles in the net of my will she can work me no evil. If I
+loose the net and the fish swims free, it may be otherwise.”
+
+“Loose it,” answered Owen, “and leave the rest to Providence.
+Henceforth, Hokosa, do right, and take no thought for the morrow, for
+the morrow is with God, and what He decrees, that shall befall.”
+
+“I hear you,” said Hokosa, “and I obey.” For a while he rocked himself
+to and fro, staring at the ground, then he lifted his head and spoke:--
+
+“Woman,” he said, “the knot is untied and the spell is broken. Begone,
+for I release you and I divorce you. Flesh of my flesh have you been,
+and soul of my soul, for in the web of sorceries are we knit together.
+Yet be warned and presume not too far, for remember that which I have
+laid down I can take up, and that should I choose to command, you must
+still obey. Farewell, you are free.”
+
+Noma heard, and with a sigh of ecstasy she sprang into the air as a
+slave might do from whom the fetters have been struck off.
+
+“Ay,” she cried, “I am free! I feel it in my blood, I who have lain in
+bondage, and the voice of freedom speaks in my heart and the breath of
+freedom blows in my nostrils. I am free from you, O dark and accursed
+man; but herein lies my triumph and revenge--_you_ are not free from me.
+In obedience to that white fool whom you have murdered, you have loosed
+me; but you I will not loose and could not if I would. Listen now,
+Hokosa: you love me, do you not?--next to this new creed of yours, I am
+most of all to you. Well, since you have divorced me, I will tell you, I
+go straight to another man. Now, look your last on me; for you love me,
+do you not?” and she slipped the mantle from her shoulders and except
+for her girdle stood before him naked, and smiled.
+
+“Well,” she went on, resuming her robe, “the last words of those we love
+are always dear to us; therefore, Hokosa, you who were my husband, I
+leave mine with you. You are a coward and a traitor, and your doom shall
+be that of a coward and a traitor. For my sake you betrayed Umsuka, your
+king and benefactor; for your own sake you betrayed Nodwengo, who spared
+you; and now, for the sake of your miserable soul, you have betrayed
+Hafela to Nodwengo. Nay, I know the tale, do not answer me, but the end
+of it--ah! that is yet to learn. Lie there, snake, and lick the hand
+that you have bitten, but I, the bird whom you have loosed, I fly
+afar--taking your heart with me!” and suddenly she turned and was gone.
+
+Presently Hokosa spoke in a thick voice:--
+
+“Messenger,” he said, “this cross that you have given me to bear is
+heavy indeed.”
+
+“Yes, Hokosa,” answered Owen, “for to it your sins are nailed.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE PASSING OF OWEN
+
+Once she was outside of Owen’s house, Noma did not tarry. First she
+returned to Hokosa’s kraal, where she had already learnt from his head
+wife, Zinti, and others the news of his betrayal of the plot of Hafela,
+of his conversion to the faith of the Christians, and of the march
+of the _impi_ to ambush the prince. Here she took a little spear, and
+rolling up in a skin blanket as much dried meat as she could carry,
+she slipped unnoticed from the kraal. Her object was to escape from the
+Great Place, but this she did not try to do by any of the gates, knowing
+them to be guarded. Some months ago, before she started on her embassy,
+she had noted a weak spot in the fence, where dogs had torn a hole
+through which they passed out to hunt at night. To this spot she made
+her way under cover of the darkness--for though she still greatly feared
+to be alone at night, her pressing need conquered her fears--and found
+that the hole was yet there, for a tall weed growing in its mouth had
+caused it to be overlooked by those whose duty it was to mend the fence.
+With her assegai she widened it a little, then drew her lithe shape
+through it, and lying hidden till the guard had passed, climbed the two
+stone walls beyond. Once she was free of the town, she set her course by
+the stars and started forward at a steady run.
+
+“If my strength holds I shall yet be in time to warn him,” she muttered
+to herself. “Ah! friend Hokosa, this new madness of yours has blunted
+your wits that once were sharp enough. You have set me free, and now you
+shall learn how I can use my freedom. Not for nothing have I been your
+pupil, Hokosa the fox.”
+
+Before the dawn broke Noma was thirty miles from the Great Place, and
+before the next dawn she was a hundred. At sunset on that second day she
+stood among mountains. To her right stretched a great defile, a rugged
+place of rocks and bush, wherein she knew that the regiments of the king
+were hid in ambush. Perchance she was too late, perchance the _impi_ of
+Hafela had already passed to its doom in yonder gorge. Swiftly she ran
+forward on to the trail which led to the gorge, to find that it had been
+trodden by many feet and recently. Moving to and fro she searched the
+spoor with her eyes, then rose with a sigh of joy. It was old, and
+marked the passage of the great company of women and children and their
+thousands of cattle which, in execution of the plot, had travelled this
+path some days before. Either the _impi_ had not yet arrived, or it had
+gone by some other road. Weary as she was, Noma followed the old spoor
+backwards. A mile or more away it crossed the crest of a hog-backed
+mountain, from whose summit she searched the plain beyond, and not in
+vain, for there far beneath her twinkled the watch-fires of the army of
+Hafela.
+
+Three hours later a woman, footsore and utterly exhausted, staggered
+into the camp, and waving aside the spears that were lifted to stab her,
+demanded to be led to the prince. Presently she was there.
+
+“Who is this woman?” asked the great warrior; for, haggard as she was
+with travel, exhaustion, and the terror of her haunted loneliness, he
+did not know her in the uncertain firelight.
+
+“Hafela,” she said, “I am Noma who was the wife of Hokosa, and for whole
+nights and days I have journeyed as no woman ever journeyed before, to
+tell you of the treachery of Hokosa and to save you from your doom.”
+
+“What treachery and what doom?” asked the prince.
+
+“Before I answer you that question, Hafela, you must pay me the price of
+my news.”
+
+“Let me hear the price, Noma.”
+
+“It is this, Prince: First, the head of Hokosa, who has divorced me,
+when you have caught him.”
+
+“That I promise readily. What more?”
+
+“Secondly, the place of your chief wife to-day; and a week hence, when
+I shall have made you king, the name and state of Queen of the People of
+Fire with all that hangs thereto.”
+
+“You are ambitious, woman, and know well how to drive a bargain. Well,
+if you can ask, I can give, for I have ever loved you, and your mind is
+great as your body is beautiful. If through your help I should become
+King of the People of Fire, you shall be their Queen, I swear it by the
+spirits of my fathers and by my own head. And now--your tidings.”
+
+“These are they, Hafela. Hokosa has turned Christian and betrayed the
+plot to Nodwengo; and the great gorge yonder but three hours march away
+is ambushed. To-morrow you and your people would have been cut off there
+had I not run so fast and far to warn you, after which the _impis_
+of Nodwengo were commanded to follow your women and cattle over the
+mountain pass and capture them.”
+
+“This is news indeed,” said the prince. “Say now, how many regiments are
+hidden in the gorge?”
+
+“Eight.”
+
+“Well, I have fourteen; so, being warned, there is little to fear. I
+will catch these rats in their own hole.”
+
+“I have a better plan,” said Noma; “it is this: leave six regiments
+posted upon the brow of yonder hill and let them stay there. Then when
+the generals of Nodwengo see that they do not enter the gorge, they will
+believe that the ambush is discovered, and, after waiting one day or
+perhaps two, will move out to give battle, thinking that before them is
+all your strength. But command your regiments to run and not to fight,
+drawing the army of Nodwengo after them. Meanwhile, yes, this very
+night, you yourself with all the men that are left to you must march
+upon the Great Place, which, though it be strong, can be stormed, for it
+is defended by less than five thousand soldiers. There, having taken it,
+you shall slay Nodwengo, proclaiming yourself king, and afterwards, by
+the help of the _impi_ that you leave here which will march onward to
+your succour, you can deal with yonder army.”
+
+“A great scheme truly,” said Hafela in admiration; “but how do I know
+whether all this tale is true, or whether you do but set a snare for
+me?”
+
+“Bid scouts go out and creep into yonder gully,” answered Noma, “and you
+will see whether or no I have spoken falsely. For the rest, I am in your
+hands, and if I lie you can take my life in payment.”
+
+“If I march upon the Great Place, it must be at midnight when none see
+me go,” said Hafela, “and what will you do then, Noma, who are too weary
+to travel again so soon?”
+
+“I will be borne in a litter till my strength comes back to me,” she
+answered. “And now give me to eat and let me rest while I may.”
+
+*****
+
+Five hours later, Hafela with the most of his army, a force of something
+over twenty thousand men, was journeying swiftly but by a circuitous
+route towards the Great Place of the king. On the crest of the hill
+facing the gorge, as Noma had suggested, he left six regiments with
+instructions to fly before Nodwengo’s generals, and when they had led
+them far enough, to follow him as swiftly as they were able. These
+orders, or rather the first part of them, they carried out, for as it
+chanced after two days’ flight, the king’s soldiers got behind them by
+a night march, and falling on them at dawn, killed half of them and
+dispersed the rest. Then it was that Nodwengo’s generals learned for
+the first time that they were following one wing of Hafela’s army only,
+while the main body was striking at the heart of the kingdom, and turned
+their faces homewards in fear and haste.
+
+*****
+
+On the morning after the flight of Noma, Owen passed into the last stage
+of his sickness, and it became evident, both to himself and to those
+who watched him, that at the most he could not live for more than a few
+days. For his part, he accepted his doom joyfully, spending the time
+which was left to him in writing letters that were to be forwarded to
+England whenever an opportunity should arise. Also he set down on paper
+a statement of the principal events of his strange mission, and other
+information for the guidance of his white successors, who by now should
+be drawing near to the land of the Amasuka. In the intervals of these
+last labours, from time to time he summoned the king and the wisest and
+trustiest of them whom he had baptised to his bedside, teaching them
+what they should do when he was gone, and exhorting them to cling to the
+Faith.
+
+On the afternoon of the fourth day from that of the baptism of Hokosa he
+fell into a quiet sleep, from which he did not wake till sundown.
+
+“Am I still here?” he asked wondering, of John and Hokosa who watched at
+his bedside. “From my dreams I thought that it was otherwise. John, send
+a messenger to the king and ask of him to assemble the people, all who
+care to come, in the open place before my house. I am about to die, and
+first I would speak with them.”
+
+John went weeping upon his errand, leaving Owen and Hokosa alone.
+
+“Tell me now what shall I do?” said Hokosa in a voice of despair,
+“seeing that it is I and no other who have brought this death upon you.”
+
+“Fret not, my brother,” answered Owen, “for this and other things you
+did in the days of your blindness, and it was permitted that you should
+do them to an end. Kneel down now, that I may absolve you from your sins
+before I pass away; for I tell you, Hokosa, I believe that ere many days
+are over you must walk on the same path which I travel to-night.”
+
+“Is it so?” Hokosa answered. “Well, I am glad, for I have no longer any
+lust of life.”
+
+Then he knelt down and received the absolution.
+
+Now John returned and Nodwengo with him, who told him that the people
+were gathering in hundreds according to his wish.
+
+“Then clothe me in my robes and let us go forth,” he said, “for I would
+speak my last words in the ears of men.”
+
+So they put the surplice and hood upon his wasted form and went out,
+John preceding him holding on high the ivory crucifix, while the king
+and Hokosa supported him, one on either side.
+
+Without his gate stood a low wooden platform, whence at times Owen had
+been accustomed to address any congregation larger than the church would
+contain. On this platform he took his seat. The moon was bright above
+him, and by it he could see that already his audience numbered some
+thousands of men, women and children. The news had spread that the
+wonderful white man, Messenger, wished to take his farewell of the
+nation, though even now many did not understand that he was dying, but
+imagined that he was about to leave the country, or, for aught they
+knew, to vanish from their sight into Heaven. For a moment Owen looked
+at the sea of dusky faces, then in the midst of an intense stillness, he
+spoke in a voice low indeed but clear and steady:--
+
+“My children,” he said, “hear my last words to you. More than three
+years ago, in a far, far land and upon such a night as this, a Voice
+spoke to me from above commanding me to seek you out, to turn you from
+your idolatry and to lighten your darkness. I listened to the Voice, and
+hither I journeyed across sea and land, though how this thing might be
+done I could not guess. But to Him Who sent me all things are possible,
+and while yet I lingered upon the threshold of your country, in a dream
+were revealed to me events that were to come. So I appeared before you
+boldly, and knowing that he had been poisoned and that I could cure
+him, I drew back your king from the mouth of death, and you said to
+yourselves: ‘Behold a wizard indeed! Let us hear him.’ Then I gave
+battle to your sorcerers yonder upon the plain, and from the foot of the
+Cross I teach, the lightnings were rolled back upon them and they were
+not. Look now, their chief stands at my side, among my disciples one
+of the foremost and most faithful. Afterwards troubles arose: your king
+died a Christian, and many of the people fell away; but still a remnant
+remained, and he who became king was converted to the truth. Now I
+have sown the seed, and the corn is ripe before my eyes, but it is not
+permitted that I should reap the harvest. My work is ended, my task is
+done, and I, the Messenger, return to make report to Him Who sent the
+message.
+
+“Hear me yet a little while, for soon shall my voice be silent. ‘I come
+not to bring peace, but a sword,’--so said the Master Whom I preach, and
+so say I, the most unworthy of His servants. Salvation cannot be bought
+at a little price; it must be paid for by the blood and griefs of
+men, and in blood and griefs must you pay, O my children. Through much
+tribulation must you also enter the kingdom of God. Even now the heathen
+is at your gates, and many of you shall perish on his spears, but I tell
+you that he shall not conquer. Be faithful, cling to the Cross, and do
+not dare to doubt your Lord, for He will be your Captain and you shall
+be His people. Cleave to your king, for he is good; and in the day of
+trial listen to the counsel of this Hokosa who once was the first of
+evil-doers, for with him goes my spirit, and he is my son in the spirit.
+
+“My children, fare you well! Forget me not, for I have loved you; or if
+you will, forget me, but remember my teaching and hearken to those who
+shall tread upon the path I made. The peace of God be with you, the
+blessing of God be upon you, and the salvation of God await you, as it
+awaits me to-night! Friends, lead me hence to die.”
+
+They turned to him, but before their hands touched him Thomas Owen fell
+forward upon the breast of Hokosa and lay there a while. Then suddenly,
+for the last time, he lifted himself and cried aloud:--
+
+“I have fought a good fight! I have finished my course! I have kept the
+faith! Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness . . .
+and not to me only, but to all those who love His appearing.”
+
+Then his head fell back, his dark eyes closed, and the Messenger was
+dead.
+
+Hokosa, the man who had murdered him, having lifted him up to show him
+to the people, amidst a sound of mighty weeping, took the body in his
+arms and bore it thence to make it ready for burial.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE FALL OF THE GREAT PLACE
+
+On the morrow at sundown all that remained of Thomas Owen was laid to
+rest before the altar of the little church, Nodwengo the king and Hokosa
+lowering him into the grave, while John, his first disciple, read over
+him the burial service of the Christians, which it had been one of the
+dead man’s last labours to translate into the language of the Amasuka.
+
+Before the ceremony was finished, a soldier, carrying a spear in his
+hand, pushed his way through the dense and weeping crowd, and having
+saluted, whispered something into the ear of the king. Nodwengo started,
+and, with a last look of farewell at the face of his friend, left the
+chapel, accompanied by some of his generals who were present, muttering
+to Hokosa that he was to follow when all was done. Accordingly, some
+few minutes later, he went and was admitted into the Council Hut,
+where captains and messengers were to be seen arriving and departing
+continuously.
+
+“Hokosa,” said the king, “you have dealt treacherously with me in the
+past, but I believe now that your heart is true; at the least I follow
+the commands of our dead master and trust you. Listen: the outposts have
+sighted an _impi_ of many regiments advancing towards the Great Place,
+though whether or no it be my own _impi_ returning victorious from the
+war with my brother, I cannot say. There is this against it, however,
+that a messenger has but just arrived reporting that the generals have
+perceived the host of Hafela encamped upon a ridge over against the
+gorge where they awaited him. If that be so, they can scarcely have
+given him battle, for the messenger is swift of foot and has travelled
+night and day. Yet how can this be the _impi_ of Hafela, who, say the
+generals, is encamped upon the ridge?”
+
+“He may have left the ridge, King, having been warned of the ambush.”
+
+“It cannot be, for when the runner started his fires burned there and
+his soldiers were gathered round them.”
+
+“Then perhaps his captains sit upon the ridge with some portion of his
+strength to deceive those who await him in the gorge; while, knowing
+that here men are few, he himself swoops down on you with the main body
+of his _impi_.”
+
+“At least we shall learn presently,” answered the king; “but if it be
+as I fear and we are outwitted, what is there that we can do against so
+many?”
+
+Now one of the captains proposed that they should stay where they were
+and hold the place.
+
+“It is too large,” answered the king, “they will burst the fences and
+break our line.”
+
+Another suggested that they should fly and, avoiding the regiments of
+Hafela in the darkness of the night, should travel swiftly in search of
+the main army that had been sent to lie in ambush.
+
+“What,” said Nodwengo, “leaving the aged and the women and children to
+perish, for how can we take such a multitude? No, I will have none of
+this plan.”
+
+Then Hokosa spoke. “King,” he said, “listen to my counsel: Command now
+that all the women and the old men, taking with them such cattle and
+food as are in the town, depart at once into the Valley of Death and
+collect in the open space that lies beyond the Tree of Doom, near the
+spring of water that is there. The valley is narrow and the cliffs are
+steep, and it may chance that by the help of Heaven we shall be able to
+hold it till the army returns to relieve us, to seek which messengers
+must be sent at once with these tidings.”
+
+“The plan is good,” said the king, though none had thought of it; “but
+so we shall lose the town.”
+
+“Towns can be rebuilt,” answered Hokosa, “but who may restore the lives
+of men?”
+
+As the words left his lips, a runner burst into the council, crying:
+“King, the _impi_ is that of Hafela, and the prince heads it in person.
+Already his outposts rest upon the Plain of Fire.”
+
+Then Nodwengo rose and issued his orders, commanding that all the
+ineffective population of the town, together with such food and cattle
+as could be gathered, should retreat at once into the Valley of Death.
+By this time the four or five thousand soldiers who were left in the
+Great Place had been paraded on the open ground in front of the king’s
+house, where they stood, still and silent, in the moonlight. Nodwengo
+and the captains went out to them, and as they saw him come they lifted
+their spears like one man, giving him the royal salute of “King!” He
+held up his hand and addressed them.
+
+“Soldiers,” he said, “we have been outwitted. My _impi_ is afar, and
+that of Hafela is at our gates. Yonder in the valley, though we be
+few, we can defend ourselves till succour reaches us, which already
+messengers have gone out to seek. But first we must give time for the
+women and children, the sick and the aged, to withdraw with food and
+cattle; and this we can do in one way only, by keeping Hafela at bay
+till they have passed the archway, all of them. Now, soldiers, for the
+sake of your own lives, of your honour and of those you love, swear to
+me, in the holy Name which we have been taught to worship, that you will
+fight out this great fight without fear or faltering.”
+
+“We swear it in the holy Name, and by your head, King,” roared the
+regiments.
+
+“Then victory is already ours,” answered Nodwengo. “Follow me, Children
+of Fire!” and shaking his great spear, he led the way towards that
+portion of the outer fence upon which Hafela was advancing.
+
+By now the town behind them was a scene of almost indescribable tumult
+and confusion, for the companies detailed to the task were clearing the
+numberless huts of their occupants, and collecting women, children and
+oxen in thousands, preparatory to driving them into the defile. Panic
+had seized many of these poor creatures, who, in imagination, already
+saw themselves impaled upon the cruel spears of Hafela’s troops, and
+indeed in not a few instances believed those who were urging them
+forward to be the enemy. Women shrieked and wrung their hands, children
+wailed piteously, oxen lowed, and the infirm and aged vented their
+grief in groans and cries to Heaven, or their ancient god, for mercy.
+In truth, so difficult was the task of marshalling this motley array
+at night, numbering as it did ten or twelve thousand souls, that a full
+hour went by before the mob even began to move, slowly and uncertainly,
+towards the place of refuge, whereof the opening was so narrow that but
+few of them could pass it at a time.
+
+Meanwhile Hafela was developing the attack. Forming his great army into
+the shape of a wedge he raised his battle-cry and rushed down on the
+first line of fortifications, which he stormed without difficulty,
+for they were defended by a few skirmishers only. Next he attacked the
+second line, and carried it after heavy fighting, then hurled himself
+upon the weakest point of the main fence of the vast kraal. Here it was
+that the fray began in earnest, for here Nodwengo was waiting for him.
+Thrice the thousands rolled on in the face of a storm of spears, and
+thrice they fell back from the wide fence of thorns and the wall of
+stone behind it. By now the battle had raged for about an hour and a
+half, and it was reported to the king that the first of the women and
+children had passed the archway into the valley, and that nearly all of
+them were clear of the eastern gate of the town.
+
+“Then it is time that we follow them,” said the king, “for if we wait
+here until the warriors of Hafela are among us, our retreat will become
+a rout and soon there will be none left to follow. Let one company,” and
+he named it, “hold the fence for a while to give us time to withdraw,
+taking the wounded with us.”
+
+“We hear you, king,” said one of that company, “but our captain is
+killed.”
+
+“Who among you will take over the command of these men and hold the
+breach?” asked Nodwengo of the group of officers about him.
+
+“I, King,” answered old Hokosa, lifting his spear, “for I care not
+whether I live or die.”
+
+“Go to, boaster!” cried another. “Who among us cares whether he lives or
+dies when the king commands?”
+
+“That we shall know to-morrow,” said Hokosa quietly, and the soldiers
+laughed at the retort.
+
+“So be it,” said the king, and while silently and swiftly he led off the
+regiments, keeping in the shadow of the huts, Hokosa and his hundred
+men posted themselves behind the weakened fence and wall. Now, for the
+fourth time the attacking regiment came forward grimly, on this occasion
+led by the prince himself. As they drew near, Hokosa leapt upon the
+wall, and standing there in the bright moonlight where all could see
+him, he called to them to halt. Instinctively they obeyed him.
+
+“Is it Hafela whom I see yonder?” he asked.
+
+“Ah! it is I,” answered the prince. “What would you with me, wizard and
+traitor?”
+
+“This only, Hafela: I would ask you what you seek here?”
+
+“That which you promised me, Hokosa, the crown of my father and certain
+other things.”
+
+“Then get you back, Hafela, for you shall never win them.. Have I
+prophesied falsely to you at any time? Not so--neither do I prophesy
+falsely now. Get you back whence you came, and your wolves with you,
+else shall you bide here for ever.”
+
+“Do you dare to call down evil on me, Wizard?” shouted the prince
+furiously. “Your wife is mine, and now I take your life also,” and with
+all his strength he hurled at him the great spear he held.
+
+It hissed past Hokosa’s head, touching his ear, but he never flinched
+from the steel.
+
+“A poor cast, Prince,” he said laughing; “but so it must have been, for
+I am guarded by that which you cannot see. My wife you have, and she
+shall be your ruin; my life you may take, but ere it leaves me, Hafela,
+I shall see you dead and your army scattered. The Messenger is passed
+away, but his power has fallen upon me and I speak the truth to you, O
+Prince and warriors, who are--already dead.”
+
+Now a shriek of dismay and fury rose from the hundreds who heard this
+prophesy of ill, for of Hokosa and his magic they were terribly afraid.
+
+“Kill him! Kill the wizard!” they shouted, and a rain of spears rushed
+towards him on the wall.
+
+They rushed towards him, they passed above, below, around; but, of them
+all, not one touched him.
+
+“Did I not tell you that I was guarded by That which you cannot see?”
+ Hokosa asked contemptuously. Then slowly he descended from the wall
+amidst a great silence.
+
+“When men are scarce the tongue must play a part,” he explained to his
+companions, who stared at him wondering. “By now the king and those
+with him should have reached the eastern gate; whereas, had we fought at
+once, Hafela would be hard upon his heels, for we are few, and who can
+hold a buffalo with a rope of grass? Yet I think that I spoke truth
+when I told him that the garment of the Messenger has fallen upon my
+shoulders, and that death awaits him and his companions, as it awaits
+me also and many of us. Now, friends, be ready, for the bull charges
+and soon we must feel his horns. This at least is left to you, to die
+gloriously.”
+
+While he was still speaking the first files of the regiment rushed upon
+the fence, tearing aside the thorns with their hands till a passage was
+made through them. Then they sprang upon the wall, there to be met
+by the spears of Hokosa and his men thrusting upward from beneath its
+shelter. Time after time they sprang, and time after time they fell back
+dead or wounded, till at last, dashing forward in one dense column, they
+poured over the stones as the rising tide pours over the rocks on the
+sea-shore, driving the defenders before them by the sheer weight of
+numbers.
+
+“This game is played!” cried Hokosa. “Fly now to the eastern gate, for
+here we can do nothing more.”
+
+So they fled, those who survived of them, and after them came the
+thousands of the foe, sacking and firing the deserted town as they
+advanced.
+
+Hokosa and his men, or rather the half of them, reached the gate and
+passed it in safety, barring it after them, and thereby delaying the
+attackers till they could burst their way through. Now hundreds of huts
+were afire, and the flames spread swiftly, lighting up the country far
+and wide. In the glare of them, Hokosa could see that already a full
+two-thirds of the crowd of fugitives had passed the narrow arch; while
+Nodwengo and the soldiers were drawn up in companies upon the steep and
+rocky slope that led to it, protecting their retreat.
+
+He advanced to the king and reported himself.
+
+“So you have lived through it,” said Nodwengo.
+
+“I shall die when my hour comes, and not before,” Hokosa answered. “We
+did well yonder, and yet the most of us are alive to tell the tale, for
+I knew when and how to go. Be ready, king, for the foe press us close,
+and that mob behind us crawls onward like a snail.”
+
+As he spoke the pursuers broke through the fence and gate of the burning
+town, and once more the fight began. They had the advantage of numbers;
+but Nodwengo and his troops stood in a wide road upon higher ground
+protected on either side by walls, and were, moreover, rested, not
+breathless and weary with travel like the men of Hafela. Slowly,
+fighting, every inch of the way, Nodwengo was pushed back, and slowly
+the long ant-like line of women and sick and cattle crept through the
+opening in the rock, till at length all of them were gone.
+
+“It is time,” said Nodwengo, glancing behind him, “for our arms grow
+weary.”
+
+Then he gave orders, and company by company the defending force followed
+on the path of the fugitives, till at length amidst a roar of rage and
+disappointment, the last of them vanished through the arch, Hokosa among
+them, and the place was blocked with stones, above which shone a hedge
+of spears.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+NOMA SETS A SNARE
+
+Thus ended the first night’s battle, since for this time the enemy had
+fought enough. Nodwengo and his men had also had enough, for out of the
+five thousand of them some eleven hundred were killed or wounded. Yet
+they might not rest, for all that night, assisted by the women, they
+laboured, building stone walls across the narrowest parts of the valley.
+Also the cattle, women and children were moved along the gorge, which in
+shape may be compared to a bottle with two necks, one at either end,
+and encamped in the opening of the second neck, where was the spring
+of water. This spot was chosen both because here alone water could be
+obtained, without which they could not hold out more than a single day,
+and because the koppie whereon grew the strange-looking euphorbia known
+as the Tree of Doom afforded a natural rampart against attack.
+
+Shortly after dawn, while the soldiers were resting and eating of
+such food as could be procured--for the most part strips of raw or
+half-cooked meat cut from hastily killed cattle--the onslaught was
+renewed with vigour, Hafela directing his efforts to the forcing of the
+natural archway. But, strive as he would, this he could not do, for it
+was choked with stones and thorns and guarded by brave men.
+
+“You do but waste your labour, Hafela,” said Noma, who stood by him
+watching the assault.
+
+“What then is to be done?” he asked, “for unless we come at them we
+cannot kill them. It was clever of them to take refuge in this hole. I
+thought surely that they would fight it out yonder, beneath the fences
+of the Great Place.”
+
+“Ah!” she answered, “you forgot that they had Hokosa on their side. Did
+you then think to catch him sleeping? This retreat was Hokosa’s counsel.
+I learned it from the lips of that wounded captain before they killed
+him. Now, it seems that there are but two paths to follow, and you can
+choose between them. The one is to send a regiment a day and a half’s
+journey across the cliff top to guard the further mouth of the valley
+and to wait till these jackals starve in their hole, for certainly they
+can never come out.”
+
+“It has started six hours since,” said Hafela, “and though the
+precipices are steep, having the moon to travel by, it should reach the
+river mouth of the valley before dawn to-morrow, cutting Nodwengo off
+from the plains, if indeed he should dare to venture out upon them,
+which, with so small a force, he will not do. Yet this first plan
+of yours must fail, Noma, seeing that before they starve within, the
+generals of Nodwengo will be back upon us from the mountains, catching
+us between the hammer and the anvil, and I know not how that fight would
+go.”
+
+“Yet, soon or late, it must be fought.”
+
+“Nay,” he answered, “for my hope is that should the _impi_ return to
+find Nodwengo dead, they will surrender and acknowledge me as king, who
+am the first of the blood royal. But what is your second plan?”
+
+By way of answer, she pointed to the cliff above them. On the right-hand
+side, facing the archway, was a flat ledge overhanging the valley, at a
+height of about a hundred feet.
+
+“If you can come yonder,” she said, “it will be easy to storm this gate,
+for there lie rocks in plenty, and men cannot fight when stones are
+dropping on their heads.”
+
+“But how can we come to that home of vultures, where never man has set
+a foot? Look, the cliff above is sheer; no rock-rabbit could stand upon
+it.”
+
+With her eye Noma measured the distance from the brink of the precipice
+to the broad ledge commanding the valley.
+
+“Sixty paces, not more,” she said. “Well, yonder are oxen in plenty, and
+out of their hides ropes can be made, and out of ropes a ladder, down
+which men may pass; ten, or even five, would be enough.”
+
+“Well thought of Noma,” said Hafela. “Hokosa told us last night that to
+him had passed the wisdom of the Messenger; but if this be so, I think
+that to you has passed the guile of Hokosa.”
+
+“It seems to me that some of it abides with him,” answered Noma
+laughing.
+
+Then the prince gave orders, and, with many workers of hides toiling at
+it, within two hours the ladder was ready, its staves, set twenty inches
+apart, being formed of knob-kerries, or the broken shafts of stabbing
+spears. Now they lowered it from the top of the precipice so that its
+end rested upon the ledge, and down it came several men, who swung upon
+its giddy length like spiders on a web. Reaching this great shelf in
+safety and advancing to the edge of it, these men started a boulder,
+which, although as it chanced it hurt no one, fell in the midst of a
+group of the defenders and bounded away through them.
+
+“Now we must be going,” said Hokosa, looking up, “for no man can fight
+against rocks, and our spears cannot reach those birds. Had the army
+been taught the use of the bow, as I counselled in the past days, we
+might still have held the archway; but they called it a woman’s weapon,
+and would have none of it.”
+
+As he spoke another stone fell, crushing the life out of a man who stood
+next to him. Then they retreated to the first wall, which had been piled
+up during the night, where it was not possible to roll rocks upon them
+from the cliffs above. This wall, and others reared at intervals behind
+it, they set to work to strengthen as much as they could, making the
+most of the time that was left to them before the enemy could clear the
+way and march on to attack.
+
+Presently Hafela’s men were through and sweeping down upon them with
+a roar, thinking to carry the wall at a single rush. But in this they
+failed; indeed, it was only after an hour’s hard fighting and by the
+expedient of continually attacking the work with fresh companies that at
+length they stormed the wall.
+
+When Hokosa saw that he could no longer hold the place, but before the
+foe was upon him, he drew off his soldiers to the second wall, a quarter
+of a mile or more away, and here the fight began again. And so it went
+on for hour after hour, as one by one the fortifications were carried
+by the weight of numbers, for the attackers fought desperately under the
+eye of their prince, caring nothing for the terrible loss they suffered
+in men. Twice the force of the defenders was changed by order of
+Nodwengo, fresh men being sent from the companies held in reserve to
+take the places of those who had borne the brunt of the battle. This
+indeed it was necessary to do, seeing that it was impossible to carry
+water to so many, and in that burning valley men could not fight for
+long athirst. Only Hokosa stayed on, for they brought him drink in
+a gourd, and wherever the fray was fiercest there he was always; nor
+although spears were rained upon him by hundreds, was he touched by one
+of them.
+
+At length as the night fell the king’s men were driven back from their
+last scherm in the western half of the valley, across the open space
+back upon the koppie where stood the Tree of Doom. Here they stayed a
+while till, overmatched and outworn, they were pushed from its rocks
+across the narrow stretch of broken ground into the shelter of the great
+stone scherm or wall that ran from side to side of the further neck of
+the valley, whereon thousands of women and such men as could be spared
+had been working incessantly during the past night and day.
+
+It was as he retreated among the last upon this wall that Hokosa caught
+sight of Noma for the first time since they parted in the house of the
+Messenger. In the forefront of his troops, directing the attack, was
+Hafela the prince, and at his side stood Noma, carrying in her hand a
+little shield and a spear. At this moment also she saw him and called
+aloud to him:--
+
+“You have fought well, Wizard, but to-morrow all your magic shall avail
+you nothing, for it will be your last day upon this earth.”
+
+“Ay, Noma,” he answered, “and yours also.”
+
+Then of a sudden a company of the king’s men rushed from the shelter of
+the wall upon the attackers driving them back to the koppie and killing
+several, so that in the confusion and gathering darkness Hokosa lost
+sight of her, though a man at his side declared that he saw her fall
+beneath the thrust of an assegai. Thus ended the second day.
+
+Now when the watch had been set the king and his captains took counsel
+together, for their hearts were heavy.
+
+“Listen,” said Nodwengo: “out of five thousand soldiers a thousand have
+been killed and a thousand lie among us wounded. Hark to the groaning of
+them! Also we have with us women and children and sick to the number of
+twelve thousand, and between us and those who would butcher them every
+one there stands but a single wall. Nor is this the worst of it: the
+spring cannot supply the wants of so great a multitude in this hot
+place, and it is feared that presently the water will be done. What
+way shall we turn? If we surrender to Hafela, perhaps he will spare the
+lives of the women and children; but whatever he may promise, the most
+of us he will surely slay. If we fight and are defeated, then once
+his regiments are among us, all will be slain according to the ancient
+custom of our people. I have bethought me that we might retreat through
+the valley, but the river beyond is in flood; also it is certain that
+before this multitude could reach it, the prince will have sent a force
+to cut us off while he himself harasses our rear. Now let him who has
+counsel speak.”
+
+“King, I have counsel,” said Hokosa. “What were the words that the
+Messenger spoke to us before he died? Did he not say: ‘Even now the
+heathen is at your gates, and many of you shall perish on his spears;
+but I tell you that he shall not conquer’? Did he not say: ‘Be faithful,
+cling to the Cross, and do not dare to doubt your Lord, for He will
+protect you, and your children after you, and He will be your Captain
+and you shall be His people’? Did he not bid you also to listen to my
+counsel? Then listen to it, for it is his: Your case seems desperate,
+but have no fear, and take no thought for the morrow, for all shall yet
+be well. Let us now pray to Him that the Messenger has revealed to us,
+and Whom now he implores on our behalf in that place where he is to
+guide us and to save us, for then surely He will hearken to our prayer.”
+
+“So be it,” said Nodwengo, and going out he stood upon a pillar of stone
+in the moonlight and offered up his supplication in the hearing of the
+multitude.
+
+Meanwhile, those of the camp of Hafela were also taking counsel. They
+had fought bravely indeed, and carried the schanses; but at great cost,
+since for every man that Nodwengo had lost, three of theirs had fallen.
+Moreover, they were in evil case with weariness and the want of water,
+as each drop they drank must be carried to them from the Great Place in
+bags made of raw hide, which caused it to stink, for they had but few
+gourds with them.
+
+“Now it is strange,” said Hafela, “that these men should fight so
+bravely, seeing that they are but a handful. There can be scarce three
+thousand of them left, and yet I doubt not that before we carry those
+last walls of theirs as many of us or more will be done. Ay! and after
+they are done with, we must meet their great _impi_ when it returns, and
+of what will befall us then I scarcely like to think.”
+
+“Ill-fortune will befall you while Hokosa lives,” broke in Noma. “Had it
+not been for him, this trouble would have been done with by now; but
+he is a wizard, and by his wizardries he defeats us and puts heart into
+Nodwengo and the warriors. You, yourself, have seen him this day defying
+us, not once but many times, for upon his flesh steel has no power. Ay!
+and this is but the beginning of evil, for I am sure that he leads you
+into some deep trap where you shall perish everlastingly. Did he not
+himself declare that the power of that dead white worker of miracles has
+fallen upon him, and who can fight against magic?”
+
+“Who, indeed?” said Hafela humbly; for like all savages he was
+very superstitious, and, moreover, a sincere believer in Hokosa’s
+supernatural capacities. “This wizard is too strong for us; he is
+invulnerable, and as I know well he can read the secret thoughts of men
+and can suck wisdom from the dead, while to his eyes the darkness is no
+blind.”
+
+“Nay, Hafela,” answered Noma, “there is one crack in his shield. Hear
+me: if we can but catch him and hold him fast we shall have no need to
+fear him more, and I think that I know how to bait the trap.”
+
+“How will you bait it?” asked Hafela.
+
+“Thus. Midway between the koppie and the wall behind which lie the men
+of the king stands a flat rock, and all about that rock are stretched
+the bodies of dead soldiers. Now, this is my plan: that when next one
+of those dark storm-clouds passes over the face of the moon six of the
+strongest of our warriors should creep upon their bellies down this way
+and that, as though they were also numbered with the slain. This done,
+you shall despatch a herald to call in the ears of the king that you
+desire to treat with him of peace. Then he will answer that if this be
+so you can come beneath the walls of his camp, and your herald shall
+refuse, saying that you fear treachery. But he must add that if Nodwengo
+will bid Hokosa to advance alone to the flat rock, you will bid me,
+Noma, whom none can fear, to do likewise, and that there we can talk in
+sight of both armies, and returning thence, make report to you and to
+Nodwengo. Afterwards, so soon as Hokosa has set his foot upon the rock,
+those men who seem to be dead shall spring upon him and drag him to
+our camp, where we can deal with him; for once the wizard is taken, the
+cause of Nodwengo is lost.”
+
+“A good pitfall,” said the prince; “but will Hokosa walk into the trap?”
+
+“I think so, Hafela, for three reasons. He is altogether without fear;
+he will desire, if may be, to make peace on behalf of the king; and he
+has this strange weakness, that he still loves me, and will scarcely
+suffer an occasion of speaking with me to go past, although he has
+divorced me.”
+
+“So be it,” said the prince; “the game can be tried, and if it fails,
+why we lose nothing, whereas if it succeeds we gain Hokosa, which is
+much; for with you I think that our arms will never prosper while that
+accursed wizard sits yonder weaving his spells against us, and bringing
+our men to death by hundreds and by thousands.”
+
+Then he gave his orders, and presently, when a cloud passed over the
+face of the moon, six chosen men crept forward under the lee of the flat
+rock and threw themselves down here and there amongst the dead.
+
+Soon the cloud passed, and the herald advanced across the open space
+blowing a horn, and waving a branch in his hand to show that he came
+upon a mission of peace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+HOKOSA IS LIFTED UP
+
+“What would you?” asked Hokosa of the herald as he halted a short
+spear-cast from the wall.
+
+“My master, the Prince Hafela, desires to treat with your master,
+Nodwengo. Many men have fallen on either side, and if this war goes on,
+though victory must be his at last, many more will fall. Therefore, if
+any plan can be found, he desires to spare their lives.”
+
+Now Hokosa spoke with the king, and answered:--
+
+“Then let Hafela come beneath the wall and we will talk with him.”
+
+“Not so,” answered the herald. “Does a buck walk into an open pit? Were
+the prince to come here it might chance that your spears would talk with
+him. Let Nodwengo follow me to the camp yonder, where we promise him
+safe conduct.”
+
+“Not so,” answered Hokosa. “‘Does a buck walk into an open pit?’ Set out
+your message, and we will consider it.”
+
+“Nay, I am but a common man without authority; but I am charged to make
+you another offer, and if you will not hear it then there is an end.
+Let Hokosa advance alone to that flat rock you see yonder, and there he
+shall be met, also alone, by one having power to talk with him, namely,
+by the Lady Noma, who was once his wife. Thus they can confer together
+midway between the camps and in full sight of both of them, nor, no man
+being near, can he find cause to be afraid of an unarmed girl. What say
+you?”
+
+Hokosa turned and talked with the king.
+
+“I think it well that you should not go,” said Nodwengo. “The offer
+seems fair, and the stone is out of reach of their spears; still,
+behind it may lurk a scheme to kill or capture you, for Hafela is very
+cunning.”
+
+“It may be so, King,” answered Hokosa; “still, my heart tells me it is
+wisest that I should do this thing, for our case is desperate, and if I
+do it not, that may be the cause of the death of all of us to-morrow.
+At the worst, I am but one man, and it matters little what may chance to
+me; nor shall I come to any harm unless it is the will of Heaven that it
+should be so; and be sure of this, that out of the harm will arise good,
+for where I go there the spirit of the Messenger goes with me. Remember
+that he bade you listen to my counsel while I remain with you, seeing
+that I do not speak of my own wisdom. Therefore let me go, and if it
+should chance that I am taken, trouble not about the matter, for thus it
+will be fated to some great end. Above all, though often enough I have
+been a traitor in the past, do not dream that I betray you, keeping in
+mind that so to do would be to betray my own soul, which very soon must
+render its account on high.”
+
+“As you will, Hokosa,” answered the king. “And now tell those rebel dogs
+that on these terms only will I make peace with them--that they withdraw
+across the mountains by the path which their women and children have
+taken, leaving this land for ever without lifting another spear against
+us. If they will do this, notwithstanding all the wickedness and
+slaughter that they have worked, I will send command to my _impi_ to let
+them go unharmed. If they will not do this, I put my trust in the God I
+worship and will fight this fray out to the end, knowing that if I and
+my people perish, they shall perish also.”
+
+Now Nodwengo himself spoke to the herald who was waiting beyond the
+wall.
+
+“Go back to him you serve,” he said, “and say that Hokosa will meet her
+who was his wife upon the flat stone and talk with her in the sight of
+both armies, bearing my word with him. At the sound of the blowing of a
+horn shall each of them advance unarmed and alone from either camp. Say
+to my brother also that it will indeed be ill for him if he attempts
+treachery upon Hokosa, for the man who causes his blood to flow will
+surely die, and after death shall be accursed for ever.”
+
+The herald went, and presently a horn was blown.
+
+“Now it comes into my mind that we part for the last time,” said
+Nodwengo in a troubled voice as he took the hand of Hokosa.
+
+“It may be so, King; in my heart I think that it is so; yet I do not
+altogether grieve thereat, for the burden of my past sins crushes me,
+and I am weary and seek for rest. Yet we do not part for the last time,
+because whatever chances, in the end I shall make my report to you
+yonder”--and he pointed upwards. “Reign on for long years, King--reign
+well and wisely, clinging to the Faith, for thus at the last shall you
+reap your reward. Farewell!”
+
+Now again the horn blew, and in the bright moonlight the slight figure
+of Noma could be seen advancing towards the stone.
+
+Then Hokosa sprang from the wall and advanced also, till at the same
+moment they climbed upon the stone.
+
+“Greeting, Hokosa,” said Noma, and she stretched out her hand to him.
+
+By way of answer he placed his own behind his back, saying: “To your
+business, woman.” Yet his eyes searched her face--the face which in his
+folly he still loved; and thus it came about that he never saw sundry of
+the dead bodies, which lay in the shadow of the stone, begin to quicken
+into life, and inch by inch to arise, first to their knees and next to
+their feet. He never saw or heard them, yet, as the words left his lips,
+they sprang upon him from every side, holding him so that he could not
+move.
+
+“Away with him!” cried Noma with a laugh of triumph; and at her command
+he was half-dragged and half-carried across the open space and thrust
+violently over a stone wall into the camp of Hafela.
+
+Now Nodwengo and his soldiers saw what had happened, and with a shout of
+“Treachery!” some hundreds of them leapt into the plain and began to run
+towards the koppie to rescue their envoy.
+
+Hokosa heard the shout, and wrenching himself round, beheld them.
+
+“Back!” he cried in a clear, shrill voice. “Back! children of Nodwengo,
+and leave me to my fate, for the foe waits for you by thousands behind
+the wall!”
+
+A soldier struck him across the mouth, bidding him be silent; but his
+warning had come to the ears of Nodwengo, causing him and his warriors
+to halt and begin a retreat. It was well that they did so, for seeing
+that they would not come on, from under the shelter of the wall and
+of every rock and stone soldiers jumped up by companies and charged,
+driving them back to their own schanse. But the king’s men had the start
+of them, and had taken shelter behind it, whence they greeted them with
+a volley of spears, killing ten and wounding twice as many more.
+
+Now it was Hokosa’s turn to laugh, and laugh he did, saying:--
+
+“My taking is well paid for already, Prince. A score of your best
+warriors is a heavy price to give for the carcase of one weary and aging
+man. But since I am here among you, captured with so much pain and loss,
+tell me of your courtesy why I have been brought.”
+
+Then the prince shook his spear at him and cursed him.
+
+“Would you learn, wizard and traitor?” he cried. “We have caught you
+because we know well that while you stay yonder your magic counsel will
+prevail against our might; whereas, when once we hold you fast, Nodwengo
+will wander to his ruin like a blind and moonstruck man, for you were to
+him both eyes and brain.”
+
+“I understand,” said Hokosa calmly. “But, Prince, how if I left my
+wisdom behind me?”
+
+“That may not be,” answered Hafela, “since even a wizard cannot throw
+his thoughts into the heart of another from afar.”
+
+“Ah! you think so, Prince. Well, ask Noma yonder if I cannot throw my
+thoughts into her heart from afar: though of late I have not chosen
+to do so, having put aside such spells. But let it pass, and tell me,
+having taken me, what is it you propose to do with me? First, however,
+I will give you for nothing some of that wisdom which you grudge to
+Nodwengo the king. Be advised by me, Prince, and take the terms that he
+offers to you--namely, to turn this very night and begone from the land
+without harm or hindrance. Will you receive my gift, Hafela?”
+
+“What will happen if I refuse it?” asked the prince slowly.
+
+Now Hokosa looked at the dust at his feet, then he gazed upwards
+searching the heavens, and answered:--
+
+“Did not I tell you yesterday? I think that this will happen. I
+think--but who can be quite sure of the future, Hafela?--that you and
+the most of your army by this hour to-morrow night will be lying fast
+asleep about this place, with jackals for your bedfellows.”
+
+The prince heard and trembled at his words, for he believed that if he
+willed it, Hokosa could prophesy the truth.
+
+“Accursed dog!” he said. “I am minded to be guided by your saying; but
+be sure of this, that if I follow it, you shall stay here to sleep with
+jackals, yes, this very night.”
+
+Then Noma broke in.
+
+“Be not mad, Hafela!” she said. “Will you listen to the lies that this
+renegade tells to work upon your fears? Will you abandon victory when it
+lies within your grasp, and in place of a great king become a fugitive
+whom all men mock at, an outcast to be hunted down at leisure by that
+brother against whom you dared to rebel, but on whom you did not dare
+to shut your hand when he lay in its hollow? Silence the tongue of this
+captive rogue for ever and become a man again, with the heart of a man.”
+
+“Now,” said Hokosa gently; “many would find it hard to believe that I
+reared this woman from childhood, nursing her with my own hands when
+she was sick and giving her of the best I had; that afterwards, when
+you stole her from me, Prince, I sinned deeply to win her back. That
+I married her and sinned yet more deeply to give her the greatness she
+desired; and at last, of my own will, I loosed the bonds by which I held
+her, although I could not thrust her memory from my heart. Yet I have
+earned it all, for I made her the tool of my witchcraft, and therefore
+it is just that she should turn and rend me. Well, if you like it, take
+her counsel, Prince, and let mine go, for I care nothing which you take;
+only, forgive me if I prophesy once more and for the last time--I am
+sure that Nodwengo yonder spoke truth when he bade your herald tell
+me that he who causes my blood to flow shall surely die and for it be
+called to a strict account. Prince, I am a Christian now, and believe
+me, whatever you may do, I seek no revenge upon you; having been myself
+forgiven so much, in my turn I have learned to forgive. Yet it may be
+ill for that man who causes my blood to flow.”
+
+“Let him be strangled,” said a captain who stood near by, “and then
+there will be no blood in the matter.”
+
+“Friend,” answered Hokosa, “you should have been not a soldier but a
+pleader of causes. True it is then that the prince will only cause my
+life to fly, but whether that is a smaller sin I leave you to judge.”
+
+“Keep him prisoner,” said another, “till we learn how these matters
+end.”
+
+“Nay,” answered Hafela, “for then he will surely outwit us and escape.
+Noma, what shall we do with this man who was your husband? Tell us, for
+you should know best how to deal with him.”
+
+“Let me think,” she answered, and she looked first at the ground beneath
+her, next around her, then upwards toward the skies.
+
+Now they stood at the foot of the koppie, on the flat top of which grew
+the great Tree of Doom, that for generations had served the People of
+Fire as a place of execution of their criminals, or of those who fell
+under the ban of the king or of the witch-doctors. Among and above the
+finger-like fronds of this strange and dreadful-looking tree towered
+that white dead limb shaped like a cross, which Owen had pointed out
+to his disciple John, taking it to be a sign and a promise. This cross
+stood out clear against the sinking moon. It caught Noma’s eye, and a
+devilish thought entered into her heart.
+
+“You would keep this fellow alive?” she said, “and yet you would
+not suffer him to escape. See, there above you is a cross such as he
+worships. Bind him to it as he says the Man whom he worships was bound,
+and let that dead Man help him if he may.”
+
+The prince and those about Noma shrank back a little in horror. They
+were cruel men rendered more cruel by their superstitious fear of one
+whom they believed to be uncanny; one to whom they attributed inhuman
+powers which he was exercising to their destruction, but still this
+doom seemed dreadful to them. Noma read their minds and went on
+passionately:--
+
+“You deem me unmerciful, but you do not know what I have suffered at
+this wizard’s hands. For his sake and because of him I am haunted. For
+his own purposes he opened the gates of Distance, he sent me down among
+the dwellers in Death, causing me to interpret their words for him. I
+did so, but the dwellers came back out of Death with me, and from that
+hour they have not left me, nor will they ever leave me; for night by
+night they sojourn at my side, tormenting me with terrors. He has
+told me that through my mouth that spirit whom he drew into my body
+prophesied that he should be ‘lifted up above the people.’ Let the
+prophecy be fulfilled, let him be lifted up, for then perchance the
+ghosts will depart from me and I shall win peace and sleep. Also, thus
+alone can you hold him safe and yet shed no blood.”
+
+“Be it so,” said the prince. “When we plotted together of the death of
+the king, and as your price, Hokosa, you bargained for the girl whom I
+had chosen to wife, did I not warn you that this witch of many spells,
+who holds both our hearts in her little hands, should yet hound you to
+death and mock you while you perished by an end of shame? What did I
+tell you, Hokosa?”
+
+Now when he heard his fate, Hokosa bowed his head and trembled a little.
+Then he lifted it, and exclaimed in a clear voice:--
+
+“It is true, Prince, but I will add to your words. She shall bring
+_both_ of us to death. For me, I am honoured indeed in that there has
+been allotted to me that same end which my Master chose. To that cross
+let my sins be fastened and with them my body.”
+
+Now the moon sank, but in the darkness men were found who dared to climb
+the tree, taking with them strips of raw hide. They reached the top of
+it, four of them, and seating themselves upon the arms of the cross,
+they let down a rope, the noose of which was placed about the body of
+Hokosa. As it tightened upon him, he turned his calm and dreadful eyes
+on to the eyes of Noma and said to her:--
+
+“Woman, I do not reproach you; but I lay this fate upon you, that you
+shall watch me die. Thereafter, let God deal with you as He may choose.”
+
+Now, when she heard these words Noma shrieked aloud, for of a sudden she
+felt that the power of the will of Hokosa, from which she had been freed
+by him, had once more fallen upon her, and that come what might she was
+doomed to obey his last commands.
+
+Little by little the soldiers drew him up and in the darkness they bound
+him fast there upon the lofty cross. Then they descended and left him,
+and would have led Noma with them from the tree. But this they could
+not do, for always she broke from them screaming, and fled back to its
+shadow.
+
+Then, seeing that she was bewitched, Hafela commanded that they should
+bind a cloth about her mouth and leave her there till her senses
+returned to her in the sunlight--for none of them dared to stop with
+her in the shadow of that tree, since the odours of it were poisonous to
+man. Also they believed the place to be haunted by evil spirits.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE VICTORY OF THE CROSS
+
+The sun rose suddenly over the edge of the cliffs, and while it was yet
+deep shadow in the valley, its red light struck upon the white cross of
+perished wood that towered above the Tree of Doom and on the black
+shape of Hokosa crucified to it living. The camp of the king saw and
+understood, and from every throat of the thousands of men, women and
+children gathered there, went up a roar of rage and horror. The king
+lifted his hand, and silence fell upon the place; then he mounted on the
+wall and cried aloud:--
+
+“Do you yet live, Hokosa, or is it your body only that those traitors
+have fastened to the tree?”
+
+Back came the answer through the clear still air:--
+
+“I live, O King!”
+
+“Endure then a little while,” called Nodwengo, “and we will storm the
+tree and save you.”
+
+“Nay,” answered Hokosa, “you cannot save me; yet before I die I shall
+see you saved.”
+
+Then his words were lost in tumult, for the third day’s fighting began.
+Desperately the regiments of Hafela rushing across the open space,
+hurled themselves upon the fortifications, which, during the night, had
+been strengthened by the building of two inner walls. Nor was this all,
+for suddenly a cry told those in front that the regiment which Hafela
+had despatched across the mountains had travelled up the eastern neck of
+the valley, and were attacking the position in their rear. Well was it
+for Nodwengo now that he had listened to the counsel of Hokosa, and,
+wearied as his soldiers were, had commanded that here also a great wall
+should be built.
+
+For two hours the fight raged, and then on either side the foe fell
+back, not beaten indeed, though their dead were many, but to rest and
+take counsel. But now a new trouble arose: from all the camp of Nodwengo
+there went up a moan of pain to Heaven, for since the evening of
+yesterday the spring had given out, and they had found no water
+wherewith to wet their lips. During the night they bore it; but now the
+sun beating down on the black rocks with fearful force scorched them to
+the marrow, till they began to wither like fallen leaves, and already
+wounded men and children died, while the warriors cut the throats of
+oxen and drank their blood.
+
+Hokosa hanging on his cross heard this moaning and divined its cause.
+
+“Be of good comfort, children of Nodwengo,” he cried; “for I will pray
+that rain be sent upon you.” And he lifted his head and prayed.
+
+Now, whether it was by chance or whether his prayer was heard, who can
+say? At least it happened that immediately thereafter clouds began to
+gather and to thicken in the blue of Heaven, and within two hours rain
+fell in torrents, so that every one could drink his fill, and the spring
+being replenished at its sources, flowed again strongly.
+
+After the rain came cold and moaning winds, and after the wind a great
+gloom and thunder.
+
+Now, taking advantage of the shadow, the regiments of Hafela renewed
+their attack, and this time they carried the first of the three walls,
+for its defenders grew feeble and few in number. There they paused a
+while, and save for the cries of the wounded and of frightened women,
+the silence was great.
+
+“Let your hearts be filled up!” cried the voice of Hokosa through the
+silence; “for the sunlight shines upon the plain of the Great Place
+yonder, and in it I see the sheen of spears. The _impi_ travels to your
+aid, O children of Nodwengo.”
+
+Now, at this tidings the people of the king shouted for joy; but
+Hafela called to his regiments to make an end of them, and they hurled
+themselves upon the second wall, fighting desperately. Again and again
+they were beaten back, and again and again they came on, till at
+length they carried this wall also, driving its defenders, or those who
+remained alive of them, into the third entrenchment, and paused to rest
+awhile.
+
+“Pray for us, O Prophet who are set on high!” cried a voice from the
+camp, “for if succour do not reach us speedily, we are sped.”
+
+Before the echoes of the voice had died away, a flash of lightning
+flared through the gloom, and in the light of it Hokosa saw that the
+king’s _impi_ was rushing up the gorge.
+
+“Fight on! Fight on!” he called in answer. “I have prayed to Heaven, and
+your succour is at hand.”
+
+Then, with a howl of rage, Hafela’s regiments hurled themselves upon
+the third and last entrenchment, attacking it at once in front and rear.
+Twice they nearly carried it, but each time the wild scream of Hokosa
+on high was heard above the din, conjuring its defenders to fight on and
+fear not, for Heaven had sent them help. They fought as men have seldom
+fought before, and with them fought the women and even the children.
+They were few and the foe was still many, but they listened to the
+urging of him whom they believed to be inspired in his death-agony upon
+the cross above them, and still they held their own. Twice portions of
+the wall were torn down, but they filled the breach with the corpses of
+the dead, ay! and with the bodies of the living, for the wounded,
+the old men and the very women piled themselves there in the place of
+stones. No such fray was told of in the annals of the People of Fire as
+this, the last stand of Nodwengo against the thousands of Hafela. Now
+all the shouting had died away, for men had no breath left wherewith to
+shout, only from the gloomy place of battle came low groans and the deep
+sobbing sighs of warriors gripped in the death-hug.
+
+“_Fight on! Fight on!_” shrilled the voice of Hokosa on high. “Lo!
+the skies are open to my dying sight, and I see the _impis_ of Heaven
+sweeping to succour you. _Behold!_”
+
+They dashed the sweat from their eyes and looked forth, and as they
+looked, the pall of gloom was lifted, and in the golden glow of
+many-shafted light, they saw, not the legions of Heaven indeed, but the
+regiments of Nodwengo rushing round the bend of the valley, as dogs rush
+upon a scent, with heads held low and spears outstretched.
+
+Hafela saw them also.
+
+“Back to the koppie,” he cried, “there to die like men, for the
+wizardries of Hokosa have been too strong for us, and lost is this my
+last battle and the crown I came to seek!”
+
+They obeyed, and all that were left of them, some ten thousand men, they
+ran to the koppie and formed themselves upon it, ring above ring, and
+here the soldiers of Nodwengo closed in upon them.
+
+Again and for the last time the voice of Hokosa rang out above the fray.
+
+“Nodwengo,” he cried, “with my passing breath I charge you have mercy
+and spare these men, so many of them as will surrender. The day of
+bloodshed has gone by, the fray is finished, the Cross has conquered.
+Let there be peace in the land.”
+
+All men heard him, for his piercing scream, echoed from the precipices,
+came to the ears of each. All men heard him, and, even in that fierce
+hour of vengeance, all obeyed. The spear that was poised was not thrown,
+and the kerry lifted over the fallen did not descend to dash away his
+life.
+
+“Hearken, Hafela!” called the king, stepping forward from the ranks of
+the attackers. “He whom you have set on high to bring defeat upon you
+charges me to give you peace, and in the name of the conquering Cross I
+give peace. All who surrender shall dwell henceforth in my shadow, nor
+shall the head or the heel of one of them be harmed, although their sin
+is great. One life only will I take, the life of that witch who
+brought your armies down upon me to burn my town and slay my people
+by thousands, and who but last night betrayed Hokosa to his death of
+torment. All shall go free, I say, save the witch; and for you, you
+shall be given cattle and such servants as will cling to you to the
+number of a hundred, and driven from the land. Now, what say you? Will
+you yield or be slain? Swift with your answer; for the sun sinks, and
+ere it is set there must be an end in this way or in that.”
+
+The regiments of Hafela heard, and shouted in answer as with one
+voice:--
+
+“We take your mercy, King! We fought bravely while we could, and now we
+take your mercy, King!”
+
+“What say you, Hafela?” repeated Nodwengo, addressing the prince, who
+stood upon a point of rock above him in full sight of both armies.
+
+Hafela turned and looked at Hokosa hanging high in mid-air.
+
+“What say I?” he answered in a slow and quiet voice. “I say that the
+Cross and its Prophet have been too strong for me, and that I should
+have done well to follow the one and to listen to the counsel of the
+other. My brother, you tell me that I may go free, taking servants with
+me. I thank you and I will go--alone.”
+
+And setting the handle of his spear upon the rock, with a sudden
+movement he fell forward, transfixing his heart with its broad blade,
+and lay still.
+
+“At least he died like one of the blood-royal of the Sons of Fire!”
+ cried Nodwengo, while the armies stood silent and awestruck, “and with
+the blood-royal he shall be buried. Lay down your arms, you who followed
+him and fought for him, fearing nothing, and give over to me the witch
+that she may be slain.”
+
+“She hides under the tree yonder!” cried a voice.
+
+“Go up and take her,” said Nodwengo to some of his captains.
+
+Now Noma, crouched on the ground beneath the tree, had seen and heard
+all that passed. Perceiving the captains making their way towards her
+through the lines of the soldiers, who opened out a path for them, she
+rose and for a moment stood bewildered. Then, as though drawn by some
+strange attraction, she turned, and seizing hold of the creeper that
+clung about it, she began to climb the Tree of Doom swiftly. Up she went
+while all men watched, higher and higher yet, till passing out of the
+finger-like foliage she reached the cross of dead wood whereto Hokosa
+hung, and placing her feet upon one arm of it, stood there, supporting
+herself by the broken top of the upright.
+
+Hokosa was not yet dead, though he was very near to death. Lifting his
+glazing eyes, he knew her and said, speaking thickly:--
+
+“What do you here, Noma, and wherefore have you come?”
+
+“I come because you draw me,” she answered, “and because they seek my
+life below.”
+
+“Repent, repent!” he whispered, “there is yet time and Heaven is very
+merciful.”
+
+She heard, and a fury seized her.
+
+“Be silent, dog!” she cried. “Having defied your God so long, shall I
+grovel to Him at the last? Having hated you so much, shall I seek your
+forgiveness now? At least of one thing I am glad--it was I who brought
+you here, and with me and through me you shall die.”
+
+Then, placing one foot upon his bent head as if in scorn, she leaned
+forward, her long hair flying to the wind, and cursed Nodwengo and his
+people, naming them renegades and apostates, and cursed the soldiers of
+Hafela, naming them cowards, calling down upon them the malison of their
+ancestors.
+
+Hokosa heard and muttered:--
+
+“For your soul’s sake, woman, repent! repent, ere it be too late!”
+
+“Repent!” she screamed, catching at his words. “Thus do I repent!”
+ and drawing the knife from her girdle, she leant over him and drove it
+hilt-deep into his breast.
+
+Then with a sudden movement she sprang upwards and outwards into the
+air, and rushing down through a hundred feet of space, was struck dead
+upon that very rock where the corpse of Hafela lay.
+
+Now, beneath the agony of the knife Hokosa lifted his head for the last
+time, crying in a great voice:--
+
+“Messenger, I come, be you my guide,” and with the words his soul
+passed.
+
+“All is over and ended,” said a voice. “Soldiers, salute the king with
+the royal salute.”
+
+“Nay,” answered Nodwengo. “Salute me not, salute the Cross and him who
+hangs thereon.”
+
+So, while the rays of the setting sun shone about it, regiment by
+regiment that great army rushed past the koppie, and pausing opposite to
+the cross and its burden, they rendered to it the royal salute of kings.
+
+*****
+
+Then the night fell, and thus through the power of Faith that now, as of
+old, is the only true and efficient magic, was accomplished the mission
+to the Sons of Fire of the Saint and Martyr, Thomas Owen, and of his
+murderer and disciple, the Wizard Hokosa.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wizard, by H. Rider Haggard
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