THE END OF THE HUNT

The prayer of the Bee notwithstanding, Philip Hadden slept ill that night.  He felt in the best of health, and his conscience was not troubling him more than usual, but rest he could not.  Whenever he closed his eyes, his mind conjured up a picture of the grim witch-doctoress, so strangely named the Bee, and the sound of her evil-omened words as he had heard them that afternoon.  He was neither a superstitious nor a timid man, and any supernatural beliefs that might linger in his mind were, to say the least of it, dormant.  But do what he might, he could not shake off a certain eerie sensation of fear, lest there should be some grains of truth in the prophesyings of this hag.  What if it were a fact that he was near his death, and that the heart which beat so strongly in his breast must soon be still for ever ­no, he would not think of it.  This gloomy place, and the dreadful sight which he saw that day, had upset his nerves.  The domestic customs of these Zulus were not pleasant, and for his part he was determined to be clear of them so soon as he was able to escape the country.

In fact, if he could in any way manage it, it was his intention to make a dash for the border on the following night.  To do this with a good prospect of success, however, it was necessary that he should kill a buffalo, or some other head of game.  Then, as he knew well, the hunters with him would feast upon meat until they could scarcely stir, and that would be his opportunity.  Nahoon, however, might not succumb to this temptation; therefore he must trust to luck to be rid of him.  If it came to the worst, he could put a bullet through him, which he considered he would be justified in doing, seeing that in reality the man was his jailor.  Should this necessity arise, he felt indeed that he could face it without undue compunction, for in truth he disliked Nahoon; at times he even hated him.  Their natures were antagonistic, and he knew that the great Zulu distrusted and looked down upon him, and to be looked down upon by a savage “nigger” was more than his pride could stomach.

At the first break of dawn Hadden rose and roused his escort, who were still stretched in sleep around the dying fire, each man wrapped in his kaross or blanket.  Nahoon stood up and shook himself, looking gigantic in the shadows of the morning.

“What is your will, Umlungu (white man), that you are up before the sun?”

“My will, Muntumpofu (yellow man), is to hunt buffalo,” answered Hadden coolly.  It irritated him that this savage should give him no title of any sort.

“Your pardon,” said the Zulu reading his thoughts, “but I cannot call you Inkoos because you are not my chief, or any man’s; still if the title ‘white man’ offends you, we will give you a name.”

“As you wish,” answered Hadden briefly.

Accordingly they gave him a name, Inhlizin-mgama, by which he was known among them thereafter, but Hadden was not best pleased when he found that the meaning of those soft-sounding syllables was “Black Heart.”  That was how the inyanga had addressed him ­only she used different words.

An hour later, and they were in the swampy bush country that lay behind the encampment searching for their game.  Within a very little while Nahoon held up his hand, then pointed to the ground.  Hadden looked; there, pressed deep in the marshy soil, and to all appearance not ten minutes old, was the spoor of a small herd of buffalo.

“I knew that we should find game to-day,” whispered Nahoon, “because the Bee said so.”

“Curse the Bee,” answered Hadden below his breath.  “Come on.”

For a quarter of an hour or more they followed the spoor through thick reeds, till suddenly Nahoon whistled very softly and touched Hadden’s arm.  He looked up, and there, about two hundred yards away, feeding on some higher ground among a patch if mimosa trees, were the buffaloes ­six of them ­an old bull with a splendid head, three cows, a heifer and a calf about four months old.  Neither the wind nor the nature of the veldt were favourable for them to stalk the game from their present position, so they made a detour of half a mile and very carefully crept towards them up the wind, slipping from trunk to trunk of the mimosas and when these failed them, crawling on their stomachs under cover of the tall tambuti grass.  At last they were within forty yards, and a further advance seemed impracticable; for although he could not smell them, it was evident from his movements that the old bull heard some unusual sound and was growing suspicious.  Nearest to Hadden, who alone of the party had a rifle, stood the heifer broadside on ­a beautiful shot.  Remembering that she would make the best beef, he lifted his Martini, and aiming at her immediately behind the shoulder, gently squeezed the trigger.  The rifle exploded, and the heifer fell dead, shot through the heart.  Strangely enough the other buffaloes did not at once run away.  On the contrary, they seemed puzzled to account for the sudden noise; and, not being able to wind anything, lifted their heads and stared round them.

The pause gave Hadden space to get in a fresh cartridge and to aim again, this time at the old bull.  The bullet struck him somewhere in the neck or shoulder, for he came to his knees, but in another second was up and having caught sight of the cloud of smoke he charged straight at it.  Because of this smoke, or for some other reason, Hadden did not see him coming, and in consequence would most certainly have been trampled or gored, had not Nahoon sprung forward, at the imminent risk of his own life, and dragged him down behind an ant-heap.  A moment more and the great beast had thundered by, taking no further notice of them.

“Forward,” said Hadden, and leaving most of the men to cut up the heifer and carry the best of her meat to camp, they started on the blood spoor.

For some hours they followed the bull, till at last they lost the trail on a patch of stony ground thickly covered with bush, and exhausted by the heat, sat down to rest and to eat some biltong or sun-dried flesh which they had with them.  They finished their meal, and were preparing to return to the camp, when one of the four Zulus who were with them went to drink at a little stream that ran at a distance of not more than ten paces away.  Half a minute later they heard a hideous grunting noise and a splashing of water, and saw the Zulu fly into the air.  All the while that they were eating, the wounded buffalo had been lying in wait for them under a thick bush on the banks of the streamlet, knowing ­cunning brute that he was ­that sooner or later his turn would come.  With a shout of consternation they rushed forward to see the bull vanish over the rise before Hadden could get a chance of firing at him, and to find their companion dying, for the great horn had pierced his lung.

“It is not a buffalo, it is a devil,” the poor fellow gasped, and expired.

“Devil or not, I mean to kill it,” exclaimed Hadden.  So leaving the others to carry the body of their comrade to camp, he started on accompanied by Nahoon only.  Now the ground was more open and the chase easier, for they sighted their quarry frequently, though they could not come near enough to fire.  Presently they travelled down a steep cliff.

“Do you know where we are?” asked Nahoon, pointing to a belt of forest opposite.  “That is Emagudu, the Home of the Dead ­and look, the bull heads thither.”

Hadden glanced round him.  It was true; yonder to the left were the Fall, the Pool of Doom, and the hut of the Bee.

“Very well,” he answered; “then we must head for it too.”

Nahoon halted.  “Surely you would not enter there,” he exclaimed.

“Surely I will,” replied Hadden, “but there is no need for you to do so if you are afraid.”

“I am afraid ­of ghosts,” said the Zulu, “but I will come.”

So they crossed the strip of turf, and entered the haunted wood.  It was a gloomy place indeed; the great wide-topped trees grew thick there shutting out the sight of the sky; moreover, the air in it which no breeze stirred, was heavy with the exhalations of rotting foliage.  There seemed to be no life here and no sound ­only now and again a loathsome spotted snake would uncoil itself and glide away, and now and again a heavy rotten bough fell with a crash.

Hadden was too intent upon the buffalo, however, to be much impressed by his surroundings.  He only remarked that the light would be bad for shooting, and went on.

They must have penetrated a mile or more into the forest when the sudden increase of blood upon the spoor told them that the bull’s wound was proving fatal to him.

“Run now,” said Hadden cheerfully.

“Nay, hamba gachle ­go softly ­” answered Nahoon, “the devil is dying, but he will try to play us another trick before he dies.”  And he went on peering ahead of him cautiously.

“It is all right here, anyway,” said Hadden, pointing to the spoor that ran straight forward printed deep in the marshy ground.

Nahoon did not answer, but stared steadily at the trunks of two trees a few paces in front of them and to their right.  “Look,” he whispered.

Hadden did so, and at length made out the outline of something brown that was crouched behind the trees.

“He is dead,” he exclaimed.

“No,” answered Nahoon, “he has come back on his own path and is waiting for us.  He knows that we are following his spoor.  Now if you stand there, I think that you can shoot him through the back between the tree trunks.”

Hadden knelt down, and aiming very carefully at a point just below the bull’s spine, he fired.  There was an awful bellow, and the next instant the brute was up and at them.  Nahoon flung his broad spear, which sank deep into its chest, then they fled this way and that.  The buffalo stood still for a moment, its fore legs straddled wide and its head down, looking first after the one and then the other, till of a sudden it uttered a low moaning sound and rolled over dead, smashing Nahoon’s assegai to fragments as it fell.

“There! he’s finished,” said Hadden, “and I believe it was your assegai that killed him.  Hullo! what’s that noise?”

Nahoon listened.  In several quarters of the forest, but from how far away it was impossible to tell, there rose a curious sound, as of people calling to each other in fear but in no articulate language.  Nahoon shivered.

“It is the Esemkofu,” he said, “the ghosts who have no tongue, and who can only wail like infants.  Let us be going; this place is bad for mortals.”

“And worse for buffaloes,” said Hadden, giving the dead bull a kick, “but I suppose that we must leave him here for your friends, the Esemkofu, as we have got meat enough, and can’t carry his head.”

So they started back towards the open country.  As they threaded their way slowly through the tree trunks, a new idea came into Hadden’s head.  Once out of this forest, he was within an hour’s run of the Zulu border, and once over the Zulu border, he would feel a happier man than he did at that moment.  As has been said, he had intended to attempt to escape in the darkness, but the plan was risky.  All the Zulus might not over-eat themselves and go to sleep, especially after the death of their comrade; Nahoon, who watched him day and night, certainly would not.  This was his opportunity ­there remained the question of Nahoon.

Well, if it came to the worst, Nahoon must die:  it would be easy ­he had a loaded rifle, and now that his assegai was gone, Nahoon had only a kerry.  He did not wish to kill the man, though it was clear to him, seeing that his own safety was at stake, that he would be amply justified in so doing.  Why should he not put it to him ­and then be guided by circumstances?

Nahoon was walking across a little open space about ten spaces ahead of him where Hadden could see him very well, whilst he himself was under the shadow of a large tree with low horizontal branches running out from the trunk.

“Nahoon,” he said.

The Zulu turned round, and took a step towards him.

“No, do not move, I pray.  Stand where you are, or I shall be obliged to shoot you.  Listen now:  do not be afraid for I shall not fire without warning.  I am your prisoner, and you are charged to take me back to the king to be his servant.  But I believe that a war is going to break out between your people and mine; and this being so, you will understand that I do not wish to go to Cetywayo’s kraal, because I should either come to a violent death there, or my own brothers will believe that I am a traitor and treat me accordingly.  The Zulu border is not much more than an hour’s journey away ­let us say an hour and a half’s:  I mean to be across it before the moon is up.  Now, Nahoon, will you lose me in the forest and give me this hour and a half’s start ­or will you stop here with that ghost people of whom you talk?  Do you understand?  No, please do not move.”

“I understand you,” answered the Zulu, in a perfectly composed voice, “and I think that was a good name which we gave you this morning, though, Black Heart, there is some justice in your words and more wisdom.  Your opportunity is good, and one which a man named as you are should not let fall.”

“I am glad to find that you take this view of the matter, Nahoon.  And now will you be so kind as to lose me, and to promise not to look for me till the moon is up?”

“What do you mean, Black Heart?”

“What I say.  Come, I have no time to spare.”

“You are a strange man,” said the Zulu reflectively.  “You heard the king’s order to me:  would you have me disobey the order of the king?”

“Certainly, I would.  You have no reason to love Cetywayo, and it does not matter to you whether or no I return to his kraal to mend guns there.  If you think that he will be angry because I am missing, you had better cross the border also; we can go together.”

“And leave my father and all my brethren to his vengeance?  Black Heart, you do not understand.  How can you, being so named?  I am a soldier, and the king’s word is the king’s word.  I hoped to have died fighting, but I am the bird in your noose.  Come, shoot, or you will not reach the border before moonrise,” and he opened his arms and smiled.

“If it must be, so let it be.  Farewell, Nahoon, at least you are a brave man, but every one of us must cherish his own life,” answered Hadden calmly.

Then with much deliberation he raised his rifle and covered the Zulu’s breast.

Already ­whilst his victim stood there still smiling, although a twitching of his lips betrayed the natural terrors that no bravery can banish ­already his finger was contracting on the trigger, when of a sudden, as instantly as though he had been struck by lightning, Hadden went down backwards, and behold! there stood upon him a great spotted beast that waved its long tail to and fro and glared down into his eyes.

It was a leopard ­a tiger as they call it in Africa ­which, crouched upon a bough of the tree above, had been unable to resist the temptation of satisfying its savage appetite on the man below.  For a second or two there was silence, broken only by the purring, or rather the snoring sound made by the leopard.  In those seconds, strangely enough, there sprang up before Hadden’s mental vision a picture of the inyanga called Inyosi or the Bee, her death-like head resting against the thatch of the hut, and her death-like lips muttering “think of my word when the great cat purrs above your face.”

Then the brute put out its strength.  The claws of one paw it drove deep into the muscles of his left thigh, while with another it scratched at his breast, tearing the clothes from it and furrowing the flesh beneath.  The sight of the white skin seemed to madden it, and in its fierce desire for blood it drooped its square muzzle and buried its fangs in its victim’s shoulder.  Next moment there was a sound of running feet and of a club falling heavily.  Up reared the leopard with an angry snarl, up till it stood as high as the attacking Zulu.  At him it came, striking out savagely and tearing the black man as it had torn the white.  Again the kerry fell full on its jaws, and down it went backwards.  Before it could rise again, or rather as it was in the act of rising, the heavy knob-stick struck it once more, and with fearful force, this time as it chanced, full on the nape of the neck, and paralysing the brute.  It writhed and bit and twisted, throwing up the earth and leaves, while blow after blow was rained upon it, till at length with a convulsive struggle and a stifled roar it lay still ­the brains oozing from its shattered skull.

Hadden sat up, the blood running from his wounds.

“You have saved my life, Nahoon,” he said faintly, “and I thank you.”

“Do not thank me, Black Heart,” answered the Zulu, “it was the king’s word that I should keep you safely.  Still this tiger has been hardly dealt with, for certainly he has saved my life,” and lifting the Martini he unloaded the rifle.

At this juncture Hadden swooned away.

Twenty-four hours had gone by when, after what seemed to him to be but a little time of troubled and dreamful sleep, through which he could hear voices without understanding what they said, and feel himself borne he knew not whither, Hadden awoke to find himself lying upon a kaross in a large and beautifully clean Kaffir hut with a bundle of furs for a pillow.  There was a bowl of milk at his side and tortured as he was by thirst, he tried to stretch out his arm to lift it to his lips, only to find to his astonishment that his hand fell back to his side like that of a dead man.  Looking round the hut impatiently, he found that there was nobody in it to assist him, so he did the only thing which remained for him to do ­he lay still.  He did not fall asleep, but his eyes closed, and a kind of gentle torpor crept over him, half obscuring his recovered senses.  Presently he heard a soft voice speaking; it seemed far away, but he could clearly distinguish the words.

“Black Heart still sleeps,” the voice said, “but there is colour in his face; I think that he will wake soon, and find his thoughts again.”

“Have no fear, Nanea, he will surely wake, his hurts are not dangerous,” answered another voice, that of Nahoon.  “He fell heavily with the weight of the tiger on top of him, and that is why his senses have been shaken for so long.  He went near to death, but certainly he will not die.”

“It would have been a pity if he had died,” answered the soft voice, “he is so beautiful; never have I seen a white man who was so beautiful.”

“I did not think him beautiful when he stood with his rifle pointed at my heart,” answered Nahoon sulkily.

“Well, there is this to be said,” she replied, “he wished to escape from Cetywayo, and that is not to be wondered at,” and she sighed.  “Moreover he asked you to come with him, and it might have been well if you had done so, that is, if you would have taken me with you!”

“How could I have done it, girl?” he asked angrily.  “Would you have me set at nothing the order of the king?”

“The king!” she replied raising her voice.  “What do you owe to this king?  You have served him faithfully, and your reward is that within a few days he will take me from you ­me, who should have been your wife, and I must ­I must ­” And she began to weep softly, adding between her sobs, “if you loved me truly, you would think more of me and of yourself, and less of the Black One and his orders.  Oh! let us fly, Nahoon, let us fly to Natal before this spear pierces me.”

“Weep not, Nanea,” he said; “why do you tear my heart in two between my duty and my love?  You know that I am a soldier, and that I must walk the path whereon the king has set my feet.  Soon I think I shall be dead, for I seek death, and then it will matter nothing.”

“Nothing to you, Nahoon, who are at peace, but to me?  Yet, you are right, and I know it, therefore forgive me, who am no warrior, but a woman who must also obey ­the will of the king.”  And she cast her arms about his neck, sobbing her fill upon his breast.