Bertram Mitford - John Ames, Native Commissioner - A Romance of the Matabele Rising

Seated there upon the ground, Shiminya continued to shake his bowl of hell-broth. Save for a few birds’ claws and a bladder or two fastened in his thick wool – for he was not ringed – he was destitute of the revolting gewgaws of his profession. Suddenly the wolf emitted a low snarl, simultaneously with an inarticulate wail which proceeded from the hut behind.

“Ha – my Lupiswana! Ha – ha, my good little beast!” chuckled Shiminya, apostrophising the creature. “Tea – lick thy jaws, for I think it is time for more blood – only a little – only a taste. Hau !”

As though understanding these words the brute rose, and sneaked over to the wicker door of the hut, sniffing at the fastenings, sullenly growling. Rising, the wizard followed, and, pushing back the animal, crept into the hut, and slapped the door to in its jaws. At his appearance the low moaning rose again, and in its note was the very extremity of pain and fear.

It proceeded from a long dark form lying on the ground, which the eyes, becoming accustomed to the semi-light of the interior, would have no hesitation in pronouncing as human. Further investigation would reveal it a female form, securely bound and lashed to a pole; a female form too, dowered with no small share of symmetry and comeliness. The face, when undistorted by pain and terror, must have been a pleasing one in the extreme.

“Ah – ah, Nompiza!” chuckled the wizard, rubbing his hands together. “The children of Umlimo have pretty houses, do they not – pretty houses?” And he glanced gleefully around his horrible den.

For this is just what it was. Human skulls and bones decked the plastered wall, but the most dreadful object of all was the whole skin of the head and face of a man – of a white man too, with a long heavy beard. This awful object glowered down in the semi-gloom, a gruesome expression of pain in the pucker of the parchment-like hide. Great snake-skins depended from the roof – the heads artfully stuffed, and the attitudes arranged to simulate life; and many a horrid object, suggestive of torture and death, was disposed around.

“A pretty house, Nompiza – ah – ah – a pretty house, is it not?” chuckled Shiminya, leering down into the young woman’s face. “And thou hast only to speak one word to be taken out of it. Yet I wonder not at thy refusal.”

“I will not speak it, Shiminya,” she replied, with some fire of spirit. “The rattle of these old bones has no terror for me. And if thou harmest me further, there are those who will avenge me, child of the Umlimo or not.”

For all answer the wizard laughed softly but disdainfully. Then reaching to the door, he opened it. The wolf leaped in, snarling.

“See now, thou obstinate Nompiza,” he went on, restraining the brute with a flourish of a large stick painted red, before which it cowered back. “This is Lupiswana – no ordinary wolf. Whoever this one bites becomes tagati , and will be hunted through the night by him after death, until they can escape only by riding on him as the white men ride their horses. Then, if they fall off, they are hunted again night after night – for ever and ever. Ha!”

At the enunciation of this grim superstition the unfortunate prisoner tugged at her bonds, uttering a shriek of terror. She recognised here not the dog she had at first expected to see, but the horrid mongrel beast held in abhorrence by the superstitious. The growlings of the brute redoubled.

“Now, tell quickly,” went on the wizard. “The news of the meeting thou didst make known to two people only. Their names? Hesitate not, or – ”

“Shall I be allowed to depart from here if I tell, child of the Umlimo?” she gasped eagerly.

“Thou shalt be taken hence. Oh yes, thou shalt be taken hence.”

“Swear it. Swear it,” she cried.

“Umzilikazi!” rejoined the wizard, thus ratifying his assertion by the sacred name of the great king, founder of the nation.

But now, seeing its master’s vigilance relaxed, the wolf sprang forward, and, with a horrid mumbling snarl, buried its fangs in the helpless prisoner’s thigh. A wild, piteous, despairing shriek rent the interior of this fiend’s den.

“Take it off! Take it off! Oh, I am devoured! Quick! I will tell!”

Seizing a pair of iron tongs, Shiminya compelled the now infuriated brute to loose its hold, and following it with a tremendous blow on the head, it retreated yelling to the further side of the hut.

“The names – quick – ere it seizes thee again,” urged the wizard.

“Pukele,” she howled, frantic with agony and terror.

“The son of thy father, who is servant to Jonemi?”

“The same. The other is Ntatu.”

The words seemed squeezed from the sufferer. Her thigh, horribly lacerated by the jaws of the savage beast, streaming with blood, was quivering in every nerve.

“Thy sister, formerly wife of Makani?”

“The same. Now, child of the Umlimo, suffer me to depart.”

“Thy thigh is not well enough, sister,” replied the wizard, in a soft purring voice, putting his head on one side, and surveying her through half closed eyes. “Tarry till evening, then shalt thou be taken hence. Au ! It is not good to be seen quitting the abode of Shiminya. There is tagati in it.”

Having first kicked the wolf out of the hut, the sorcerer set to work to tend the wound of his helpless victim. She, for her part, lay and moaned feebly. She had purchased her life, but at what a cost. Still, even the magnificent physical organisation of a fine savage was not proof against all she had undergone, for this was not her first taste of the torture since being forcibly seized by the satellites of Shiminya and brought hither.

Now, moaning in her pain, Nompiza lay and reflected. She had betrayed two of her father’s children, had marked them out for the vengeance of not only the Abantwana ’Mlimo, but of the disaffected chiefs. This, however, might be remedied. Once out of this she would go straight to Jonemi – which was the name by which John Ames was known to the natives, being a corruption of his own – and claim protection for herself and them, perhaps even procure the arrest of Shiminya. This thought came as a ray of light to the savage girl as she lay there. The white men would protect and avenge her. Yet – poor simpleton!

“Of what art thou thinking, Nompiza?” said the wizard, softly, as he refrained from his seeming work of mercy. “ Au ! Shall I tell thee? It is that thou wilt reveal to Jonemi all thou knowest of the gathering at the Home of the Umlimo when the moon was full. So shalt thou save thyself and Pukele and Ntatu, the children of thy father.”

A cry of terror escaped the sufferer. How should she have forgotten that this dreadful sorcerer could read the thoughts of men?

“Not so, my father, not so,” she prayed. “I ask for nothing but to be allowed to go home.”

“To go home? But how would that avail one who has been bitten by Lupiswana? There is no escape from that. Lupiswana will come for thee after death. Thou wilt be hunted round for ever, with Lupiswana biting – biting – at thee even as now, and thou wilt spring wildly forward to avoid his bites, and his teeth will close in thy flesh, even as now. Thou wilt run wailing round the kraals of thy people, hunted ever by Lupiswana, but they will not admit thee. They will cover their heads in terror lest the same doom overtake them. Hau ! Even this night will that doom begin.”

“This night?” echoed the victim, feeling well-nigh dead with an awful fear. “This night? Now, my father, thou hast promised – hast sworn – I shall be allowed to depart.”

“I did but mean the night of death,” replied the other, his head on one side, his eyes glittering with satanic mirth. “That may be when thou art old and tottering, Nompiza, or it may mean this night, for what is time but a flash, even as that of the summer lightning? The night of death will surely come.”