Yes, decidedly in this case familiarity had bred contempt. The ex-police sergeant had "got behind" the mysterious cult, through his close a.s.sociation with one of its most influential exponents. Shiminya, for his part, was aware of this, and viewed the situation with some concern. Now he only said--

"Talk not so loudly, my son, lest ears grow on yonder bushes as well as thorns. Now we will go home."

A look of relief came into Nidia's face as she knew, by the rising of the two, that their conference was at an end. Then Nanzicele said--

"You go with we."

"Can we get there to-night?" she asked eagerly.

"We try. Where you from?"

Then she told him, and about the murder of the Hollingworths; and her voice shook and her eyes filled. To her listener it was all a huge joke. He knew she was tinder the impression that she was talking to a loyal policeman. Then she began asking questions about John Ames. Was he at home? and so forth. But Nanzicele suddenly became afflicted by a strange density, an almost total ignorance of English.

For upwards of an hour they journeyed on, leaving the cultivated lands, and striking into wilder country. Once a great snake rose in their path, and went gliding away, hissing in wrath, and bright-plumaged birds darted overhead. Vast thickets of "wacht-een-bietje" thorns lined the river-bank, and these they skirted.

Nidia was becoming exhausted. So far excitement and nervous tension had kept her up. Now she felt she could hold out no longer. Just then they halted.

In front was the vast thicket. Shiminya, bending down, crawled into what was nothing more nor less than a tunnel piercing the dense thorns and just wide enough to admit the body of a man. There was something sinister in its very aspect. Nidia drew back.

"Go after him. Go after that man," ordered Nanzicele, roughly.

"No. I don't like it. I can't get through there," she answered. "This can't be the way to Sik.u.mbutana."

Nanzicele s.n.a.t.c.hed out the short-handled heavy k.n.o.b kerrie stuck through his belt.

"Go after that man," he roared, flourishing it over her head.

The aspect of the great savage was so terrific, the sudden change so startling, that Nidia put her hands over her eyes and shrank back with a faint cry, expecting every moment to feel the hard wood crash down upon her head. Trembling now in every limb, she obeyed without hesitation the command so startlingly emphasised, and crawled as best she could in the wake of Shiminya, Nanzicele bringing up the rear.

The tunnel did not last long, and soon they were able to proceed upright, but still between high walls of the same impenetrable thorn.

Lateral pa.s.sages branched out on either side in such labyrinthine tortuosity of confusion that Nidia's first thought was how it would be possible for any one to find his way through here a second time.

Soon a low whining sound was heard in front; then the thorns seemed to meet in an arch overhead. Pa.s.sing beneath this, the trio stood in a circular open s.p.a.ce, at the upper end of which were three huts, "What place is this?" exclaimed Nidia, striving not to allow her alarm to show in her voice, for in her heart was a terrible sinking. There was that about this retreat which suggested the den of a wild beast rather than an abode of human beings, even though barbarians. How helpless, how completely at the mercy of these two she felt.

"You stay here," replied Nanzicele. "Sik.u.mbutana too far. Go there to-morrow. Plenty Matabele about make trouble. You stay here."

There was plausibility about the explanation which went far to satisfy her. The situation was a nervous one for a solitary unprotected woman; but she had been through so much within the last twenty-four hours that her sensibilities were becoming blunted. They offered her some boiled corn, but she was too tired to eat. She asked for water, and they brought her some, greasy, uninviting, in a clay bowl, but her thirst was intense.

"You go in there--go to sleep," said Nanzicele, opening one of the huts.

"But I would rather sleep outside."

"You go in there," he repeated, more threateningly. And Nidia, recollecting the k.n.o.bstick argument, obeyed.

The hut was stuffy and close; suggestive, too, of creeping things both small and great; but, fortunately, she was too completely exhausted to allow room for nervous fears, and sleep overwhelmed her. Sleep! The ghosts of former victims done to death amid every circ.u.mstance of horror within that den arose not to appal her. She slept on in blissful ignorance; slept--within the scarce-known retreat of one of the most atrocious monsters of cruelty that ever flourished amid even a barbarous race--slept--within the web of the crafty blood-sucking human spider.

Nanzicele departed, and the sorcerer, having secured the entrances to his den with thick thorn branches, sat crouching over a small red fire, his plotting brain ever at work. He was in high good humour, for here was a new victim for him to practise some of his favourite barbarities upon. In this case they must be refined forms of barbarity, such as would torture the mind rather more acutely than the red-hot iron would the body, and a better subject for such he thought he had never seen.

So he squatted there, and gleefully chuckled. Beside him crouched the wolf. "Ah, ah, Lupiswana!" he exclaimed, addressing his familiar spirit. "It may be that thou shalt sink thy fangs into white flesh-- dainty delicate flesh, Lupiswana. White blood, too--white red blood-- richer, more rare than that of Nompiza, and such. It is sleeping now.

Come, Lupiswana; we will go forth and see."

Taking one of the red f.a.ggots from the fire, he blew it into flame; then, rising, he went to the door of the hut wherein Nidia was asleep.

Softly undoing the fastenings, he entered. The light flickered fitfully on the horrible trophies disposed around. The evil beast at his side was emitting a low, throaty growl; but neither that nor the proximity of this demon availed to awaken the sleeping girl. Calm, peaceful, she slumbered on amid her hideous surroundings. The wizard went forth again, "Ah, ah, Lupiswana! She knows not what is before her. To-morrow I think thou must have one taste of this white flesh--perhaps two."

And the four-footed demon growled in response to the biped one.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

OF PERIL AND FEAR.

Nidia's sleep had been dreamless and profound, wherefore when she awoke the next morning she felt rested and refreshed. A shudder of repulsion ran: through her as her gaze made out the hideous adornments of her grisly sleeping apartment--the skulls and bones and stuffed snake-skins--but she felt no real fear. Even the human mask, looking sufficiently horrible in the semi-darkness of the hut, failed to inspire her with the wild panic terror which the wizard had confidently reckoned upon. Waking up amid such gruesome surroundings would, he calculated, produce such a shock upon her nerves as to render her frantic with terror, and this was one of the little refinements of cruelty he had promised himself. But she had gone through too much real peril, had looked on horrors too material to be scared by such mere bogeydom as a few skulls and bones.

She lay for a little while longer thinking out the position. Though naturally not a little anxious and a trifle uneasy, she was far from realising the desperate nature of her position, and that the very man she trusted in as protector and guide was an arch-rebel who had instigated and partic.i.p.ated in more than one treacherous and wholesale murder. She supposed they had brought her here for the reason this man had given--for better security--and that to-day he would guide her safely to Sik.u.mbutana.

To this end she rose. A snuffling noise outside the door of the hut attracted her attention, then a low growl. Some kraal cur, was all the thought she gave it. She opened the door and went outside. The sun was well up, and the birds were twittering in the thorn thicket, but of those who had brought her there she saw no sign. The ashes of the fire over which Shiminya had squatted lay white and dead, but of himself and the other there was no sign. But the animal she had heard was lying across the entrance of the kraal. She surveyed it with some curiosity.

If this was a dog she had never seen one like it before. It was more like the pictures she had seen of a hyaena.

She went back into the hut to put on her straw hat, for the sun was hot.

The fact of having the hat with her reminded her of the signal escape she herself had had from the ma.s.sacre which had overwhelmed the Hollingworths. But that she had felt moved to take a stroll that afternoon she would have shared their fate. Then she upbraided herself.

Was it not selfish to feel any sort of satisfaction under such circ.u.mstances? Ah, but--life was life, and death was ghastly and terrible--and she was alive.

As she came forth again the brute lying across the entrance opened its yellow eyes and snarled. She called to it in a soothing tone, which caused it to snarl louder. The sun waxed hotter and hotter, yet somehow she preferred the shadeless glare to the dour interior of the hut. What had become of the two natives? She felt instinctively that they were not in the other huts, therefore they must be absent. But on what errand? She began to feel more and more uneasy.

The sun mounted higher and higher, and still no sign of their return.

Were they, after all, treacherous? Yet why had they not murdered her at first? They could so easily have done so. But perhaps they had gone to fetch some more of their countrymen to enjoy the spectacle of seeing her put to death.

With such fears did poor Nidia torment herself. Then suddenly she became alive to the fact that a little more of this sort of speculation would utterly unnerve her. So she resolved by an effort of will to put such imaginings far from her, and as an initiative in that direction she would try to find something to eat, for she was growing hungry.

Rising, she went to one of the huts. The rec.u.mbent beast snarled so threateningly that she half turned. Would it fly at her? She looked around for a stick or a stone. There was nothing of the sort in sight.

Still looking over her shoulder she undid the fastenings of the door.

The brute lay snarling, but made no move to attack her.

The interior of the hut was close and frowsy, but looked as if it were used more as a store-room than for purposes of habitation, for it was piled up with all manner of odds and ends--blankets, rolls of "limbo,"

looking-gla.s.ses, boots, hats, shirts, and articles of native clothing and adornment, all jostled up together--even a camp wash-basin and jug.

The latter looked inviting. If only she could find some water. Ah, here was some! A large calabash when shaken gave forth a gurgling sound, and in a moment Nidia was plunging her face into a most refreshing basinful.

Further investigation revealed some cold boiled mealies. They were insipid and uninviting fare, and the bowl containing them was not over clean; still, they were something to eat, and poor Nidia was becoming very hungry. So she devoured them before pursuing her investigations further.

Ha! what was this? Meat it seemed like, and it was wrapped in a damp rag. Well, a steak done over the coals would not come in badly just then, she thought, reflecting how fortunate it was she had once taken lessons in a cookery school. She even smiled to herself as she pictured her dusky entertainers returning to find her in the middle of the breakfast, which certainly _they_ had been at no pains to provide.

She undid the damp cloth. Yes; it was meat, uncooked meat--and then-- She dashed the whole to the ground, and stood, with distended eyeb.a.l.l.s, gazing at what lay there, the very personification of staring horror.

For there lay upon the ground two human hands--arms, rather--for they were attached to the forearm, which had been disjointed at the elbow.

They were clearly those of a native, albeit turned almost white, as though from the action of water. This was what the damp rag had contained, these two sodden maimed limbs of a human being.

But with the discovery an idea suddenly struck root in Nidia's mind which seemed to turn her to stone, so appalling was it in its likelihood. Were these people cannibals--secret cannibals, perhaps?

The smaller of the two men had, at any rate, a totally different look to any other native she had ever seen. This, then, was why she had been brought here, was being kept here. This, too, accounted for the absence of her custodians. They had gone to fetch others to share in their feast--that feast herself.