The Triumph of Hilary Blachland
Page 10
CHAPTER TEN.
UMZILICAZI'S GRAVE.
The huge granite pile loomed forth overhead, grim, frowning, indistinct.Then, as the faint streak in the blackness of the eastern horizonbanded into red width, the outlines of the great natural mausoleum stoodforth clearer and clearer.
Blachland's pulses beat hard, as he stood gazing. At last he hadreached the goal of his undertaking--at last he stood upon the forbiddenground. The uneasy consciousness that discovery meant Death--death,moreover, in some barbarous and lingering form--was hardly calculated tostill his bounding pulses. He stood there alone. Hlangulu had come asnear as he dared, and, with the minutest instructions as to the nearestand safest approach, had hidden to await his return.
How they had eluded the vigilance of the pickets our explorer hardlyknew. He called to mind, however, a moment which, if not the mostexciting moment of his life, at any rate brought him within as grim ahandshaking proximity to certain death as he had ever yet attained.For, at the said moment, Hlangulu had drawn him within a rock cleft--andthat with a quick muscular movement which there was neither time noropportunity to resist, but which, a second later, there was noinclination to, as he beheld--they both beheld--a body of Matabelewarriors, fully armed, and seeming to rise out of nowhere, pass rightover the very spot just occupied by themselves. He could see themarkings of the hide shields, could even make out the whites of rollingeyeballs in the starlight, as the savages flitted by and were gone.
But would they return? Had the sound of strange footsteps reached theirears, and started them in search? Assuredly, if Hilary Blachland stoodin need of a new and intense excitement, he had got it now. But abarely breathed inquiry met for some time with no response from hisguide, who at length rose up and declared that they must push on.
And now here he stood alone. Before him two massive granite facesarose, leaning forward, as it were, until their overhanging brows nearlymet the topmost boughs of a solitary _Kafferboen_ which grew out of theground fronting the entrance at a distance of some yards. Over theangle formed by these an immense boulder was balanced, in such wise asto form a huge natural porch; but in continuation of the angle was adeft, a tall narrow deft, the entrance to which was roughly built upwith stones. This, then, was the King's grave.
The dawn was rapidly lightening. There was no time to lose. He mustenter at once, and there remain throughout the entire day. Only in thedarkness could he enter, only in the darkness could he leave it.
As he climbed up on the embankment of stones, one, loosened by histread, dislodged another. Heavens! what a clatter they made, or seemedto make, in the dead stillness. Then he set his teeth hard, stifling agroan. The falling stone had struck his ankle, bruising it sharply andcausing intense pain. For a moment he paused. Could he climb anyfurther? It seemed to have lamed him. Then somehow there came back tohim old Pemberton's words: "There's no luck meddling with such places--no, none." Well, there seemed something in it, and if his ill-luckbegan here what was awaiting him when he should have effected hispurpose? But he had professed himself above such puerile superstitions,and now was the time to make good his professions. Besides, it was toolate to draw back. If he were not under concealment within a moment orso, his peril would be of a more real and material order. So, summoningall his coolness and resolution, exercising the greatest care, heclimbed over the remaining stones and dropped down within the cleft.
And now he forgot the pain of his contused ankle, as, full of interesthe stood within this wonderful tomb. But for a very slight trend thecleft ran inward straight to a depth of some forty or fifty feet, itssides, straight and smooth, rising to nearly the same height; and at thefurther end, which narrowed somewhat, ere terminating abruptly in themeeting of the two Titanic boulders which caused it, he could make outsomething which looked like a heap, an indefinable heap, of old clothes.
Blachland paused. Here, then, was the object of his exploration. Here,then, lay the mouldering remains of the dead King, and here lay theburied gold. Drawing his flask from his pocket, he took a nip to steadyhis nerves before beginning his search. Before beginning it, however,some impulse moved him to glance forth once more upon the outside world.
The sun had not yet risen, but the land lay revealed in the pearly dawn.There was the rough, long, boulder-strewn ridge, continuing away fromthis great natural tumulus which dominated it. Away over the valley,the bushy outline of the Intaba Inyoka stood humped against thesuffusing sky; but what drew and held his gaze was a kind of naturalplatform, immediately below, part rock, part soil. This, however, layblack amid the surrounding green--black as though through the action offire; but its blackness was strangely relieved, chequered, by patches ofwhite. He recognised it for the spot described by Sybrandt and also byHlangulu--the place where cattle were sacrificed at intervals to theshades of the departed King.
Something else caught his eye, something moving overhead. Heavens! thegreat boulder, overhanging like a penthouse, was falling--falling over!In a moment he would be shut in, buried alive in this ghastly tomb.Appalled, he gazed upwards, his eyes straining on it, and then he couldhave laughed aloud, for the solution was simple. A light breeze hadsprung and up, the topmost boughs of the _Kafferboen_, swaying to itsmovement, were meeting the boulder, then swinging away again, producingjust that curious and eerie effect to one in a state of nervous tension.He stood watching this optical delusion, and laughed again. Decidedlyhis nerves were overstrung. Well, this would not do. Facing once morewithin the cave, he concluded to start upon his research without furtherdelay.
It was lighter now--indeed, but for the chastened gloom of the interior,nearly as light as it ever would be. He approached the farther end.Mouldering old blankets crumbled under his tread. He could see thewhole of the interior, and again he laughed to himself--recalling thelegend of the King's Snake. There was no recess that would hide so muchas a mouse. He scattered the fragments of old clothing with the stockof his rifle, laying bare layers of crumbling matting. More eagerlystill he parted these when he came to the central heap. Layer by layer,he tore away the stuff-ancient hide wrappings, ornamented with wornbead-work--beneath the mats of woven grass; then something whiteappeared--white, and smooth, and round. Eagerly, yet carefully, heparted the wrappings; and lo, protruding from them--not lying, but in abolt-upright position--a great grinning skull!
He stepped back a pace or two, and stood gazing at this with intenseinterest, not unmixed with awe. Here, then, sat the dead King--Umzilikazi, the mighty; the founder of a great and martial nation; thescourge, the devastator of a vast region,--here he sat, the warriorKing, before whose frown tens of thousands had trembled, a mereframework of fleshless bones, seated upon his last throne, here, withinthe heart of this vast silent rock-tomb: and the upright position of theskull, caused by the sitting attitude in which Zulus are buried, seemedto lend to the Death's head something of the majesty which it had wornin life when its cavity had enclosed the indomitable and far-seeingbrain, when those eye-sockets had framed the relentless, terrible eyes.For some moments he stood gazing upon the grim face staring at him fromits sightless sockets, and then, not in mockery, but moved by certainpoetic instincts underlying a highly imaginative temperament, he raisedhis right hand, and uttered softly--
"Kumalo!"
Yes, even as he would have saluted the living, so he saluted the remainsof the dead King. Yet he had already violated and was here to plunderthe dead King's grave.
What was this? Something glistening among the rotting heap of wrappingscaught his eye. Bending down, he raised it eagerly. It was a largebead about the size of a marble. Two more lay beside them, the remnantof the leather lanyard on which they had been threaded, crumbling to histouch. Gold, were they? They were of solid weight. But a quick closeexamination convinced him that they were merely brass. Anyway, theywould make valuable curios, and he slipped them into his pocketaccordingly. Again he could not restrain a start as he raised his eyes.The skull when last he beheld it,
of a dull, yellowy white in the deepshadows of the gloomy place was now shining like fire as it glowered athim, suffused as with a reddening incandescent glow. A wave ofsuperstitious awe thrilled him from head to heel. What on earth did itmean? And then the real reason of this startling metamorphosis camehome to him.
The sun had risen. High above through a chink between the huge bouldersright over the entrance of the cleft, one single spear-like beam foundentrance, and, piercing the gloomy shadows of the tomb, struck full uponthe fleshless countenance of the dead King, illuminating it with awell-nigh supernatural glow; and with the clearing up of the mystery,the spectator was lost in admiration of the ingenuity that had contrivedthat the first ray of the rising sun should illuminate the countenanceof the Great Great One, whom while living they hailed, among othertitles of honour, as "Light of the Sun." Then he remembered that thecoincidence was purely accidental, for he himself had uncovered theskull and exposed it to view, and the illusion vanished. And as hegazed, the beam was withdrawn, leaving the Death's head in its formershadow.
Leaning back against the rock wall, Blachland began to attune himself tothe situation. At last he had explored the King's grave, he, all byhimself. What a laugh he would have over Sybrandt and Pembertonbye-and-bye--they who had scouted the feat as utterly impossible. Well,he had done it, he alone, had done what no white man had ever donebefore him--what possibly no white man would ever do again. And--it wasintensely interesting.
And now, what about the buried treasure? He had all through beensceptical as to the existence of this, but had not insisted on hisscepticism to Hlangulu, lest he might cool that acquisitive savage offthe undertaking. The latter's reply to his question as to how it wasthat others were not now in the know as well as he--that the matter was_hlonipa_, i.e. veiled, forbidden of mention--had not struck him assatisfactory. Well, as he was here he might as well take a thoroughlook round and make sure.
Acting upon this idea he once more approached the skeleton of the deadKing, but a careful search all around it revealed nothing. All aroundit? Not quite, for he had not tried behind it. There was a dark recessextending perhaps three or four yards behind it--to where the cleftended, and this too, seemed spread with old and mouldering wrappings.
These he began, as with the others, raking aside with the butt of hisrifle. Then, suddenly his foothold began to tremble--then to moveviolently from under him. Was there no end to the weird surprises ofthis uncanny place, was the thought that flashed lightning-like throughhis mind; and then, as with a superlative effort he just managed to keephis footing--while staggering back a few paces, there befel something soappalling that his blood seemed to run ice within him, and the very hairof his head to stand up.