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, hewas heard to speak well of the new faith, and to acknowledge that thegod of fire which he had worshipped was a false god. he was humblealso towards the king, but he craved to withdraw himself from allmatters of the state, saying that now he had but one desire--to tendhis herds and garden, and to grow old in peace with the new wife whomhe had chosen and whom he loved. owen, too, he greeted courteouslywhen he met him, sending him gifts of corn and cattle for the serviceof his church. moreover, when a messenger came from hafela, makingproposals to him, he drove him away and laid the matter before thecouncil of the king. yet that messenger, who was hunted from thekraal, took back a secret word for hafela's ear.
"it is not always winter," was the word, "and it may chance that inthe springtime you shall hear from me." and again, "say to the princehafela, that though my face towards him is like a storm, yet behindthe 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 hegroaned 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!" andshe sank back in a swoon. so he took the child, and buried it deep inthe cattle-yard by night.
after this it came about that noma, who, though her mind owned thesway 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 heloved her more and more, and she had this power over him that shecould always draw him to her. great as her beauty had ever been, afterthe birth of the child it grew greater day by day, but it was an evilbeauty, the beauty of a witch; and this fate fell upon her, that shefeared the dark and would never be alone after the sun had set.
when she was recovered from her illness, noma sat one night in herhut, and hokosa sat there also watching her. the evening was warm, buta bright fire burned in the hut, and she crouched upon a stool by thefire, glancing continually over her shoulder.
"why do you bide by the fire, seeing that it is so hot, noma?" heasked.
"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 thoseshadows that you bade me seek, which now will never leave me. nor, isthis all. you swore to me that if i would do your will i should becomegreat, ay! and you took me from one who would have made me great andwhom i should have pushed on to victory. but now it seems that fornothing i made that awful voyage into the deeps of death; and fornothing, 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 fallenwitch-doctor, who sits in the sun, day by day, while age gathers onhis 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 themthe heavens have laid a heavy fate upon my head, that thus with fleshand spirit i should worship a woman who loathes me. one comfort onlyis left to me, that you dare not take my life lest another should beadded to those shadows who companion you, and what i bid you, that youmust still do. ay, you fear the dark, noma; yet did i command you torise 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 andwent towards the door sideways, for her hands were outstretched insupplication to him.
"come back," he said, "and listen: if a hunter has nurtured up afierce dog, wherewith alone he can gain his livelihood, he tries totame 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 thehunter and, noma, you are the hound; and since this curse is on methat 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 methat you should be haunted by these sick fancies, for they are nothingmore. i have seen such cases before to-day, and i have noted that theycan be cured by mixing with fresh faces and travelling in newcountries. noma, i think it would be well that, after your latesickness, according to the custom of the women of our people, youshould 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 towhere you shall go, i will tell you. you shall go upon an embassy tothe prince hafela.""are you not afraid that i should stop there?" she asked again, with aflash of her eyes. "it is true that i never learned all the story, yeti thought that the prince was not so glad to hand me back to you asyou would have had me to believe. the price you paid for me must havebeen 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 knowthat whatever your heart may desire, my will follows you, and while ilive 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, andthese commands you must obey. hearken: you taunted me just now, sayingthat i sat like a dotard in the sun and advanced you nothing. well, iwill advance you, for both our sakes, but mostly for your own, sinceyou desire it, and it must be done through the prince hafela. i cannotleave this kraal, for day and night i am watched, and before i hadgone an hour's journey i should be seized; also here i have work todo. but the place of purification is secret, and when you reach it youneed not bide there, you can travel on into the mountains till youcome to the town of the prince hafela. he will receive you gladly, andyou shall whisper this message in his ear:--"'these are the words of hokosa, my husband, which he has set in mymouth 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 tohokosa, if his wisdom finds favour in your sight and through it youcome to victory: that after you, the king, he, hokosa, shall be thefirst man in our land, the general of the armies, the captain of thecouncil, the head of the doctors, and that to him shall be given halfthe cattle of nodwengo, who now is king. also to him shall be givenpower to stamp out the new faith which overruns the land like aforeign weed, and to deal as he thinks fit with those who clingthereto.'
"now, noma, when he has sworn this oath in your ear, calling down ruinupon his own head, should he break one word of it, and not before, youshall continue the message thus: 'these are the other words thathokosa 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 inbygone wars; also the white man that is named messenger has taught himmany things as to the building of forts and walls and the drilling anddiscipline of men. so strong is he that you can scarcely hope toconquer 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 anembassy to the king, your brother and say to him:--"'my brother, you have been preferred before me and set up to be kingin my place, and because of this my heart is bitter, so bitter that ihave gathered my strength to make war upon you. yet, at the last, ihave taken another council, bethinking me that, if we fight, in theend it may chance that neither of us will be left alive to rule, andthat the people also will be brought to nothing. to the north therelies a good country and a wide, where but few men live, and thither iwould go, setting the mountains and the river between us; for there,far beyond your borders, i also can be a king. now, to reach thiscountry, i must travel by the pass that is not far from your greatplace, and i pray you that you will not attack my /impis/ or the womenand children that i shall send, and a guard before them, to await mein the plain beyond the mountains, seeing that these can only journeyslowly. let us pass by in peace, my brother, for so shall our quarrelbe 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 fortuneand my god against your god!'
"such are the words that the embassy shall deliver into the ears ofthe king, nodwengo, and it shall come about that when he hears them,nodwengo, whose heart is gentle and who seeks not war, shall answersoftly, saying:--"'go in peace, my brother, and live in peace in that land which youwould win.'
"then shall you, hafela, send on the most of your cattle and the womenand the children through that pass in the mountains, bidding them toawait you in the plain, and after a while you shall follow them withyour /impis/. but these shall not travel in war array, for carriersmust bear their fighting shields in bundles and their stabbing spearsshall be rolled up in mats. now, on the sixth day of your journey youshall camp at the mouth of the pass which the cattle and the womenhave already travelled, and his outposts and spies will bring it tothe ears of the king that your force is sleeping there, purposing toclimb the pass on the morrow.
"but on that night, so soon as the darkness falls, you must rise upwith your captains and your regiments, leaving your fires burning andmen about your fires, and shall travel very swiftly across the valley,so that an hour before the dawn you reach the second range ofmountains, and pass it by the gorge which is the burying-place ofkings. here you shall light a fire, which those who watch will believeto be but the fire of a herdsman who is acold. but i, hokosa, alsoshall be watching, and when i see that fire i will creep, with somewhom i can trust, to the little northern gate of the outer wall, andwe will spear those that guard it and open the gate, that your armymay pass through. then, before the regiments can stand to their armsor those within it are awakened, you must storm the inner walls and bythe light of the burning huts, put the dwellers in the great place tothe spear, and the rays of the rising sun shall crown you king.
"follow this counsel of mine, o prince hafela, and all will go wellwith you. neglect it and be lost. there is but one thing which youneed fear--it is the magic of the messenger, to whom it is given toread the secret thoughts of men. but of him take no account, for he ismy charge, and before ever you set a foot within the great place heshall 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," sheadded, "i shall forget nothing when i stand before the prince.""you are a woman, but your counsel is good. what think you of theplan, noma?""it is deep and well laid," she answered, "and surely it would succeedwere it not for one thing. the white man, messenger, will be tooclever for you, for as you say, he is a reader of the thoughts ofmen.""can the dead read men's thoughts, or if they can, do they cry them onthe market-place or into the ears of kings?" asked hokosa. "have i nottold you that, before i see the signal-fire yonder, the messengershall sleep sound? i have a medicine, noma, a slow medicine that nonecan trace.""the messenger may sleep sound, hokosa, and yet perchance he may passon his message to another and, with it, his magic. who can say? still,husband, strike on for power and greatness and revenge, letting theblow fall where it will."
