the woman slipped away secretly. when she had gone hokosa bade hiswife bring the basket of fruit into the hut.
"it is best that the butcher should kill the ox himself," she answeredmeaningly.
he carried in the basket and set it on the floor.
"why do you speak thus, noma?" he asked.
"because i will have no hand in the matter, hokosa. i have been thetool of a wizard, and won little joy therefrom. the tool of a murdereri will not be!""if i kill, it is for the sake of both of us," he said passionately.
"it may be so, hokosa, or for the sake of the people, or for the sakeof heaven above--i do not know and do not care; but i say, do your ownkilling, for i am sure that even less luck will hang to it than hangsto your witchcraft.""of all women you are the most perverse!" he said, stamping his footupon the ground.
"thus you may say again before everything is done, husband; but if itbe so, why do you love me and tie me to you with your wizardry? cutthe knot, and let me go my way while you go yours.""woman, i cannot; but still i bid you beware, for, strive as you will,my path must be your path. moreover, till i free you, you cannot liftvoice or hand against me."then, while she watched him curiously, hokosa fetched his medicinesand took from them some powder fine as dust and two tiny crowquills.
placing a fruit before him, he inserted one of these quills into itssubstance, and filling the second with the powder, he shook itscontents into it and withdrew the tube. this process he repeated fourtimes on each of the fruits, replacing them one by one in the basket.
so deftly did he work upon them, that however closely they werescanned none could guess that they had been tampered with.
"will it kill at once?" asked noma.
"no, indeed; but he who eats these fruits will be seized on the thirdday with dysentery and fever, and these will cling to him till withinseven weeks--or if he is very strong, three months--he dies. this isthe best of poisons, for it works through nature and can be traced bynone.""except, perchance, by that spirit whom the white man worships, andwho also works through nature, as you learned, hokosa, when he rolledthe lightning back upon your head, shattering your god and beatingdown your company."then of a sudden terror seized the wizard, and springing to his feet,he cursed his wife till she trembled before him.
"vile woman, and double-faced!" he said, "why do you push me forwardwith one hand and with the other drag me back? why do you whisper evilcounsel into one ear and into the other prophesy of misfortunes tocome? had it not been for you, i should have let this business lie; ishould have taken my fate and been content. but day by day you havetaunted me with my fall and grieved over the greatness that you havelost, till at length you have driven me to this. why cannot you be allgood or all wicked, or at the least, through righteousness and sin,faithful to my interest and your own?""because i hate you, hokosa, and yet can strike you only through mytongue and your mad love for me. i am fast in your power, but thus atleast i can make you feel something of my own pain. hark! i hear thatwoman at the gate. will you give her back the basket, or will you not?
whatever you may choose to do, do not say in after days that i urgedyou to the deed.""truly you are great-hearted!" he answered, with cold contempt; "onefor whom i did well to enter into treachery and sin! so be it: havinggone so far upon it, come what may, i will not turn back from thisjourney. let in that fool!"presently the woman stood before them, bearing with her another basketof fruit.
"these are what you seek, master," she said, "though i was forced towin them by theft. now give me my own and the medicine and let me go."he gave her the basket, and with it, wrapped in a piece of kidskin,some of the same powder with which he had doctored the fruits.
"what shall i do with this?" she asked.
"you must find means to sprinkle it upon your sister's food, andthereafter your husband shall come to hate even the sight of her.""but will he come to love me again?"hokosa shrugged his shoulders.
"i know not," he answered; "that is for you to see to. yet this issure, that if a tree grows up before the house of a man, shutting itoff from the sunlight, when that tree is cut down the sun shines uponhis house again.""it is nothing to the sun on what he shines," said the woman.
"if the saying does not please you, then forget it. i promise you thisand no more, that very soon the man shall cease to turn to yourrival.""the medicine will not harm her?" asked the woman doubtfully. "she hasworked me bitter wrong indeed, yet she is my sister, whom i nursedwhen she was little, and i do not wish to do her hurt. if only he willwelcome me back and treat me kindly, i am willing even that she shoulddwell on beneath my husband's roof, bearing his children, for willthey not be of my own blood?""woman," answered hokosa impatiently, "you weary me with your talk.
did i say that the charm would hurt her? i said that it would causeyour husband to hate the sight of her. now begone, taking or leavingit, and let me rest. if your mind is troubled, throw aside thatmedicine, and go soothe it with such sights as you saw last night."on hearing this the woman sprang up, hid away the poison in her hair,and taking her basket of fruit, passed from the kraal as secretly asshe had entered it.
"why did you give her death-medicine?" asked noma of hokosa, as hestood staring after her. "have you a hate to satisfy against thehusband or the girl who is her rival?""none," he answered, "for they have never crossed my path. oh, foolishwoman! cannot you read my plan?""not altogether, husband.""listen then: this woman will give to her sister a medicine of whichin the end she must die. she may be discovered or she may not, but itis certain that she will be suspected, seeing that the bitterness ofthe quarrel between them is known. also she will give to the messengercertain fruits, after eating of which he will be taken sick and in duetime die, of just such a disease as that which carries off the woman'srival. now, if any think that he is poisoned, which i trust none will,whom will they suppose to have poisoned him, though indeed they cannever prove the crime?""the plan is clever," said noma with admiration, "but in it i see aflaw. the woman will say that she had the drug from you, or, at theleast, will babble of her visit to you.""not so," answered hokosa, "for on this matter the greatest talker inthe world would keep silence. firstly, she, being a christian, darenot own that she has visited a witch-doctor. secondly, the fruit shebrought in payment was stolen, therefore she will say nothing of it.
thirdly, to admit that she had medicine from me would be to admit herguilt, and that she will scarcely do even under torture, which by thenew law it is not lawful to apply. moreover, none saw her come here,and i should deny her visit.""the plan is very clever," said noma again.
"it is very clever," he repeated complacently; "never have i made abetter one. now throw those fruits to the she goats that are in thekraal, and burn the basket, while i go and talk to some in the greatplace, telling them that i have returned from counting my cattle onthe mountain, whither i went after i had bowed the knee in the houseof the king."*****two hours later, hokosa, having made a wide detour and talked tosundry of his acquaintances about the condition of his cattle, mighthave been seen walking slowly along the north side of the great placetowards his own kraal. his path lay past the chapel and the littlehouse that owen had built to dwell in. this house was furnished with abroad verandah, and upon it sat the messenger himself, eating hisevening meal. hokosa saw him, and a great desire entered his heart tolearn whether or no he had partaken of the poisoned fruit. also itoccurred to him that it would be wise if, before the end came, hecould contrive to divert all possible suspicion from himself, bygiving the impression that he was now upon friendly terms with thegreat white teacher and not disinclined even to become a convert tohis doctrine.
for a moment he hesitated, seeking an excuse. one soon suggesteditself to his ready mind. that very morning the king had told him notobscurely that owen had pleaded for his safety and saved him frombeing put upon his trial on charges of witchcraft and murder. he wouldgo to him, now at once, playing the part of a grateful penitent, andthe white man's magic must be keen indeed if it availed to pierce thearmour of his practised craft.
so hokosa went up and squatted himself down native fashion among alittle group of converts who were waiting to see their teacher uponone business or another. he was not more than ten paces from theverandah, and sitting thus he saw a sight that interested himstrangely. having eaten a little of a dish of roasted meat, owen putout his hand and took a fruit from a basket that the wizard knew well.
at this moment he looked up and recognised hokosa.
"do you desire speech with me, hokosa?" he asked in his gentle voice.
"if so, be pleased to come hither.""nay, messenger," answered hokosa, "i desire speech with you indeed,but it is ill to stand between a hungry man and his food.""i care little for my food," answered owen; "at the least it canwait," and he put down the fruit.
then suddenly a feeling to which the wizard had been for many years astranger took possession of him--a feeling of compunction. that manwas about to partake of what would cause his death--of what he,hokosa, had prepared in order that it should cause his death. he wasgood, he was kindly, none could allege a wrong deed against him; and,foolishness though it might be, so was the doctrine that he taught.
why should he kill him? it was true that never till that moment had hehesitated, by fair means or foul, to remove an enemy or rival from hispath. he had been brought up in this teaching; it was part of theeducation of wizards to be merciless, for they reigned by terror andevil craft. their magic lay chiefly in clairvoyance and powers ofobservation developed to a pitch that was almost superhuman, and thebest of their weapons was poison in infinite variety, whereof theguild alone understood the properties and preparation. therefore therewas nothing strange, nothing unusual in this deed of devilish andcunning murder that the sight of its doing should stir him thus, andyet it did stir him. he was minded to stop the plot, to let thingstake their course.
some sense of the futility of all such strivings came home to him, andas in a glass, for hokosa was a man of imagination, he foresaw theirend. a little success, a little failure, it scarcely mattered which,and then--that end. within twenty years, or ten, or mayhap even one,what would this present victory or defeat mean to him? nothing so faras he was concerned; that is, nothing so far as his life of to-day wasconcerned. yet, if he had another life, it might mean everything.
there was another life; he knew it, who had dragged back from itsborders the spirits of the dead, though what might be the state andoccupations of those dead he did not know. yet he believed--why hecould not tell--that they were affected vitally by their acts andbehaviour here; and his intelligence warned him that good must alwaysflow from good, and evil from evil. to kill this man was evil, and ofit only evil could come.
what did he care whether hafela ruled the nation or nodwengo, andwhether it worshipped the god of the christians or the god of fire--who, by the way, had proved himself so singularly inefficient in thehour of trial. now that he thought of it, he much preferred nodwengoto hafela, for the one was a just man and the other a tyrant; and hehimself was more comfortable as a wealthy private person than he hadbeen as a head medicine-man and a chief of wizards. he would letthings stand; he would prevent the messenger from eating of thatfruit. a word could do it; he had but to suggest that it was unripe ornot wholesome at this season of the year, and it would be cast aside.
all these reflections, or their substance, passed through hokosa'smind in a few instants of time, and already he was rising to go to theverandah and translate their moral into acts, when another thoughtoccurred to him--how should he face noma with this tale? he could giveup his own ambitions, but could he bear her mockery, as day by day shetaunted him with his faint-heartedness and reproached him with hisfailure to regain greatness and to make her great? he forgot that hemight conceal the truth from her; or rather, he did not contemplatesuch concealment, of which their relations were too peculiar and toointimate to permit. she hated him, and he worshipped her with a half-inhuman passion--a passion so unnatural, indeed, that it suggested thehorrid and insatiable longings of the damned--and yet their souls werenaked to each other. it was their fate that they could hide nothingeach from each--they were cursed with the awful necessity of candour.
it would be impossible that he should keep from noma anything that hedid or did not do; it would be still more impossible that she shouldconceal from him even such imaginings and things as it is common forwomen to hold secret. her very bitterness, which it had been policyfor her to cloak or soften, would gush from her lips at the sight ofhim; nor, in the depth of his rage and torment, could he, on the otherhand, control the ill-timed utterance of his continual andovermastering passion. it came to this, then: he must go forward, andagainst his better judgment, because he was afraid to go back, for thewhip of a woman's tongue drove him on remorselessly. it was betterthat the messenger should die, and the land run red with blood, thanthat he should be forced to endure this scourge.
so with a sigh hokosa sank back to the ground and watched while owenate three of the poisoned fruits. after a pause, he took a fourth andbit into it, but not seeming to find it to his taste, he threw it to achild that was waiting by the verandah for any scraps which might beleft over from his meal. the child caught it, and devoured it eagerly.
then, smiling at the little boy's delight, the messenger called tohokosa to come up and speak with him.
