hokosa advanced to the verandah and bowed to the white man with gravedignity.
"be seated," said owen. "will you not eat? though i have nothing tooffer you but these," and he pushed the basket of fruits towards him,adding, "the best of them, i fear, are already gone.""i thank you, no, messenger; such fruits are not always wholesome atthis season of the year. i have known them to breed dysentery.""indeed," said owen. "if so, i trust that i may escape. i havesuffered from that sickness, and i think that another bout of it wouldkill me. in future i will avoid them. but what do you seek with me,hokosa? enter and tell me," and he led the way into a little sitting-room.
"messenger," said the wizard, with deep humility, "i am a proud man; ihave been a great man, and it is no light thing to me to humble myselfbefore the face of my conqueror. yet i am come to this. to-day when iwas in audience with the king, craving a small boon of hisgraciousness, he spoke to me sharp and bitter words. he told me thathe had been minded to put me on trial for my life because of variousmisdoings which are alleged against me in the past, but that you hadpleaded for me and that for this cause he spared me. i come to thankyou for your gentleness, messenger, for i think that had i been inyour place i should have whispered otherwise in the ear of the king.""say no more of it, friend," said owen kindly, "we are all of ussinners, and it is my place to push back your ancient sins, not todrag them into the light of day and clamour for their punishment. itis true i know that you plotted with the prince hafela to poisonumsuka the king, for it was revealed to me. it chanced, however, thati was able to recover umsuka from his sickness, and hafela is fled, sowhy should i bring up the deed against you? it is true that you stillpractise witchcraft, and that you hate and strive against the holyfaith which i preach; but you were brought up to wizardry and havebeen the priest of another creed, and these things plead for you.
"also, hokosa, i can see the good and evil struggling in your soul,and i pray and i believe that in the end the good will master theevil; that you who have been pre-eminent in sin will come to be pre-eminent in righteousness. oh! be not stubborn, but listen with yourear, and let your heart be softened. the gate stands open, and i amthe guide appointed to show you the way without reward or fee. followthem ere it be too late, that in time to come when my voice is stilledyou also may be able to direct the feet of wanderers into the paths ofpeace. it is the hour of prayer; come with me, i beg of you, andlisten to some few words of the message of my lips, and let yourspirit be nurtured with them, and the sun of truth arise upon itsdarkness."hokosa heard, and before this simple eloquence his wisdom sankconfounded. more, his intelligence was stirred, and a desire came uponhim to investigate and examine the canons of a creed that couldproduce such men as this. he made no answer, but waiting while owenrobed himself, he followed him to the chapel. it was full of new-madechristians who crowded even the doorways, but they gave place to him,wondering. then the service began--a short and simple service. firstowen offered up some prayer for the welfare of the infant church, forthe conversion of the unbelieving, for the safety of the king and thehappiness of the people. then john, the messenger's first disciple,read aloud from a manuscript a portion of the scripture which hismaster had translated. it was st. paul's exposition of theresurrection from the dead, and the grandeur of its thoughts andlanguage were by no means lost upon hokosa, who, savage and heathenthough he might be, was also a man of intellect.
the reading over, owen addressed the congregation, taking for histext, "thy sin shall find thee out." being now a master of thelanguage, he preached very well and earnestly, and indeed the subjectwas not difficult to deal with in the presence of an audience many ofwhose pasts had been stepped in iniquities of no common kind. as hetalked of judgment to come for the unrepentant, some of his hearersgroaned and even wept; and when, changing his note, he dwelt upon theblessed future state of those who earned forgiveness, their faces werelighted up with joy.
but perhaps among all those gathered before him there were none moredeeply interested than hokosa and one other, that woman to whom he hadsold the poison, and who, as it chanced, sat next to him. hokosa,watching her face as he was skilled to do, saw the thrusts of thepreacher go home, and grew sure that already in her jealous haste shehad found opportunity to sprinkle the medicine upon her rival's food.
she believed it to be but a charm indeed, yet knowing that in usingsuch charms she had done wickedly, she trembled beneath the words ofdenunciation, and rising at length, crept from the chapel.
"truly, her sin will find her out," thought hokosa to himself, andthen in a strange half-impersonal fashion he turned his thoughts tothe consideration of his own case. would /his/ sin find him out? hewondered. before he could answer that question, it was necessary firstto determine whether or no he had committed a sin. the man before him--that gentle and yet impassioned man--bore in his vitals the seed ofdeath which he, hokosa, had planted there. was it wrong to have donethis? it depended by which standard the deed was judged. according tohis own code, the code on which he had been educated and whichhitherto he had followed with exactness, it was not wrong. that codetaught the necessity of self-aggrandisement, or at least and at allcosts the necessity of self-preservation. this white preacher stood inhis path; he had humiliated him, hokosa, and in the end, either ofhimself or through his influences, it was probable that he woulddestroy him. therefore he must strike before in his own person hereceived a mortal blow, and having no other means at his command, hestruck through treachery and poison.
that was his law which for many generations had been followed andrespected by his class with the tacit assent of the nation. accordingto this law, then, he had done no wrong. but now the victim by thealtar, who did not know that already he was bound upon the altar,preached a new and a very different doctrine under which, were it tobe believed, he, hokosa, was one of the worst of sinners. the matter,then, resolved itself to this: which of these two rules of life wasthe right rule? which of them should a man follow to satisfy hisconscience and to secure his abiding welfare? apart from the motivesthat swayed him, as a mere matter of ethics, this problem interestedhokosa not a little, and he went homewards determined to solve it ifhe might. that could be done in one way only--by a close examinationof both systems. the first he knew well; he had practised it fornearly forty years. of the second he had but an inkling. also, if hewould learn more of it he must make haste, seeing that its exponent insome short while would cease to be in a position to set it out.
"i trust that you will come again," said owen to hokosa as they leftthe chapel.
"yes, indeed, messenger," answered the wizard; "i will come every day,and if you permit it, i will attend your private teachings also, for iaccept nothing without examination, and i greatly desire to study thisnew doctrine of yours, root and flower and fruit."*****on the morrow noma started upon her journey. as the matrons whoaccompanied her gave out with a somewhat suspicious persistency, itsostensible object was to visit the mount of purification, and there byfastings and solitude to purge herself of the sin of having givenbirth to a stillborn child. for amongst savage peoples such anaccident is apt to be looked upon as little short of a crime, or, atthe least, as indicating that the woman concerned is the object of theindignation of spirits who need to be appeased. to this mount, nomawent, and there performed the customary rites.
"little wonder," she thought to herself, "that the spirits were angrywith her, seeing that yonder in the burying-ground of kings she haddared to break in upon their rest."from the place of purification she travelled on ten days' journey withher companions till they reached the mountain fastness where hafelahad established himself. the town and its surroundings were ofextraordinary strength, and so well guarded that it was only afterconsiderable difficulty and delay that the women were admitted.
hearing of her arrival and that she had words for him, hafela sent fornoma at once, receiving her by night and alone in his principal hut.
she came and stood before him, and he looked at her beauty withadmiring eyes, for he could not forget the woman whom the cunning ofhokosa had forced him to put away.
"whence come you, pretty one?" he asked, "and wherefore come you? areyou weary of your husband, that you fly back to me? if so, you arewelcome indeed; for know, noma, that i still love you.""ay, prince, i am weary of my husband sure enough; but i do not fly toyou, for he holds me fast to him with bonds that you cannotunderstand, and fast to him while he lives i must remain.""what hinders, noma, that having got you here i should keep you here?
the cunning and magic of hokosa may be great, but they will need to bestill greater to win you from my arms.""this hinders, prince, that you are playing for a higher stake thanthat of a woman's love, and if you deal thus by me and my husband,then of a surety you will lose the game.""what stake, noma?""the stake of the crown of the people of fire.""and why should i lose if i take you as a wife?""because hokosa, seeing that i do not return and learning from hisspies why i do not return, will warn the king, and by many means bringall your plans to nothing. listen now to the words of hokosa that hehas set between my lips to deliver to you"--and she repeated to himall the message without fault or fail.
"say it again," he said, and she obeyed.
then he answered:--"truly the skill of hokosa is great, and well he knows how to set asnare; but i think that if by his counsel i should springe the bird,he will be too clever a man to keep upon the threshold of my throne.
he who sets one snare may set twain, and he who sits by the thresholdmay desire to enter the house of kings wherein there is no space fortwo to dwell.""is this the answer that i am to take back to hokosa?" asked noma. "itwill scarcely bind him to your cause, prince, and i wonder that youdare to speak it to me who am his wife.""i dare to speak it to you, noma, because, although you be his wife,all wives do not love their lords; and i think that, perchance in daysto come, you would choose rather to hold the hand of a young king thanthat of a witch-doctor sinking into eld. thus shall you answer hokosa:
you shall say to him that i have heard his words and that i find themvery good, and will walk along the path which he has made. here beforeyou i swear by the oath that may not be broken--the sacred oath,calling down ruin upon my head should i break one word of it--that ifby his aid i succeed in this great venture, i will pay him the pricehe asks. after myself, the king, he shall be the greatest man amongthe people; he shall be general of the armies; he shall be captain ofthe council and head of the doctors, and to him shall be given halfthe cattle of nodwengo. also, into his hand i will deliver all thosewho cling to this faith of the christians, and, if it pleases him, heshall offer them as a sacrifice to his god. this i swear, and you,noma, are witness to the oath. yet it may chance that after he,hokosa, has gathered up all this pomp and greatness, he himself shallbe gathered up by death, that harvest-man whom soon or late willgarner every ear;" and he looked at her meaningly.
"it may be so, prince," she answered.
"it may be so," he repeated, "and when----""when it is so, then, prince, we will talk together, but not tillthen. nay, touch me not, for were he to command me, hokosa has thispower over me that i must show him all that you have done, keepingnothing back. let me go now to the place that is made ready for me,and afterwards you shall tell me again and more fully the words that imust say to hokosa my husband."*****on the morrow hafela held a secret council of his great men, and thenext day an embassy departed to nodwengo the king, taking to him thatmessage which hokosa, through noma his wife, had put into the lips ofthe prince. twenty days later the embassy returned saying that itpleased the king to grant the prayer of his brother hafela, andbringing with it the tidings that the white man, messenger, had fallensick, and it was thought that he would die.
so in due course the women and children of the people of hafelastarted upon their journey towards the new land where it was given outthat they should live, and with them went noma, purposing to leavethem as they drew near the gates of the great place of the king. awhile after, hafela and his /impis/ followed with carriers bearingtheir fighting shields in bundles, and having their stabbing spearsrolled up in mats.
