"I greet you, Wife," answered Hokosa. "Say out your say, for none are present save us three, and from the Messenger here I have no secrets."
"What, Husband, none? Do you ever talk to him of certain fruit that you ripened in a garden yonder?"
"From the Messenger I have no secrets," repeated Hokosa in a heavy voice.
"Then his heart must be full of them indeed, and it is little wonder that he seems sick," replied Noma, gibing. "Tell me, Hokosa, is it true that you have become a Christian, or would you but fool the white man and his following?"
"It is true."
At the words her graceful shape was shaken with a little gust of silent laughter.
"The wizard has turned saint," she said. "Well, then, what of the wizard"s wife?"
"You were my wife before I became Christian; if the Messenger permits it, you can still abide with me."
"If the Messenger permits it! So you have come to this, Hokosa, that you must ask the leave of another man as to whether or no you should keep your own wife! There is no other thing that I could not have thought of you, but this I would never have believed had I not heard it from your lips. Say now, do you still love me, Hokosa?"
"You know well that I love you, now and always," he answered, in a voice that sounded like a groan; "as you know that for love of you I have done many sins from which otherwise I should have turned aside."
"Grieve not over them, Hokosa; after all, in such a count as yours they will make but little show. Well, if you love me, I hate you, though through your witchcraft your will yet has the mastery of mine. I demand of you now that you should loose that bond, for I do not desire to become a Christian; and surely, O most good and holy man, having one wife already, it will not please you henceforth to live in sin with a heathen woman."
Now Hokosa turned to Owen:--
"In the old days," he said, "I could have answered her; but now I am fallen; or raised up--at the least I am changed and cannot. O prophet of Heaven, tell me what I shall do."
"Sever the bond that you have upon her and let her go," answered Owen.
"This love of yours is unnatural, unholy and born of witchcraft; have done with it, or if you cannot, at the least deny it, for such a woman, a woman who hates you, can work you no good. Moreover, since she is a second wife, you being a Christian, are bound to free her should she so desire."
"She can work me no good, Messenger, that I know; but I know also that while she struggles in the net of my will she can work me no evil. If I loose the net and the fish swims free, it may be otherwise."
"Loose it," answered Owen, "and leave the rest to Providence.
Henceforth, Hokosa, do right, and take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow is with G.o.d, and what He decrees, that shall befall."
"I hear you," said Hokosa, "and I obey." For a while he rocked himself to and fro, staring at the ground, then he lifted his head and spoke:--
"Woman," he said, "the knot is untied and the spell is broken. Begone, for I release you and I divorce you. Flesh of my flesh have you been, and soul of my soul, for in the web of sorceries are we knit together.
Yet be warned and presume not too far, for remember that which I have laid down I can take up, and that should I choose to command, you must still obey. Farewell, you are free."
Noma heard, and with a sigh of ecstasy she sprang into the air as a slave might do from whom the fetters have been struck off.
"Ay," she cried, "I am free! I feel it in my blood, I who have lain in bondage, and the voice of freedom speaks in my heart and the breath of freedom blows in my nostrils. I am free from you, O dark and accursed man; but herein lies my triumph and revenge--_you_ are not free from me.
In obedience to that white fool whom you have murdered, you have loosed me; but you I will not loose and could not if I would. Listen now, Hokosa: you love me, do you not?--next to this new creed of yours, I am most of all to you. Well, since you have divorced me, I will tell you, I go straight to another man. Now, look your last on me; for you love me, do you not?" and she slipped the mantle from her shoulders and except for her girdle stood before him naked, and smiled.
"Well," she went on, resuming her robe, "the last words of those we love are always dear to us; therefore, Hokosa, you who were my husband, I leave mine with you. You are a coward and a traitor, and your doom shall be that of a coward and a traitor. For my sake you betrayed Umsuka, your king and benefactor; for your own sake you betrayed Nodwengo, who spared you; and now, for the sake of your miserable soul, you have betrayed Hafela to Nodwengo. Nay, I know the tale, do not answer me, but the end of it--ah! that is yet to learn. Lie there, snake, and lick the hand that you have bitten, but I, the bird whom you have loosed, I fly afar--taking your heart with me!" and suddenly she turned and was gone.
Presently Hokosa spoke in a thick voice:--
"Messenger," he said, "this cross that you have given me to bear is heavy indeed."
"Yes, Hokosa," answered Owen, "for to it your sins are nailed."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE Pa.s.sING OF OWEN
Once she was outside of Owen"s house, Noma did not tarry. First she returned to Hokosa"s kraal, where she had already learnt from his head wife, Zinti, and others the news of his betrayal of the plot of Hafela, of his conversion to the faith of the Christians, and of the march of the _impi_ to ambush the prince. Here she took a little spear, and rolling up in a skin blanket as much dried meat as she could carry, she slipped unnoticed from the kraal. Her object was to escape from the Great Place, but this she did not try to do by any of the gates, knowing them to be guarded. Some months ago, before she started on her emba.s.sy, she had noted a weak spot in the fence, where dogs had torn a hole through which they pa.s.sed out to hunt at night. To this spot she made her way under cover of the darkness--for though she still greatly feared to be alone at night, her pressing need conquered her fears--and found that the hole was yet there, for a tall weed growing in its mouth had caused it to be overlooked by those whose duty it was to mend the fence.
With her a.s.segai she widened it a little, then drew her lithe shape through it, and lying hidden till the guard had pa.s.sed, climbed the two stone walls beyond. Once she was free of the town, she set her course by the stars and started forward at a steady run.
"If my strength holds I shall yet be in time to warn him," she muttered to herself. "Ah! friend Hokosa, this new madness of yours has blunted your wits that once were sharp enough. You have set me free, and now you shall learn how I can use my freedom. Not for nothing have I been your pupil, Hokosa the fox."
Before the dawn broke Noma was thirty miles from the Great Place, and before the next dawn she was a hundred. At sunset on that second day she stood among mountains. To her right stretched a great defile, a rugged place of rocks and bush, wherein she knew that the regiments of the king were hid in ambush. Perchance she was too late, perchance the _impi_ of Hafela had already pa.s.sed to its doom in yonder gorge. Swiftly she ran forward on to the trail which led to the gorge, to find that it had been trodden by many feet and recently. Moving to and fro she searched the spoor with her eyes, then rose with a sigh of joy. It was old, and marked the pa.s.sage of the great company of women and children and their thousands of cattle which, in execution of the plot, had travelled this path some days before. Either the _impi_ had not yet arrived, or it had gone by some other road. Weary as she was, Noma followed the old spoor backwards. A mile or more away it crossed the crest of a hog-backed mountain, from whose summit she searched the plain beyond, and not in vain, for there far beneath her twinkled the watch-fires of the army of Hafela.
Three hours later a woman, footsore and utterly exhausted, staggered into the camp, and waving aside the spears that were lifted to stab her, demanded to be led to the prince. Presently she was there.
"Who is this woman?" asked the great warrior; for, haggard as she was with travel, exhaustion, and the terror of her haunted loneliness, he did not know her in the uncertain firelight.
"Hafela," she said, "I am Noma who was the wife of Hokosa, and for whole nights and days I have journeyed as no woman ever journeyed before, to tell you of the treachery of Hokosa and to save you from your doom."
"What treachery and what doom?" asked the prince.
"Before I answer you that question, Hafela, you must pay me the price of my news."
"Let me hear the price, Noma."
"It is this, Prince: First, the head of Hokosa, who has divorced me, when you have caught him."
"That I promise readily. What more?"
"Secondly, the place of your chief wife to-day; and a week hence, when I shall have made you king, the name and state of Queen of the People of Fire with all that hangs thereto."
"You are ambitious, woman, and know well how to drive a bargain. Well, if you can ask, I can give, for I have ever loved you, and your mind is great as your body is beautiful. If through your help I should become King of the People of Fire, you shall be their Queen, I swear it by the spirits of my fathers and by my own head. And now--your tidings."
"These are they, Hafela. Hokosa has turned Christian and betrayed the plot to Nodwengo; and the great gorge yonder but three hours march away is ambushed. To-morrow you and your people would have been cut off there had I not run so fast and far to warn you, after which the _impis_ of Nodwengo were commanded to follow your women and cattle over the mountain pa.s.s and capture them."
"This is news indeed," said the prince. "Say now, how many regiments are hidden in the gorge?"
"Eight."
"Well, I have fourteen; so, being warned, there is little to fear. I will catch these rats in their own hole."
"I have a better plan," said Noma; "it is this: leave six regiments posted upon the brow of yonder hill and let them stay there. Then when the generals of Nodwengo see that they do not enter the gorge, they will believe that the ambush is discovered, and, after waiting one day or perhaps two, will move out to give battle, thinking that before them is all your strength. But command your regiments to run and not to fight, drawing the army of Nodwengo after them. Meanwhile, yes, this very night, you yourself with all the men that are left to you must march upon the Great Place, which, though it be strong, can be stormed, for it is defended by less than five thousand soldiers. There, having taken it, you shall slay Nodwengo, proclaiming yourself king, and afterwards, by the help of the _impi_ that you leave here which will march onward to your succour, you can deal with yonder army."
"A great scheme truly," said Hafela in admiration; "but how do I know whether all this tale is true, or whether you do but set a snare for me?"
"Bid scouts go out and creep into yonder gully," answered Noma, "and you will see whether or no I have spoken falsely. For the rest, I am in your hands, and if I lie you can take my life in payment."