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Page 56
"Mother, they are keen."
"/Good! good! good!/ Are your ears open, /Isanusis/, ye who hear words
that come not from the tongue?"
"Mother, they are open."
"/Good! good! good!/ Are your senses awake, /Isanusis/--can ye smell
blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil
against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the
justice of 'Heaven above,' ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of
the bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic?"
"Mother, we can."
"Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers"--pointing to the
ominous group of executioners behind--"make sharp their spears; the
white men from afar are hungry to see. /Go!/"
With a wild yell Gagool's horrid ministers broke away in every
direction, like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their
waists rattling as they ran, and headed for various points of the
dense human circle. We could not watch them all, so we fixed our eyes
upon the /Isanusi/ nearest to us. When she came to within a few paces
of the warriors she halted and began to dance wildly, turning round
and round with an almost incredible rapidity, and shrieking out
sentences such as "I smell him, the evil-doer!" "He is near, he who
poisoned his mother!" "I hear the thoughts of him who thought evil of
the king!"
Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a
frenzy of excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing
jaws, till her eyes seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to
quiver visibly. Suddenly she stopped dead and stiffened all over, like
a pointer dog when he scents game, and then with outstretched wand she
began to creep stealthily towards the soldiers before her. It seemed
to us that as she came their stoicism gave way, and that they shrank
from her. As for ourselves, we followed her movements with a horrible
fascination. Presently, still creeping and crouching like a dog, the
/Isanusi/ was before them. Then she halted and pointed, and again
crept on a pace or two.
Suddenly the end came. With a shriek she sprang in and touched a tall
warrior with her forked wand. Instantly two of his comrades, those
standing immediately next to him, seized the doomed man, each by one
arm, and advanced with him towards the king.
He did not resist, but we saw that he dragged his limbs as though they
were paralysed, and that his fingers, from which the spear had fallen,
were limp like those of a man newly dead.
As he came, two of the villainous executioners stepped forward to meet
him. Presently they met, and the executioners turned round, looking
towards the king as though for orders.
"/Kill!/" said the king.
"/Kill!/" squeaked Gagool.
"/Kill!/" re-echoed Scragga, with a hollow chuckle.
Almost before the words were uttered the horrible dead was done. One
man had driven his spear into the victim's heart, and to make
assurance double sure, the other had dashed out his brains with a
great club.
"/One/," counted Twala the king, just like a black Madame Defarge, as
Good said, and the body was dragged a few paces away and stretched
out.
Hardly was the thing done before another poor wretch was brought up,
like an ox to the slaughter. This time we could see, from the leopard-
skin cloak which he wore, that the man was a person of rank. Again the
awful syllables were spoken, and the victim fell dead.
"/Two/," counted the king.
And so the deadly game went on, till about a hundred bodies were
stretched in rows behind us. I have heard of the gladiatorial shows of
the C�sars, and of the Spanish bull-fights, but I take the liberty of
doubting if either of them could be half so horrible as this Kukuana
witch-hunt. Gladiatorial shows and Spanish bull-fights at any rate
contributed to the public amusement, which certainly was not the case
here. The most confirmed sensation-monger would fight shy of sensation
if he knew that it was well on the cards that he would, in his own
proper person, be the subject of the next "event."
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