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But it seemed as though the wild, pealing shouts of rage and consternation were a very tocsin; for now from every kraal, near and far, the inhabitants came surging forth, streaming down the hillsides over the face of the plain like swarming ants and before they reached Imvungayo the two whites seemed to move in the midst of a huge sea of gibing, infuriated faces, as the dark crowd, gathering volume, poured onward, rending the air with deafening shouts of execration and menace.
Returning one day from a hunt, at some distance from Imvungayo, he had marched on ahead of his companions, and, the afternoon being hot, had lain down in the shade of a cluster of trees for a brief nap. From this the buzz of muttering voices awakened him. At first he paid no attention, reckoning that the remainder of the party had come up.
"Lo!" said the induna, pointing down with his knob-stick. "Lo! there lies the land of the People of the Spider; there rests the throne of the Strong Wind that burns from the North. Lo! his dwelling, Imvungayo." From where they stood the ground fell away in great wooded spurs to a broad level valley, or rather plain, shut in on the farther side by rolling ranges of forest-clad hills.
The calm, peaceful beauty of the day, the golden sunlight flooding the plain beneath, the great circle of Imvungayo, and the by contrast tiny circles of lesser kraals scattered about the valley or crowning some mountain spur, and, mellow upon the stillness, the distant low of cattle the singing of women at work mingling with the soft voices of a multitude of doves in cornlands and the surrounding forest-trees.
This man, instead of leaving him at the gate of the isigodhlo, still kept at his side, and Laurence, manifesting no curiosity, having picked up his weapons where he had left them, accompanied his guide in silence. They passed out of Imvungayo, and after walking nearly a mile came to a large kraal, which Laurence recognized as that of Nondwana, the king's brother.
For as he drew nearer to Imvungayo there issued from its gate a crowd of figures of black, grotesque, horrible figures, and in the midst a man, whom they were dragging along in grim silence, even as they had hauled Lutali to his unknown doom, and as they disappeared into the gathering darkness, Laurence knew only too well that here was another victim another hideous sacrifice to the grisly and mysterious demon-god.
"Don't you swallow all that, Stanninghame," cut in Holmes. "He fought, standing over me fought like any devil, the Ba-gcatya say, although he makes out now it was all playful fun." "Well, for the matter of that, we had to fight," rejoined Hazon tranquilly. "Where have you been all this time, Stanninghame?" "Here, at Imvungayo. And you two?" "Shot if I know.
Even the shrill "moo" of cattle, and the deep-toned voices of men mellowed by distance, came not inharmoniously from the smaller kraals which lay scattered along the hillside; and but for the shining spearheads and tufted shields of the armed guard in the great circle of Imvungayo, the scene was a most perfect one of pastoral simplicity and peace.
It had developed many good traits, and had enabled him to forget many evil ones. "I would have speech with the king." Those who sentinelled the gate of the great kraal, Imvungayo, conferred a moment among themselves, and immediately two men were sent to learn the royal pleasure as to the request.
Weapons were lowered, but still vociferating horrible threats, the crowd, with the two offenders in its midst, moved in the direction of Imvungayo.
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