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But there was no answer still. "Will you speak when you are told?" exclaimed my uncle, shaking the urchin by the ears. "Come si noma questa isola?" "STROMBOLI," replied the little herdboy, slipping out of Hans' hands, and scudding into the plain across the olive trees. We were hardly thinking of that. Stromboli! What an effect this unexpected name produced upon my mind!
With her eye Noma measured the distance from the brink of the precipice to the broad ledge commanding the valley. "Sixty paces, not more," she said. "Well, yonder are oxen in plenty, and out of their hides ropes can be made, and out of ropes a ladder, down which men may pass; ten, or even five, would be enough." "Well thought of Noma," said Hafela.
No; I would drive them straight to the kraal, and denounce Noma before the chief, my father, and all the people. But I was young in those days, and did not know the heart of Noma. He had not been a witch-doctor till he grew old for nothing. Oh! he was evil! he was cunning as a jackal, and fierce like a lion.. He had planted me by him like a tree, but he meant to keep me clipped like a bush.
"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.
"It will not serve," he said with a sigh and shaking his locks. "Noma tells me that she died a child, one who had no knowledge of war or matters of policy, and that in all these things of the world she still remains a child.
"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.
"Why did you give her death-medicine?" asked Noma of Hokosa, as he stood staring after her. "Have you a hate to satisfy against the husband or the girl who is her rival?" "None," he answered, "for they have never crossed my path. Oh, foolish woman! cannot you read my plan?" "Not altogether, Husband." "Listen then: this woman will give to her sister a medicine of which in the end she must die.
So intolerable did it become, that at length he determined to be done with it. He could live no more. He would die, and by his own hand, before he was called upon to witness the death of the man whom he had murdered. To this end he made his preparations. For Noma he left no message; for though his heart still hungered after her, he knew well that she hated him and would rejoice at his death.
A word could do it; he had but to suggest that it was unripe or not wholesome at this season of the year, and it would be cast aside. All these reflections, or their substance, passed through Hokosa's mind in a few instants of time, and already he was rising to go to the verandah and translate their moral into acts, when another thought occurred to him How should he face Noma with this tale?
At length the rite was finished, and the little audience melted away, all save Noma, who stood silent and beautiful as a statue, the light of mockery still gleaming in her eyes. Then she spoke, saying: "I greet you, Husband. I have returned from doing your business afar, and if this foolishness is finished, and the white man can spare you, I would talk with you alone."
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