on the morrow owen baptised the king, many of his councillors, andsome twenty others whom he considered fit to receive the rite. also hedespatched his first convert john, with other messengers, on a threemonths' journey to the coast, giving them letters acquainting thebishop and others with his marvellous success, and praying thatmissionaries might be sent to assist him in his labours.
now day by day the church grew till it numbered hundreds of souls, andthousands more hovered on its threshold. from dawn to dark owentoiled, preaching, exhorting, confessing, gathering in his harvest;and from dark to midnight he pored over his translation of thescriptures, teaching nodwengo and a few others how to read and writethem. but although his efforts were crowned with so signal andextraordinary a triumph, he was well aware of the dangers thatthreatened the life of the infant church. many accepted it indeed, andstill more tolerated it; but there remained multitudes who regardedthe new religion with suspicion and veiled hatred. nor was thisstrange, seeing that the hearts of men are not changed in an hour ortheir ancient customs easily overset.
on one point, indeed, owen had to give way. the amasuka were apolygamous people; all their law and traditions were interwoven withpolygamy, and to abolish that institution suddenly and with violencewould have brought their social fabric to the ground. now, as he knewwell, the missionary church declares in effect that no man can be botha christian and a polygamist; therefore among the followers of thatcustom the missionary church makes but little progress. not withoutmany qualms and hesitations, owen, having only the scriptures toconsult, came to a compromise with his converts. if a man alreadymarried to more than one wife wished to become a christian, hepermitted him to do so upon the condition that he took no more wives;while a man unmarried at the time of his conversion might take onewife only. this decree, liberal as it was, caused greatdissatisfaction among both men and women. but it was as nothingcompared to the feeling that was evoked by owen's preaching againstall war not undertaken in self-defence, and against the strict lawswhich he prevailed upon the king to pass, suppressing the practice ofwizardry, and declaring the chief or doctor who caused a man to be"smelt out" and killed upon charges of witchcraft to be guilty ofmurder.
at first whenever owen went abroad he was surrounded by thousands ofpeople who followed him in the expectation that he would workmiracles, which, after his exploits with the lightning, they were wellpersuaded that he could do if he chose. but he worked no moremiracles; he only preached to them a doctrine adverse to their customsand foreign to their thoughts.
so it came about that in time, when the novelty was gone off and thestory of his victory over the fire-god had grown stale, although thework of conversion went on steadily, many of the people grew weary ofthe white man and his doctrines. soon this weariness found expressionin various ways, and in none more markedly than by the constantdesertions from the ranks of the king's regiments. at first, by owen'sadvice, the king tolerated these desertions; but at length, havingobtained information that an entire regiment purposed absconding atdawn, he caused it to be surrounded and seized by night. next morninghe addressed that regiment, saying:--"soldiers, you think that because i have become a christian and willnot permit unnecessary bloodshed, i am also become a fool. i willteach you otherwise. one man in every twenty of you shall be killed,and henceforth any soldier who attempts to desert will be killedalso!"the order was carried out, for owen could not find a word to sayagainst it, with the result that desertions almost ceased, though notbefore the king had lost some eight or nine thousand of his bestsoldiers. worst of all, these soldiers had gone to join hafela in hismountain fastnesses; and the rumour grew that ere long they wouldappear again, to claim the crown for him or to take it by force ofarms.
now too a fresh complication arose. the old king sickened of his lastillness, and soon it became known that he must die. a month later diehe did, passing away peacefully in owen's arms, and with his lastbreath exhorting his people to cling to the christian religion; totake nodwengo for their king and to be faithful to him.
the king died, and that same day was buried by owen in the gloomyresting-place of the blood-royal of the people of fire, where achristian priest now set foot for the first time.
on the morrow nodwengo was proclaimed king with much ceremony in faceof the people and of all the army that remained to him. one captainraised a cry for hafela his brother. nodwengo caused him to be seizedand brought before him.
"man," he said, "on this my coronation day i will not stain my handwith blood. listen. you cry upon hafela, and to hafela you shall go,taking him this message. tell him that i, nodwengo, have succeeded tothe crown of umsuka, my father, by his will and the will of thepeople. tell him it is true that i have become a christian, and thatchristians follow not after war but peace. tell him, however, thatthough i am a christian i have not forgotten how to fight or how torule. it has reached my ears that it is his purpose to attack me witha great force which he is gathering, and to possess himself of mythrone. if he should choose to come, i shall be ready to meet him; buti counsel him against coming, for it will be to find his death. lethim stay where he is in peace, and be my subject; or let him go afarwith those that cleave to him, and set up a kingdom of his own, forthen i shall not follow him; but let him not dare to lift a spearagainst me, his sovereign, since if he does so he shall be treated asa rebel and find the doom of a rebel. begone, and show your face hereno more!"the man crept away crestfallen; but all who heard that speech brokeinto cheering, which, as its purport was repeated from rank to rank,spread far and wide; for now the army learned that in becoming achristian, nodwengo had not become a woman. of this indeed he soongave them ample proof. the old king's grip upon things had been lax,that of nodwengo was like iron. he practised no cruelties, and didinjustice to none; but his discipline was severe, and soon theregiments were brought to a greater pitch of proficiency than they hadever reached before, although they were now allowed to marry when theypleased, a boon that hitherto had been denied to them. moreover, byowen's help, he designed an entirely new system of fortification ofthe kraal and surrounding hills, which would, it was thought, make theplace impregnable. these and many other acts, equally vigorous andfar-seeing, put new heart into the nation. also the report of them putfear into hafela, who, it was rumoured, had now given up all idea ofattack.
some there were, however, who looked upon these changes with littlelove, and hokosa was one of them. after his defeat in the duel byfire, for a while his spirit was crushed. hitherto he had more or lessbeen a believer in the protecting influence of his own god or fetish,who would, as he thought, hold his priests scatheless from thelightning. often and often had he stood in past days upon that plainwhile the great tempests broke around his head, and returned thenceunharmed, attributing to sorcery a safety that was really due tochance. from time to time indeed a priest was killed; but, so hiscompanions held, the misfortune resulted invariably from the man'sneglect of some rite, or was a mark of the anger of the heavens.
now hokosa had lived to see all these convictions shattered: he hadseen the lightning, which he pretended to be able to control, rollback upon him from the foot of the christian cross, reducing his godto nothingness and his companions to corpses.
at first hokosa was dismayed, but as time went on hope came back tohim. stripped of his offices and power, and from the greatest in thenation, after the king, become one of small account, still no harm orviolence was attempted towards him. he was left wealthy and in peace,and living thus he watched and listened with open eyes and ears,waiting till the tide should turn. it seemed that he would not havelong to wait, for reasons that have been told.
"why do you sit here like a vulture on a rock," asked the girl noma,whom he had taken to wife, "when you might be yonder with hafela,preparing him by your wisdom for the coming war?""because i am a king-vulture, and i wait for the sick bull to die," heanswered, pointing to the great place beneath him. "say, why should ibring hafela to prey upon a carcase i have marked down for my own?""now you speak well," said noma; "the bull suffers from a strangedisease, and when he is dead another must lead the herd.""that is so," answered her husband, "and, therefore, i am patient."it was shortly after this conversation that the old king died, withresults very different from those which hokosa had anticipated.
although he was a christian, to his surprise nodwengo showed that hewas also a strong ruler, and that there was little chance of thesceptre slipping from his hand--none indeed while the white teacherwas there to guide him.
"what will you do now, hokosa?" asked noma his wife upon a certainday. "will you turn to hafela after all?""no," answered hokosa; "i will consult my ancient lore. listen.
whatever else is false, this is true: that magic exists, and i am itsmaster. for a while it seemed to me that the white man was greater atthe art than i am; but of late i have watched him and listened to hisdoctrines, and i believe that this is not so. it is true that in thebeginning he read my plans in a dream, or otherwise; it is true thathe hurled the lightning back upon my head; but i hold that thesethings were accidents. again and again he has told us that he is not awizard; and if this be so, he can be overcome.""how, husband?""how? by wizardry. this very night, noma, with your help i willconsult the dead, as i have done in bygone time, and learn the futurefrom their lips which cannot lie.""so be it; though the task is hateful to me, and i hate you who forceme to it."noma answered thus with passion, but her eyes shone as she spoke: forthose who have once tasted the cup of magic are ever drawn to drink ofit again, even when they fear the draught.
****it was midnight, and hokosa with his wife stood in the burying-groundof the kings of the amasuka. before owen came upon his mission it wasdeath to visit this spot except upon the occasion of the laying torest of one of the royal blood, or to offer the annual sacrifice tothe spirits of the dead. even beneath the bright moon that shone uponit the place seemed terrible. here in the bosom of the hills was anamphitheatre, surrounded by walls of rock varying from five hundred toa thousand feet in height. in this amphitheatre grew great mimosathorns, and above them towered pillars of granite, set there not bythe hand of man but by nature. it would seem that the amasuka, led bysome fine instinct, had chosen these columns as fitting memorials oftheir kings, at the least a departed monarch lay at the foot of eachof them.
the smallest of these unhewn obelisks--it was about fifty feet high--marked the resting-place of umsuka; and deep into its granite owenwith his own hand had cut the dead king's name and date of death,surmounting his inscription with a symbol of the cross.
towards this pillar hokosa made his way through the wet grass,followed by noma his wife. presently they were there, standing oneupon each side of a little mound of earth more like an ant-heap than agrave; for, after the custom of his people, umsuka had been buriedsitting. at the foot of each of the pillars rose a heap of similarshape, but many times as large. the kings who slept there wereaccompanied to their resting-places by numbers of their wives andservants, who had been slain in solemn sacrifice that they mightattend their lord whithersoever he should wander.
"what is that you desire and would do?" asked noma, in a hushed voice.
bold as she was, the place and the occasion awed her.
"i desire wisdom from the dead!" he answered. "have i not already toldyou, and can i not win it with your help?""what dead, husband?""umsuka the king. ah! i served him living, and at the last he drove meaway from his side. now he shall serve me, and out of the nowhere iwill call him back to mine.""will not this symbol defeat you?" and noma pointed at the cross hewnin the granite.
at her words a sudden gust of rage seemed to shake the wizard. hisstill eyes flashed, his lips turned livid, and with them he spat uponthe cross.
"it has no power," he said. "may it be accursed, and may he whobelieves therein hang thereon! it has no power; but even if it had,according to the tale of that white liar, such things as i would dohave been done beneath its shadow. by it the dead have been raised--ay! dead kings have been dragged from death and forced to tell thesecrets of the grave. come, come, let us to the work.""what must i do, husband?""you shall sit you there, even as a corpse sits, and there for alittle while you shall die--yes, your spirit shall leave you--and iwill fill your body with the soul of him who sleeps beneath;; andthrough your lips i will learn his wisdom, to whom all things areknown.""it is terrible! i am afraid!" she said. "cannot this be doneotherwise?""it cannot," he answered. "the spirits of the dead have no shape orform; they are invisible, and can speak only in dreams or through thelips of one in whose pulses life still lingers, though soul and bodybe already parted. have no fear. ere his ghost leaves you it shallrecall your own, which till the corpse is cold stays ever close athand. i did not think to find a coward in you, noma.""i am not a coward, as you know well," she answered passionately, "formany a deed of magic have we dared together in past days. but this isfearsome, to die that my body may become the home of the ghost of adead man, who perchance, having entered it, will abide there, leavingmy spirit houseless, or perchance will shut up the doors of my heartin such fashion that they never can be opened. can it not be done bytrance as aforetime? tell me, hokosa, how often have you thus talkedwith the dead?""thrice, noma.""and what chanced to them through whom you talked?""two lived and took no harm; the third died, because the awakeningmedicine lacked power. yet fear nothing; that which i have with me isof the best. noma, you know my plight: i must win wisdom or fall forever, and you alone can help me; for under this new rule, i can nolonger buy a youth or maid for purposes of witchcraft, even if onecould be found fitted to the work. choose then: shall we go back orforward? here trance will not help us; for those entranced cannot readthe future, nor can they hold communion with the dead, being butasleep. choose, noma.""i have chosen," she answered. "never yet have i turned my back upon aventure, nor will i do so now. come life, come death, i will submit meto your wish, though there are few women who would dare as much forany man. nor in truth do i do this for you, hokosa; i do it because iseek power, and thus only can we win it who are fallen. also i loveall things strange, and desire to commune with the dead and to knowthat, if for some few minutes only, at least my woman's breast hasheld the spirit of a king. yet, i warn you, make no fault in yourmagic; for should i die beneath it, then i, who desire to live on andto be great, will haunt you and be avenged upon you!""oh! noma," he said, "if i believed that there was any danger for you,should i ask you to suffer this thing?--i, who love you more even thanyou love power, more than my life, more than anything that is or evercan be.""i know it, and it is to that i trust," the woman answered. "nowbegin, before my courage leaves me.""good," he said. "seat yourself there upon the mound, resting yourhead against the stone."she obeyed; and taking thongs of hide which he had made ready, hokosabound her wrists and ankles, as these people bind the wrists andankles of corpses. then he knelt before her, staring into her facewith his solemn eyes and muttering: "obey and sleep."presently her limbs relaxed, and her head fell forward.
"do you sleep?" he asked.
"i sleep. whither shall i go? it is the true sleep--test me.""pass to the house of the white man, my rival. are you with him?""i am with him.""what does he?""he lies in slumber on his bed, and in his slumber he mutters the nameof a woman, and tells her that he loves her, but that duty is morethan love. oh! call me back i cannot stay; a presence guards him, andthrusts me thence.""return," said hokosa starting. "pass through the earth beneath youand tell me what you see.""i see the body of the king; but were it not for his royal ornamentsnone would know him now.""return," said hokosa, "and let the eyes of your spirit be open. lookaround you and tell me what you see.""i see the shadows of the dead," she answered; "they stand about you,gazing at you with angry eyes; but when they come near you, somethingdrives them back, and i cannot understand what it is they say.""is the ghost of umsuka among them?""it is among them.""bid him prophesy the future to me.""i have bidden him, but he does not answer. if you would hear himspeak, it must be through the lips of my body; and first my body mustbe emptied of my ghost, that his may find a place therein.""say, can his spirit be compelled?""it can be compelled, or that part of it which still hover near thisspot, if you dare to speak the words you know. but first its housemust be made ready. then the words must be spoken, and all must bedone before a man can count three hundred; for should the blood beginto clot about my heart, it will be still for ever.""hearken," said hokosa. "when the medicine that i shall give does itswork, and the spirit is loosened from your body, let it not go afar,no, whatever tempts or threatens it, and suffer not that the death-cord be severed, lest flesh and ghost be parted for ever.""i hear, and i obey. be swift, for i grow weary."then hokosa took from his pouch two medicines: one a paste in a box,the other a fluid in a gourd. taking of the paste he knelt upon thegrave before the entranced woman and swiftly smeared it upon themucous membrane of the mouth and throat. also he thrust pellets of itinto the ears, the nostrils, and the corners of the eyes.
the effect was almost instantaneous. a change came over the girl'slovely face, the last awful change of death. her cheeks fell in, herchin dropped, her eyes opened, and her flesh quivered convulsively.
the wizard saw it all by the bright moonlight. then he took up hispart in this unholy drama.
all that he did cannot be described, because it is indescribable. thewitch of endor repeated no formula, but she raised the dead; and sodid hokosa the wizard. but he buried his face in the grey dust of thegrave, he blew with his lips into the dust, he clutched at the dustwith his hands, and when he raised his face again, lo! it was greylike the dust. now began the marvel; for, though the woman before himremained a corpse, from the lips of that corpse a voice issued, andits sound was horrible, for the accent and tone of it were masculine,and the instrument through which it spoke--noma's throat--wasfeminine. yet it could be recognised as the voice of umsuka the deadking.
"why have you summoned me from my rest, hokosa?" muttered the voicefrom the lips of the huddled corpse.
"because i would learn the future, spirit of the king," answered thewizard boldly, but saluting as he spoke. "you are dead, and to yoursight all the gates are opened. by the power that i have, i commandyou to show me what you see therein concerning myself, and to pointout to me the path that i should follow to attain my ends and the endsof her in whose breast you dwell."at once the answer came, always in the same horrible voice:--"hearken to your fate for this world, hokosa the wizard. you shalltriumph over your rival, the white man, the messenger; and by yourhand he shall perish, passing to his appointed place where you mustmeet again. by that to which you cling you shall be betrayed, ah! youshall lose that which you love and follow after that which you do notdesire. in the grave of error you shall find truth, from the deeps ofsin you shall pluck righteousness. when these words fall upon yourears again, then, wizard, take them for a sign and let your heart beturned. that which you deem accursed shall lift you up on high. highshall you be set above the nation and its king, and from age to agethe voice of the people shall praise you. yet in the end comesjudgment; and there shall the sin and the atonement strive together,and in that hour, wizard, you shall----"thus the voice spoke, strongly at first, but growing ever more feebleas the sparks of life departed from the body of the woman, till atlength it ceased altogether.
"what shall chance to me in that hour?" hokosa asked eagerly, placinghis ears against noma's lips.
no answer came; and the wizard knew that if he would drag his wifeback from the door of death he must delay no longer. dashing the sweatfrom his eyes with one hand, with the other he seized the gourd offluid that he had placed ready, and thrusting back her head, he pouredof its contents down her throat and waited a while. she did not move.
in an extremity of terror he snatched a knife, and with a single cutsevered a vein in her arm, then taking some of the fluid that remainedin the gourd in his hand, he rubbed it roughly upon her brow andthroat and heart. now noma's fingers stirred, and now, with horriblecontortions and every symptom of agony, life returned to her. theblood flowed from her wounded arm, slowly at first, then more fast,and lifting her head she spoke.
"take me hence," she cried, "or i shall go mad; for i have seen andheard things too terrible to be spoken!""what have you seen and heard?" he asked, while he cut the thongswhich bound her wrists and feet.
"i do not know," noma answered weeping; "the vision of them passesfrom me; but all the distances of death were open to my sight; yes, itravelled through the distances of death. in them i met him who wasthe king, and he lay cold within me, speaking to my heart; and as hepassed from me he looked upon the child which i shall bear and cursedit, and surely accursed it shall be. take me hence, o you most evilman, for of your magic i have had enough, and from this day forth i amhaunted!""have no fear," answered hokosa; "you have made the journey whence butfew return; and yet, as i promised you, you have returned to wear thegreatness you desire and that i sent you forth to win; for henceforthwe shall be great. look, the dawn is breaking--the dawn of life andthe dawn of power--and the mists of death and of disgrace roll backbefore us. now the path is clear, the dead have shown it to me, and ofwizardry i shall need no more.""ay!" answered noma, "but night follows dawn as the dawn followsnight; and through the darkness and the daylight, i tell you, wizard,henceforth i am haunted! also, be not so sure, for though i know notwhat the dead have spoken to you, yet it lingers on my mind that theirwords have many meanings. nay, speak to me no more, but let us flyfrom this dread home of ghosts, this habitation of the spirit-folkwhich we have violated."so the wizard and his wife crept from that solemn place, and as theywent they saw the dawn-beams lighting upon the white cross that wasreared in the plain of fire.
