Then diving again into the hag,he brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it,such as are sold to people afraid of cutting themselves,or to those about to undertake a sea voyage.Then he vigorously scrubbed his face and chin with the fat and began.But it was evidently a painful process,for he groaned very much over it,and I was convulsed with inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that stubbly beard.It seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to shave himself with a piece of fat in such a place and under such circumstances.At last he succeeded in getting the worst of the scrub off the right side of his face and chin,when suddenly I,who was watching,became aware of a flash of light that passed just by his head.
Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety razor he would certainly have cut his throat),and so did I,without the exclamation,and this was what I saw.Standing there,not more than twenty paces from where I was,and ten from Good,was a group of men.They were very tall and copper-colored,and some of them wore great plumes of black feathers and short cloaks of leopard skins;this-was all I noticed at the moment.In front of them stood a youth of about seventeen,his hand still raised and his body bent forward in the attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear thrower.Evidently the flash of light had been a weapon,and he had thrown it.
As I looked an old,soldier-like looking man stepped forward out of the group,and catching the youth by the arm said something to him.
Then they advanced upon us.
Sir Henry,Good,and Umbopa had by this time seized their rifles and lifted them threateningly.The party of natives still came on.It struck me that they could not know what rifles were,or they would not have treated them with such contempt.
"Put down your guns!"I hallooed to the others,seeing that our only chance of safety in conciliation.They obeyed,and,walking to the front,I addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.
"Greeting,"I said,in Zulu,not knowing what language to use.
To my surprise I was understood.
"Greeting,"answered the man,not,indeed,in the same tongue,but in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself had any difficulty in understanding it.Indeed,as we afterwards found out,the language spoken by this people was an old-fashioned form of the Zulu tongue,bearing about the same relationship to it that the English of Chaucer does to the English of the nineteenth century.
"Whence come ye?"he went on,"what are ye?and why are the faces of three of ye white,and the face of the fourth as the face of our mother's sons?"and he pointed to Umbopa.I looked at Umbopa as he said it,and it flashed across me that he was right.Umbopa was like the faces of the men before me;so was his great form.But I had not time to reflect on this coincidence.
"We are strangers,and come in peace,"I answered,speaking very slow,so that he might understand me,"and this man is our servant.""Ye lie,"he answered,"no strangers can cross the mountains where all things die.But what do your lies matter;if ye are strangers then ye must die,for no strangers may live in the land of the Kukuanas.It is the king's law.Prepare then to die,O strangers!"I was slightly staggered at this,more especially as I saw the hands of some of the party of men steal down to their sides,where hung on each what looked to me like a large and heavy knife.
"What does that beggar say?"asked Good.
"He says we are going to be scragged,"I answered,grimly.
"Oh,Lord,"groaned Good;and,as was his way when perplexed,put his hand to his false teeth,dragging the top set down and allowing them to fly back to his jaw with a snap.It was a most fortunate move,for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas gave a simultaneous yell of horror,and bolted back some yards.
"What's up?"said I.
"It's his teeth,"whispered Sir Henry,excitedly."He moved them.
Take them out,Good,take them out!"
He obeyed,slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
In another second curiosity had overcome fear,and the men advanced slowly.Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intentions of doing for us.
"How is it,O strangers,"asked the old man,solemnly,"that the teeth of the man"(pointing to Good,who had nothing on but a flannel shirt,and had only half finished his shaving)"whose body is clothed,and whose legs are bare,who grows hair on one side of his sickly face and not on the other,and who has one shining and transparent eye,move of themselves,coming away from the jaws and returning of their own will?""Open your mouth,"I said to Good,who promptly curled up his lips and grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog,revealing to their astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of ivories as a new-born elephant.His audience gasped.
"Where are his teeth?"they shouted;"with our eyes we saw them."Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt,Good swept his hand across his mouth.Then he grinned again,and lo!there were two rows of lovely teeth.
The young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the grass and gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror;and as for the old gentleman,his knees knocked together with fear.
"I see that ye are spirits,"he said,falteringly;"did ever man born of woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other,or a round and transparent eye,or teeth which moved and melted away and grew again?Pardon us,O my lords."Here was luck indeed,and,needless to say,I jumped at the chance.
"It is granted,"I said,with an imperial smile."Nay,ye shall know the truth.We come from another world,though we are men such as ye;we come,"I went on,"from the biggest star that shines at night.""Oh!oh!"groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.
