CHAPTER XXXI

THE GOLDEN IMAGE

FOR the next three weeks Colin and Desmond had little to complain of. Apart from their anxiety to communicate with their friends, they really had a rather pleasant holiday. They were well-fed, housed, and cared for, and up to a certain point allowed liberty of action.

Their greatest difficulty was their inability to understand the Makoh'lenga language. Although it resembled the Zulu dialects in the way in which the guttural "clicks" occurred, in almost every other word there was nothing else in common with the native tongues spoken in that part of the Dark Continent.

The chums did not submit to their altered conditions without making efforts to secure their freedom. Very shortly after their arrival they decided to make an attempt to escape. Waiting until it was past midnight and the whole village appeared to be wrapped in slumber, they stole softly through the doorless aperture of their quarters, and made their way towards the tunnel.

It was a moonless night, but the stars were shining brightly, although there was a mist rising from the ground.

Without molestation they drew clear of the village, crossed the open belt of ground, and gained the mouth of the oblique shaft. Here they paused and listened intently. The tunnel was in Cimmerian darkness.

No sound beyond the distant murmur of the waterfall broke the stillness. If the lads could pass the guards stationed in the rocky recess their chances of escape would be most favourable.

Cautiously, and feeling their way step by step, Colin and Desmond entered the gloomy tunnel. As a matter of precaution they had removed their boots, and carried them slung round their necks, and their bare feet made no noise as they encountered the smooth, hard rock that formed the floor of the tunnel.

With beating hearts they approached the hewn-out cavity where they had seen the guards on the occasion of their arrival. The fire no longer burned in the recess. Like the rest of the subterranean passage, the place was in darkness.

Hardly able to credit their good fortune, the chums increased their pace, and gained the narrow track between the waterfall and the end of the gorge.

{Illustration: "'WE'VE DONE IT, BY JOVE!'" [_p_. 231}

"We've done it, by Jove!" soliloquised Sinclair. "We're through."

These thoughts had hardly flashed across his mind when a heavy hand descended upon the shoulder of each of the lads. Turning, they found themselves in the grip of a tall, powerfully-built man, while others, springing seemingly from nowhere, barred the way to freedom.

To Colin's and Tiny's astonishment, their captor made no attempt to harm them. With an air of superior detachment, he pointed in the direction of the tunnel, and exclaimed:

"Intchi!"

The significance of the word was plain. Feeling very small, indeed, the chums turned and retraced their steps, speculating when they arrived at their quarters what would be their punishment in the morning.

Days passed, but seemingly no notice was taken of the attempt to break out. Nevertheless, the mere fact of having been caught red-handed acted as a deterrent to a further effort in that direction. Had they been kicked or beaten they would not have been daunted, but they had a wholesome dread of being ridiculed.

After a while Desmond hit upon another plan. Tearing leaves from his pocketbook, he wrote several notes to Colonel Narfield, wrapping each paper round a stone. On the outside he wrote the address, and also drew a rough sketch of the colonel as he usually appeared out of doors, and also a drawing of Kilembonga. This was with the idea of conveying the name and address to any fairly intelligent native who might pick up the little packages.

During the night the lads hurled the weighted papers far over the cliff, hoping that they might fall into the hands of anyone except a Makoh'lenga, since the territory of this mysterious tribe was bounded by the lofty wall of rock.

The following evening, after the chums had been for a walk round the village, the papers were restored to them. Every one had been picked up, neatly smoothed out and folded, and left on the table with the evening meal.

"Stumped, middle wicket!" exclaimed Tiny ruefully. "Here we are, and here we remain, as far as I can see."

"They've got us properly set," agreed Colin. "They know it, otherwise they wouldn't give so much rope. We might try heliographing."

"They'd spot that right away," demurred Tiny.

"Possibly, but they might think we were doing some sort of rite, and let us carry on," replied Sinclair. He pointed to a plate of burnished silver hanging on one of the walls. "That thing will do the trick, I fancy. We'll have a shot at it, any old way."

But the opportunity never arrived, for just as the chums were on the point of turning in they heard a din without. This was quite unusual, for the Makoh'lenga were given to act as silently as possible. It was fairly late in the evening--nearly ten o'clock--at which hour the majority of the inhabitants had retired for the night.

"What's up now, I wonder?" exclaimed Colin, making for the open doorway, with Tiny a close second.

It was now close on the time of full moon. The huge, yellow orb was within thirty degrees of its zenith, and the light was almost as strong as that of a summer's day in England.

Approaching the village was a solid mass of armed men, and every warrior in the place was turning out to meet them. At first the chums imagined that the two parties were antagonistic towards each other, but they were wrong in their surmise. The two bands fused, and in a dense mass they marched onwards, every man shouting at the top of his voice and brandishing his spear.

Arriving at the open space between the houses and the brink of the cliff, the Makoh'lenga warriors halted in four columns with perfect alignment.

In front stood four indunas, or chiefs, one of them being he who had directed the operations resulting in the capture of Colin and Tiny, while a few paces ahead of the four stood another individual, whose elaborate dress of red and white silk, with a golden breast-plate and helmet, proclaimed him to be of the very highest rank. He alone of all the Makoh'lenga departed from the custom of simplicity in costume.

Presently this gorgeous potentate addressed the now silent warriors. When he had finished his lengthy speech he was greeted with shouts of acclamation in which the word "Umkomasi" occurred frequently.

"Umkomasi!" exclaimed Colin. "Why, that was the name our Van der Wyck mentioned."

Before Desmond could offer any remark about a dozen men detached themselves from the mass of warriors, and ran towards the house where the chums were quartered.

Unceremoniously Desmond and Sinclair were seized, their arms bound behind their backs, and hurried into the presence of the Chief Umkomasi.

For a few moments the latter looked steadily at the captives, then at a sign they were led to a position midway between the four regiments. An order rang out, and as one man the armed Makoh'lenga stepped out, forming into one long column, with Umkomasi leading and the other chiefs at the head of their respective regiments, while Colin and Tiny, surrounded by their guards, were placed in the centre of the column.

At the end of a three-mile march, beyond the limits explored by the chums in their wanderings, the Makoh'lenga ascended a zigzag path that appeared to be the only means of communicating with the extensive vastness that rose from the lofty tableland in which the village was built.

Arriving at the summit, the warriors broke into a steady run, like men who were behind time in keeping an appointment.

Colin and Tiny had to run, too, in spite of being hampered by having their arms bound, but the gentle application of a couple of spear points quickly settled any disinclination on the part of the captives to increase their pace.

At length the warriors came to a halt in a vast natural amphitheatre, the ground sloping gradually from a depression nearly half a mile in diameter. Only in a comparatively small section did the enclosing bank rise steeply. Here rocks rose abruptly to a height of nearly two hundred feet, and in the centre of this cliff was a lofty cave, with an entrance so wide that the interior was visible to every man drawn up in orderly formation without.

Into the cave Umkomasi and his immediate subordinates entered, making obeisance as they did so. Then, closely guarded, Colin and Tiny were urged towards the enormous cavity.

It was a hideous scene that met their horrified eyes. The walls of the cave were of glittering quartz, with rich veins of virgin gold. That in itself would not have frozen the blood in their veins; it was the terrible object that confronted them in the centre of the cave.

Fashioned of solid gold was an enormous image of a lion, with wide-open jaws and one paw upraised, displaying formidable talons. Either by mechanical means or by some hidden human agency the paw was moving slowly yet remorselessly in the glare of a hundred torches upheld by a double row of motionless men.

Immediately underneath the paw was a block of gold with six rings set in it--three on either side, while a few paces in front of the hideous image was a raised slab of gold on which lay a cushion of white cloth.

On the cushion lay a small object, which Colin and Tiny recognised as the swastika. The amulet, instead of bringing them good luck, had landed Colin and his chum into a very tight corner, indeed!