CHAPTER XIX
THE SPELL
Of our return to Kor I need say nothing, except that in due course wereached that interesting ruin. The journey was chiefly remarkable forone thing, that on this occasion, I imagine for the first and last timein his life, Umslopogaas consented to be carried in a litter, at leastfor part of the way. He was, as I have said, unwounded, for the axeof his mighty foe had never once so much as touched his skin. What hesuffered from was shock, a kind of collapse, since, although few wouldhave thought it, this great and utterly fearless warrior was at bottom anervous, highly-strung man.
It is only the nervous that climb the highest points of anything, andthis is true of fights as of all others. That fearful fray with Rezu hadbeen a great strain on the Zulu. As he put it himself, "the wizard hadsucked the strength" out of him, especially when he found that owingto his armour he could not harm him in front, and owing to his cunningcould not get at him behind. Then it was that he conceived the desperateexpedient of leaping over his head and smiting backwards as he leapt,a trick, he told me, that he had once played years before when he wasyoung, in order to break a shield ring and reach one who stood in itscentre.
In this great leap over Rezu's head Umslopogaas knew that he mustsucceed, or be slain, which in turn would mean my death and that of theothers. For this reason he faced the shame of seeming to fly in order togain the higher ground, whence alone he could gather the speed necessaryto such a terrific spring.
Well, he made it and thereby conquered, and this was the end, but as hesaid, it had left him, "weak as a snake when it crawls out of its holeinto the sun after the long winter sleep."
Of one thing, Umslopogaas added, he was thankful, namely that Rezuhad never succeeded in getting his arms round him, since he was quitecertain that if he had he would have broken him "as a baboon breaks amealie-stalk." No strength, not even his, could have resisted the ironmight of that huge, gorilla-like man.
I agreed with him who had noted Rezu's vast chest and swelling muscles,also the weight of the blows that he struck with the steel-haftedaxe (which, by the way, when I sought for it, was missing, stolen, Isuppose, by one of the Amahagger).
Whence did that strength come, I wondered, in one who from his faceappeared to be old? Was there perchance, after all, some truth in thelegend of Samson and did it dwell in that gigantic beard and those longlocks of his? It was impossible to say and probably the man was but aHerculean freak, for that he was as strong as Hercules all the storiesthat I heard afterwards of his feats, left little room for doubt.
About one thing only was I certain in connection with him, namely, thatthe tales of his supernatural abilities were the merest humbug. He wassimply one of the representatives of the family of "strong men," of whomexamples are still to be seen doing marvellous feats all over the earth.
For the rest, he was dead and broken up by those Amahagger blood-houndsbefore I could examine him, or his body-armour either, and there wasan end of him and his story. But when I looked at the corpse of poorRobertson, which I did as we buried it where he fell, and saw thatthough so large and thick-set, it was cleft almost in two by a singleblow of Rezu's axe, I came to understand what the might of this savagemust have been.
I say savage, but I am not sure that this is a right description ofRezu. Evidently he had a religion of a sort, also imagination, as wasshown by the theft of the white woman to be his queen; by his veilingof her to resemble Ayesha whom he dreaded; by the intended propitiatorysacrifice; by the guard of women sworn to her service who slew thepriest that tried to kill her, and afterwards committed suicide whenthey had failed in their office, and by other things. All this indicatedsomething more than savagery, perhaps survivals from a forgottencivilisation, or perhaps native ability on the part of an individualruler. I do not know and it matters nothing.
Rezu is dead and the world is well rid of him, and those who want tolearn more of his people can go to study such as remain of them in theirown habitat, which for my part I never wish to visit any more.
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