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ALLAN QUATERMAIN
I inscribe this book of adventure to my son ARTHUR
JOHN RIDER HAGGARD in the hope that in days to come he, and many other boys
whom I shall never know, may, in the acts and thoughts of Allan Quatermain
and his companions, as herein recorded, find something to help him and them
to reach to what, with Sir Henry Curtis, I hold to be the highest rank
whereto we can attain -- the state and dignity of English gentlemen.
CONTENTS
| INTRODUCTION |
I | THE CONSUL'S YARN |
II | THE BLACK HAND |
III | THE MISSION STATION |
IV | ALPHONSE AND HIS ANNETTE |
V | UMSLOPOGAAS MAKES A PROMISE |
VI | THE NIGHT WEARS ON |
VII | A SLAUGHTER GRIM AND GREAT |
VIII | ALPHONSE EXPLAINS |
IX | INTO THE UNKNOWN |
X | THE ROSE OF FIRE |
XI | THE FROWNING CITY |
XII | THE SISTER QUEENS |
XIII | ABOUT THE ZU-VENDI PEOPLE |
XIV | THE FLOWER TEMPLE |
XV | SORAIS' SONG |
XVI | BEFORE THE STATUE |
XVII | THE STORM BREAKS |
XVIII | WAR! RED WAR! |
XIX | A STRANGE WEDDING |
XX | THE BATTLE OF THE PASS |
XXI | AWAY! AWAY! |
XXII | HOW UMSLOPOGAAS HELD THE STAIR |
XXIII | I HAVE SPOKEN |
INTRODUCTION
December 23
'I have just buried my boy, my poor handsome boy of
whom I was so proud, and my heart is broken. It is very hard having only
one son to lose him thus, but God's will be done. Who am I that I should
complain? The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes
us all in turn, some soon, some late -- it does not matter when, in the
end, it crushes us all. We do not prostrate ourselves before it like the
poor Indians; we fly hither and thither -- we cry for mercy; but it is of
no use, the black Fate thunders on and in its season reduces us to
powder.
'Poor Harry to go so soon! just when his life was
opening to him. He was doing so well at the hospital, he had passed his
last examination with honours, and I was proud of them, much prouder than
he was, I think. And then he must needs go to that smallpox hospital. He
wrote to me that he was not afraid of smallpox and wanted to gain the
experience; and now the disease has killed him, and I, old and grey and
withered, am left to mourn over him, without a chick or child to comfort
me. I might have saved him, too -- I have money enough for both of us, and
much more than enough -- King Solomon's Mines provided me with that; but I
said, "No, let the boy earn his living, let him labour that he may enjoy
rest." But the rest has come to him before the labour. Oh, my boy, my
boy!
'I am like the man in the Bible who laid up much
goods and builded barns -- goods for my boy and barns for him to store them
in; and now his soul has been required of him, and I am left desolate. I
would that it had been my soul and not my boy's!
'We buried him this afternoon under the shadow of the
grey and ancient tower of the church of this village where my house is. It
was a dreary December afternoon, and the sky was heavy with snow, but not
much was falling. The coffin was put down by the grave, and a few big
flakes lit upon it. They looked very white upon the black cloth! There
was a little hitch about getting the coffin down into the grave -- the
necessary ropes had been forgotten: so we drew back from it, and waited in
silence watching the big flakes fall gently one by one like heavenly
benedictions, and melt in tears on Harry's pall. But that was not all. A
robin redbreast came as bold as could be and lit upon the coffin and began
to sing. And then I am afraid that I broke down, and so did Sir Henry
Curtis, strong man though he is; and as for Captain Good, I saw him turn
away too; even in my own distress I could not help noticing it.'
The above, signed 'Allan Quatermain', is an extract from
my diary written two years and more ago. I copy it down here because it
seems to me that it is the fittest beginning to the history that I am about
to write, if it please God to spare me to finish it. If not, well it does
not matter. That extract was penned seven thousand miles or so from the
spot where I now lie painfully and slowly writing this, with a pretty girl
standing by my side fanning the flies from my august countenance. Harry is
there and I am here, and yet somehow I cannot help feeling that I am not
far off Harry.
When I was in England I used to live in a very fine
house -- at least I call it a fine house, speaking comparatively, and
judging from the standard of the houses I have been accustomed to all my
life in Africa -- not five hundred yards from the old church where Harry is
asleep, and thither I went after the funeral and ate some food; for it is
no good starving even if one has just buried all one's earthly hopes. But
I could not eat much, and soon I took to walking, or rather limping --
being permanently lame from the bite of a lion -- up and down, up and down
the oak-panelled vestibule; for there is a vestibule in my house in
England. On all the four walls of this vestibule were placed pairs of
horns -- about a hundred pairs altogether, all of which I had shot myself.
They are beautiful specimens, as I never keep any horns which are not in
every way perfect, unless it may be now and again on account of the
associations connected with them. In the centre of the room, however, over
the wide fireplace, there was a clear space left on which I had fixed up
all my rifles. Some of them I have had for forty years, old muzzle-loaders
that nobody would look at nowadays. One was an elephant gun with strips of
rimpi, or green hide, lashed round the stock and locks, such as used to be
owned by the Dutchmen -- a 'roer' they call it. That gun, the Boer I
bought it from many years ago told me, had been used by his father at the
battle of the Blood River, just after Dingaan swept into Natal and
slaughtered six hundred men, women, and children, so that the Boers named
the place where they died 'Weenen', or the 'Place of Weeping'; and so it is
called to this day, and always will be called. And many an elephant have I
shot with that old gun. She always took a handful of black powder and a
three-ounce ball, and kicked like the very deuce.
Well, up and down I walked, staring at the guns and the
horns which the guns had brought low; and as I did so there rose up in me a
great craving: -- I would go away from this place where I lived idly and at
ease, back again to the wild land where I had spent my life, where I met my
dear wife and poor Harry was born, and so many things, good, bad, and
indifferent, had happened to me. The thirst for the wilderness was on me;
I could tolerate this place no more; I would go and die as I had lived,
among the wild game and the savages. Yes, as I walked, I began to long to
see the moonlight gleaming silvery white over the wide veldt and mysterious
sea of bush, and watch the lines of game travelling down the ridges to the
water. The ruling passion is strong in death, they say, and my heart was
dead that night. But, independently of my trouble, no man who has for forty
years lived the life I have, can with impunity go coop himself in this prim
English country, with its trim hedgerows and cultivated fields, its stiff
formal manners, and its well-dressed crowds. He begins to long -- ah, how
he longs! -- for the keen breath of the desert air; he dreams of the sight
of Zulu impis breaking on their foes like surf upon the rocks, and his
heart rises up in rebellion against the strict limits of the civilized
life.
Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to? For
forty years and more I lived among savages, and studied them and their
ways; and now for several years I have lived here in England, and have in
my own stupid manner done my best to learn the ways of the children of
light; and what have I found? A great gulf fixed? No, only a very little
one, that a plain man's thought may spring across. I say that as the
savage is, so is the white man, only the latter is more inventive, and
possesses the faculty of combination; save and except also that the savage,
as I have known him, is to a large extent free from the greed of money,
which eats like a cancer into the heart of the white man. It is a
depressing conclusion, but in all essentials the savage and the child of
civilization are identical. I dare say that the highly civilized lady
reading this will smile at an old fool of a hunter's simplicity when she
thinks of her black bead-bedecked sister; and so will the superfine
cultured idler scientifically eating a dinner at his club, the cost of
which would keep a starving family for a week. And yet, my dear young
lady, what are those pretty things round your own neck? -- they have a
strong family resemblance, especially when you wear that very low
dress, to the savage woman's beads. Your habit of turning round and round
to the sound of horns and tom-toms, your fondness for pigments and powders,
the way in which you love to subjugate yourself to the rich warrior who has
captured you in marriage, and the quickness with which your taste in
feathered head-dresses varies -- all these things suggest touches of
kinship; and you remember that in the fundamental principles of your nature
you are quite identical. As for you, sir, who also laugh, let some man
come and strike you in the face whilst you are enjoying that
marvellous-looking dish, and we shall soon see how much of the savage there
is in you.
There, I might go on for ever, but what is the good?
Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt. A vainglory is it, and like a
northern light, comes but to fade and leave the sky more dark. Out of the
soil of barbarism it has grown like a tree, and, as I believe, into the
soil like a tree it will once more, sooner or later, fall again, as the
Egyptian civilization fell, as the Hellenic civilization fell, and as the
Roman civilization and many others of which the world has now lost count,
fell also. Do not let me, however, be understood as decrying our modern
institutions, representing as they do the gathered experience of humanity
applied for the good of all. Of course they have great advantages --
hospitals for instance; but then, remember, we breed the sickly people who
fill them. In a savage land they do not exist. Besides, the question will
arise: How many of these blessings are due to Christianity as distinct from
civilization? And so the balance sways and the story runs -- here a gain,
there a loss, and Nature's great average struck across the two, whereof the
sum total forms one of the factors in that mighty equation in which the
result will equal the unknown quantity of her purpose.
I make no apology for this digression, especially as
this is an introduction which all young people and those who never like to
think (and it is a bad habit) will naturally skip. It seems to me very
desirable that we should sometimes try to understand the limitations of our
nature, so that we may not be carried away by the pride of knowledge. Man's
cleverness is almost indefinite, and stretches like an elastic band, but
human nature is like an iron ring. You can go round and round it, you can
polish it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby you
will make it bulge out the other, but you will never, while the
world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference. It is the
one fixed unchangeable thing -- fixed as the stars, more enduring than the
mountains, as unalterable as the way of the Eternal. Human nature is God's
kaleidoscope, and the little bits of coloured glass which represent our
passions, hopes, fears, joys, aspirations towards good and evil and what
not, are turned in His mighty hand as surely and as certainly as it turns
the stars, and continually fall into new patterns and combinations. But the
composing elements remain the same, nor will there be one more bit of
coloured glass nor one less for ever and ever.
This being so, supposing for the sake of argument we
divide ourselves into twenty parts, nineteen savage and one civilized, we
must look to the nineteen savage portions of our nature, if we would really
understand ourselves, and not to the twentieth, which, though so
insignificant in reality, is spread all over the other nineteen, making
them appear quite different from what they really are, as the blacking does
a boot, or the veneer a table. It is on the nineteen rough serviceable
savage portions that we fall back on emergencies, not on the polished but
unsubstantial twentieth. Civilization should wipe away our tears, and yet
we weep and cannot be comforted. Warfare is abhorrent to her, and yet we
strike out for hearth and home, for honour and fair fame, and can glory in
the blow. And so on, through everything.
So, when the heart is stricken, and the head is humbled
in the dust, civilization fails us utterly. Back, back, we creep, and lay
us like little children on the great breast of Nature, she that perchance
may soothe us and make us forget, or at least rid remembrance of its sting.
Who has not in his great grief felt a longing to look upon the outward
features of the universal Mother; to lie on the mountains and watch the
clouds drive across the sky and hear the rollers break in thunder on the
shore, to let his poor struggling life mingle for a while in her life; to
feel the slow beat of her eternal heart, and to forget his woes, and let
his identity be swallowed in the vast imperceptibly moving energy of her of
whom we are, from whom we came, and with whom we shall again be mingled,
who gave us birth, and will in a day to come give us our burial also.
And so in my trouble, as I walked up and down the
oak-panelled vestibule of my house there in Yorkshire, I longed once more
to throw myself into the arms of Nature. Not the Nature which you know,
the Nature that waves in well-kept woods and smiles out in corn-fields, but
Nature as she was in the age when creation was complete, undefiled as yet
by any human sinks of sweltering humanity. I would go again where the wild
game was, back to the land whereof none know the history, back to the
savages, whom I love, although some of them are almost as merciless as
Political Economy. There, perhaps, I should be able to learn to think of
poor Harry lying in the churchyard, without feeling as though my heart
would break in two.
And now there is an end of this egotistical talk, and
there shall be no more of it. But if you whose eyes may perchance one day
fall upon my written thoughts have got so far as this, I ask you to
persevere, since what I have to tell you is not without its interest, and
it has never been told before, nor will again.
CHAPTER I
THE CONSUL'S YARN
A week had passed since the funeral of my poor boy
Harry, and one evening I was in my room walking up and down and thinking,
when there was a ring at the outer door. Going down the steps I opened it
myself, and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good,
RN. They entered the vestibule and sat themselves down before the wide
hearth, where, I remember, a particularly good fire of logs was
burning.
'It is very kind of you to come round,' I said by way of
making a remark; 'it must have been heavy walking in the snow.'
They said nothing, but Sir Henry slowly filled his pipe
and lit it with a burning ember. As he leant forward to do so the fire got
hold of a gassy bit of pine and flared up brightly, throwing the whole
scene into strong relief, and I thought, What a splendid-looking man he is!
Calm, powerful face, clear-cut features, large grey eyes, yellow beard and
hair -- altogether a magnificent specimen of the higher type of humanity.
Nor did his form belie his face. I have never seen wider shoulders or a
deeper chest. Indeed, Sir Henry's girth is so great that, though he is six
feet two high, he does not strike one as a tall man. As I looked at him I
could not help thinking what a curious contrast my little dried-up self
presented to his grand face and form. Imagine to yourself a small,
withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin hands, large brown
eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and standing up like a half-worn
scrubbing-brush -- total weight in my clothes, nine stone six -- and you
will get a very fair idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly called Hunter
Quatermain, or by the natives 'Macumazahn' -- Anglic/CHAR: e grave/, he who
keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp fellow who
is not to be taken in.
Then there was Good, who is not like either of us, being
short, dark, stout -- very stout -- with twinkling black eyes, in
one of which an eyeglass is everlastingly fixed. I say stout, but it is a
mild term; I regret to state that of late years Good has been running to
fat in a most disgraceful way. Sir Henry tells him that it comes from
idleness and over-feeding, and Good does not like it at all, though he
cannot deny it.
We sat for a while, and then I got a match and lit the
lamp that stood ready on the table, for the half-light began to grow
dreary, as it is apt to do when one has a short week ago buried the hope of
one's life. Next, I opened a cupboard in the wainscoting and got a bottle
of whisky and some tumblers and water. I always like to do these things
for myself: it is irritating to me to have somebody continually at my
elbow, as though I were an eighteen-month-old baby. All this while Curtis
and Good had been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had nothing to say
that could do me any good, and content to give me the comfort of their
presence and unspoken sympathy; for it was only their second visit since
the funeral. And it is, by the way, from the presence of others
that we really derive support in our dark hours of grief, and not from
their talk, which often only serves to irritate us. Before a bad storm the
game always herd together, but they cease their calling.
They sat and smoked and drank whisky and water, and I
stood by the fire also smoking and looking at them.
At last I spoke. 'Old friends,' I said, 'how long is it
since we got back from Kukuanaland?'
'Three years,' said Good. 'Why do you ask?'
'I ask because I think that I have had a long enough
spell of civilization. I am going back to the veldt.'
Sir Henry laid his head back in his arm-chair and
laughed one of his deep laughs. 'How very odd,' he said, 'eh, Good?'
Good beamed at me mysteriously through his eyeglass and
murmured, 'Yes, odd -- very odd.'
'I don't quite understand,' said I, looking from one to
the other, for I dislike mysteries.
'Don't you, old fellow?' said Sir Henry; 'then I will
explain. As Good and I were walking up here we had a talk.'
'If Good was there you probably did,' I put in
sarcastically, for Good is a great hand at talking. 'And what may it have
been about?'
'What do you think?' asked Sir Henry.
I shook my head. It was not likely that I should know
what Good might be talking about. He talks about so many things.
'Well, it was about a little plan that I have formed --
namely, that if you were willing we should pack up our traps and go off to
Africa on another expedition.'
I fairly jumped at his words. 'You don't say so!' I
said.
'Yes I do, though, and so does Good; don't you,
Good?'
'Rather,' said that gentleman.
'Listen, old fellow,' went on Sir Henry, with
considerable animation of manner. 'I'm tired of it too, dead-tired of
doing nothing more except play the squire in a country that is sick of
squires. For a year or more I have been getting as restless as an old
elephant who scents danger. I am always dreaming of Kukuanaland and Gagool
and King Solomon's Mines. I can assure you I have become the victim of an
almost unaccountable craving. I am sick of shooting pheasants and
partridges, and want to have a go at some large game again. There, you
know the feeling -- when one has once tasted brandy and water, milk becomes
insipid to the palate. That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems
to me worth all the other years of my life put together. I dare say that I
am a fool for my pains, but I can't help it; I long to go, and, what is
more, I mean to go.' He paused, and then went on again. 'And, after all,
why should I not go? I have no wife or parent, no chick or child to keep
me. If anything happens to me the baronetcy will go to my brother George
and his boy, as it would ultimately do in any case. I am of no importance
to any one.'
'Ah!' I said, 'I thought you would come to that sooner
or later. And now, Good, what is your reason for wanting to trek; have you
got one?'
'I have,' said Good, solemnly. 'I never do anything
without a reason; and it isn't a lady -- at least, if it is, it's
several.'
I looked at him again. Good is so overpoweringly
frivolous. 'What is it?' I said.
'Well, if you really want to know, though I'd rather not
speak of a delicate and strictly personal matter, I'll tell you: I'm
getting too fat.'
'Shut up, Good!' said Sir Henry. 'And now, Quatermain,
tell us, where do you propose going to?'
I lit my pipe, which had gone out, before answering.
'Have you people ever heard of Mt Kenia?' I asked.
'Don't know the place,' said Good.
'Did you ever hear of the Island of Lamu?' I asked
again.
'No. Stop, though -- isn't it a place about 300 miles
north of Zanzibar?'
'Yes. Now listen. What I have to propose is this.
That we go to Lamu and thence make our way about 250 miles inland to Mt
Kenia; from Mt Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200 miles, or
thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best of my belief ever
been; and then, if we get so far, right on into the unknown interior. What
do you say to that, my hearties?'
'It's a big order,' said Sir Henry, reflectively.
'You are right,' I answered, 'it is; but I take it that
we are all three of us in search of a big order. We want a change of
scene, and we are likely to get one -- a thorough change. All my life I
have longed to visit those parts, and I mean to do it before I die. My
poor boy's death has broken the last link between me and civilization, and
I'm off to my native wilds. And now I'll tell you another thing, and that
is, that for years and years I have heard rumours of a great white race
which is supposed to have its home somewhere up in this direction, and I
have a mind to see if there is any truth in them. If you fellows like to
come, well and good; if not, I'll go alone.'
'I'm your man, though I don't believe in your white
race,' said Sir Henry Curtis, rising and placing his arm upon my
shoulder.
'Ditto,' remarked Good. 'I'll go into training at once.
By all means let's go to Mt Kenia and the other place with an
unpronounceable name, and look for a white race that does not exist. It's
all one to me.'
'When do you propose to start?' asked Sir Henry.
'This day month,' I answered, 'by the British India
steamboat; and don't you be so certain that things have no existence
because you do not happen to have heard of them. Remember King Solomon's
mines!'
Some fourteen weeks or so had passed since the date of
this conversation, and this history goes on its way in very different
surroundings.
After much deliberation and inquiry we came to the
conclusion that our best starting-point for Mt Kenia would be from the
neighbourhood of the mouth of the Tana River, and not from Mombassa, a
place over 100 miles nearer Zanzibar. This conclusion we arrived at from
information given to us by a German trader whom we met upon the steamer at
Aden. I think that he was the dirtiest German I ever knew; but he was a
good fellow, and gave us a great deal of valuable information. 'Lamu,'
said he, 'you goes to Lamu -- oh ze beautiful place!' and he turned up his
fat face and beamed with mild rapture. 'One year and a half I live there
and never change my shirt -- never at all.'
And so it came to pass that on arriving at the island we
disembarked with all our goods and chattels, and, not knowing where to go,
marched boldly up to the house of Her Majesty's Consul, where we were most
hospitably received.
Lamu is a very curious place, but the things which stand
out most clearly in my memory in connection with it are its exceeding
dirtiness and its smells. These last are simply awful. Just below the
Consulate is the beach, or rather a mud bank that is called a beach. It is
left quite bare at low tide, and serves as a repository for all the filth,
offal, and refuse of the town. Here it is, too, that the women come to bury
coconuts in the mud, leaving them there till the outer husk is quite
rotten, when they dig them up again and use the fibres to make mats with,
and for various other purposes. As this process has been going on for
generations, the condition of the shore can be better imagined than
described. I have smelt many evil odours in the course of my life, but the
concentrated essence of stench which arose from that beach at Lamu as we
sat in the moonlit night -- not under, but on our friend the
Consul's hospitable roof -- and sniffed it, makes the remembrance of them
very poor and faint. No wonder people get fever at Lamu. And yet the
place was not without a certain quaintness and charm of its own, though
possibly -- indeed probably -- it was one which would quickly pall.
'Well, where are you gentlemen steering for?' asked our
friend the hospitable Consul, as we smoked our pipes after dinner.
'We propose to go to Mt Kenia and then on to Mt
Lekakisera,' answered Sir Henry. 'Quatermain has got hold of some yarn
about there being a white race up in the unknown territories beyond.'
The Consul looked interested, and answered that he had
heard something of that, too.
'What have you heard?' I asked.
'Oh, not much. All I know about it is that a year or so
ago I got a letter from Mackenzie, the Scotch missionary, whose station,
"The Highlands", is placed at the highest navigable point of the Tana
River, in which he said something about it.'
'Have you the letter?' I asked.
'No, I destroyed it; but I remember that he said that a
man had arrived at his station who declared that two months' journey beyond
Mt Lekakisera, which no white man has yet visited -- at least, so far as I
know -- he found a lake called Laga, and that then he went off to the
north-east, a month's journey, over desert and thorn veldt and great
mountains, till he came to a country where the people are white and live in
stone houses. Here he was hospitably entertained for a while, till at last
the priests of the country set it about that he was a devil, and the people
drove him away, and he journeyed for eight months and reached Mackenzie's
place, as I heard, dying. That's all I know; and if you ask me, I believe
that it is a lie; but if you want to find out more about it, you had better
go up the Tana to Mackenzie's place and ask him for information.'
Sir Henry and I looked at each other. Here was
something tangible.
'I think that we will go to Mr Mackenzie's,' I said.
'Well,' answered the Consul, 'that is your best way, but
I warn you that you are likely to have a rough journey, for I hear that the
Masai are about, and, as you know, they are not pleasant customers. Your
best plan will be to choose a few picked men for personal servants and
hunters, and to hire bearers from village to village. It will give you an
infinity of trouble, but perhaps on the whole it will prove a cheaper and
more advantageous course than engaging a caravan, and you will be less
liable to desertion.'
Fortunately there were at Lamu at this time a party of
Wakwafi Askari (soldiers). The Wakwafi, who are a cross between the Masai
and the Wataveta, are a fine manly race, possessing many of the good
qualities of the Zulu, and a great capacity for civilization. They are also
great hunters. As it happened, these particular men had recently been on a
long trip with an Englishman named Jutson, who had started from Mombasa, a
port about 150 miles below Lamu, and journeyed right round Kilimanjaro, one
of the highest known mountains in Africa. Poor fellow, he had died of
fever when on his return journey, and within a day's march of Mombasa. It
does seem hard that he should have gone off thus when within a few hours of
safety, and after having survived so many perils, but so it was. His
hunters buried him, and then came on to Lamu in a dhow. Our friend the
Consul suggested to us that we had better try and hire these men, and
accordingly on the following morning we started to interview the party,
accompanied by an interpreter.
In due course we found them in a mud hut on the
outskirts of the town. Three of the men were sitting outside the hut, and
fine frank-looking fellows they were, having a more or less civilized
appearance. To them we cautiously opened the object of our visit, at first
with very scant success. They declared that they could not entertain any
such idea, that they were worn and weary with long travelling, and that
their hearts were sore at the loss of their master. They meant to go back
to their homes and rest awhile. This did not sound very promising, so by
way of effecting a diversion I asked where the remainder of them were. I
was told there were six, and I saw but three. One of the men said they
slept in the hut, and were yet resting after their labours -- 'sleep
weighed down their eyelids, and sorrow made their hearts as lead: it was
best to sleep, for with sleep came forgetfulness. But the men should be
awakened.'
Presently they came out of the hut, yawning -- the first
two men being evidently of the same race and style as those already before
us; but the appearance of the third and last nearly made me jump out of my
skin. He was a very tall, broad man, quite six foot three, I should say,
but gaunt, with lean, wiry-looking limbs. My first glance at him told me
that he was no Wakwafi: he was a pure bred Zulu. He came out with his thin
aristocratic-looking hand placed before his face to hide a yawn, so I could
only see that he was a 'Keshla' or ringed man 1, and that he had a great three-cornered hole in his
forehead. In another second he removed his hand, revealing a
powerful-looking Zulu face, with a humorous mouth, a short woolly beard,
tinged with grey, and a pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk's. I knew my man
at once, although I had not seen him for twelve years. 'How do you do,
Umslopogaas?' I said quietly in Zulu.
The tall man (who among his own people was commonly
known as the 'Woodpecker', and also as the 'Slaughterer') started, and
almost let the long-handled battleaxe he held in his hand fall in his
astonishment. Next second he had recognized me, and was saluting me in an
outburst of sonorous language which made his companions the Wakwafi
stare.
'Koos' (chief), he began, 'Koos-y-Pagete!
Koos-y-umcool! (Chief from of old -- mighty chief) Koos! Baba! (father)
Macumazahn, old hunter, slayer of elephants, eater up of lions, clever
one! watchful one! brave one! quick one! whose shot never misses, who
strikes straight home, who grasps a hand and holds it to the death (i.e. is
a true friend) Koos! Baba! Wise is the voice of our people that says,
"Mountain never meets with mountain, but at daybreak or at even man shall
meet again with man." Behold! a messenger came up from Natal, "Macumazahn
is dead!" cried he. "The land knows Macumazahn no more." That is years
ago. And now, behold, now in this strange place of stinks I find
Macumazahn, my friend. There is no room for doubt. The brush of the old
jackal has gone a little grey; but is not his eye as keen, and are not his
teeth as sharp? Ha! ha! Macumazahn, mindest thou how thou didst plant the
ball in the eye of the charging buffalo -- mindest thou --'
I had let him run on thus because I saw that his
enthusiasm was producing a marked effect upon the minds of the five
Wakwafi, who appeared to understand something of his talk; but now I
thought it time to put a stop to it, for there is nothing that I hate so
much as this Zulu system of extravagant praising -- 'bongering' as they
call it. 'Silence!' I said. 'Has all thy noisy talk been stopped up since
last I saw thee that it breaks out thus, and sweeps us away? What doest
thou here with these men -- thou whom I left a chief in Zululand? How is
it that thou art far from thine own place, and gathered together with
strangers?'
Umslopogaas leant himself upon the head of his long
battleaxe (which was nothing else but a pole-axe, with a beautiful handle
of rhinoceros horn), and his grim face grew sad.
'My Father,' he answered, 'I have a word to tell thee,
but I cannot speak it before these low people (umfagozana),' and he glanced
at the Wakwafi Askari; 'it is for thine own ear. My Father, this will I
say,' and here his face grew stern again, 'a woman betrayed me to the
death, and covered my name with shame -- ay, my own wife, a round-faced
girl, betrayed me; but I escaped from death; ay, I broke from the very
hands of those who came to slay me. I struck but three blows with this
mine axe Inkosikaas -- surely my Father will remember it -- one to the
right, one to the left, and one in front, and yet I left three men dead.
And then I fled, and, as my Father knows, even now that I am old my feet
are as the feet of the Sassaby 2, and there
breathes not the man who, by running, can touch me again when once I have
bounded from his side. On I sped, and after me came the messengers of
death, and their voice was as the voice of dogs that hunt. From my own
kraal I flew, and, as I passed, she who had betrayed me was drawing water
from the spring. I fleeted by her like the shadow of Death, and as I went
I smote with mine axe, and lo! her head fell: it fell into the water pan.
Then I fled north. Day after day I journeyed on; for three moons I
journeyed, resting not, stopping not, but running on towards forgetfulness,
till I met the party of the white hunter who is now dead, and am come
hither with his servants. And nought have I brought with me. I who was
high-born, ay, of the blood of Chaka, the great king -- a chief, and a
captain of the regiment of the Nkomabakosi -- am a wanderer in strange
places, a man without a kraal. Nought have I brought save this mine axe; of
all my belongings this remains alone. They have divided my cattle; they
have taken my wives; and my children know my face no more. Yet with this
axe' -- and he swung the formidable weapon round his head, making the air
hiss as he clove it -- 'will I cut another path to fortune. I have
spoken.'
I shook my head at him. 'Umslopogaas,' I said, 'I know
thee from of old. Ever ambitious, ever plotting to be great, I fear me
that thou hast overreached thyself at last. Years ago, when thou wouldst
have plotted against Cetywayo, son of Panda, I warned thee, and thou didst
listen. But now, when I was not by thee to stay thy hand, thou hast dug a
pit for thine own feet to fall in. Is it not so? But what is done is
done. Who can make the dead tree green, or gaze again upon last year's
light? Who can recall the spoken word, or bring back the spirit of the
fallen? That which Time swallows comes not up again. Let it be
forgotten!
'And now, behold, Umslopogaas, I know thee for a great
warrior and a brave man, faithful to the death. Even in Zululand, where
all the men are brave, they called thee the "Slaughterer", and at night
told stories round the fire of thy strength and deeds. Hear me now. Thou
seest this great man, my friend' -- and I pointed to Sir Henry; 'he also is
a warrior as great as thou, and, strong as thou art, he could throw thee
over his shoulder. Incubu is his name. And thou seest this one also; him
with the round stomach, the shining eye, and the pleasant face. Bougwan
(glass eye) is his name, and a good man is he and a true, being of a
curious tribe who pass their life upon the water, and live in floating
kraals.
'Now, we three whom thou seest would travel inland, past
Dongo Egere, the great white mountain (Mt Kenia), and far into the unknown
beyond. We know not what we shall find there; we go to hunt and seek
adventures, and new places, being tired of sitting still, with the same old
things around us. Wilt thou come with us? To thee shall be given command
of all our servants; but what shall befall thee, that I know not. Once
before we three journeyed thus, in search of adventure, and we took with us
a man such as thou -- one Umbopa; and, behold, we left him the king of a
great country, with twenty Impis (regiments), each of 3,000 plumed
warriors, waiting on his word. How it shall go with thee, I know not;
mayhap death awaits thee and us. Wilt thou throw thyself to Fortune and
come, or fearest thou, Umslopogaas?'
The great man smiled. 'Thou art not altogether right,
Macumazahn,' he said; 'I have plotted in my time, but it was not ambition
that led me to my fall; but, shame on me that I should have to say it, a
fair woman's face. Let it pass. So we are going to see something like the
old times again, Macumazahn, when we fought and hunted in Zululand? Ay, I
will come. Come life, come death, what care I, so that the blows fall fast
and the blood runs red? I grow old, I grow old, and I have not fought
enough! And yet am I a warrior among warriors; see my scars' -- and he
pointed to countless cicatrices, stabs and cuts, that marked the skin of
his chest and legs and arms. 'See the hole in my head; the brains gushed
out therefrom, yet did I slay him who smote, and live. Knowest thou how
many men I have slain, in fair hand-to-hand combat, Macumazahn? See, here
is the tale of them' -- and he pointed to long rows of notches cut in the
rhinoceros-horn handle of his axe. 'Number them, Macumazahn -- one hundred
and three -- and I have never counted but those whom I have ripped open
3, nor have I reckoned those whom another man
had struck.'
'Be silent,' I said, for I saw that he was getting the
blood-fever on him; 'be silent; well art thou called the "Slaughterer". We
would not hear of thy deeds of blood. Remember, if thou comest with us, we
fight not save in self-defence. Listen, we need servants. These men,' and
I pointed to the Wakwafi, who had retired a little way during our 'indaba'
(talk), 'say they will not come.'
'Will not come!' shouted Umslopogaas; 'where is the dog
who says he will not come when my Father orders? Here, thou' -- and with a
single bound he sprang upon the Wakwafi with whom I had first spoken, and,
seizing him by the arm, dragged him towards us. 'Thou dog!' he said, giving
the terrified man a shake, 'didst thou say that thou wouldst not go with my
Father? Say it once more and I will choke thee' -- and his long fingers
closed round his throat as he said it -- 'thee, and those with thee. Hast
thou forgotten how I served thy brother?'
'Nay, we will come with the white man,' gasped the
man.
'White man!' went on Umslopogaas, in simulated fury,
which a very little provocation would have made real enough; 'of whom
speakest thou, insolent dog?'
'Nay, we will go with the great chief.'
'So!' said Umslopogaas, in a quiet voice, as he suddenly
released his hold, so that the man fell backward. 'I thought you
would.'
'That man Umslopogaas seems to have a curious moral
ascendency over his companions,' Good afterwards remarked thoughtfully.
CHAPTER II
THE BLACK HAND
In due course we left Lamu, and ten days afterwards we
found ourselves at a spot called Charra, on the Tana River, having gone
through many adventures which need not be recorded here. Amongst other
things we visited a ruined city, of which there are many on this coast, and
which must once, to judge from their extent and the numerous remains of
mosques and stone houses, have been very populous places. These ruined
cities are immeasurably ancient, having, I believe, been places of wealth
and importance as far back as the Old Testament times, when they were
centres of trade with India and elsewhere. But their glory has departed
now -- the slave trade has finished them -- and where wealthy merchants
from all parts of the then civilized world stood and bargained in the
crowded market-places, the lion holds his court at night, and instead of
the chattering of slaves and the eager voices of the bidders, his awful
note goes echoing down the ruined corridors. At this particular place we
discovered on a mound, covered up with rank growth and rubbish, two of the
most beautiful stone doorways that it is possible to conceive. The carving
on them was simply exquisite, and I only regret that we had no means of
getting them away. No doubt they had once been the entrances to a palace,
of which, however, no traces were now to be seen, though probably its ruins
lay under the rising mound.
Gone! quite gone! the way that everything must go. Like
the nobles and the ladies who lived within their gates, these cities have
had their day, and now they are as Babylon and Nineveh, and as London and
Paris will one day be. Nothing may endure. That is the inexorable law.
Men and women, empires and cities, thrones, principalities, and powers,
mountains, rivers, and unfathomed seas, worlds, spaces, and universes, all
have their day, and all must go. In this ruined and forgotten place the
moralist may behold a symbol of the universal destiny. For this system of
ours allows no room for standing still -- nothing can loiter on the road
and check the progress of things upwards towards Life, or the rush of
things downwards towards Death. The stern policeman Fate moves us and them
on, on, uphill and downhill and across the level; there is no resting-place
for the weary feet, till at last the abyss swallows us, and from the shores
of the Transitory we are hurled into the sea of the Eternal.
At Charra we had a violent quarrel with the headman of
the bearers we had hired to go as far as this, and who now wished to extort
large extra payment from us. In the result he threatened to set the Masai
-- about whom more anon -- on to us. That night he, with all our hired
bearers, ran away, stealing most of the goods which had been entrusted to
them to carry. Luckily, however, they had not happened to steal our
rifles, ammunition, and personal effects; not because of any delicacy of
feeling on their part, but owing to the fact that they chanced to be in the
charge of the five Wakwafis. After that, it was clear to us that we had
had enough of caravans and of bearers. Indeed, we had not much left for a
caravan to carry. And yet, how were we to get on?
It was Good who solved the question. 'Here is water,'
he said, pointing to the Tana River; 'and yesterday I saw a party of
natives hunting hippopotami in canoes. I understand that Mr Mackenzie's
mission station is on the Tana River. Why not get into canoes and paddle
up to it?'
This brilliant suggestion was, needless to say, received
with acclamation; and I instantly set to work to buy suitable canoes from
the surrounding natives. I succeeded after a delay of three days in
obtaining two large ones, each hollowed out of a single log of some light
wood, and capable of holding six people and baggage. For these two canoes
we had to pay nearly all our remaining cloth, and also many other
articles.
On the day following our purchase of the two canoes we
effected a start. In the first canoe were Good, Sir Henry, and three of
our Wakwafi followers; in the second myself, Umslopogaas, and the other two
Wakwafis. As our course lay upstream, we had to keep four paddles at work
in each canoe, which meant that the whole lot of us, except Good, had to
row away like galley-slaves; and very exhausting work it was. I say,
except Good, for, of course, the moment that Good got into a boat his foot
was on his native heath, and he took command of the party. And certainly
he worked us. On shore Good is a gentle, mild-mannered man, and given to
jocosity; but, as we found to our cost, Good in a boat was a perfect demon.
To begin with, he knew all about it, and we didn't. On all nautical
subjects, from the torpedo fittings of a man-of-war down to the best way of
handling the paddle of an African canoe, he was a perfect mine of
information, which, to say the least of it, we were not. Also his ideas of
discipline were of the sternest, and, in short, he came the royal naval
officer over us pretty considerably, and paid us out amply for all the
chaff we were wont to treat him to on land; but, on the other hand, I am
bound to say that he managed the boats admirably.
After the first day Good succeeded, with the help of
some cloth and a couple of poles, in rigging up a sail in each canoe, which
lightened our labours not a little. But the current ran very strong
against us, and at the best we were not able to make more than twenty miles
a day. Our plan was to start at dawn, and paddle along till about
half-past ten, by which time the sun got too hot to allow of further
exertion. Then we moored our canoes to the bank, and ate our frugal meal;
after which we ate or otherwise amused ourselves till about three o'clock,
when we again started, and rowed till within an hour of sundown, when we
called a halt for the night. On landing in the evening, Good would at once
set to work, with the help of the Askari, to build a little 'scherm', or
small enclosure, fenced with thorn bushes, and to light a fire. I, with
Sir Henry and Umslopogaas, would go out to shoot something for the pot.
Generally this was an easy task, for all sorts of game abounded on the
banks of the Tana. One night Sir Henry shot a young cow-giraffe, of which
the marrow-bones were excellent; on another I got a couple of waterbuck
right and left; and once, to his own intense satisfaction, Umslopogaas
(who, like most Zulus, was a vile shot with a rifle) managed to kill a fine
fat eland with a Martini I had lent him. Sometimes we varied our food by
shooting some guinea-fowl, or bush-bustard (paau) -- both of which were
numerous -- with a shot-gun, or by catching a supply of beautiful yellow
fish, with which the waters of the Tana swarmed, and which form, I believe,
one of the chief food-supplies of the crocodiles.
Three days after our start an ominous incident occurred.
We were just drawing in to the bank to make our camp as usual for the
night, when we caught sight of a figure standing on a little knoll not
forty yards away, and intensely watching our approach. One glance was
sufficient -- although I was personally unacquainted with the tribe -- to
tell me that he was a Masai Elmoran, or young warrior. Indeed, had I had
any doubts, they would have quickly been dispelled by the terrified
ejaculation of 'Masai!' that burst simultaneously from the lips of
our Wakwafi followers, who are, as I think I have said, themselves bastard
Masai.
And what a figure he presented as he stood there in his
savage war-gear! Accustomed as I have been to savages all my life, I do
not think that I have ever before seen anything quite so ferocious or
awe-inspiring. To begin with, the man was enormously tall, quite as tall
as Umslopogaas, I should say, and beautifully, though somewhat slightly,
shaped; but with the face of a devil. In his right hand he held a spear
about five and a half feet long, the blade being two and a half feet in
length, by nearly three inches in width, and having an iron spike at the
end of the handle that measured more than a foot. On his left arm was a
large and well-made elliptical shield of buffalo hide, on which were
painted strange heraldic-looking devices. On his shoulders was a huge cape
of hawk's feathers, and round his neck was a 'naibere', or strip of cotton,
about seventeen feet long, by one and a half broad, with a stripe of colour
running down the middle of it. The tanned goatskin robe, which formed his
ordinary attire in times of peace, was tied lightly round his waist, so as
to serve the purposes of a belt, and through it were stuck, on the right
and left sides respectively, his short pear-shaped sime, or sword, which is
made of a single piece of steel, and carried in a wooden sheath, and an
enormous knobkerrie. But perhaps the most remarkable feature of his attire
consisted of a headdress of ostrich-feathers, which was fixed on the chin,
and passed in front of the ears to the forehead, and, being shaped like an
ellipse, completely framed the face, so that the diabolical countenance
appeared to project from a sort of feather fire-screen. Round the ankles he
wore black fringes of hair, and, projecting from the upper portion of the
calves, to which they were attached, were long spurs like spikes, from
which flowed down tufts of the beautiful black and waving hair of the
Colobus monkey. Such was the elaborate array of the Masai Elmoran who
stood watching the approach of our two canoes, but it is one which, to be
appreciated, must be seen; only those who see it do not often live to
describe it. Of course I could not make out all these details of his full
dress on the occasion of this my first introduction, being, indeed, amply
taken up with the consideration of the general effect, but I had plenty of
subsequent opportunities of becoming acquainted with the items that went to
make it up.
Whilst we were hesitating what to do, the Masai warrior
drew himself up in a dignified fashion, shook his huge spear at us, and,
turning, vanished on the further side of the slope.
'Hulloa!' holloaed Sir Henry from the other boat; 'our
friend the caravan leader has been as good as his word, and set the Masai
after us. Do you think it will be safe to go ashore?'
I did not think it would be at all safe; but, on the
other hand, we had no means of cooking in the canoes, and nothing that we
could eat raw, so it was difficult to know what to do. At last Umslopogaas
simplified matters by volunteering to go and reconnoitre, which he did,
creeping off into the bush like a snake, while we hung off in the stream
waiting for him. In half an hour he returned, and told us that there was
not a Masai to be seen anywhere about, but that he had discovered a spot
where they had recently been encamped, and that from various indications he
judged that they must have moved on an hour or so before; the man we saw
having, no doubt, been left to report upon our movements.
Thereupon we landed; and, having posted a sentry,
proceeded to cook and eat our evening meal. This done, we took the
situation into our serious consideration. Of course, it was possible that
the apparition of the Masai warrior had nothing to do with us, that he was
merely one of a band bent upon some marauding and murdering expedition
against another tribe. But when we recalled the threat of the caravan
leader, and reflected on the ominous way in which the warrior had shaken
his spear at us, this did not appear very probable. On the contrary, what
did seem probable was that the party was after us and awaiting a favourable
opportunity to attack us. This being so, there were two things that we
could do -- one of which was to go on, and the other to go back. The
latter idea was, however, rejected at once, it being obvious that we should
encounter as many dangers in retreat as in advance; and, besides, we had
made up our minds to journey onwards at any price. Under these
circumstances, however, we did not consider it safe to sleep ashore, so we
got into our canoes, and, paddling out into the middle of the stream, which
was not very wide here, managed to anchor them by means of big stones
fastened to ropes made of coconut-fibre, of which there were several
fathoms in each canoe.
Here the mosquitoes nearly ate us up alive, and this,
combined with anxiety as to our position, effectually prevented me from
sleeping as the others were doing, notwithstanding the attacks of the
aforesaid Tana mosquitoes. And so I lay awake, smoking and reflecting on
many things, but, being of a practical turn of mind, chiefly on how we were
to give those Masai villains the slip. It was a beautiful moonlight night,
and, notwithstanding the mosquitoes, and the great risk we were running
from fever from sleeping in such a spot, and forgetting that I had the
cramp very badly in my right leg from squatting in a constrained position
in the canoe, and that the Wakwafi who was sleeping beside me smelt
horribly, I really began to enjoy myself. The moonbeams played upon the
surface of the running water that speeded unceasingly past us towards the
sea, like men's lives towards the grave, till it glittered like a wide
sheet of silver, that is in the open where the trees threw no shadows.
Near the banks, however, it was very dark, and the night wind sighed sadly
in the reeds. To our left, on the further side of the river, was a little
sandy bay which was clear of trees, and here I could make out the forms of
numerous antelopes advancing to the water, till suddenly there came an
ominous roar, whereupon they all made off hurriedly. Then after a pause I
caught sight of the massive form of His Majesty the Lion, coming down to
drink his fill after meat. Presently he moved on, then came a crashing of
the reeds about fifty yards above us, and a few minutes later a huge black
mass rose out of the water, about twenty yards from me, and snorted. It was
the head of a hippopotamus. Down it went without a sound, only to rise
again within five yards of where I sat. This was decidedly too near to be
comfortable, more especially as the hippopotamus was evidently animated by
intense curiosity to know what on earth our canoes were. He opened his
great mouth, to yawn, I suppose, and gave me an excellent view of his
ivories; and I could not help reflecting how easily he could crunch up our
frail canoe with a single bite. Indeed, I had half a mind to give him a
ball from my eight-bore, but on reflection determined to let him alone
unless he actually charged the boat. Presently he sank again as
noiselessly as before, and I saw no more of him. Just then, on looking
towards the bank on our right, I fancied that I caught sight of a dark
figure flitting between the tree trunks. I have very keen sight, and I was
almost sure that I saw something, but whether it was bird, beast, or man I
could not say. At the moment, however, a dark cloud passed over the moon,
and I saw no more of it. Just then, too, although all the other sounds of
the forest had ceased, a species of horned owl with which I was well
acquainted began to hoot with great persistency. After that, save for the
rustling of trees and reeds when the wind caught them, there was complete
silence.
But somehow, in the most unaccountable way, I had
suddenly become nervous. There was no particular reason why I should be,
beyond the ordinary reasons which surround the Central African traveller,
and yet I undoubtedly was. If there is one thing more than another of
which I have the most complete and entire scorn and disbelief, it is of
presentiments, and yet here I was all of a sudden filled with and possessed
by a most undoubted presentiment of approaching evil. I would not give way
to it, however, although I felt the cold perspiration stand out upon my
forehead. I would not arouse the others. Worse and worse I grew, my pulse
fluttered like a dying man's, my nerves thrilled with the horrible sense of
impotent terror which anybody who is subject to nightmare will be familiar
with, but still my will triumphed over my fears, and I lay quiet (for I was
half sitting, half lying, in the bow of the canoe), only turning my face so
as to command a view of Umslopogaas and the two Wakwafi who were sleeping
alongside of and beyond me.
In the distance I heard a hippopotamus splash faintly,
then the owl hooted again in a kind of unnatural screaming note 4, and the wind began to moan plaintively through
the trees, making a heart-chilling music. Above was the black bosom of the
cloud, and beneath me swept the black flood of the water, and I felt as
though I and Death were utterly alone between them. It was very
desolate.
Suddenly my blood seemed to freeze in my veins, and my
heart to stand still. Was it fancy, or were we moving? I turned my eyes
to look for the other canoe which should be alongside of us. I could not
see it, but instead I saw a lean and clutching black hand lifting itself
above the gunwale of the little boat. Surely it was a nightmare! At the
same instant a dim but devilish-looking face appeared to rise out of the
water, and then came a lurch of the canoe, the quick flash of a knife, and
an awful yell from the Wakwafi who was sleeping by my side (the same poor
fellow whose odour had been annoying me), and something warm spurted into
my face. In an instant the spell was broken; I knew that it was no
nightmare, but that we were attacked by swimming Masai. Snatching at the
first weapon that came to hand, which happened to be Umslopogaas'
battleaxe, I struck with all my force in the direction in which I had seen
the flash of the knife. The blow fell upon a man's arm, and, catching it
against the thick wooden gunwale of the canoe, completely severed it from
the body just above the wrist. As for its owner, he uttered no sound or
cry. Like a ghost he came, and like a ghost he went, leaving behind him a
bloody hand still gripping a great knife, or rather a short sword, that was
buried in the heart of our poor servant.
Instantly there arose a hubbub and confusion, and I
fancied, rightly or wrongly, that I made out several dark heads gliding
away towards the right-hand bank, whither we were rapidly drifting, for the
rope by which we were moored had been severed with a knife. As soon as I
had realized this fact, I also realized that the scheme had been to cut the
boat loose so that it should drift on to the right bank (as it would have
done with the natural swing of the current), where no doubt a party of
Masai were waiting to dig their shovel-headed spears into us. Seizing one
paddle myself, I told Umslopogaas to take another (for the remaining Askari
was too frightened and bewildered to be of any use), and together we rowed
vigorously out towards the middle of the stream; and not an instant too
soon, for in another minute we should have been aground, and then there
would have been an end of us.
As soon as we were well out, we set to work to paddle
the canoe upstream again to where the other was moored; and very hard and
dangerous work it was in the dark, and with nothing but the notes of Good's
stentorian shouts, which he kept firing off at intervals like a fog-horn,
to guide us. But at last we fetched up, and were thankful to find that
they had not been molested at all. No doubt the owner of the same hand that
severed our rope should have severed theirs also, but was led away from his
purpose by an irresistible inclination to murder when he got the chance,
which, while it cost us a man and him his hand, undoubtedly saved all the
rest of us from massacre. Had it not been for that ghastly apparition over
the side of the boat -- an apparition that I shall never forget till my
dying hour -- the canoe would undoubtedly have drifted ashore before I
realized what had happened, and this history would never have been written
by me.
CHAPTER III
THE MISSION STATION
We made the remains of our rope fast to the other canoe,
and sat waiting for the dawn and congratulating ourselves upon our merciful
escape, which really seemed to result more from the special favour of
Providence than from our own care or prowess. At last it came, and I have
not often been more grateful to see the light, though so far as my canoe
was concerned it revealed a ghastly sight. There in the bottom of the
little boat lay the unfortunate Askari, the sime, or sword, in his bosom,
and the severed hand gripping the handle. I could not bear the sight, so
hauling up the stone which had served as an anchor to the other canoe, we
made it fast to the murdered man and dropped him overboard, and down he
went to the bottom, leaving nothing but a train of bubbles behind him.
Alas! when our time comes, most of us like him leave nothing but bubbles
behind, to show that we have been, and the bubbles soon burst. The hand of
his murderer we threw into the stream, where it slowly sank. The sword, of
which the handle was ivory, inlaid with gold (evidently Arab work), I kept
and used as a hunting-knife, and very useful it proved.
Then, a man having been transferred to my canoe, we once
more started on in very low spirits and not feeling at all comfortable as
to the future, but fondly hoping to arrive at the 'Highlands' station by
night. To make matters worse, within an hour of sunrise it came on to rain
in torrents, wetting us to the skin, and even necessitating the occasional
baling of the canoes, and as the rain beat down the wind we could not use
the sails, and had to get along as best as we could with our paddles.
At eleven o'clock we halted on an open piece of ground
on the left bank of the river, and, the rain abating a little, managed to
make a fire and catch and broil some fish. We did not dare to wander about
to search for game. At two o'clock we got off again, taking a supply of
broiled fish with us, and shortly afterwards the rain came on harder than
ever. Also the river began to get exceedingly difficult to navigate on
account of the numerous rocks, reaches of shallow water, and the increased
force of the current; so that it soon became clear to us that we should not
reach the Rev. Mackenzie's hospitable roof that night -- a prospect that
did not tend to enliven us. Toil as we would, we could not make more than
an average of a mile an hour, and at five o'clock in the afternoon (by
which time we were all utterly worn out) we reckoned that we were still
quite ten miles below the station. This being so, we set to work to make
the best arrangements we could for the night. After our recent experience,
we simply did not dare to land, more especially as the banks of the Tana
were clothed with dense bush that would have given cover to five thousand
Masai, and at first I thought that we were going to have another night of
it in the canoes. Fortunately, however, we espied a little rocky islet,
not more than fifteen miles or so square, situated nearly in the middle of
the river. For this we paddled, and, making fast the canoes, landed and
made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit, which was very
uncomfortable indeed. As for the weather, it continued to be simply vile,
the rain coming down in sheets till we were chilled to the marrow, and
utterly preventing us from lighting a fire. There was, however, one
consoling circumstance about this rain; our Askari declared that nothing
would induce the Masai to make an attack in it, as they intensely disliked
moving about in the wet, perhaps, as Good suggested, because they hate the
idea of washing. We ate some insipid and sodden cold fish -- that is, with
the exception of Umslopogaas, who, like most Zulus, cannot bear fish -- and
took a pull of brandy, of which we fortunately had a few bottles left, and
then began what, with one exception -- when we same three white men nearly
perished of cold on the snow of Sheba's Breast in the course of our journey
to Kukuanaland -- was, I think, the most trying night I ever experienced.
It seemed absolutely endless, and once or twice I feared that two of the
Askari would have died of the wet, cold, and exposure. Indeed, had it not
been for timely doses of brandy I am sure that they would have died, for no
African people can stand much exposure, which first paralyses and then
kills them. I could see that even that iron old warrior Umslopogaas felt
it keenly; though, in strange contrast to the Wakwafis, who groaned and
bemoaned their fate unceasingly, he never uttered a single complaint. To
make matters worse, about one in the morning we again heard the owl's
ominous hooting, and had at once to prepare ourselves for another attack;
though, if it had been attempted, I do not think that we could have offered
a very effective resistance. But either the owl was a real one this time,
or else the Masai were themselves too miserable to think of offensive
operations, which, indeed, they rarely, if ever, undertake in bush veldt.
At any rate, we saw nothing of them.
At last the dawn came gliding across the water, wrapped
in wreaths of ghostly mist, and, with the daylight, the rain ceased; and
then, out came the glorious sun, sucking up the mists and warming the chill
air. Benumbed, and utterly exhausted, we dragged ourselves to our feet,
and went and stood in the bright rays, and were thankful for them. I can
quite understand how it is that primitive people become sun worshippers,
especially if their conditions of life render them liable to exposure.
In half an hour more we were once again making fair
progress with the help of a good wind. Our spirits had returned with the
sunshine, and we were ready to laugh at difficulties and dangers that had
been almost crushing on the previous day.
And so we went on cheerily till about eleven o'clock.
Just as we were thinking of halting as usual, to rest and try to shoot
something to eat, a sudden bend in the river brought us in sight of a
substantial-looking European house with a veranda round it, splendidly
situated upon a hill, and surrounded by a high stone wall with a ditch on
the outer side. Right against and overshadowing the house was an enormous
pine, the tope of which we had seen through a glass for the last two days,
but of course without knowing that it marked the site of the mission
station. I was the first to see the house, and could not restrain myself
from giving a hearty cheer, in which the others, including the natives,
joined lustily. There was no thought of halting now. On we laboured, for,
unfortunately, though the house seemed quite near, it was still a long way
off by river, until at last, by one o'clock, we found ourselves at the
bottom of the slope on which the building stood. Running the canoes to the
bank, we disembarked, and were just hauling them up on to the shore, when
we perceived three figures, dressed in ordinary English-looking clothes,
hurrying down through a grove of trees to meet us.
'A gentleman, a lady, and a little girl,' ejaculated
Good, after surveying the trio through his eyeglass, 'walking in a
civilized fashion, through a civilized garden, to meet us in this place.
Hang me, if this isn't the most curious thing we have seen yet!'
Good was right: it certainly did seem odd and out of
place -- more like a scene out of a dream or an Italian opera than a real
tangible fact; and the sense of unreality was not lessened when we heard
ourselves addressed in good broad Scotch, which, however, I cannot
reproduce.
'How do you do, sirs,' said Mr Mackenzie, a grey-haired,
angular man, with a kindly face and red cheeks; 'I hope I see you very
well. My natives told me an hour ago they spied two canoes with white men
in them coming up the river; so we have just come down to meet you.'
'And it is very glad that we are to see a white face
again, let me tell you,' put in the lady -- a charming and refined-looking
person.
We took off our hats in acknowledgment, and proceeded to
introduce ourselves.
'And now,' said Mr Mackenzie, 'you must all be hungry
and weary; so come on, gentlemen, come on, and right glad we are to see
you. The last white who visited us was Alphonse -- you will see Alphonse
presently -- and that was a year ago.'
Meanwhile we had been walking up the slope of the hill,
the lower portion of which was fenced off, sometimes with quince fences and
sometimes with rough stone walls, into Kaffir gardens, just now full of
crops of mealies, pumpkins, potatoes, etc. In the corners of these gardens
were groups of neat mushroom-shaped huts, occupied by Mr Mackenzie's
mission natives, whose women and children came pouring out to meet us as we
walked. Through the centre of the gardens ran the roadway up which we were
walking. It was bordered on each side by a line of orange trees, which,
although they had only been planted ten years, had in the lovely climate of
the uplands below Mt Kenia, the base of which is about 5,000 feet above the
coastline level, already grown to imposing proportions, and were positively
laden with golden fruit. After a stiffish climb of a quarter of a mile or
so -- for the hillside was steep -- we came to a splendid quince fence,
also covered with fruit, which enclosed, Mr Mackenzie told us, a space of
about four acres of ground that contained his private garden, house,
church, and outbuildings, and, indeed, the whole hilltop. And what a garden
it was! I have always loved a good garden, and I could have thrown up my
hands for joy when I saw Mr Mackenzie's. First there were rows upon rows of
standard European fruit-trees, all grafted; for on top of this hill the
climate was so temperate that nearly all the English vegetables, trees, and
flowers flourished luxuriantly, even including several varieties of the
apple, which, generally, runs to wood in a warm climate and obstinately
refuses to fruit. Then there were strawberries and tomatoes (such
tomatoes!), and melons and cucumbers, and, indeed, every sort of vegetable
and fruit.
'Well, you have something like a garden!' I said,
overpowered with admiration not untouched by envy.
'Yes,' answered the missionary, 'it is a very good
garden, and has well repaid my labour; but it is the climate that I have to
thank. If you stick a peach-stone into the ground it will bear fruit the
fourth year, and a rose-cutting will bloom in a year. It is a lovely
clime.'
Just then we came to a ditch about ten feet wide, and
full of water, on the other side of which was a loopholed stone wall eight
feet high, and with sharp flints plentifully set in mortar on the
coping.
'There,' said Mr Mackenzie, pointing to the ditch and
wall, 'this is my magnum opus; at least, this and the church, which is the
other side of the house. It took me and twenty natives two years to dig
the ditch and build the wall, but I never felt safe till it was done; and
now I can defy all the savages in Africa, for the spring that fills the
ditch is inside the wall, and bubbles out at the top of the hill winter and
summer alike, and I always keep a store of four months' provision in the
house.'
Crossing over a plank and through a very narrow opening
in the wall, we entered into what Mrs Mackenzie called her domain --
namely, the flower garden, the beauty of which is really beyond my power to
describe. I do not think I ever saw such roses, gardenias, or camellias
(all reared from seeds or cuttings sent from England); and there was also a
patch given up to a collection of bulbous roots mostly collected by Miss
Flossie, Mr Mackenzie's little daughter, from the surrounding country, some
of which were surpassingly beautiful. In the middle of this garden, and
exactly opposite the veranda, a beautiful fountain of clear water bubbled
up from the ground, and fell into a stone-work basin which had been
carefully built to receive it, whence the overflow found its way by means
of a drain to the moat round the outer wall, this moat in its turn serving
as a reservoir, whence an unfailing supply of water was available to
irrigate all the gardens below. The house itself, a massively built
single-storied building, was roofed with slabs of stone, and had a handsome
veranda in front. It was built on three sides of a square, the fourth side
being taken up by the kitchens, which stood separate from the house -- a
very good plan in a hot country. In the centre of this square thus formed
was, perhaps, the most remarkable object that we had yet seen in this
charming place, and that was a single tree of the conifer tribe, varieties
of which grow freely on the highlands of this part of Africa. This
splendid tree, which Mr Mackenzie informed us was a landmark for fifty
miles round, and which we had ourselves seen for the last forty miles of
our journey, must have been nearly three hundred feet in height, the trunk
measuring about sixteen feet in diameter at a yard from the ground. For
some seventy feet it rose a beautiful tapering brown pillar without a
single branch, but at that height splendid dark green boughs, which, looked
at from below, had the appearance of gigantic fern-leaves, sprang out
horizontally from the trunk, projecting right over the house and
flower-garden, to both of which they furnished a grateful proportion of
shade, without -- being so high up -- offering any impediment to the
passage of light and air.
'What a beautiful tree!' exclaimed Sir Henry.
'Yes, you are right; it is a beautiful tree. There is
not another like it in all the country round, that I know of,' answered Mr
Mackenzie. 'I call it my watch tower. As you see, I have a rope ladder
fixed to the lowest bough; and if I want to see anything that is going on
within fifteen miles or so, all I have to do is to run up it with a
spyglass. But you must be hungry, and I am sure the dinner is cooked.
Come in, my friends; it is but a rough place, but well enough for these
savage parts; and I can tell you what, we have got -- a French cook.' And
he led the way on to the veranda.
As I was following him, and wondering what on earth he
could mean by this, there suddenly appeared, through the door that opened
on to the veranda from the house, a dapper little man, dressed in a neat
blue cotton suit, with shoes made of tanned hide, and remarkable for a
bustling air and most enormous black mustachios, shaped into an upward
curve, and coming to a point for all the world like a pair of
buffalo-horns.
'Madame bids me for to say that dinnar is sarved.
Messieurs, my compliments;' then suddenly perceiving Umslopogaas, who was
loitering along after us and playing with his battleaxe, he threw up his
hands in astonishment. 'Ah, mais quel homme!' he ejaculated in French,
'quel sauvage affreux! Take but note of his huge choppare and the great
pit in his head.'
'Ay,' said Mr Mackenzie; 'what are you talking about,
Alphonse?'
'Talking about!' replied the little Frenchman, his eyes
still fixed upon Umslopogaas, whose general appearance seemed to fascinate
him; 'why I talk of him' -- and he rudely pointed -- 'of ce monsieur
noir.'
At this everybody began to laugh, and Umslopogaas,
perceiving that he was the object of remark, frowned ferociously, for he
had a most lordly dislike of anything like a personal liberty.
'Parbleu!' said Alphonse, 'he is angered -- he makes the
grimace. I like not his air. I vanish.' And he did with considerable
rapidity.
Mr Mackenzie joined heartily in the shout of laughter
which we indulged in. 'He is a queer character -- Alphonse,' he said. 'By
and by I will tell you his history; in the meanwhile let us try his
cooking.'
'Might I ask,' said Sir Henry, after we had eaten a most
excellent dinner, 'how you came to have a French cook in these wilds?'
'Oh,' answered Mrs Mackenzie, 'he arrived here of his
own accord about a year ago, and asked to be taken into our service. He had
got into some trouble in France, and fled to Zanzibar, where he found an
application had been made by the French Government for his extradition.
Whereupon he rushed off up-country, and fell in, when nearly starved, with
our caravan of men, who were bringing us our annual supply of goods, and
was brought on here. You should get him to tell you the story.'
When dinner was over we lit our pipes, and Sir Henry
proceeded to give our host a description of our journey up here, over which
he looked very grave.
'It is evident to me,' he said, 'that those rascally
Masai are following you, and I am very thankful that you have reached this
house in safety. I do not think that they will dare to attack you here.
It is unfortunate, though, that nearly all my men have gone down to the
coast with ivory and goods. There are two hundred of them in the caravan,
and the consequence is that I have not more than twenty men available for
defensive purposes in case they should attack us. But, still, I will just
give a few orders;' and, calling a black man who was loitering about
outside in the garden, he went to the window, and addressed him in a
Swahili dialect. The man listened, and then saluted and departed.
'I am sure I devoutly hope that we shall bring no such
calamity upon you,' said I, anxiously, when he had taken his seat again.
'Rather than bring those bloodthirsty villains about your ears, we will
move on and take our chance.'
'You will do nothing of the sort. If the Masai come,
they come, and there is an end on it; and I think we can give them a pretty
warm greeting. I would not show any man the door for all the Masai in the
world.'
'That reminds me,' I said, 'the Consul at Lamu told me
that he had had a letter from you, in which you said that a man had arrived
here who reported that he had come across a white people in the interior.
Do you think that there was any truth in his story? I ask, because I have
once or twice in my life heard rumours from natives who have come down from
the far north of the existence of such a race.'
Mr Mackenzie, by way of answer, went out of the room and
returned, bringing with him a most curious sword. It was long, and all the
blade, which was very thick and heavy, was to within a quarter of an inch
of the cutting edge worked into an ornamental pattern exactly as we work
soft wood with a fret-saw, the steel, however, being invariably pierced in
such a way as not to interfere with the strength of the sword. This in
itself was sufficiently curious, but what was still more so was that all
the edges of the hollow spaces cut through the substance of the blade were
most beautifully inlaid with gold, which was in some way that I cannot
understand welded on to the steel 5.
'There,' said Mr Mackenzie, 'did you ever see a sword
like that?'
We all examined it and shook our heads.
'Well, I have got it to show you, because this is what
the man who said he had seen the white people brought with him, and because
it does more or less give an air of truth to what I should otherwise have
set down as a lie. Look here; I will tell you all that I know about the
matter, which is not much. One afternoon, just before sunset, I was
sitting on the veranda, when a poor, miserable, starved-looking man came
limping up and squatted down before me. I asked him where he came from and
what he wanted, and thereon he plunged into a long rambling narrative about
how he belonged to a tribe far in the north, and how his tribe was
destroyed by another tribe, and he with a few other survivors driven still
further north past a lake named Laga. Thence, it appears, he made his way
to another lake that lay up in the mountains, "a lake without a bottom" he
called it, and here his wife and brother died of an infectious sickness --
probably smallpox -- whereon the people drove him out of their villages
into the wilderness, where he wandered miserably over mountains for ten
days, after which he got into dense thorn forest, and was one day found
there by some white men who were hunting, and who took him to a
place where all the people were white and lived in stone houses. Here he
remained a week shut up in a house, till one night a man with a white
beard, whom he understood to be a "medicine-man", came and inspected him,
after which he was led off and taken through the thorn forest to the
confines of the wilderness, and given food and this sword (at least so he
said), and turned loose.'
'Well,' said Sir Henry, who had been listening with
breathless interest, 'and what did he do then?'
'Oh! he seems, according to his account, to have gone
through sufferings and hardships innumerable, and to have lived for weeks
on roots and berries, and such things as he could catch and kill. But
somehow he did live, and at last by slow degrees made his way south and
reached this place. What the details of his journey were I never learnt,
for I told him to return on the morrow, bidding one of my headmen look
after him for the night. The headman took him away, but the poor man had
the itch so badly that the headman's wife would not have him in the hut for
fear of catching it, so he was given a blanket and told to sleep outside.
As it happened, we had a lion hanging about here just then, and most
unhappily he winded this unfortunate wanderer, and, springing on him, bit
his head almost off without the people in the hut knowing anything about
it, and there was an end of him and his story about the white people; and
whether or no there is any truth in it is more than I can tell you. What
do you think, Mr Quatermain?'
I shook my head, and answered, 'I don't know. There are
so many queer things hidden away in the heart of this great continent that
I should be sorry to assert that there was no truth in it. Anyhow, we mean
to try and find out. We intend to journey to Lekakisera, and thence, if we
live to get so far, to this Lake Laga; and, if there are any white people
beyond, we will do our best to find them.'
'You are very venturesome people,' said Mr Mackenzie,
with a smile, and the subject dropped.
CHAPTER IV
ALPHONSE AND HIS ANNETTE
After dinner we thoroughly inspected all the
outbuildings and grounds of the station, which I consider the most
successful as well as the most beautiful place of the sort that I have seen
in Africa. We then returned to the veranda, where we found Umslopogaas
taking advantage of this favourable opportunity to clean all the rifles
thoroughly. This was the only work that he ever did or was asked to
do, for as a Zulu chief it was beneath his dignity to work with his hands;
but such as it was he did it very well. It was a curious sight to see the
great Zulu sitting there upon the floor, his battleaxe resting against the
wall behind him, whilst his long aristocratic-looking hands were busily
employed, delicately and with the utmost care, cleaning the mechanism of
the breech-loaders. He had a name for each gun. One -- a double four-bore
belonging to Sir Henry -- was the Thunderer; another, my 500 Express, which
had a peculiarly sharp report, was 'the little one who spoke like a whip';
the Winchester repeaters were 'the women, who talked so fast that you could
not tell one word from another'; the six Martinis were 'the common people';
and so on with them all. It was very curious to hear him addressing each
gun as he cleaned it, as though it were an individual, and in a vein of the
quaintest humour. He did the same with his battle-axe, which he seemed to
look upon as an intimate friend, and to which he would at times talk by the
hour, going over all his old adventures with it -- and dreadful enough some
of them were. By a piece of grim humour, he had named this axe
'Inkosi-kaas', which is the Zulu word for chieftainess. For a long while I
could not make out why he gave it such a name, and at last I asked him,
when he informed me that the axe was very evidently feminine, because of
her womanly habit of prying very deep into things, and that she was clearly
a chieftainess because all men fell down before her, struck dumb at the
sight of her beauty and power. In the same way he would consult
'Inkosi-kaas' if in any dilemma; and when I asked him why he did so, he
informed me it was because she must needs be wise, having 'looked into so
many people's brains'.
I took up the axe and closely examined this formidable
weapon. It was, as I have said, of the nature of a pole-axe. The haft,
made out of an enormous rhinoceros horn, was three feet three inches long,
about an inch and a quarter thick, and with a knob at the end as large as a
Maltese orange, left there to prevent the hand from slipping. This horn
haft, though so massive, was as flexible as cane, and practically
unbreakable; but, to make assurance doubly sure, it was whipped round at
intervals of a few inches with copper wire -- all the parts where the hands
grip being thus treated. Just above where the haft entered the head were
scored a number of little nicks, each nick representing a man killed in
battle with the weapon. The axe itself was made of the most beautiful
steel, and apparently of European manufacture, though Umslopogaas did not
know where it came from, having taken it from the hand of a chief he had
killed in battle many years before. It was not very heavy, the head
weighing two and a half pounds, as nearly as I could judge. The cutting
part was slightly concave in shape -- not convex, as it generally the case
with savage battleaxes -- and sharp as a razor, measuring five and
three-quarter inches across the widest part. From the back of the axe
sprang a stout spike four inches long, for the last two of which it was
hollow, and shaped like a leather punch, with an opening for anything
forced into the hollow at the punch end to be pushed out above -- in fact,
in this respect it exactly resembled a butcher's pole-axe. It was with
this punch end, as we afterwards discovered, that Umslopogaas usually
struck when fighting, driving a neat round hole in his adversary's skull,
and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or sometimes in
a melee. I think he considered the punch a neater and more sportsmanlike
tool, and it was from his habit of pecking at his enemy with it that he got
his name of 'Woodpecker'. Certainly in his hands it was a terribly
efficient one.
Such was Umslopogaas' axe, Inkosi-kaas, the most
remarkable and fatal hand-to-hand weapon that I ever saw, and one which he
cherished as much as his own life. It scarcely ever left his hand except
when he was eating, and then he always sat with it under his leg.
Just as I returned his axe to Umslopogaas, Miss Flossie
came up and took me off to see her collection of flowers, African liliums,
and blooming shrubs, some of which are very beautiful, many of the
varieties being quite unknown to me and also, I believe, to botanical
science. I asked her if she had ever seen or heard of the 'Goya' lily,
which Central African explorers have told me they have occasionally met
with and whose wonderful loveliness has filled them with astonishment.
This lily, which the natives say blooms only once in ten years, flourishes
in the most arid soil. Compared to the size of the bloom, the bulb is
small, generally weighing about four pounds. As for the flower itself
(which I afterwards saw under circumstances likely to impress its
appearance fixedly in my mind), I know not how to describe its beauty and
splendour, or the indescribable sweetness of its perfume. The flower --
for it has only one bloom -- rises from the crown of the bulb on a thick
fleshy and flat-sided stem, the specimen that I saw measured fourteen
inches in diameter, and is somewhat trumpet-shaped like the bloom of an
ordinary 'longiflorum' set vertically. First there is the green sheath,
which in its early stage is not unlike that of a water-lily, but which as
the bloom opens splits into four portions and curls back gracefully towards
the stem. Then comes the bloom itself, a single dazzling arch of white
enclosing another cup of richest velvety crimson, from the heart of which
rises a golden-coloured pistil. I have never seen anything to equal this
bloom in beauty or fragrance, and as I believe it is but little known, I
take the liberty to describe it at length. Looking at it for the first
time I well remember that I realized how even in a flower there dwells
something of the majesty of its Maker. To my great delight Miss Flossie
told me that she knew the flower well and had tried to grow it in her
garden, but without success, adding, however, that as it should be in bloom
at this time of the year she thought that she could procure me a
specimen.
After that I fell to asking her if she was not lonely up
here among all these savage people and without any companions of her own
age.
'Lonely?' she said. 'Oh, indeed no! I am as happy as
the day is long, and besides I have my own companions. Why, I should hate
to be buried in a crowd of white girls all just like myself so that nobody
could tell the difference! Here,' she said, giving her head a little toss,
'I am I; and every native for miles around knows the "Water-lily", -- for
that is what they call me -- and is ready to do what I want, but in the
books that I have read about little girls in England it is not like that.
Everybody thinks them a trouble, and they have to do what their
schoolmistress likes. Oh! it would break my heart to be put in a cage like
that and not to be free -- free as the air.'
'Would you not like to learn?' I asked.
'So I do learn. Father teaches me Latin and French and
arithmetic.'
'And are you never afraid among all these wild men?'
'Afraid? Oh no! they never interfere with me. I think
they believe that I am "Ngai" (of the Divinity) because I am so white and
have fair hair. And look here,' and diving her little hand into the bodice
of her dress she produced a double-barrelled nickel-plated Derringer, 'I
always carry that loaded, and if anybody tried to touch me I should shoot
him. Once I shot a leopard that jumped upon my donkey as I was riding
along. It frightened me very much, but I shot it in the ear and it fell
dead, and I have its skin upon my bed. Look there!' she went on in an
altered voice, touching me on the arm and pointing to some far-away object,
'I said just now that I had companions; there is one of them.'
I looked, and for the first time there burst upon my
sight the glory of Mount Kenia. Hitherto the mountain had always been
hidden in mist, but now its radiant beauty was unveiled for many thousand
feet, although the base was still wrapped in vapour so that the lofty peak
or pillar, towering nearly twenty thousand feet into the sky, appeared to
be a fairy vision, hanging between earth and heaven, and based upon the
clouds. The solemn majesty and beauty of this white peak are together
beyond the power of my poor pen to describe. There it rose straight and
sheer -- a glittering white glory, its crest piercing the very blue of
heaven. As I gazed at it with that little girl I felt my whole heart
lifted up with an indescribable emotion, and for a moment great and
wonderful thoughts seemed to break upon my mind, even as the arrows of the
setting sun were breaking upon Kenia's snows. Mr Mackenzie's natives call
the mountain the 'Finger of God', and to me it did seem eloquent of
immortal peace and of the pure high calm that surely lies above this
fevered world. Somewhere I had heard a line of poetry,
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and now it came
into my mind, and for the first time I thoroughly understood what it meant.
Base, indeed, would be the man who could look upon that mighty
snow-wreathed pile -- that white old tombstone of the years -- and not feel
his own utter insignificance, and, by whatever name he calls Him, worship
God in his heart. Such sights are like visions of the spirit; they throw
wide the windows of the chamber of our small selfishness and let in a
breath of that air that rushes round the rolling spheres, and for a while
illumine our darkness with a far-off gleam of the white light which beats
upon the Throne.
Yes, such things of beauty are indeed a joy for ever,
and I can well understand what little Flossie meant when she talked of
Kenia as her companion. As Umslopogaas, savage old Zulu that he was, said
when I pointed out to him the peak hanging in the glittering air: 'A man
might look thereon for a thousand years and yet be hungry to see.' But he
gave rather another colour to his poetical idea when he added in a sort of
chant, and with a touch of that weird imagination for which the man was
remarkable, that when he was dead he should like his spirit to sit upon
that snow-clad peak for ever, and to rush down the steep white sides in the
breath of the whirlwind, or on the flash of the lightning, and 'slay, and
slay, and slay'.
'Slay what, you old bloodhound?' I asked.
This rather puzzled him, but at length he answered
--
'The other shadows.'
'So thou wouldst continue thy murdering even after
death?' I said.
'I murder not,' he answered hotly; 'I kill in fair
fight. Man is born to kill. He who kills not when his blood is hot is a
woman, and no man. The people who kill not are slaves. I say I kill in
fair fight; and when I am "in the shadow", as you white men say, I hope to
go on killing in fair fight. May my shadow be accursed and chilled to the
bone for ever if it should fall to murdering like a bushman with his
poisoned arrows!' And he stalked away with much dignity, and left me
laughing.
Just then the spies whom our host had sent out in the
morning to find out if there were any traces of our Masai friends about,
returned, and reported that the country had been scoured for fifteen miles
round without a single Elmoran being seen, and that they believed that
those gentry had given up the pursuit and returned whence they came. Mr
Mackenzie gave a sigh of relief when he heard this, and so indeed did we,
for we had had quite enough of the Masai to last us for some time. Indeed,
the general opinion was that, finding we had reached the mission station in
safety, they had, knowing its strength, given up the pursuit of us as a bad
job. How ill-judged that view was the sequel will show.
After the spies had gone, and Mrs Mackenzie and Flossie
had retired for the night, Alphonse, the little Frenchman, came out, and
Sir Henry, who is a very good French scholar, got him to tell us how he
came to visit Central Africa, which he did in a most extraordinary lingo,
that for the most part I shall not attempt to reproduce.
'My grandfather,' he began, 'was a soldier of the Guard,
and served under Napoleon. He was in the retreat from Moscow, and lived
for ten days on his own leggings and a pair he stole from a comrade. He
used to get drunk -- he died drunk, and I remember playing at drums on his
coffin. My father --'
Here we suggested that he might skip his ancestry and
come to the point.
'Bien, messieurs!' replied this comical little man, with
a polite bow. 'I did only wish to demonstrate that the military principle
is not hereditary. My grandfather was a splendid man, six feet two high,
broad in proportion, a swallower of fire and gaiters. Also he was
remarkable for his moustache. To me there remains the moustache and --
nothing more.
'I am, messieurs, a cook, and I was born at Marseilles.
In that dear town I spent my happy youth. For years and years I washed the
dishes at the Hotel Continental. Ah, those were golden days!' and he
sighed. 'I am a Frenchman. Need I say, messieurs, that I admire beauty?
Nay, I adore the fair. Messieurs, we admire all the roses in a garden, but
we pluck one. I plucked one, and alas, messieurs, it pricked my finger.
She was a chambermaid, her name Annette, her figure ravishing, her face an
angel's, her heart -- alas, messieurs, that I should have to own it! --
black and slippery as a patent leather boot. I loved to desperation, I
adored her to despair. She transported me -- in every sense; she inspired
me. Never have I cooked as I cooked (for I had been promoted at the hotel)
when Annette, my adored Annette, smiled on me. Never' -- and here his
manly voice broke into a sob -- 'never shall I cook so well again.' Here
he melted into tears.
'Come, cheer up!' said Sir Henry in French, smacking him
smartly on the back. 'There's no knowing what may happen, you know. To
judge from your dinner today, I should say you were in a fair way to
recovery.'
Alphonse stopped weeping, and began to rub his back.
'Monsieur,' he said, 'doubtless means to console, but his hand is heavy. To
continue: we loved, and were happy in each other's love. The birds in their
little nest could not be happier than Alphonse and his Annette. Then came
the blow -- sapristi! -- when I think of it. Messieurs will forgive me if
I wipe away a tear. Mine was an evil number; I was drawn for the
conscription. Fortune would be avenged on me for having won the heart of
Annette.
'The evil moment came; I had to go. I tried to run
away, but I was caught by brutal soldiers, and they banged me with the
butt-end of muskets till my mustachios curled with pain. I had a cousin a
linen-draper, well-to-do, but very ugly. He had drawn a good number, and
sympathized when they thumped me. "To thee, my cousin," I said, "to thee,
in whose veins flows the blue blood of our heroic grandparent, to thee I
consign Annette. Watch over her whilst I hunt for glory in the bloody
field."
'"Make your mind easy," said he; "I will." As the
sequel shows, he did!
'I went. I lived in barracks on black soup. I am a
refined man and a poet by nature, and I suffered tortures from the coarse
horror of my surroundings. There was a drill sergeant, and he had a cane.
Ah, that cane, how it curled! Alas, never can I forget it!
'One morning came the news; my battalion was ordered to
Tonquin. The drill sergeant and the other coarse monsters rejoiced. I -- I
made enquiries about Tonquin. They were not satisfactory. In Tonquin are
savage Chinese who rip you open. My artistic tastes -- for I am also an
artist -- recoiled from the idea of being ripped open. The great man makes
up his mind quickly. I made up my mind. I determined not to be ripped
open. I deserted.
'I reached Marseilles disguised as an old man. I went
to the house of my cousin -- he in whom runs my grandfather's heroic blood
-- and there sat Annette. It was the season of cherries. They took a
double stalk. At each end was a cherry. My cousin put one into his mouth,
Annette put the other in hers. Then they drew the stalks in till their
eyes met -- and alas, alas that I should have to say it! -- they kissed.
The game was a pretty one, but it filled me with fury. The heroic blood of
my grandfather boiled up in me. I rushed into the kitchen. I struck my
cousin with the old man's crutch. He fell -- I had slain him. Alas, I
believe that I did slay him. Annette screamed. The gendarmes came. I
fled. I reached the harbour. I hid aboard a vessel. The vessel put to
sea. The captain found me and beat me. He took an opportunity. He posted
a letter from a foreign port to the police. He did not put me ashore
because I cooked so well. I cooked for him all the way to Zanzibar. When I
asked for payment he kicked me. The blood of my heroic grandfather boiled
within me, and I shook my fist in his face and vowed to have my revenge.
He kicked me again. At Zanzibar there was a telegram. I cursed the man
who invented telegraphs. Now I curse him again. I was to be arrested for
desertion, for murder, and que sais-je? I escaped from the prison. I
fled, I starved. I met the men of Monsieur le Cure. They brought me here.
I am full of woe. But I return not to France. Better to risk my life in
these horrible places than to know the Bagne.'
He paused, and we nearly choked with laughter, having to
turn our faces away.
'Ah! you weep, messieurs,' he said. 'No wonder -- it is
a sad story.'
'Perhaps,' said Sir Henry, 'the heroic blood of your
grandparent will triumph after all; perhaps you will still be great. At
any rate we shall see. And now I vote we go to bed. I am dead tired, and
we had not much sleep on that confounded rock last night.'
And so we did, and very strange the tidy rooms and clean
white sheets seemed to us after our recent experiences.
CHAPTER V
UMSLOPOGAAS MAKES A PROMISE
Next morning at breakfast I missed Flossie and asked
where she was.
'Well,' said her mother, 'when I got up this morning I
found a note put outside my door in which -- But here it is, you can read
it for yourself,' and she gave me the slip of paper on which the following
was written: --
'Dearest M--, -- It is just dawn, and I am off to the
hills to get Mr Q-- a bloom of the lily he wants, so don't expect me till
you see me. I have taken the white donkey; and nurse and a couple of boys
are coming with me -- also something to eat, as I may be away all day, for
I am determined to get the lily if I have to go twenty miles for it. --
Flossie.'
'I hope she will be all right,' I said, a little
anxiously; 'I never meant her to trouble after the flower.'
'Ah, Flossie can look after herself,' said her mother;
'she often goes off in this way like a true child of the wilderness.' But
Mr Mackenzie, who came in just then and saw the note for the first time,
looked rather grave, though he said nothing.
After breakfast was over I took him aside and asked him
whether it would not be possible to send after the girl and get her back,
having in view the possibility of there still being some Masai hanging
about, at whose hands she might come to harm.
'I fear it would be of no use,' he answered. 'She may
be fifteen miles off by now, and it is impossible to say what path she has
taken. There are the hills;' and he pointed to a long range of rising
ground stretching almost parallel with the course followed by the river
Tana, but gradually sloping down to a dense bush-clad plain about five
miles short of the house.
Here I suggested that we might get up the great tree
over the house and search the country round with a spyglass; and this,
after Mr Mackenzie had given some orders to his people to try and follow
Flossie's spoor, we did.
The ascent of the mighty tree was rather an alarming
performance, even with a sound rope-ladder fixed at both ends to climb up,
at least to a landsman; but Good came up like a lamplighter.
On reaching the height at which the first fern-shaped
boughs sprang from the bole, we stepped without any difficulty upon a
platform made of boards, nailed from one bough to another, and large enough
to accommodate a dozen people. As for the view, it was simply glorious.
In every direction the bush rolled away in great billows for miles and
miles, as far as the glass would show, only here and there broken by the
brighter green of patches of cultivation, or by the glittering surface of
lakes. To the northwest, Kenia reared his mighty head, and we could trace
the Tana river curling like a silver snake almost from his feet, and far
away beyond us towards the ocean. It is a glorious country, and only wants
the hand of civilized man to make it a most productive one.
But look as we would, we could see no signs of Flossie
and her donkey, so at last we had to come down disappointed. On reaching
the veranda I found Umslopogaas sitting there, slowly and lightly
sharpening his axe with a small whetstone he always carried with him.
'What doest thou, Umslopogaas?' I asked.
'I smell blood,' was the answer; and I could get no more
out of him.
After dinner we again went up the tree and searched the
surrounding country with a spyglass, but without result. When we came down
Umslopogaas was still sharpening Inkosi-kaas, although she already had an
edge like a razor. Standing in front of him, and regarding him with a
mixture of fear and fascination, was Alphonse. And certainly he did seem
an alarming object -- sitting there, Zulu fashion, on his haunches, a wild
look upon his intensely savage and yet intellectual face, sharpening,
sharpening, sharpening at the murderous-looking axe.
'Oh, the monster, the horrible man!' said the little
French cook, lifting his hands in amazement. 'See but the hole in his
head; the skin beats on it up and down like a baby's! Who would nurse such
a baby?' and he burst out laughing at the idea.
For a moment Umslopogaas looked up from his sharpening,
and a sort of evil light played in his dark eyes.
'What does the little "buffalo-heifer" [so named by
Umslopogaas, on account of his mustachios and feminine characteristics]
say? Let him be careful, or I will cut his horns. Beware, little man
monkey, beware!'
Unfortunately Alphonse, who was getting over his fear of
him, went on laughing at 'ce drole d'un monsieur noir'. I was about to
warn him to desist, when suddenly the huge Zulu bounded off the veranda on
to the open space where Alphonse was standing, his features alive with a
sort of malicious enthusiasm, and began swinging the axe round and round
over the Frenchman's head.
'Stand still,' I shouted; 'do not move as you value your
life -- he will not hurt you;' but I doubt if Alphonse heard me, being,
fortunately for himself, almost petrified with horror.
Then followed the most extraordinary display of sword,
or rather of axemanship, that I ever saw. First of all the axe went flying
round and round over the top of Alphonse's head, with an angry whirl and
such extraordinary swiftness that it looked like a continuous band of
steel, ever getting nearer and yet nearer to that unhappy individual's
skull, till at last it grazed it as it flew. Then suddenly the motion was
changed, and it seemed to literally flow up and down his body and limbs,
never more than an eighth of an inch from them, and yet never striking
them. It was a wonderful sight to see the little man fixed there, having
apparently realized that to move would be to run the risk of sudden death,
while his black tormentor towered over him, and wrapped him round with the
quick flashes of the axe. For a minute or more this went on, till suddenly
I saw the moving brightness travel down the side of Alphonse's face, and
then outwards and stop. As it did so a tuft of something black fell to the
ground; it was the tip of one of the little Frenchman's curling
mustachios.
Umslopogaas leant upon the handle of Inkosi-kaas, and
broke into a long, low laugh; and Alphonse, overcome with fear, sank into a
sitting posture on the ground, while we stood astonished at this exhibition
of almost superhuman skill and mastery of a weapon. 'Inkosi-kaas is sharp
enough,' he shouted; 'the blow that clipped the "buffalo-heifer's" horn
would have split a man from the crown to the chin. Few could have struck
it but I; none could have struck it and not taken off the shoulder too.
Look, thou little heifer! Am I a good man to laugh at, thinkest thou? For
a space hast thou stood within a hair's-breadth of death. Laugh not again,
lest the hair's-breadth be wanting. I have spoken.'
'What meanest thou by such mad tricks?' I asked of
Umslopogaas, indignantly. 'Surely thou art mad. Twenty times didst thou
go near to slaying the man.'
'And yet, Macumazahn, I slew not. Thrice as Inkosi-kaas
flew the spirit entered into me to end him, and send her crashing through
his skull; but I did not. Nay, it was but a jest; but tell the "heifer"
that it is not well to mock at such as I. Now I go to make a shield, for I
smell blood, Macumazahn -- of a truth I smell blood. Before the battle
hast thou not seen the vulture grow of a sudden in the sky? They smell the
blood, Macumazahn, and my scent is more keen than theirs. There is a dry
ox-hide down yonder; I go to make a shield.'
'That is an uncomfortable retainer of yours,' said Mr
Mackenzie, who had witnessed this extraordinary scene. 'He has frightened
Alphonse out of his wits; look!' and he pointed to the Frenchman, who, with
a scared white face and trembling limbs, was making his way into the house.
'I don't think that he will ever laugh at "le monsieur noir" again.'
'Yes,' answered I, 'it is ill jesting with such as he.
When he is roused he is like a fiend, and yet he has a kind heart in his
own fierce way. I remember years ago seeing him nurse a sick child for a
week. He is a strange character, but true as steel, and a strong stick to
rest on in danger.'
'He says he smells blood,' said Mr Mackenzie. 'I only
trust he is not right. I am getting very fearful about my little girl. She
must have gone far, or she would be home by now. It is half-past three
o'clock.'
I pointed out that she had taken food with her, and very
likely would not in the ordinary course of events return till nightfall;
but I myself felt very anxious, and fear that my anxiety betrayed
itself.
Shortly after this, the people whom Mr Mackenzie had
sent out to search for Flossie returned, stating that they had followed the
spoor of the donkey for a couple of miles and had then lost it on some
stony ground, nor could they discover it again. They had, however, scoured
the country far and wide, but without success.
After this the afternoon wore drearily on, and towards
evening, there still being no signs of Flossie, our anxiety grew very keen.
As for the poor mother, she was quite prostrated by her fears, and no
wonder, but the father kept his head wonderfully well. Everything that
could be done was done: people were sent out in all directions, shots were
fired, and a continuous outlook kept from the great tree, but without
avail.
And then it grew dark, and still no sign of fair-haired
little Flossie.
At eight o'clock we had supper. It was but a sorrowful
meal, and Mrs Mackenzie did not appear at it. We three also were very
silent, for in addition to our natural anxiety as to the fate of the child,
we were weighed down by the sense that we had brought this trouble on the
head of our kind host. When supper was nearly at an end I made an excuse
to leave the table. I wanted to get outside and think the situation over.
I went on to the veranda and, having lit my pipe, sat down on a seat about
a dozen feet from the right-hand end of the structure, which was, as the
reader may remember, exactly opposite one of the narrow doors of the
protecting wall that enclosed the house and flower garden. I had been
sitting there perhaps six or seven minutes when I thought I heard the door
move. I looked in that direction and I listened, but, being unable to make
out anything, concluded that I must have been mistaken. It was a darkish
night, the moon not having yet risen.
Another minute passed, when suddenly something round
fell with a soft but heavy thud upon the stone flooring of the veranda, and
came bounding and rolling along past me. For a moment I did not rise, but
sat wondering what it could be. Finally, I concluded it must have been an
animal. Just then, however, another idea struck me, and I got up quick
enough. The thing lay quite still a few feet beyond me. I put down my
hand towards it and it did not move: clearly it was not an animal. My hand
touched it. It was soft and warm and heavy. Hurriedly I lifted it and
held it up against the faint starlight.
It was a newly severed human head!
I am an old hand and not easily upset, but I own that
that ghastly sight made me feel sick. How had the thing come there? Whose
was it? I put it down and ran to the little doorway. I could see nothing,
hear nobody. I was about to go out into the darkness beyond, but
remembering that to do so was to expose myself to the risk of being
stabbed, I drew back, shut the door, and bolted it. Then I returned to the
veranda, and in as careless a voice as I could command called Curtis. I
fear, however, that my tones must have betrayed me, for not only Sir Henry
but also Good and Mackenzie rose from the table and came hurrying out.
'What is it?' said the clergyman, anxiously.
Then I had to tell them.
Mr Mackenzie turned pale as death under his red skin.
We were standing opposite the hall door, and there was a light in it so
that I could see. He snatched the head up by the hair and held it against
the light.
'It is the head of one of the men who accompanied
Flossie,' he said with a gasp. 'Thank God it is not hers!'
We all stood and stared at each other aghast. What was
to be done?
Just then there was a knocking at the door that I had
bolted, and a voice cried, 'Open, my father, open!'
The door was unlocked, and in sped a terrified man. He
was one of the spies who had been sent out.
'My father,' he cried, 'the Masai are on us! A great
body of them have passed round the hill and are moving towards the old
stone kraal down by the little stream. My father, make strong thy heart!
In the midst of them I saw the white ass, and on it sat the Water-lily
[Flossie]. An Elmoran [young warrior] led the ass, and by its side walked
the nurse weeping. The men who went with her in the morning I saw
not.'
'Was the child alive?' asked Mr Mackenzie, hoarsely.
'She was white as the snow, but well, my father. They
passed quite close to me, and looking up from where I lay hid I saw her
face against the sky.'
'God help her and us!' groaned the clergyman.
'How many are there of them?' I asked.
'More than two hundred -- two hundred and half a
hundred.'
Once more we looked one on the other. What was to be
done? Just then there rose a loud insistent cry outside the wall.
'Open the door, white man; open the door! A herald -- a
herald to speak with thee.' Thus cried the voice.
Umslopogaas ran to the wall, and, reaching with his long
arms to the coping, lifted his head above it and gazed over.
'I see but one man,' he said. 'He is armed, and carries
a basket in his hand.'
'Open the door,' I said. 'Umslopogaas, take thine axe
and stand thereby. Let one man pass. If another follows, slay.'
The door was unbarred. In the shadow of the wall stood
Umslopogaas, his axe raised above his head to strike. Just then the moon
came out. There was a moment's pause, and then in stalked a Masai Elmoran,
clad in the full war panoply that I have already described, but bearing a
large basket in his hand. The moonlight shone bright upon his great spear
as he walked. He was physically a splendid man, apparently about
thirty-five years of age. Indeed, none of the Masai that I saw were under
six feet high, though mostly quite young. When he got opposite to us he
halted, put down the basket, and stuck the spike of his spear into the
ground, so that it stood upright.
'Let us talk,' he said. 'The first messenger we sent to
you could not talk;' and he pointed to the head which lay upon the paving
of the stoep -- a ghastly sight in the moonlight; 'but I have words to
speak if ye have ears to hear. Also I bring presents;' and he pointed to
the basket and laughed with an air of swaggering insolence that is
perfectly indescribable, and yet which one could not but admire, seeing
that he was surrounded by enemies.
'Say on,' said Mr Mackenzie.
'I am the "Lygonani" [war captain] of a party of the
Masai of the Guasa Amboni. I and my men followed these three white men,'
and he pointed to Sir Henry, Good, and myself, 'but they were too clever
for us, and escaped hither. We have a quarrel with them, and are going to
kill them.'
'Are you, my friend?' said I to myself.
'In following these men we this morning caught two black
men, one black woman, a white donkey, and a white girl. One of the black
men we killed -- there is his head upon the pavement; the other ran away.
The black woman, the little white girl, and the white ass we took and
brought with us. In proof thereof have I brought this basket that she
carried. Is it not thy daughter's basket?'
Mr Mackenzie nodded, and the warrior went on.
'Good! With thee and thy daughter we have no quarrel,
nor do we wish to harm thee, save as to thy cattle, which we have already
gathered, two hundred and forty head -- a beast for every man's father.'
6
Here Mr Mackenzie gave a groan, as he greatly valued
this herd of cattle, which he bred with much care and trouble.
'So, save for the cattle, thou mayst go free; more
especially,' he added frankly, glancing at the wall, 'as this place would
be a difficult one to take. But as to these men it is otherwise; we have
followed them for nights and days, and must kill them. Were we to return to
our kraal without having done so, all the girls would make a mock of us.
So, however troublesome it may be, they must die.
'Now I have a proposition for thee. We would not harm
the little girl; she is too fair to harm, and has besides a brave spirit.
Give us one of these three men -- a life for a life -- and we will let her
go, and throw in the black woman with her also. This is a fair offer, white
man. We ask but for one, not for the three; we must take another
opportunity to kill the other two. I do not even pick my man, though I
should prefer the big one,' pointing to Sir Henry; 'he looks strong, and
would die more slowly.'
'And if I say I will not yield the man?' said Mr
Mackenzie.
'Nay, say not so, white man,' answered the Masai, 'for
then thy daughter dies at dawn, and the woman with her says thou hast no
other child. Were she older I would take her for a servant; but as she is
so young I will slay her with my own hand -- ay, with this very spear.
Thou canst come and see, an' thou wilt. I give thee a safe conduct;' and
the fiend laughed aloud as his brutal jest.
Meanwhile I had been thinking rapidly, as one does in
emergencies, and had come to the conclusion that I would exchange myself
against Flossie. I scarcely like to mention the matter for fear it should
be misunderstood. Pray do not let any one be misled into thinking that
there was anything heroic about this, or any such nonsense. It was merely a
matter of common sense and common justice. My life was an old and worthless
one, hers was young and valuable. Her death would pretty well kill her
father and mother also, whilst nobody would be much the worse for mine;
indeed, several charitable institutions would have cause to rejoice
thereat. It was indirectly through me that the dear little girl was in her
present position. Lastly, a man was better fitted to meet death in such a
peculiarly awful form than a sweet young girl. Not, however, that I meant
to let these gentry torture me to death -- I am far too much of a coward to
allow that, being naturally a timid man; my plan was to see the girl safely
exchanged and then to shoot myself, trusting that the Almighty would take
the peculiar circumstances of the case into consideration and pardon the
act. All this and more went through my mind in very few seconds.
'All right, Mackenzie,' I said, 'you can tell the man
that I will exchange myself against Flossie, only I stipulate that she
shall be safely in this house before they kill me.'
'Eh?' said Sir Henry and Good simultaneously. 'That you
don't.'
'No, no,' said Mr Mackenzie. 'I will have no man's
blood upon my hands. If it please God that my daughter should die this
awful death, His will be done. You are a brave man (which I am not by any
means) and a noble man, Quatermain, but you shall not go.'
'If nothing else turns up I shall go,' I said
decidedly.
'This is an important matter,' said Mackenzie,
addressing the Lygonani, 'and we must think it over. You shall have our
answer at dawn.'
'Very well, white man,' answered the savage
indifferently; 'only remember if thy answer is late thy little white bud
will never grow into a flower, that is all, for I shall cut it with this,'
and he touched the spear. 'I should have thought that thou wouldst play a
trick and attack us at night, but I know from the woman with the girl that
your men are down at the coast, and that thou hast but twenty men here. It
is not wise, white man,' he added with a laugh, 'to keep so small a
garrison for your "boma" [kraal]. Well, good night, and good night to you
also, other white men, whose eyelids I shall soon close once and for all.
At dawn thou wilt bring me word. If not, remember it shall be as I have
said.' Then turning to Umslopogaas, who had all the while been standing
behind him and shepherding him as it were, 'Open the door for me, fellow,
quick now.'
This was too much for the old chief's patience. For the
last ten minutes his lips had been, figuratively speaking, positively
watering over the Masai Lygonani, and this he could not stand. Placing his
long hand on the Elmoran's shoulder he gripped it and gave him such a twist
as brought him face to face with himself. Then, thrusting his fierce
countenance to within a few inches of the Masai's evil feather-framed
features, he said in a low growling voice: --
'Seest thou me?'
'Ay, fellow, I see thee.'
'And seest thou this?' and he held Inkosi-kaas before
his eyes.
'Ay, fellow, I see the toy; what of it?'
'Thou Masai dog, thou boasting windbag, thou capturer of
little girls, with this "toy" will I hew thee limb from limb. Well for
thee that thou art a herald, or even now would I strew thy members about
the grass.'
The Masai shook his great spear and laughed loud and
long as he answered, 'I would that thou stoodst against me man to man, and
we would see,' and again he turned to go still laughing.
'Thou shalt stand against me man to man, be not afraid,'
replied Umslopogaas, still in the same ominous voice. 'Thou shalt stand
face to face with Umslopogaas, of the blood of Chaka, of the people of the
Amazulu, a captain in the regiment of the Nkomabakosi, as many have done
before, and bow thyself to Inkosi-kaas, as many have done before. Ay,
laugh on, laugh on! tomorrow night shall the jackals laugh as they crunch
thy ribs.'
When the Lygonani had gone, one of us thought of opening
the basket he had brought as a proof that Flossie was really their
prisoner. On lifting the lid it was found to contain a most lovely
specimen of both bulb and flower of the Goya lily, which I have already
described, in full bloom and quite uninjured, and what was more a note in
Flossie's childish hand written in pencil upon a greasy piece of paper that
had been used to wrap up some food in: --
'Dearest Father and Mother,' ran the note, 'The Masai
caught us when we were coming home with the lily. I tried to escape but
could not. They killed Tom: the other man ran away. They have not hurt
nurse and me, but say that they mean to exchange us against one of Mr
Quatermain's party. _I will have nothing of the sort_. Do not let anybody
give his life for me. Try and attack them at night; they are going to
feast on three bullocks they have stolen and killed. I have my pistol, and
if no help comes by dawn I will shoot myself. They shall not kill me. If
so, remember me always, dearest father and mother. I am very frightened,
but I trust in God. I dare not write any more as they are beginning to
notice. Goodbye. -- Flossie.'
Scrawled across the outside of this was 'Love to Mr
Quatermain. They are going to take the basket, so he will get the
lily.'
When I read those words, written by that brave little
girl in an hour of danger sufficiently near and horrible to have turned the
brain of a strong man, I own I wept, and once more in my heart I vowed that
she should not die while my life could be given to save her.
Then eagerly, quickly, almost fiercely, we fell to
discussing the situation. Again I said that I would go, and again
Mackenzie negatived it, and Curtis and Good, like the true men that they
are, vowed that, if I did, they would go with me, and die back to back with
me.
'It is,' I said at last, 'absolutely necessary that an
effort of some sort should be made before the morning.'
'Then let us attack them with what force we can muster,
and take our chance,' said Sir Henry.
'Ay, ay,' growled Umslopogaas, in Zulu; 'spoken like a
man, Incubu. What is there to be afraid of? Two hundred and fifty Masai,
forsooth! How many are we? The chief there [Mr Mackenzie] has twenty men,
and thou, Macumazahn, hast five men, and there are also five white men --
that is, thirty men in all -- enough, enough. Listen now, Macumazahn, thou
who art very clever and old in war. What says the maid? These men eat and
make merry; let it be their funeral feast. What said the dog whom I hope
to hew down at daybreak? That he feared no attack because we were so few.
Knowest thou the old kraal where the men have camped? I saw it this
morning; it is thus:' and he drew an oval on the floor; 'here is the big
entrance, filled up with thorn bushes, and opening on to a steep rise.
Why, Incubu, thou and I with axes will hold it against an hundred men
striving to break out! Look, now; thus shall the battle go. Just as the
light begins to glint upon the oxen's horns -- not before, or it will be
too dark, and not later, or they will be awakening and perceive us -- let
Bougwan creep round with ten men to the top end of the kraal, where the
narrow entrance is. Let them silently slay the sentry there so that he
makes no sound, and stand ready. Then, Incubu, let thee and me and one of
the Askari -- the one with the broad chest -- he is a brave man -- creep to
the wide entrance that is filled with thorn bushes, and there also slay the
sentry, and armed with battleaxes take our stand also one on each side of
the pathway, and one a few paces beyond to deal with such as pass the twain
at the gate. It is there that the rush will come. That will leave sixteen
men. Let these men be divided into two parties, with one of which shalt
thou go, Macumazahn, and with one the "praying man" [Mr Mackenzie], and,
all armed with rifles, let them make their way one to the right side of the
kraal and one to the left; and when thou, Macumazahn, lowest like an ox,
all shall open fire with the guns upon the sleeping men, being very careful
not to hit the little maid. Then shall Bougwan at the far end and his ten
men raise the war-cry, and, springing over the wall, put the Masai there to
the sword. And it shall happen that, being yet heavy with food and sleep,
and bewildered by the firing of the guns, the falling of men, and the
spears of Bougwan, the soldiers shall rise and rush like wild game towards
the thorn-stopped entrance, and there the bullets from either side shall
plough through them, and there shall Incubu and the Askari and I wait for
those who break across. Such is my plan, Macumazahn; if thou hast a better,
name it.'
When he had done, I explained to the others such
portions of his scheme as they had failed to understand, and they all
joined with me in expressing the greatest admiration of the acute and
skilful programme devised by the old Zulu, who was indeed, in his own
savage fashion, the finest general I ever knew. After some discussion we
determined to accept the scheme, as it stood, it being the only one
possible under the circumstances, and giving the best chance of success
that such a forlorn hope would admit of -- which, however, considering the
enormous odds and the character of our foe, was not very great.
'Ah, old lion!' I said to Umslopogaas, 'thou knowest how
to lie in wait as well as how to bite, where to seize as well as where to
hang on.'
'Ay, ay, Macumazahn,' he answered. 'For thirty years
have I been a warrior, and have seen many things. It will be a good fight.
I smell blood -- I tell thee, I smell blood.'
CHAPTER VI
THE NIGHT WEARS ON
As may be imagined, at the very first sign of a Masai
the entire population of the Mission Station had sought refuge inside the
stout stone wall, and were now to be seen -- men, women, and countless
children -- huddled up together in little groups, and all talking at once
in awed tones of the awfulness of Masai manners and customs, and of the
fate that they had to expect if those bloodthirsty savages succeeded in
getting over the stone wall.
Immediately after we had settled upon the outline of our
plan of action as suggested by Umslopogaas, Mr Mackenzie sent for four
sharp boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age, and despatched them to
various points where they could keep an outlook upon the Masai camp, with
others to report from time to time what was going on. Other lads and even
women were stationed at intervals along the wall in order to guard against
the possibility of surprise.
After this the twenty men who formed his whole available
fighting force were summoned by our host into the square formed by the
house, and there, standing by the bole of the great conifer, he earnestly
addressed them and our four Askari. Indeed, it formed a very impressive
scene -- one not likely to be forgotten by anybody who witnessed it.
Immediately by the tree stood the angular form of Mr Mackenzie, one arm
outstretched as he talked, and the other resting against the giant bole,
his hat off, and his plain but kindly face clearly betraying the anguish of
his mind. Next to him was his poor wife, who, seated on a chair, had her
face hidden in her hand. On the other side of her was Alphonse, looking
exceedingly uncomfortable, and behind him stood the three of us, with
Umslopogaas' grim and towering form in the background, resting, as usual,
on his axe. In front stood and squatted the group of armed men -- some
with rifles in their hands, and others with spears and shields -- following
with eager attention every word that fell from the speaker's lips. The
white light of the moon peering in beneath the lofty boughs threw a strange
wild glamour over the scene, whilst the melancholy soughing of the night
wind passing through the millions of pine needles overhead added a sadness
of its own to what was already a sufficiently tragic occasion.
'Men,' said Mr Mackenzie, after he had put all the
circumstances of the case fully and clearly before them, and explained to
them the proposed plan of our forlorn hope -- 'men, for years I have been a
good friend to you, protecting you, teaching you, guarding you and yours
from harm, and ye have prospered with me. Ye have seen my child -- the
Water-lily, as ye call her -- grow year by year, from tenderest infancy to
tender childhood, and from childhood on towards maidenhood. She has been
your children's playmate, she has helped to tend you when sick, and ye have
loved her.'
'We have,' said a deep voice, 'and we will die to save
her.'
'I thank you from my heart -- I thank you. Sure am I
that now, in this hour of darkest trouble; now that her young life is like
to be cut off by cruel and savage men -- who of a truth "know not what they
do" -- ye will strive your best to save her, and to save me and her mother
from broken hearts. Think, too, of your own wives and children. If she
dies, her death will be followed by an attack upon us here, and at the
best, even if we hold our own, your houses and gardens will be destroyed,
and your goods and cattle swept away. I am, as ye well know, a man of
peace. Never in all these years have I lifted my hand to shed man's blood;
but now I say strike, strike, in the name of God, Who bade us protect our
lives and homes. Swear to me,' he went on with added fervour -- 'swear to
me that whilst a man of you remains alive ye will strive your uttermost
with me and with these brave white men to save the child from a bloody and
cruel death.'
'Say no more, my father,' said the same deep voice, that
belonged to a stalwart elder of the Mission; 'we swear it. May we and ours
die the death of dogs, and our bones be thrown to the jackals and the
kites, if we break the oath! It is a fearful thing to do, my father, so
few to strike at so many, yet will we do it or die in the doing. We
swear!'
'Ay, thus say we all,' chimed in the others.
'Thus say we all,' said I.
'It is well,' went on Mr Mackenzie. 'Ye are true men
and not broken reeds to lean on. And now, friends -- white and black
together -- let us kneel and offer up our humble supplication to the Throne
of Power, praying that He in the hollow of Whose hand lie all our lives,
Who giveth life and giveth death, may be pleased to make strong our arms
that we may prevail in what awaits us at the morning's light.'
And he knelt down, an example that we all followed
except Umslopogaas, who still stood in the background, grimly leaning on
Inkosi-kaas. The fierce old Zulu had no gods and worshipped nought, unless
it were his battleaxe.
'Oh God of gods!' began the clergyman, his deep voice,
tremulous with emotion, echoing up in the silence even to the leafy roof;
'Protector of the oppressed, Refuge of those in danger, Guardian of the
helpless, hear Thou our prayer! Almighty Father, to Thee we come in
supplication. Hear Thou our prayer! Behold, one child hast Thou given us
-- an innocent child, nurtured in Thy knowledge -- and now she lies beneath
the shadow of the sword, in danger of a fearful death at the hands of
savage men. Be with her now, oh God, and comfort her! Save her, oh
Heavenly Father! Oh God of battle, Who teacheth our hands to war and our
fingers to fight, in Whose strength are hid the destinies of men, be Thou
with us in the hour of strife. When we go forth into the shadow of death,
make Thou us strong to conquer. Breathe Thou upon our foes and scatter
them; turn Thou their strength to water, and bring their high-blown pride
to nought; compass us about with Thy protection; throw over us the shield
of Thy power; forget us not now in the hour of our sore distress; help us
now that the cruel man would dash our little ones against the stones! Hear
Thou our prayer! And for those of us who, kneeling now on earth in health
before Thee, shall at the sunrise adore Thy Presence on the Throne, hear
our prayer! Make them clean, oh God; wash away their offences in the blood
of the Lamb; and when their spirits pass, oh receive Thou them into the
haven of the just. Go forth, oh Father, go forth with us into the battle,
as with the Israelites of old. Oh God of battle, hear Thou our
prayer!'
He ceased, and after a moment's silence we all rose, and
then began our preparations in good earnest. As Umslopogaas said, it was
time to stop 'talking' and get to business. The men who were to form each
little party were carefully selected, and still more carefully and minutely
instructed as to what was to be done. After much consideration it was
agreed that the ten men led by Good, whose duty it was to stampede the
camp, were not to carry firearms; that is, with the exception of Good
himself, who had a revolver as well as a short sword -- the Masai 'sime'
which I had taken from the body of our poor servant who was murdered in the
canoe. We feared that if they had firearms the result of three cross-fires
carried on at once would be that some of our own people would be shot;
besides, it appeared to all of us that the work they had to do would best
be carried out with cold steel -- especially to Umslopogaas, who was,
indeed, a great advocate of cold steel. We had with us four Winchester
repeating rifles, besides half a dozen Martinis. I armed myself with one
of the repeaters -- my own; an excellent weapon for this kind of work,
where great rapidity of fire is desirable, and fitted with ordinary
flap-sights instead of the cumbersome sliding mechanism which they
generally have. Mr Mackenzie took another, and the two remaining ones were
given to two of his men who understood the use of them and were noted
shots. The Martinis and some rifles of Mr Mackenzie's were served out,
together with a plentiful supply of ammunition, to the other natives who
were to form the two parties whose duty it was to be to open fire from
separate sides of the kraal on the sleeping Masai, and who were fortunately
all more or less accustomed to the use of a gun.
As for Umslopogaas, we know how he was armed -- with an
axe. It may be remembered that he, Sir Henry, and the strongest of the
Askari were to hold the thorn-stopped entrance to the kraal against the
anticipated rush of men striving to escape. Of course, for such a purpose
as this guns were useless. Therefore Sir Henry and the Askari proceeded to
arm themselves in like fashion. It so happened that Mr Mackenzie had in his
little store a selection of the very best and English-made hammer-backed
axe-heads. Sir Henry selected one of these weighing about two and a half
pounds and very broad in the blade, and the Askari took another a size
smaller. After Umslopogaas had put an extra edge on these two axe-heads,
we fixed them to three feet six helves, of which Mr Mackenzie fortunately
had some in stock, made of a light but exceedingly tough native wood,
something like English ash, only more springy. When two suitable helves
had been selected with great care and the ends of the hafts notched to
prevent the hand from slipping, the axe-heads were fixed on them as firmly
as possible, and the weapons immersed in a bucket of water for half an
hour. The result of this was to swell the wood in the socket in such a
fashion that nothing short of burning would get it out again. When this
important matter had been attended to by Umslopogaas, I went into my room
and proceeded to open a little tin-lined deal case, which contained -- what
do you think? -- nothing more or less than four mail shirts.
It had happened to us three on a previous journey that
we had made in another part of Africa to owe our lives to iron shirts of
native make, and remembering this, I had suggested before we started on our
present hazardous expedition that we should have some made to fit us.
There was a little difficulty about this, as armour-making is pretty well
an extinct art, but they can do most things in the way of steel work in
Birmingham if they are put to it and you will pay the price, and the end of
it was that they turned us out the loveliest steel shirts it is possible to
see. The workmanship was exceedingly fine, the web being composed of
thousands upon thousands of stout but tiny rings of the best steel made.
These shirts, or rather steel-sleeved and high-necked jerseys, were lined
with ventilated wash leather, were not bright, but browned like the barrel
of a gun; and mine weighed exactly seven pounds and fitted me so well that
I found I could wear it for days next to my skin without being chafed. Sir
Henry had two, one of the ordinary make, viz. a jersey with little
dependent flaps meant to afford some protection to the upper part of the
thighs, and another of his own design fashioned on the pattern of the
garments advertised as 'combinations' and weighing twelve pounds. This
combination shirt, of which the seat was made of wash-leather, protected
the whole body down to the knees, but was rather more cumbersome, inasmuch
as it had to be laced up at the back and, of course, involved some extra
weight. With these shirts were what looked like four brown cloth
travelling caps with ear pieces. Each of these caps was, however, quilted
with steel links so as to afford a most valuable protection for the
head.
It seems almost laughable to talk of steel shirts in
these days of bullets, against which they are of course quite useless; but
where one has to do with savages, armed with cutting weapons such as
assegais or battleaxes, they afford the most valuable protection, being, if
well made, quite invulnerable to them. I have often thought that if only
the English Government had in our savage wars, and more especially in the
Zulu war, thought fit to serve out light steel shirts, there would be many
a man alive today who, as it is, is dead and forgotten.
To return: on the present occasion we blessed our
foresight in bringing these shirts, and also our good luck, in that they
had not been stolen by our rascally bearers when they ran away with our
goods. As Curtis had two, and after considerable deliberation, had made up
his mind to wear his combination one himself -- the extra three or four
pounds' weight being a matter of no account to so strong a man, and the
protection afforded to the thighs being a very important matter to a
fighting man not armed with a shield of any kind -- I suggested that he
should lend the other to Umslopogaas, who was to share the danger and the
glory of his post. He readily consented, and called the Zulu, who came
bearing Sir Henry's axe, which he had now fixed up to his satisfaction,
with him. When we showed him the steel shirt, and explained to him that we
wanted him to wear it, he at first declined, saying that he had fought in
his own skin for thirty years, and that he was not going to begin now to
fight in an iron one. Thereupon I took a heavy spear, and, spreading the
shirt upon the floor, drove the spear down upon it with all my strength,
the weapon rebounding without leaving a mark upon the tempered steel. This
exhibition half converted him; and when I pointed out to him how necessary
it was that he should not let any old-fashioned prejudices he might possess
stand in the way of a precaution which might preserve a valuable life at a
time when men were scarce, and also that if he wore this shirt he might
dispense with a shield, and so have both hands free, he yielded at once,
and proceeded to invest his frame with the 'iron skin'. And indeed,
although made for Sir Henry, it fitted the great Zulu like a skin. The two
men were almost of a height; and, though Curtis looked the bigger man, I am
inclined to think that the difference was more imaginary than real, the
fact being that, although he was plumper and rounder, he was not really
bigger, except in the arm. Umslopogaas had, comparatively speaking, thin
arms, but they were as strong as wire ropes. At any rate, when they both
stood, axe in hand, invested in the brown mail, which clung to their mighty
forms like a web garment, showing the swell of every muscle and the curve
of every line, they formed a pair that any ten men might shrink from
meeting.
It was now nearly one o'clock in the morning, and the
spies reported that, after having drunk the blood of the oxen and eaten
enormous quantities of meat, the Masai were going to sleep round their
watchfires; but that sentries had been posted at each opening of the kraal.
Flossie, they added, was sitting not far from the wall in the centre of
the western side of the kraal, and by her were the nurse and the white
donkey, which was tethered to a peg. Her feet were bound with a rope, and
warriors were lying about all round her.
As there was absolutely nothing further that could be
done then we all took some supper, and went to lie down for a couple of
hours. I could not help admiring the way in which old Umslopogaas flung
himself upon the floor, and, unmindful of what was hanging over him,
instantly sank into a deep sleep. I do not know how it was with the
others, but I could not do as much. Indeed, as is usual with me on these
occasions, I am sorry to say that I felt rather frightened; and, now that
some of the enthusiasm had gone out of me, and I began to calmly
contemplate what we had undertaken to do, truth compels me to add that I
did not like it. We were but thirty men all told, a good many of whom were
no doubt quite unused to fighting, and we were going to engage two hundred
and fifty of the fiercest, bravest, and most formidable savages in Africa,
who, to make matters worse, were protected by a stone wall. It was,
indeed, a mad undertaking, and what made it even madder was the exceeding
improbability of our being able to take up our positions without attracting
the notice of the sentries. Of course if we once did that -- and any
slight accident, such as the chance discharge of a gun, might do it -- we
were done for, for the whole camp would be up in a second, and our only
hope lay in surprise.
The bed whereon I lay indulging in these uncomfortable
reflections was near an open window that looked on to the veranda, through
which came an extraordinary sound of groaning and weeping. For a time I
could not make out what it was, but at last I got up and, putting my head
out of the window, stared about. Presently I saw a dim figure kneeling on
the end of the veranda and beating his breast -- in which I recognized
Alphonse. Not being able to understand his French talk or what on earth he
was at, I called to him and asked him what he was doing.
'Ah, monsieur,' he sighed, 'I do make prayer for the
souls of those whom I shall slay tonight.'
'Indeed,' I said, 'then I wish that you would do it a
little more quietly.'
Alphonse retreated, and I heard no more of his groans.
And so the time passed, till at length Mr Mackenzie called me in a whisper
through the window, for of course everything had now to be done in the most
absolute silence. 'Three o'clock,' he said: 'we must begin to move at
half-past.'
I told him to come in, and presently he entered, and I
am bound to say that if it had not been that just then I had not got a
laugh anywhere about me, I should have exploded at the sight he presented
armed for battle. To begin with, he had on a clergyman's black
swallow-tail and a kind of broad-rimmed black felt hat, both of which he
had donned on account, he said, of their dark colour. In his hand was the
Winchester repeating rifle we had lent him; and stuck in an elastic
cricketing belt, like those worn by English boys, were, first, a huge
buckhorn-handled carving knife with a guard to it, and next a
long-barrelled Colt's revolver.
'Ah, my friend,' he said, seeing me staring at his belt,
'you are looking at my "carver". I thought it might come in handy if we
came to close quarters; it is excellent steel, and many is the pig I have
killed with it.'
By this time everybody was up and dressing. I put on a
light Norfolk jacket over my mail shirt in order to have a pocket handy to
hold my cartridges, and buckled on my revolver. Good did the same, but Sir
Henry put on nothing except his mail shirt, steel-lined cap, and a pair of
'veldt-schoons' or soft hide shoes, his legs being bare from the knees
down. His revolver he strapped on round his middle outside the armoured
shirt.
Meanwhile Umslopogaas was mustering the men in the
square under the big tree and going the rounds to see that each was
properly armed, etc. At the last moment we made one change. Finding that
two of the men who were to have gone with the firing parties knew little or
nothing of guns, but were good spearsmen, we took away their rifles,
supplied them with shields and long spears of the Masai pattern, and took
them off to join Curtis, Umslopogaas, and the Askari in holding the wide
opening; it having become clear to us that three men, however brave and
strong, were too few for the work.
CHAPTER VII
A SLAUGHTER GRIM AND GREAT
Then there was a pause, and we stood there in the chilly
silent darkness waiting till the moment came to start. It was, perhaps,
the most trying time of all -- that slow, slow quarter of an hour. The
minutes seemed to drag along with leaden feet, and the quiet, the solemn
hush, that brooded over all -- big, as it were, with a coming fate, was
most oppressive to the spirits. I once remember having to get up before
dawn to see a man hanged, and I then went through a very similar set of
sensations, only in the present instance my feelings were animated by that
more vivid and personal element which naturally appertains rather to the
person to be operated on than to the most sympathetic spectator. The
solemn faces of the men, well aware that the short passage of an hour would
mean for some, and perhaps all of them, the last great passage to the
unknown or oblivion; the bated whispers in which they spoke; even Sir
Henry's continuous and thoughtful examination of his woodcutter's axe and
the fidgety way in which Good kept polishing his eyeglass, all told the
same tale of nerves stretched pretty nigh to breaking-point. Only
Umslopogaas, leaning as usual upon Inkosi-kaas and taking an occasional
pinch of snuff, was to all appearance perfectly and completely unmoved.
Nothing could touch his iron nerves.
The moon went down. For a long while she had been
getting nearer and nearer to the horizon. Now she finally sank and left
the world in darkness save for a faint grey tinge in the eastern sky that
palely heralded the dawn.
Mr Mackenzie stood, watch in hand, his wife clinging to
his arm and striving to stifle her sobs.
'Twenty minutes to four,' he said, 'it ought to be light
enough to attack at twenty minutes past four. Captain Good had better be
moving, he will want three or four minutes' start.'
Good gave one final polish to his eyeglass, nodded to us
in a jocular sort of way -- which I could not help feeling it must have
cost him something to muster up -- and, ever polite, took off his
steel-lined cap to Mrs Mackenzie and started for his position at the head
of the kraal, to reach which he had to make a detour by some paths known to
the natives.
Just then one of the boys came in and reported that
everybody in the Masai camp, with the exception of the two sentries who
were walking up and down in front of the respective entrances, appeared to
be fast asleep. Then the rest of us took the road. First came the guide,
then Sir Henry, Umslopogaas, the Wakwafi Askari, and Mr Mackenzie's two
mission natives armed with long spears and shields. I followed immediately
after with Alphonse and five natives all armed with guns, and Mr Mackenzie
brought up the rear with the six remaining natives.
The cattle kraal where the Masai were camped lay at the
foot of the hill on which the house stood, or, roughly speaking, about
eight hundred yards from the Mission buildings. The first five hundred
yards of this distance we traversed quietly indeed, but at a good pace;
after that we crept forward as silently as a leopard on his prey, gliding
like ghosts from bush to bush and stone to stone. When I had gone a little
way I chanced to look behind me, and saw the redoubtable Alphonse
staggering along with white face and trembling knees, and his rifle, which
was at full cock, pointed directly at the small of my back. Having halted
and carefully put the rifle at 'safety', we started again, and all went
well till we were within one hundred yards or so of the kraal, when his
teeth began to chatter in the most aggressive way.
'If you don't stop that I will kill you,' I whispered
savagely; for the idea of having all our lives sacrificed to a
tooth-chattering cook was too much for me. I began to fear that he would
betray us, and heartily wished we had left him behind.
'But, monsieur, I cannot help it,' he answered, 'it is
the cold.'
Here was a dilemma, but fortunately I devised a plan.
In the pocket of the coat I had on was a small piece of dirty rag that I
had used some time before to clean a gun with. 'Put this in your mouth,' I
whispered again, giving him the rag; 'and if I hear another sound you are a
dead man.' I knew that that would stifle the clatter of his teeth. I must
have looked as if I meant what I said, for he instantly obeyed me, and
continued his journey in silence.
Then we crept on again.
At last we were within fifty yards of the kraal.
Between us and it was an open space of sloping grass with only one mimosa
bush and a couple of tussocks of a sort of thistle for cover. We were still
hidden in fairly thick bush. It was beginning to grow light. The stars
had paled and a sickly gleam played about the east and was reflected on the
earth. We could see the outline of the kraal clearly enough, and could
also make out the faint glimmer of the dying embers of the Masai
camp-fires. We halted and watched, for the sentry we knew was posted at the
opening. Presently he appeared, a fine tall fellow, walking idly up and
down within five paces of the thorn-stopped entrance. We had hoped to catch
him napping, but it was not to be. He seemed particularly wide awake. If
we could not kill that man, and kill him silently, we were lost. There we
crouched and watched him. Presently Umslopogaas, who was a few paces ahead
of me, turned and made a sign, and next second I saw him go down on his
stomach like a snake, and, taking an opportunity when the sentry's head was
turned, begin to work his way through the grass without a sound.
The unconscious sentry commenced to hum a little tune,
and Umslopogaas crept on. He reached the shelter of the mimosa bush
unperceived and there waited. Still the sentry walked up and down.
Presently he turned and looked over the wall into the camp. Instantly the
human snake who was stalking him glided on ten yards and got behind one of
the tussocks of the thistle-like plant, reaching it as the Elmoran turned
again. As he did so his eye fell upon this patch of thistles, and it
seemed to strike him that it did not look quite right. He advanced a pace
towards it -- halted, yawned, stooped down, picked up a little pebble and
threw it at it. It hit Umslopogaas upon the head, luckily not upon the
armour shirt. Had it done so the clink would have betrayed us. Luckily,
too, the shirt was browned and not bright steel, which would certainly have
been detected. Apparently satisfied that there was nothing wrong, he then
gave over his investigations and contented himself with leaning on his
spear and standing gazing idly at the tuft. For at least three minutes did
he stand thus, plunged apparently in a gentle reverie, and there we lay in
the last extremity of anxiety, expecting every moment that we should be
discovered or that some untoward accident would happen. I could hear
Alphonse's teeth going like anything on the oiled rag, and turning my head
round made an awful face at him. But I am bound to state that my own heart
was at much the same game as the Frenchman's castanets, while the
perspiration was pouring from my body, causing the wash-leather-lined shirt
to stick to me unpleasantly, and altogether I was in the pitiable state
known by schoolboys as a 'blue fright'.
At last the ordeal came to an end. The sentry glanced
at the east, and appeared to note with satisfaction that his period of duty
was coming to an end -- as indeed it was, once and for all -- for he rubbed
his hands and began to walk again briskly to warm himself.
The moment his back was turned the long black snake
glided on again, and reached the other thistle tuft, which was within a
couple of paces of his return beat.
Back came the sentry and strolled right past the tuft,
utterly unconscious of the presence that was crouching behind it. Had he
looked down he could scarcely have failed to see, but he did not do so.
He passed, and then his hidden enemy erected himself,
and with outstretched hand followed in his tracks.
A moment more, and, just as the Elmoran was about to
turn, the great Zulu made a spring, and in the growing light we could see
his long lean hands close round the Masai's throat. Then followed a
convulsive twining of the two dark bodies, and in another second I saw the
Masai's head bent back, and heard a sharp crack, something like that of a
dry twig snapping, and he fell down upon the ground, his limbs moving
spasmodically.
Umslopogaas had put out all his iron strength and broken
the warrior's neck.
For a moment he knelt upon his victim, still gripping
his throat till he was sure that there was nothing more to fear from him,
and then he rose and beckoned to us to advance, which we did on all fours,
like a colony of huge apes. On reaching the kraal we saw that the Masai
had still further choked this entrance, which was about ten feet wide -- no
doubt in order to guard against attack -- by dragging four or five tops of
mimosa trees up to it. So much the better for us, I reflected; the more
obstruction there was the slower would they be able to come through. Here
we separated; Mackenzie and his party creeping up under the shadow of the
wall to the left, while Sir Henry and Umslopogaas took their stations one
on each side of the thorn fence, the two spearmen and the Askari lying down
in front of it. I and my men crept on up the right side of the kraal,
which was about fifty paces long.
When I was two-thirds up I halted, and placed my men at
distances of four paces from one another, keeping Alphonse close to me,
however. Then I peeped for the first time over the wall. It was getting
fairly light now, and the first thing I saw was the white donkey, exactly
opposite to me, and close by it I could make out the pale face of little
Flossie, who was sitting as the lad had described, some ten paces from the
wall. Round her lay many warriors, sleeping. At distances all over the
surface of the kraal were the remains of fires, round each of which slept
some five-and-twenty Masai, for the most part gorged with food. Now and
then a man would raise himself, yawn, and look at the east, which was
turning primrose; but none got up. I determined to wait another five
minutes, both to allow the light to increase, so that we could make better
shooting, and to give Good and his party -- of whom we could see or hear
nothing -- every opportunity to make ready.
The quiet dawn began to throw her ever-widening mantle
over plain and forest and river -- mighty Kenia, wrapped in the silence of
eternal snows, looked out across the earth -- till presently a beam from
the unrisen sun lit upon his heaven-kissing crest and purpled it with
blood; the sky above grew blue, and tender as a mother's smile; a bird
began to pipe his morning song, and a little breeze passing through the
bush shook down the dewdrops in millions to refresh the waking world.
Everywhere was peace and the happiness of arising strength, everywhere save
in the heart of cruel man!
Suddenly, just as I was nerving myself for the signal,
having already selected my man on whom I meant to open fire -- a great
fellow sprawling on the ground within three feet of little Flossie --
Alphonse's teeth began to chatter again like the hoofs of a galloping
giraffe, making a great noise in the silence. The rag had dropped out in
the agitation of his mind. Instantly a Masai within three paces of us
woke, and, sitting up, gazed about him, looking for the cause of the sound.
Moved beyond myself, I brought the butt-end of my rifle down on to the pit
of the Frenchman's stomach. This stopped his chattering; but, as he
doubled up, he managed to let off his gun in such a manner that the bullet
passed within an inch of my head.
There was no need for a signal now. From both sides of
the kraal broke out a waving line of fire, in which I myself joined,
managing with a snap shot to knock over my Masai by Flossie, just as he was
jumping up. Then from the top end of the kraal there rang an awful yell,
in which I rejoiced to recognize Good's piercing notes rising clear and
shrill above the din, and in another second followed such a scene as I have
never seen before nor shall again. With an universal howl of terror and
fury the brawny crowd of savages within the kraal sprang to their feet,
many of them to fall again beneath our well-directed hail of lead before
they had moved a yard. For a moment they stood undecided, and then hearing
the cries and curses that rose unceasingly from the top end of the kraal,
and bewildered by the storm of bullets, they as by one impulse rushed down
towards the thorn-stopped entrance. As they went we kept pouring our fire
with terrible effect into the thickening mob as fast as we could load. I
had emptied my repeater of the ten shots it contained and was just
beginning to slip in some more when I bethought me of little Flossie.
Looking up, I saw that the white donkey was lying kicking, having been
knocked over either by one of our bullets or a Masai spear-thrust. There
were no living Masai near, but the black nurse was on her feet and with a
spear cutting the rope that bound Flossie's feet. Next second she ran to
the wall of the kraal and began to climb over it, an example which the
little girl followed. But Flossie was evidently very stiff and cramped, and
could only go slowly, and as she went two Masai flying down the kraal
caught sight of her and rushed towards her to kill her. The first fellow
came up just as the poor little girl, after a desperate effort to climb the
wall, fell back into the kraal. Up flashed the great spear, and as it did
so a bullet from my rifle found its home in the holder's ribs, and over he
went like a shot rabbit. But behind him was the other man, and, alas, I had
only that one cartridge in the magazine! Flossie had scrambled to her feet
and was facing the second man, who was advancing with raised spear. I
turned my head aside and felt sick as death. I could not bear to see him
stab her. Glancing up again, to my surprise I saw the Masai's spear lying
on the ground, while the man himself was staggering about with both hands
to his head. Suddenly I saw a puff of smoke proceeding apparently from
Flossie, and the man fell down headlong. Then I remembered the Derringer
pistol she carried, and saw that she had fired both barrels of it at him,
thereby saving her life. In another instant she had made an effort, and
assisted by the nurse, who was lying on the top, had scrambled over the
wall, and I knew that she was, comparatively speaking, safe.
All this takes time to tell, but I do not suppose that
it took more than fifteen seconds to enact. I soon got the magazine of the
repeater filled again with cartridges, and once more opened fire, not on
the seething black mass which was gathering at the end of the kraal, but on
fugitives who bethought them to climb the wall. I picked off several of
these men, moving down towards the end of the kraal as I did so, and
arriving at the corner, or rather the bend of the oval, in time to see, and
by means of my rifle to assist in, the mighty struggle that took place
there.
By this time some two hundred Masai -- allowing that we
had up to the present accounted for fifty -- had gathered together in front
of the thorn-stopped entrance, driven thither by the spears of Good's men,
whom they doubtless supposed were a large force instead of being but ten
strong. For some reason it never occurred to them to try and rush the
wall, which they could have scrambled over with comparative ease; they all
made for the fence, which was really a strongly interwoven fortification.
With a bound the first warrior went at it, and even before he touched the
ground on the other side I saw Sir Henry's great axe swing up and fall with
awful force upon his feather head-piece, and he sank into the middle of the
thorns. Then with a yell and a crash they began to break through as they
might, and ever as they came the great axe swung and Inkosi-kaas flashed
and they fell dead one by one, each man thus helping to build up a barrier
against his fellows. Those who escaped the axes of the pair fell at the
hands of the Askari and the two Mission Kaffirs, and those who passed
scatheless from them were brought low by my own and Mackenzie's fire.
Faster and more furious grew the fighting. Single Masai
would spring upon the dead bodies of their comrades, and engage one or
other of the axemen with their long spears; but, thanks chiefly to the mail
shirts, the result was always the same. Presently there was a great swing
of the axe, a crashing sound, and another dead Masai. That is, if the man
was engaged with Sir Henry. If it was Umslopogaas that he fought with the
result indeed would be the same, but it would be differently attained. It
was but rarely that the Zulu used the crashing double-handed stroke; on the
contrary, he did little more than tap continually at his adversary's head,
pecking at it with the pole-axe end of the axe as a woodpecker 7 pecks at rotten wood. Presently a peck would go
home, and his enemy would drop down with a neat little circular hole in his
forehead or skull, exactly similar to that which a cheese-scoop makes in a
cheese. He never used the broad blade of the axe except when hard pressed,
or when striking at a shield. He told me afterwards that he did not
consider it sportsmanlike.
Good and his men were quite close by now, and our people
had to cease firing into the mass for fear of killing some of them (as it
was, one of them was slain in this way). Mad and desperate with fear, the
Masai by a frantic effort burst through the thorn fence and piled-up dead,
and, sweeping Curtis, Umslopogaas, and the other three before them, into
the open. And now it was that we began to lose men fast. Down went our
poor Askari who was armed with the axe, a great spear standing out a foot
behind his back; and before long the two spearsmen who had stood with him
went down too, dying fighting like tigers; and others of our party shared
their fate. For a moment I feared the fight was lost -- certainly it
trembled in the balance. I shouted to my men to cast down their rifles,
and to take spears and throw themselves into the melee. They obeyed, their
blood being now thoroughly up, and Mr Mackenzie's people followed their
example.
This move had a momentary good result, but still the
fight hung in the balance.
Our people fought magnificently, hurling themselves upon
the dark mass of Elmoran, hewing, thrusting, slaying, and being slain. And
ever above the din rose Good's awful yell of encouragement as he plunged to
wherever the fight was thickest; and ever, with an almost machine-like
regularity, the two axes rose and fell, carrying death and disablement at
every stroke. But I could see that the strain was beginning to tell upon
Sir Henry, who was bleeding from several flesh wounds: his breath was
coming in gasps, and the veins stood out on his forehead like blue and
knotted cords. Even Umslopogaas, man of iron that he was, was hard
pressed. I noticed that he had given up 'woodpecking', and was now using
the broad blade of Inkosi-kaas, 'browning' his enemy wherever he could hit
him, instead of drilling scientific holes in his head. I myself did not go
into the melee, but hovered outside like the swift 'back' in a football
scrimmage, putting a bullet through a Masai whenever I got a chance. I was
more use so. I fired forty-nine cartridges that morning, and I did not
miss many shots.
Presently, do as we would, the beam of the balance began
to rise against us. We had not more than fifteen or sixteen effectives
left now, and the Masai had at least fifty. Of course if they had kept
their heads, and shaken themselves together, they could soon have made an
end of the matter; but that is just what they did not do, not having yet
recovered from their start, and some of them having actually fled from
their sleeping-places without their weapons. Still by now many individuals
were fighting with their normal courage and discretion, and this alone was
sufficient to defeat us. To make matters worse just then, when Mackenzie's
rifle was empty, a brawny savage armed with a 'sime', or sword, made a rush
for him. The clergyman flung down his gun, and drawing his huge carver
from his elastic belt (his revolver had dropped out in the fight), they
closed in desperate struggle. Presently, locked in a close embrace,
missionary and Masai rolled on the ground behind the wall, and for some
time I, being amply occupied with my own affairs, and in keeping my skin
from being pricked, remained in ignorance of his fate or how the duel had
ended.
To and fro surged the fight, slowly turning round like
the vortex of a human whirlpool, and the matter began to look very bad for
us. Just then, however, a fortunate thing happened. Umslopogaas, either
by accident or design, broke out of the ring and engaged a warrior at some
few paces from it. As he did so, another man ran up and struck him with
all his force between his shoulders with his great spear, which, falling on
the tough steel shirt, failed to pierce it and rebounded. For a moment the
man stared aghast -- protective armour being unknown among these tribes --
and then he yelled out at the top of his voice --
'They are devils -- bewitched, bewitched!' And
seized by a sudden panic, he threw down his spear, and began to fly. I cut
short his career with a bullet, and Umslopogaas brained his man, and then
the panic spread to the others.
'Bewitched, bewitched!' they cried, and tried to
escape in every direction, utterly demoralized and broken-spirited, for the
most part even throwing down their shields and spears.
On the last scene of that dreadful fight I need not
dwell. It was a slaughter great and grim, in which no quarter was asked or
given. One incident, however, is worth detailing. Just as I was hoping
that it was all done with, suddenly from under a heap of slain where he had
been hiding, an unwounded warrior sprang up, and, clearing the piles of
dying dead like an antelope, sped like the wind up the kraal towards the
spot where I was standing at the moment. But he was not alone, for
Umslopogaas came gliding on his tracks with the peculiar swallow-like
motion for which he was noted, and as they neared me I recognized in the
Masai the herald of the previous night. Finding that, run as he would, his
pursuer was gaining on him, the man halted and turned round to give battle.
Umslopogaas also pulled up.
'Ah, ah,' he cried, in mockery, to the Elmoran, 'it is
thou whom I talked with last night -- the Lygonani! the Herald! the
capturer of little girls -- he who would kill a little girl! And thou
didst hope to stand man to man and face to face with Umslopogaas, an Induna
of the tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of the Amazulu? Behold, thy
prayer is granted! And I didst swear to hew thee limb from limb, thou
insolent dog. Behold, I will do it even now!'
The Masai ground his teeth with fury, and charged at the
Zulu with his spear. As he came, Umslopogaas deftly stepped aside, and
swinging Inkosi-kaas high above his head with both hands, brought the broad
blade down with such fearful force from behind upon the Masai's shoulder
just where the neck is set into the frame, that its razor edge shore right
through bone and flesh and muscle, almost severing the head and one arm
from the body.
'Ou!' ejaculated Umslopogaas, contemplating the
corpse of his foe; 'I have kept my word. It was a good stroke.'
CHAPTER VIII
ALPHONSE EXPLAINS
And so the fight was ended. On returning from the
shocking scene it suddenly struck me that I had seen nothing of Alphonse
since the moment, some twenty minutes before -- for though this fight has
taken a long while to describe, it did not take long in reality -- when I
had been forced to hit him in the wind with the result of nearly getting
myself shot. Fearing that the poor little man had perished in the battle,
I began to hunt among the dead for his body, but, not being able either to
see or hear anything of it, I concluded that he must have survived, and
walked down the side of the kraal where we had first taken our stand,
calling him by name. Now some fifteen paces back from the kraal wall stood
a very ancient tree of the banyan species. So ancient was it that all the
inside had in the course of ages decayed away, leaving nothing but a shell
of bark.
'Alphonse,' I called, as I walked down the wall.
'Alphonse!'
'Oui, monsieur,' answered a voice. 'Here am I.'
I looked round but could see nobody. 'Where?' I
cried.
'Here am I, monsieur, in the tree.'
I looked, and there, peering out of a hole in the trunk
of the banyan about five feet from the ground, I saw a pale face and a pair
of large mustachios, one clipped short and the other as lamentably out of
curl as the tail of a newly whipped pug. Then, for the first time, I
realized what I had suspected before -- namely, that Alphonse was an arrant
coward. I walked up to him. 'Come out of that hole,' I said.
'Is it finished, monsieur?' he asked anxiously; 'quite
finished? Ah, the horrors I have undergone, and the prayers I have
uttered!'
'Come out, you little wretch,' I said, for I did not
feel amiable; 'it is all over.'
'So, monsieur, then my prayers have prevailed? I
emerge,' and he did.
As we were walking down together to join the others, who
were gathered in a group by the wide entrance to the kraal, which now
resembled a veritable charnel-house, a Masai, who had escaped so far and
been hiding under a bush, suddenly sprang up and charged furiously at us.
Off went Alphonse with a howl of terror, and after him flew the Masai, bent
upon doing some execution before he died. He soon overtook the poor little
Frenchman, and would have finished him then and there had I not, just as
Alphonse made a last agonized double in the vain hope of avoiding the yard
of steel that was flashing in his immediate rear, managed to plant a bullet
between the Elmoran's broad shoulders, which brought matters to a
satisfactory conclusion so far as the Frenchman was concerned. But just
then he tripped and fell flat, and the body of the Masai fell right on the
top of him, moving convulsively in the death struggle. Thereupon there
arose such a series of piercing howls that I concluded that before he died
the savage must have managed to stab poor Alphonse. I ran up in a hurry
and pulled the Masai off, and there beneath him lay Alphonse covered with
blood and jerking himself about like a galvanized frog. Poor fellow!
thought I, he is done for, and kneeling down by him I began to search for
his wound as well as his struggles would allow.
'Oh, the hole in my back!' he yelled. 'I am murdered.
I am dead. Oh, Annette!'
I searched again, but could see no wound. Then the
truth dawned on me -- the man was frightened, not hurt.
'Get up!' I shouted, 'Get up. Aren't you ashamed of
yourself? You are not touched.'
Thereupon he rose, not a penny the worse. 'But,
monsieur, I thought I was,' he said apologetically; 'I did not know that I
had conquered.' Then, giving the body of the Masai a kick, he ejaculated
triumphantly, 'Ah, dog of a black savage, thou art dead; what victory!'
Thoroughly disgusted, I left Alphonse to look after
himself, which he did by following me like a shadow, and proceeded to join
the others by the large entrance. The first thing that I saw was
Mackenzie, seated on a stone with a handkerchief twisted round his thigh,
from which he was bleeding freely, having, indeed, received a spear-thrust
that passed right through it, and still holding in his hand his favourite
carving knife now bent nearly double, from which I gathered that he had
been successful in his rough and tumble with the Elmoran.
'Ah, Quatermain!' he sang out in a trembling, excited
voice, 'so we have conquered; but it is a sorry sight, a sorry sight;' and
then breaking into broad Scotch and glancing at the bent knife in his hand,
'It fashes me sair to have bent my best carver on the breastbone of a
savage,' and he laughed hysterically. Poor fellow, what between his wound
and the killing excitement he had undergone his nerves were much shaken,
and no wonder! It is hard upon a man of peace and kindly heart to be called
upon to join in such a gruesome business. But there, fate puts us
sometimes into very comical positions!
At the kraal entrance the scene was a strange one. The
slaughter was over by now, and the wounded men had been put out of their
pain, for no quarter had been given. The bush-closed entrance was trampled
flat, and in place of bushes it was filled with the bodies of dead men.
Dead men, everywhere dead men -- they lay about in knots, they were flung
by ones and twos in every position upon the open spaces, for all the world
like the people on the grass in one of the London parks on a particularly
hot Sunday in August. In front of this entrance, on a space which had been
cleared of dead and of the shields and spears which were scattered in all
directions as they had fallen or been thrown from the hands of their
owners, stood and lay the survivors of the awful struggle, and at their
feet were four wounded men. We had gone into the fight thirty strong, and
of the thirty but fifteen remained alive, and five of them (including Mr
Mackenzie) were wounded, two mortally. Of those who held the entrance,
Curtis and the Zulu alone remained. Good had lost five men killed, I had
lost two killed, and Mackenzie no less than five out of the six with him.
As for the survivors they were, with the exception of myself who had never
come to close quarters, red from head to foot -- Sir Henry's armour might
have been painted that colour -- and utterly exhausted, except Umslopogaas,
who, as he grimly stood on a little mound above a heap of dead, leaning as
usual upon his axe, did not seem particularly distressed, although the skin
over the hole in his head palpitated violently.
'Ah, Macumazahn!' he said to me as I limped up, feeling
very sick, 'I told thee that it would be a good fight, and it has. Never
have I seen a better, or one more bravely fought. As for this iron shirt,
surely it is "tagati" [bewitched]; nothing could pierce it. Had it not
been for the garment I should have been there,' and he nodded
towards the great pile of dead men beneath him.
'I give it thee; thou art a brave man,' said Sir Henry,
briefly.
'Koos!' answered the Zulu, deeply pleased both at the
gift and the compliment. 'Thou, too, Incubu, didst bear thyself as a man,
but I must give thee some lessons with the axe; thou dost waste thy
strength.'
Just then Mackenzie asked about Flossie, and we were all
greatly relieved when one of the men said he had seen her flying towards
the house with the nurse. Then bearing such of the wounded as could be
moved at the moment with us, we slowly made our way towards the
Mission-house, spent with toil and bloodshed, but with the glorious sense
of victory against overwhelming odds glowing in our hearts. We had saved
the life of the little maid, and taught the Masai of those parts a lesson
that they will not forget for ten years -- but at what a cost!
Painfully we made our way up the hill which, just a
little more than an hour before, we had descended under such different
circumstances. At the gate of the wall stood Mrs Mackenzie waiting for us.
When her eyes fell upon us, however, she shrieked out, and covered her face
with her hands, crying, 'Horrible, horrible!' Nor were her fears allayed
when she discovered her worthy husband being borne upon an improvized
stretcher; but her doubts as to the nature of his injury were soon set at
rest. Then when in a few brief words I had told her the upshot of the
struggle (of which Flossie, who had arrived in safety, had been able to
explain something) she came up to me and solemnly kissed me on the
forehead.
'God bless you all, Mr Quatermain; you have saved my
child's life,' she said simply.
Then we went in and got our clothes off and doctored our
wounds; I am glad to say I had none, and Sir Henry's and Good's were,
thanks to those invaluable chain shirts, of a comparatively harmless
nature, and to be dealt with by means of a few stitches and sticking-
plaster. Mackenzie's, however, were serious, though fortunately the spear
had not severed any large artery. After that we had a bath, and what a
luxury it was! And having clad ourselves in ordinary clothes, proceeded to
the dining-room, where breakfast was set as usual. It was curious sitting
down there, drinking tea and eating toast in an ordinary nineteenth-century
sort of way just as though we had not employed the early hours in a regular
primitive hand-to-hand Middle-Ages kind of struggle. As Good said, the
whole thing seemed more as though one had had a bad nightmare just before
being called, than as a deed done. When we were finishing our breakfast
the door opened, and in came little Flossie, very pale and tottery, but
quite unhurt. She kissed us all and thanked us. I congratulated her on
the presence of mind she had shown in shooting the Masai with her Derringer
pistol, and thereby saving her own life.
'Oh, don't talk of it!' she said, beginning to cry
hysterically; 'I shall never forget his face as he went turning round and
round, never -- I can see it now.'
I advised her to go to bed and get some sleep, which she
did, and awoke in the evening quite recovered, so far as her strength was
concerned. It struck me as an odd thing that a girl who could find the
nerve to shoot a huge black ruffian rushing to kill her with a spear should
have been so affected at the thought of it afterwards; but it is, after
all, characteristic of the sex. Poor Flossie! I fear that her nerves will
not get over that night in the Masai camp for many a long year. She told
me afterwards that it was the suspense that was so awful, having to sit
there hour after hour through the livelong night utterly ignorant as to
whether or not any attempt was to be made to rescue her. She said that on
the whole she did not expect it, knowing how few of us, and how many of the
Masai -- who, by the way, came continually to stare at her, most of them
never having seen a white person before, and handled her arms and hair with
their filthy paws. She said also that she had made up her mind that if she
saw no signs of succour by the time the first rays of the rising sun
reached the kraal she would kill herself with the pistol, for the nurse had
heard the Lygonani say that they were to be tortured to death as soon as
the sun was up if one of the white men did not come in their place. It was
an awful resolution to have to take, but she meant to act on it, and I have
little doubt but what she would have done so. Although she was at an age
when in England girls are in the schoolroom and come down to dessert, this
'child of the wilderness' had more courage, discretion, and power of mind
than many a woman of mature age nurtured in idleness and luxury, with minds
carefully drilled and educated out of any originality or self-resource that
nature may have endowed them with.
When breakfast was over we all turned in and had a good
sleep, only getting up in time for dinner; after which meal we once more
adjourned, together with all the available population -- men, women,
youths, and girls -- to the scene of the morning's slaughter, our object
being to bury our own dead and get rid of the Masai by flinging them into
the Tana River, which ran within fifty yards of the kraal. On reaching the
spot we disturbed thousands upon thousands of vultures and a sort of brown
bush eagle, which had been flocking to the feast from miles and miles away.
Often have I watched these great and repulsive birds, and marvelled at the
extraordinary speed with which they arrive on a scene of slaughter. A buck
falls to your rifle, and within a minute high in the blue ether appears a
speck that gradually grows into a vulture, then another, and another. I
have heard many theories advanced to account for the wonderful power of
perception nature has given these birds. My own, founded on a good deal of
observation, is that the vultures, gifted as they are with powers of sight
greater than those given by the most powerful glass, quarter out the
heavens among themselves, and hanging in mid-air at a vast height --
probably from two to three miles above the earth -- keep watch, each of
them, over an enormous stretch of country. Presently one of them spies
food, and instantly begins to sink towards it. Thereon his next neighbour
in the airy heights sailing leisurely through the blue gulf, at a distance
perhaps of some miles, follows his example, knowing that food has been
sighted. Down he goes, and all the vultures within sight of him follow
after, and so do all those in sight of them. In this way the vultures for
twenty miles round can be summoned to the feast in a few minutes.
We buried our dead in solemn silence, Good being
selected to read the Burial Service over them (in the absence of Mr
Mackenzie, confined to bed), as he was generally allowed to possess the
best voice and most impressive manner. It was melancholy in the extreme,
but, as Good said, it might have been worse, for we might have had 'to bury
ourselves'. I pointed out that this would have been a difficult feat, but
I knew what he meant.
Next we set to work to load an ox-wagon which had been
brought round from the Mission with the dead bodies of the Masai, having
first collected the spears, shields, and other arms. We loaded the wagon
five times, about fifty bodies to the load, and emptied it into the Tana.
From this it was evident that very few of the Masai could have escaped.
The crocodiles must have been well fed that night. One of the last bodies
we picked up was that of the sentry at the upper end. I asked Good how he
managed to kill him, and he told me that he had crept up much as
Umslopogaas had done, and stabbed him with his sword. He groaned a good
deal, but fortunately nobody heard him. As Good said, it was a horrible
thing to have to do, and most unpleasantly like cold-blooded murder.
And so with the last body that floated away down the
current of the Tana ended the incident of our attack on the Masai camp. The
spears and shields and other arms we took up to the Mission, where they
filled an outhouse. One incident, however, I must not forget to mention.
As we were returning from performing the obsequies of our Masai friends we
passed the hollow tree where Alphonse had secreted himself in the morning.
It so happened that the little man himself was with us assisting in our
unpleasant task with a far better will than he had shown where live Masai
were concerned. Indeed, for each body that he handled he found an
appropriate sarcasm. Alphonse throwing Masai into the Tana was a very
different creature from Alphonse flying for dear life from the spear of a
live Masai. He was quite merry and gay, he clapped his hands and warbled
snatches of French songs as the grim dead warriors went 'splash' into the
running waters to carry a message of death and defiance to their kindred a
hundred miles below. In short, thinking that he wanted taking down a peg,
I suggested holding a court-martial on him for his conduct in the
morning.
Accordingly we brought him to the tree where he had
hidden, and proceeded to sit in judgment on him, Sir Henry explaining to
him in the very best French the unheard-of cowardice and enormity of his
conduct, more especially in letting the oiled rag out of his mouth, whereby
he nearly aroused the Masai camp with teeth-chattering and brought about
the failure of our plans: ending up with a request for an explanation.
But if we expected to find Alphonse at a loss and put
him to open shame we were destined to be disappointed. He bowed and
scraped and smiled, and acknowledged that his conduct might at first blush
appear strange, but really it was not, inasmuch as his teeth were not
chattering from fear -- oh, dear no! oh, certainly not! he marvelled how
the 'messieurs' could think of such a thing -- but from the chill air of
the morning. As for the rag, if monsieur could have but tasted its evil
flavour, being compounded indeed of a mixture of stale paraffin oil,
grease, and gunpowder, monsieur himself would have spat it out. But he did
nothing of the sort; he determined to keep it there till, alas! his stomach
'revolted', and the rag was ejected in an access of involuntary
sickness.
'And what have you to say about getting into the hollow
tree?' asked Sir Henry, keeping his countenance with difficulty.
'But, monsieur, the explanation is easy; oh, most easy!
it was thus: I stood there by the kraal wall, and the little grey monsieur
hit me in the stomach so that my rifle exploded, and the battle began. I
watched whilst recovering myself from monsieur's cruel blow; then,
messieurs, I felt the heroic blood of my grandfather boil up in my veins.
The sight made me mad. I ground my teeth! Fire flashed from my eyes! I
shouted "En avant!" and longed to slay. Before my eyes there rose a vision
of my heroic grandfather! In short, I was mad! I was a warrior indeed!
But then in my heart I heard a small voice: "Alphonse," said the voice,
"restrain thyself, Alphonse! Give not way to this evil passion! These
men, though black, are brothers! And thou wouldst slay them? Cruel
Alphonse!" The voice was right. I knew it; I was about to perpetrate the
most horrible cruelties: to wound! to massacre! to tear limb from limb!
And how restrain myself? I looked round; I saw the tree, I perceived the
hole. "Entomb thyself," said the voice, "and hold on tight! Thou wilt
thus overcome temptation by main force!" It was bitter, just when the
blood of my heroic grandfather boiled most fiercely; but I obeyed! I
dragged my unwilling feet along; I entombed myself! Through the hole I
watched the battle! I shouted curses and defiance on the foe! I noted them
fall with satisfaction! Why not? I had not robbed them of their lives.
Their gore was not upon my head. The blood of my heroic --'
'Oh, get along with you, you little cur!' broke out Sir
Henry, with a shout of laughter, and giving Alphonse a good kick which sent
him flying off with a rueful face.
In the evening I had an interview with Mr Mackenzie, who
was suffering a good deal from his wounds, which Good, who was a skilful
though unqualified doctor, was treating him for. He told me that this
occurrence had taught him a lesson, and that, if he recovered safely, he
meant to hand over the Mission to a younger man, who was already on his
road to join him in his work, and return to England.
'You see, Quatermain,' he said, 'I made up my mind to
it, this very morning, when we were creeping down those benighted savages.
"If we live through this and rescue Flossie alive," I said to myself, "I
will go home to England; I have had enough of savages." Well, I did not
think that we should live through it at the time; but thanks be to God and
you four, we have lived through it, and I mean to stick to my resolution,
lest a worse thing befall us. Another such time would kill my poor wife.
And besides, Quatermain, between you and me, I am well off; it is thirty
thousand pounds I am worth today, and every farthing of it made by honest
trade and savings in the bank at Zanzibar, for living here costs me next to
nothing. So though it will be hard to leave this place, which I have made
to blossom like a rose in the wilderness, and harder still to leave the
people I have taught, I shall go.'
'I congratulate you on your decision,' answered I, 'for
two reasons. The first is, that you owe a duty to your wife and daughter,
and more especially to the latter, who should receive some education and
mix with girls of her own race, otherwise she will grow up wild, shunning
her kind. The other is, that as sure as I am standing here, sooner or
later the Masai will try to avenge the slaughter inflicted on them today.
Two or three men are sure to have escaped the confusion who will carry the
story back to their people, and the result will be that a great expedition
will one day be sent against you. It might be delayed for a year, but
sooner or later it will come. Therefore, if only for that reason, I should
go. When once they have learnt that you are no longer here they may
perhaps leave the place alone.' 8
'You are quite right,' answered the clergyman. 'I will
turn my back upon this place in a month. But it will be a wrench, it will
be a wrench.'
CHAPTER IX
INTO THE UNKNOWN
A week had passed, and we all sat at supper one night in
the Mission dining-room, feeling very much depressed in spirits, for the
reason that we were going to say goodbye to our kind friends, the
Mackenzies, and depart upon our way at dawn on the morrow. Nothing more
had been seen or heard of the Masai, and save for a spear or two which had
been overlooked and was rusting in the grass, and a few empty cartridges
where we had stood outside the wall, it would have been difficult to tell
that the old cattle kraal at the foot of the slope had been the scene of so
desperate a struggle. Mackenzie was, thanks chiefly to his being so
temperate a man, rapidly recovering from his wound, and could get about on
a pair of crutches; and as for the other wounded men, one had died of
gangrene, and the rest were in a fair way to recovery. Mr Mackenzie's
caravan of men had also returned from the coast, so that the station was
now amply garrisoned.
Under these circumstances we concluded, warm and
pressing as were the invitations for us to stay, that it was time to move
on, first to Mount Kenia, and thence into the unknown in search of the
mysterious white race which we had set our hearts on discovering. This time
we were going to progress by means of the humble but useful donkey, of
which we had collected no less than a dozen, to carry our goods and
chattels, and, if necessary, ourselves. We had now but two Wakwafis left
for servants, and found it quite impossible to get other natives to venture
with us into the unknown parts we proposed to explore -- and small blame to
them. After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three men, each of
whom possessed many of those things that are supposed to make life worth
living -- health, sufficient means, and position, etc. -- should from their
own pleasure start out upon a wild-goose chase, from which the chances were
they never would return. But then that is what Englishmen are, adventurers
to the backbone; and all our magnificent muster-roll of colonies, each of
which will in time become a great nation, testify to the extraordinary
value of the spirit of adventure which at first sight looks like a mild
form of lunacy. 'Adventurer' -- he that goes out to meet whatever may
come. Well, that is what we all do in the world one way or another, and,
speaking for myself, I am proud of the title, because it implies a brave
heart and a trust in Providence. Besides, when many and many a noted
Croesus, at whose feet the people worship, and many and many a time-serving
and word-coining politician are forgotten, the names of those grand-hearted
old adventurers who have made England what she is, will be remembered and
taught with love and pride to little children whose unshaped spirits yet
slumber in the womb of centuries to be. Not that we three can expect to be
numbered with such as these, yet have we done something -- enough, perhaps,
to throw a garment over the nakedness of our folly.
That evening, whilst we were sitting on the veranda,
smoking a pipe before turning in, who should come up to us but Alphonse,
and, with a magnificent bow, announce his wish for an interview. Being
requested to 'fire away', he explained at some length that he was anxious
to attach himself to our party -- a statement that astonished me not a
little, knowing what a coward the little man was. The reason, however,
soon appeared. Mr Mackenzie was going down to the coast, and thence on to
England. Now, if he went down country, Alphonse was persuaded that he
would be seized, extradited, sent to France, and to penal servitude. This
was the idea that haunted him, as King Charles's head haunted Mr Dick, and
he brooded over it till his imagination exaggerated the danger ten times.
As a matter of fact, the probability is that his offence against the laws
of his country had long ago been forgotten, and that he would have been
allowed to pass unmolested anywhere except in France; but he could not be
got to see this. Constitutional coward as the little man was, he infinitely
preferred to face the certain hardships and great risks and dangers of such
an expedition as ours, than to expose himself, notwithstanding his intense
longing for his native land, to the possible scrutiny of a police officer
-- which is after all only another exemplification of the truth that, to
the majority of men, a far-off foreseen danger, however shadowy, is much
more terrible than the most serious present emergency. After listening to
what he had to say, we consulted among ourselves, and finally agreed, with
Mr Mackenzie's knowledge and consent, to accept his offer. To begin with,
we were very short-handed, and Alphonse was a quick, active fellow, who
could turn his hand to anything, and cook -- ah, he could cook! I
believe that he would have made a palatable dish of those gaiters of his
heroic grandfather which he was so fond of talking about. Then he was a
good-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous,
vainglorious talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what is
more, he never bore malice. Of course, his being so pronounced a coward
was a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness we could
more or less guard against it. So, after warning him of the undoubted
risks he was exposing himself to, we told him that we would accept his
offer on condition that he would promise implicit obedience to our orders.
We also promised to give him wages at the rate of ten pounds a month should
he ever return to a civilized country to receive them. To all of this he
agreed with alacrity, and retired to write a letter to his Annette, which
Mr Mackenzie promised to post when he got down country. He read it to us
afterwards, Sir Henry translating, and a wonderful composition it was. I
am sure the depth of his devotion and the narration of his sufferings in a
barbarous country, 'far, far from thee, Annette, for whose adored sake I
endure such sorrow,' ought to have touched the feelings of the
stoniest-hearted chambermaid.
Well, the morrow came, and by seven o'clock the donkeys
were all loaded, and the time of parting was at hand. It was a melancholy
business, especially saying goodbye to dear little Flossie. She and I were
great friends, and often used to have talks together -- but her nerves had
never got over the shock of that awful night when she lay in the power of
those bloodthirsty Masai. 'Oh, Mr Quatermain,' she cried, throwing her arms
round my neck and bursting into tears, 'I can't bear to say goodbye to you.
I wonder when we shall meet again?'
'I don't know, my dear little girl,' I said, 'I am at
one end of life and you are at the other. I have but a short time before
me at best, and most things lie in the past, but I hope that for you there
are many long and happy years, and everything lies in the future.
By-and-by you will grow into a beautiful woman, Flossie, and all this wild
life will be like a far-off dream to you; but I hope, even if we never do
meet again, that you will think of your old friend and remember what I say
to you now. Always try to be good, my dear, and to do what is right,
rather than what happens to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever sneering
people may say, what is good and what is happy are the same. Be unselfish,
and whenever you can, give a helping hand to others -- for the world is
full of suffering, my dear, and to alleviate it is the noblest end that we
can set before us. If you do that you will become a sweet and God-fearing
woman, and make many people's lives a little brighter, and then you will
not have lived, as so many of your sex do, in vain. And now I have given
you a lot of old-fashioned advice, and so I am going to give you something
to sweeten it with. You see this little piece of paper. It is what is
called a cheque. When we are gone give it to your father with this note --
not before, mind. You will marry one day, my dear little Flossie, and it
is to buy you a wedding present which you are to wear, and your daughter
after you, if you have one, in remembrance of Hunter Quatermain.'
Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock
of her bright hair in return, which I still have. The cheque I gave her
was for a thousand pounds (which being now well off, and having no calls
upon me except those of charity, I could well afford), and in the note I
directed her father to invest it for her in Government security, and when
she married or came of age to buy her the best diamond necklace he could
get for the money and accumulated interest. I chose diamonds because I
think that now that King Solomon's Mines are lost to the world, their price
will never be much lower than it is at present, so that if in after-life
she should ever be in pecuniary difficulties, she will be able to turn them
into money.
Well, at last we got off, after much hand-shaking,
hat-waving, and also farewell saluting from the natives, Alphonse weeping
copiously (for he has a warm heart) at parting with his master and
mistress; and I was not sorry for it at all, for I hate those goodbyes.
Perhaps the most affecting thing of all was to witness Umslopogaas'
distress at parting with Flossie, for whom the grim old warrior had
conceived a strong affection. He used to say that she was as sweet to see
as the only star on a dark night, and was never tired of loudly
congratulating himself on having killed the Lygonani who had threatened to
murder her. And that was the last we saw of the pleasant Mission-house --
a true oasis in the desert -- and of European civilization. But I often
think of the Mackenzies, and wonder how they got down country, and if they
are now safe and well in England, and will ever see these words. Dear
little Flossie! I wonder how she fares there where there are no black folk
to do her imperious bidding, and no sky-piercing snow-clad Kenia for her to
look at when she gets up in the morning. And so goodbye to Flossie.
After leaving the Mission-house we made our way,
comparatively unmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai
call 'Donyo Egere', or the 'speckled mountain', on account of the black
patches of rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where the sides are too
precipitous to allow of the snow lying on them; then on past the lonely
lake Baringo, where one of our two remaining Askari, having unfortunately
trodden on a puff-adder, died of snake-bite, in spite of all our efforts to
save him. Thence we proceeded a distance of about a hundred and fifty
miles to another magnificent snow-clad mountain called Lekakisera, which
has never, to the best of my belief, been visited before by a European, but
which I cannot now stop to describe. There we rested a fortnight, and then
started out into the trackless and uninhabited forest of a vast district
called Elgumi. In this forest alone there are more elephants than I ever
met with or heard of before. The mighty mammals literally swarm there
entirely unmolested by man, and only kept down by the natural law that
prevents any animals increasing beyond the capacity of the country they
inhabit to support them. Needless to say, however, we did not shoot many
of them, first because we could not afford to waste ammunition, of which
our stock was getting perilously low, a donkey loaded with it having been
swept away in fording a flooded river; and secondly, because we could not
carry away the ivory, and did not wish to kill for the mere sake of
slaughter. So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one or two in
self-protection. In this district, the elephants, being unacquainted with
the hunter and his tender mercies, would allow one to walk up to within
twenty yards of them in the open, while they stood, with their great ears
cocked for all the world like puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared
at that new and extraordinary phenomenon -- man. Occasionally, when the
inspection did not prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a trumpet and a
charge, but this did not often happen. When it did we had to use our
rifles. Nor were elephants the only wild beasts in the great Elgumi
forest. All sorts of large game abounded, including lions -- confound
them! I have always hated the sight of a lion since one bit my leg and
lamed me for life. As a consequence, another thing that abounded was the
dreadful tsetse fly, whose bite is death to domestic animals. Donkeys
have, together with men, hitherto been supposed to enjoy a peculiar
immunity from its attacks; but all I have to say, whether it was on account
of their poor condition, or because the tsetse in those parts is more
poisonous than usual, I do not know, but ours succumbed to its onslaught.
Fortunately, however, that was not till two months or so after the bites
had been inflicted, when suddenly, after a two days' cold rain, they all
died, and on removing the skins of several of them I found the long yellow
streaks upon the flesh which are characteristic of death from bites from
the tsetse, marking the spot where the insect had inserted his proboscis.
On emerging from the great Elgumi forest, we, still steering northwards, in
accordance with the information Mr Mackenzie had collected from the
unfortunate wanderer who reached him only to die so tragically, struck the
base in due course of the large lake, called Laga by the natives, which is
about fifty miles long by twenty broad, and of which, it may be remembered,
he made mention. Thence we pushed on nearly a month's journey over great
rolling uplands, something like those in the Transvaal, but diversified by
patches of bush country.
All this time we were continually ascending at the rate
of about one hundred feet every ten miles. Indeed the country was on a
slope which appeared to terminate at a mass of snow-tipped mountains, for
which we were steering, and where we learnt the second lake of which the
wanderer had spoken as the lake without a bottom was situated. At length
we arrived there, and, having ascertained that there was a large
lake on top of the mountains, ascended three thousand feet more till we
came to a precipitous cliff or edge, to find a great sheet of water some
twenty miles square lying fifteen hundred feet below us, and evidently
occupying an extinct volcanic crater or craters of vast extent. Perceiving
villages on the border of this lake, we descended with great difficulty
through forests of pine trees, which now clothed the precipitous sides of
the crater, and were well received by the people, a simple, unwarlike folk,
who had never seen or even heard of a white man before, and treated us with
great reverence and kindness, supplying us with as much food and milk as we
could eat and drink. This wonderful and beautiful lake lay, according to
our aneroid, at a height of no less than 11,450 feet above sea-level, and
its climate was quite cold, and not at all unlike that of England. Indeed,
for the first three days of our stay there we saw little or nothing of the
scenery on account of an unmistakable Scotch mist which prevailed. It was
this rain that set the tsetse poison working in our remaining donkeys, so
that they all died.
This disaster left us in a very awkward position, as we
had now no means of transport whatever, though on the other hand we had not
much to carry. Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting to but one
hundred and fifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some fifty shot-gun
cartridges. How to get on we did not know; indeed it seemed to us that we
had about reached the end of our tether. Even if we had been inclined to
abandon the object of our search, which, shadow as it was, was by no means
the case, it was ridiculous to think of forcing our way back some seven
hundred miles to the coast in our present plight; so we came to the
conclusion that the only thing to be done was to stop where we were -- the
natives being so well disposed and food plentiful -- for the present, and
abide events, and try to collect information as to the countries
beyond.
Accordingly, having purchased a capital log canoe, large
enough to hold us all and our baggage, from the headman of the village we
were staying in, presenting him with three empty cold-drawn brass
cartridges by way of payment, with which he was perfectly delighted, we set
out to make a tour of the lake in order to find the most favourable place
to make a camp. As we did not know if we should return to this village, we
put all our gear into the canoe, and also a quarter of cooked water-buck,
which when young is delicious eating, and off we set, natives having
already gone before us in light canoes to warn the inhabitants of the other
villages of our approach.
As we were puddling leisurely along Good remarked upon
the extraordinary deep blue colour of the water, and said that he
understood from the natives, who were great fishermen -- fish, indeed,
being their principal food -- that the lake was supposed to be wonderfully
deep, and to have a hole at the bottom through which the water escaped and
put out some great fire that was raging below.
I pointed out to him that what he had heard was probably
a legend arising from a tradition among the people which dated back to the
time when one of the extinct parasitic volcanic cones was in activity. We
saw several round the borders of the lake which had no doubt been working
at a period long subsequent to the volcanic death of the central crater
which now formed the bed of the lake itself. When it finally became
extinct the people would imagine that the water from the lake had run down
and put out the big fire below, more especially as, though it was
constantly fed by streams running from the snow-tipped peaks about, there
was no visible exit to it.
The farther shore of the lake we found, on approaching
it, to consist of a vast perpendicular wall of rock, which held the water
without any intermediate sloping bank, as elsewhere. Accordingly we
paddled parallel with this precipice, at a distance of about a hundred
paces from it, shaping our course for the end of the lake, where we knew
that there was a large village.
As we went we began to pass a considerable accumulation
of floating rushes, weed, boughs of trees, and other rubbish, brought, Good
supposed, to this spot by some current, which he was much puzzled to
account for. Whilst we were speculating about this, Sir Henry pointed out
a flock of large white swans, which were feeding on the drift some little
way ahead of us. Now I had already noticed swans flying about this lake,
and, having never come across them before in Africa, was exceedingly
anxious to obtain a specimen. I had questioned the natives about them, and
learnt that they came from over the mountain, always arriving at certain
periods of the year in the early morning, when it was very easy to catch
them, on account of their exhausted condition. I also asked them what
country they came from, when they shrugged their shoulders, and said that
on the top of the great black precipice was stony inhospitable land, and
beyond that were mountains with snow, and full of wild beasts, where no
people lived, and beyond the mountains were hundreds of miles of dense
thorn forest, so thick that even the elephants could not get through it,
much less men. Next I asked them if they had ever heard of white people
like ourselves living on the farther side of the mountains and the thorn
forest, whereat they laughed. But afterwards a very old woman came and
told me that when she was a little girl her grandfather had told her that
in his youth his grandfather had crossed the desert and the
mountains, and pierced the thorn forest, and seen a white people who lived
in stone kraals beyond. Of course, as this took the tale back some two
hundred and fifty years, the information was very indefinite; but still
there it was again, and on thinking it over I grew firmly convinced that
there was some truth in all these rumours, and equally firmly determined to
solve the mystery. Little did I guess in what an almost miraculous way my
desire was to be gratified.
Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept
drawing, as they fed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last we
pushed the canoe under shelter of a patch of drift within forty yards of
them. Sir Henry had the shot-gun, loaded with No. 1, and, waiting for a
chance, got two in a line, and, firing at their necks, killed them both.
Up rose the rest, thirty or more of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as
they did so, he gave them the other barrel. Down came one fellow with a
broken wing, and I saw the leg of another drop and a few feathers start out
of his back; but he went on quite strong. Up went the swans, circling ever
higher till at last they were mere specks level with the top of the
frowning precipice, when I saw them form into a triangle and head off for
the unknown north-east. Meanwhile we had picked up our two dead ones, and
beautiful birds they were, weighing not less than about thirty pounds each,
and were chasing the winged one, which had scrambled over a mass of
driftweed into a pool of clear water beyond. Finding a difficulty in
forcing the canoe through the rubbish, I told our only remaining Wakwafi
servant, whom I knew to be an excellent swimmer, to jump over, dive under
the drift, and catch him, knowing that as there were no crocodiles in this
lake he could come to no harm. Entering into the fun of the thing, the man
obeyed, and soon was dodging about after the winged swan in fine style,
getting gradually nearer to the rock wall, against which the water washed
as he did so.
Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began
to cry out that he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that, though
he was swimming with all his strength towards us, he was being drawn slowly
to the precipice. With a few desperate strokes of our paddles we pushed
the canoe through the crust of drift and rowed towards the man as hard as
we could, but, fast as we went, he was drawn faster to the rock. Suddenly
I saw that before us, just rising eighteen inches or so above the surface
of the lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a submerged cave
or railway tunnel. Evidently, from the watermark on the rock several feet
above it, it was generally entirely submerged; but there had been a dry
season, and the cold had prevented the snow from melting as freely as
usual; so the lake was low and the arch showed. Towards this arch our poor
servant was being sucked with frightful rapidity. He was not more than ten
fathoms from it, and we were about twenty when I saw it, and with little
help from us the canoe flew along after him. He struggled bravely, and I
thought that we should have saved him, when suddenly I perceived an
expression of despair come upon his face, and there before our eyes he was
sucked down into the cruel swirling blue depths, and vanished. At the same
moment I felt our canoe seized as with a mighty hand, and propelled with
resistless force towards the rock.
We realized our danger now and rowed, or rather paddled,
furiously in our attempt to get out of the vortex. In vain; in another
second we were flying straight for the arch like an arrow, and I thought
that we were lost. Luckily I retained sufficient presence of mind to shout
out, instantly setting the example by throwing myself into the bottom of
the canoe, 'Down on your faces -- down!' and the others had the sense to
take the hint. In another instant there was a grinding noise, and the boat
was pushed down till the water began to trickle over the sides, and I
thought that we were gone. But no, suddenly the grinding ceased, and we
could again feel the canoe flying along. I turned my head a little -- I
dared not lift it -- and looked up. By the feeble light that yet reached
the canoe, I could make out that a dense arch of rock hung just over our
heads, and that was all. In another minute I could not even see as much as
that, for the faint light had merged into shadow, and the shadows had been
swallowed up in darkness, utter and complete.
For an hour or so we lay there, not daring to lift our
heads for fear lest the brains should be dashed out of them, and scarcely
able to speak even, on account of the noise of the rushing water which
drowned our voices. Not, indeed, that we had much inclination to speak,
seeing that we were overwhelmed by the awfulness of our position and the
imminent fear of instant death, either by being dashed against the sides of
the cavern, or on a rock, or being sucked down in the raging waters, or
perhaps asphyxiated by want of air. All of these and many other modes of
death presented themselves to my imagination as I lay at the bottom of the
canoe, listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters which ran whither we
knew not. One only other sound could I hear, and that was Alphonse's
intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre of the canoe, and even
that seemed faint and unnatural. Indeed, the whole thing overpowered my
brain, and I began to believe that I was the victim of some ghastly
spirit-shaking nightmare.
CHAPTER X
THE ROSE OF FIRE
On we flew, drawn by the mighty current, till at last I
noticed that the sound of the water was not half so deafening as it had
been, and concluded that this must be because there was more room for the
echoes to disperse in. I could now hear Alphonse's howls much more
distinctly; they were made up of the oddest mixture of invocations to the
Supreme Power and the name of his beloved Annette that it is possible to
conceive; and, in short, though their evident earnestness saved them from
profanity, were, to say the least, very remarkable. Taking up a paddle I
managed to drive it into his ribs, whereon he, thinking that the end had
come, howled louder than ever. Then I slowly and cautiously raised myself
on my knees and stretched my hand upwards, but could touch no roof. Next I
took the paddle and lifted it above my head as high as I could, but with
the same result. I also thrust it out laterally to the right and left, but
could touch nothing except water. Then I bethought me that there was in
the boat, amongst our other remaining possessions, a bull's-eye lantern and
a tin of oil. I groped about and found it, and having a match on me
carefully lit it, and as soon as the flame had got a hold of the wick I
turned it on down the boat. As it happened, the first thing the light lit
on was the white and scared face of Alphonse, who, thinking that it was all
over at last, and that he was witnessing a preliminary celestial
phenomenon, gave a terrific yell and was with difficulty reassured with the
paddle. As for the other three, Good was lying on the flat of his back, his
eyeglass still fixed in his eye, and gazing blankly into the upper
darkness. Sir Henry had his head resting on the thwarts of the canoe, and
with his hand was trying to test the speed of the water. But when the beam
of light fell upon old Umslopogaas I could really have laughed. I think I
have said that we had put a roast quarter of water-buck into the canoe.
Well, it so happened that when we all prostrated ourselves to avoid being
swept out of the boat and into the water by the rock roof, Umslopogaas's
head had come down uncommonly near this roast buck, and so soon as he had
recovered a little from the first shock of our position it occurred to him
that he was hungry. Thereupon he coolly cut off a chop with Inkosi-kaas,
and was now employed in eating it with every appearance of satisfaction.
As he afterwards explained, he thought that he was going 'on a long
journey', and preferred to start on a full stomach. It reminded me of the
people who are going to be hanged, and who are generally reported in the
English daily papers to have made 'an excellent breakfast'.
As soon as the others saw that I had managed to light
the lamp, we bundled Alphonse into the farther end of the canoe with a
threat which calmed him down wonderfully, that if he would insist upon
making the darkness hideous with his cries we would put him out of suspense
by sending him to join the Wakwafi and wait for Annette in another sphere,
and began to discuss the situation as well as we could. First, however, at
Good's suggestion, we bound two paddles mast-fashion in the bows so that
they might give us warning against any sudden lowering of the roof of the
cave or waterway. It was clear to us that we were in an underground river
or, as Alphonse defined it, 'main drain', which carried off the superfluous
waters of the lake. Such rivers are well known to exist in many parts of
the world, but it has not often been the evil fortune of explorers to
travel by them. That the river was wide we could clearly see, for the
light from the bull's-eye lantern failed to reach from shore to shore,
although occasionally, when the current swept us either to one side or the
other, we could distinguish the rock wall of the tunnel, which, as far as
we could make out, appeared to arch about twenty-five feet above our heads.
As for the current itself, it ran, Good estimated, at least eight knots,
and, fortunately for us, was, as is usual, fiercest in the middle of the
stream. Still, our first act was to arrange that one of us, with the
lantern and a pole there was in the canoe, should always be in the bows
ready, if possible, to prevent us from being stove in against the side of
the cave or any projecting rock. Umslopogaas, having already dined, took
the first turn. This was absolutely, with one exception, all that we could
do towards preserving our safety. The exception was that another of us
took up a position in the stern with a paddle by means of which it was
possible to steer the canoe more or less and to keep her from the sides of
the cave. These matters attended to, we made a somewhat sparing meal off
the cold buck's meat (for we did not know how long it might have to last
us), and then feeling in rather better spirits I gave my opinion that,
serious as it undoubtedly was, I did not consider our position altogether
without hope, unless, indeed, the natives were right, and the river plunged
straight down into the bowels of the earth. If not, it was clear that it
must emerge somewhere, probably on the other side of the mountains, and in
that case all we had to think of was to keep ourselves alive till we got
there, wherever 'there' might be. But, of course, as Good lugubriously
pointed out, on the other hand we might fall victims to a hundred
unsuspected horrors -- or the river might go on winding away inside the
earth till it dried up, in which case our fate would indeed be an awful
one.
'Well, let us hope for the best and prepare ourselves
for the worst,' said Sir Henry, who is always cheerful and even spirited --
a very tower of strength in the time of trouble. 'We have come out of so
many queer scrapes together, that somehow I almost fancy we shall come out
of this,' he added.
This was excellent advice, and we proceeded to take it
each in our separate way -- that is, except Alphonse, who had by now sunk
into a sort of terrified stupor. Good was at the helm and Umslopogaas in
the bows, so there was nothing left for Sir Henry and myself to do except
to lie down in the canoe and think. It certainly was a curious, and indeed
almost a weird, position to be placed in -- rushing along, as we were,
through the bowels of the earth, borne on the bosom of a Stygian river,
something after the fashion of souls being ferried by Charon, as Curtis
said. And how dark it was! The feeble ray from our little lamp did but
serve to show the darkness. There in the bows sat old Umslopogaas, like
Pleasure in the poem, 9 watchful and untiring,
the pole ready to his hand, and behind in the shadow I could just make out
the form of Good peering forward at the ray of light in order to make out
how to steer with the paddle that he held and now and again dipped into the
water.
'Well, well,' thought I, 'you have come in search of
adventures, Allan my boy, and you have certainly got them. At your time of
life, too! You ought to be ashamed of yourself; but somehow you are not,
and, awful as it all is, perhaps you will pull through after all; and if
you don't, why, you cannot help it, you see! And when all's said and done
an underground river will make a very appropriate burying-place.'
At first, however, I am bound to say that the strain
upon the nerves was very great. It is trying to the coolest and most
experienced person not to know from one hour to another if he has five
minutes more to live, but there is nothing in this world that one cannot
get accustomed to, and in time we began to get accustomed even to that.
And, after all, our anxiety, though no doubt natural, was, strictly
speaking, illogical, seeing that we never know what is going to happen to
us the next minute, even when we sit in a well-drained house with two
policemen patrolling under the window -- nor how long we have to live. It
is all arranged for us, my sons, so what is the use of bothering?
It was nearly midday when we made our dive into
darkness, and we had set our watch (Good and Umslopogaas) at two, having
agreed that it should be of a duration of five hours. At seven o'clock,
accordingly, Sir Henry and I went on, Sir Henry at the bow and I at the
stern, and the other two lay down and went to sleep. For three hours all
went well, Sir Henry only finding it necessary once to push us off from the
side; and I that but little steering was required to keep us straight, as
the violent current did all that was needed, though occasionally the canoe
showed a tendency which had to be guarded against to veer and travel
broadside on. What struck me as the most curious thing about this
wonderful river was: how did the air keep fresh? It was muggy and thick,
no doubt, but still not sufficiently so to render it bad or even remarkably
unpleasant. The only explanation that I can suggest is that the water of
the lake had sufficient air in it to keep the atmosphere of the tunnel from
absolute stagnation, this air being given out as it proceeded on its
headlong way. Of course I only give the solution of the mystery for what
it is worth, which perhaps is not much.
When I had been for three hours or so at the helm, I
began to notice a decided change in the temperature, which was getting
warmer. At first I took no notice of it, but when, at the expiration of
another half-hour, I found that it was getting hotter and hotter, I called
to Sir Henry and asked him if he noticed it, or if it was only my
imagination. 'Noticed it!' he answered; 'I should think so. I am in a
sort of Turkish bath.' Just about then the others woke up gasping, and
were obliged to begin to discard their clothes. Here Umslopogaas had the
advantage, for he did not wear any to speak of, except a moocha.
Hotter it grew, and hotter yet, till at last we could
scarcely breathe, and the perspiration poured out of us. Half an hour
more, and though we were all now stark naked, we could hardly bear it. The
place was like an antechamber of the infernal regions proper. I dipped my
hand into the water and drew it out almost with a cry; it was nearly
boiling. We consulted a little thermometer we had -- the mercury stood at
123 degrees. From the surface of the water rose a dense cloud of steam.
Alphonse groaned out that we were already in purgatory, which indeed we
were, though not in the sense that he meant it. Sir Henry suggested that
we must be passing near the seat of some underground volcanic fire, and I
am inclined to think, especially in the light of what subsequently
occurred, that he was right. Our sufferings for some time after this
really pass my powers of description. We no longer perspired, for all the
perspiration had been sweated out of us. We simply lay in the bottom of
the boat, which we were now physically incapable of directing, feeling like
hot embers, and I fancy undergoing very much the same sensations that the
poor fish do when they are dying on land -- namely, that of slow
suffocation. Our skins began to crack, and the blood to throb in our heads
like the beating of a steam-engine.
This had been going on for some time, when suddenly the
river turned a little, and I heard Sir Henry call out from the bows in a
hoarse, startled voice, and, looking up, saw a most wonderful and awful
thing. About half a mile ahead of us, and a little to the left of the
centre of the stream -- which we could now see was about ninety feet broad
-- a huge pillar-like jet of almost white flame rose from the surface of
the water and sprang fifty feet into the air, when it struck the roof and
spread out some forty feet in diameter, falling back in curved sheets of
fire shaped like the petals of a full-blown rose. Indeed this awful gas
jet resembled nothing so much as a great flaming flower rising out of the
black water. Below was the straight stalk, a foot or more thick, and above
the dreadful bloom. And as for the fearfulness of it and its fierce and
awesome beauty, who can describe it? Certainly I cannot. Although we were
now some five hundred yards away, it, notwithstanding the steam, lit up the
whole cavern as clear as day, and we could see that the roof was here about
forty feet above us, and washed perfectly smooth with water. The rock was
black, and here and there I could make out long shining lines of ore
running through it like great veins, but of what metal they were I know
not.
On we rushed towards this pillar of fire, which gleamed
fiercer than any furnace ever lit by man.
'Keep the boat to the right, Quatermain -- to the
right,' shouted Sir Henry, and a minute afterwards I saw him fall forward
senseless. Alphonse had already gone. Good was the next to go. There they
lay as though dead; only Umslopogaas and I kept our senses. We were within
fifty yards of it now, and I saw the Zulu's head fall forward on his hands.
He had gone too, and I was alone. I could not breathe; the fierce heat
dried me up. For yards and yards round the great rose of fire the
rock-roof was red-hot. The wood of the boat was almost burning. I saw the
feathers on one of the dead swans begin to twist and shrivel up; but I
would not give in. I knew that if I did we should pass within three or
four yards of the gas jet and perish miserably. I set the paddle so as to
turn the canoe as far from it as possible, and held on grimly.
My eyes seemed to be bursting from my head, and through
my closed lids I could see the fierce light. We were nearly opposite now;
it roared like all the fires of hell, and the water boiled furiously around
it. Five seconds more. We were past; I heard the roar behind me.
Then I too fell senseless. The next thing that I
recollect is feeling a breath of air upon my face. My eyes opened with
great difficulty. I looked up. Far, far above me there was light, though
around me was great gloom. Then I remembered and looked. The canoe still
floated down the river, and in the bottom of it lay the naked forms of my
companions. 'Were they dead?' I wondered. 'Was I left alone in this awful
place?' I knew not. Next I became conscious of a burning thirst. I put my
hand over the edge of the boat into the water and drew it up again with a
cry. No wonder: nearly all the skin was burnt off the back of it. The
water, however, was cold, or nearly so, and I drank pints and splashed
myself all over. My body seemed to suck up the fluid as one may see a
brick wall suck up rain after a drought; but where I was burnt the touch of
it caused intense pain. Then I bethought myself of the others, and,
dragging myself towards them with difficulty, I sprinkled them with water,
and to my joy they began to recover -- Umslopogaas first, then the others.
Next they drank, absorbing water like so many sponges. Then, feeling chilly
-- a queer contrast to our recent sensations -- we began as best we could
to get into our clothes. As we did so Good pointed to the port side of the
canoe: it was all blistered with heat, and in places actually charred. Had
it been built like our civilized boats, Good said that the planks would
certainly have warped and let in enough water to sink us; but fortunately
it was dug out of the soft, willowy wood of a single great tree, and had
sides nearly three inches and a bottom four inches thick. What that awful
flame was we never discovered, but I suppose that there was at this spot a
crack or hole in the bed of the river through which a vast volume of gas
forced its way from its volcanic home in the bowels of the earth towards
the upper air. How it first became ignited is, of course, impossible to
say -- probably, I should think, from some spontaneous explosion of
mephitic gases.
As soon as we had got some things together and shaken
ourselves together a little, we set to work to make out where we were now.
I have said that there was light above, and on examination we found that it
came from the sky. Our river that was, Sir Henry said, a literal
realization of the wild vision of the poet 10, was no longer underground, but was running on its
darksome way, not now through 'caverns measureless to man', but between two
frightful cliffs which cannot have been less than two thousand feet high.
So high were they, indeed, that though the sky was above us, where we were
was dense gloom -- not darkness indeed, but the gloom of a room closely
shuttered in the daytime. Up on either side rose the great straight cliffs,
grim and forbidding, till the eye grew dizzy with trying to measure their
sheer height. The little space of sky that marked where they ended lay like
a thread of blue upon their soaring blackness, which was unrelieved by any
tree or creeper. Here and there, however, grew ghostly patches of a long
grey lichen, hanging motionless to the rock as the white beard to the chin
of a dead man. It seemed as though only the dregs or heavier part of the
light had sunk to the bottom of this awful place. No bright-winged sunbeam
could fall so low: they died far, far above our heads.
By the river's edge was a little shore formed of round
fragments of rock washed into this shape by the constant action of water,
and giving the place the appearance of being strewn with thousands of
fossil cannon balls. Evidently when the water of the underground river is
high there is no beach at all, or very little, between the border of the
stream and the precipitous cliffs; but now there was a space of seven or
eight yards. And here, on this beach, we determined to land, in order to
rest ourselves a little after all that we had gone through and to stretch
our limbs. It was a dreadful place, but it would give an hour's respite
from the terrors of the river, and also allow of our repacking and
arranging the canoe. Accordingly we selected what looked like a favourable
spot, and with some little difficulty managed to beach the canoe and
scramble out on to the round, inhospitable pebbles.
'My word,' called out Good, who was on shore the first,
'what an awful place! It's enough to give one a fit.' And he laughed.
Instantly a thundering voice took up his words,
magnifying them a hundred times. '_Give one a fit -- Ho! ho! ho!' -- 'A
fit, Ho! ho! ho!_' answered another voice in wild accents from far up the
cliff -- a fit! a fit! a fit! chimed in voice after voice -- each
flinging the words to and fro with shouts of awful laughter to the
invisible lips of the other till the whole place echoed with the words and
with shrieks of fiendish merriment, which at last ceased as suddenly as
they had begun.
'Oh, mon Dieu!' yelled Alphonse, startled quite out of
such self-command as he possessed.
'Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!' the Titanic
echoes thundered, shrieked, and wailed in every conceivable tone.
'Ah,' said Umslopogaas calmly, 'I clearly perceive that
devils live here. Well, the place looks like it.'
I tried to explain to him that the cause of all the
hubbub was a very remarkable and interesting echo, but he would not believe
it.
'Ah,' he said, 'I know an echo when I hear one. There
was one lived opposite my kraal in Zululand, and the Intombis [maidens]
used to talk with it. But if what we hear is a full-grown echo, mine at
home can only have been a baby. No, no -- they are devils up there. But I
don't think much of them, though,' he added, taking a pinch of snuff.
'They can copy what one says, but they don't seem to be able to talk on
their own account, and they dare not show their faces,' and he relapsed
into silence, and apparently paid no further attention to such contemptible
fiends.
After this we found it necessary to keep our
conversation down to a whisper -- for it was really unbearable to have
every word one uttered tossed to and fro like a tennis-ball, as precipice
called to precipice.
But even our whispers ran up the rocks in mysterious
murmurs till at last they died away in long-drawn sighs of sound. Echoes
are delightful and romantic things, but we had more than enough of them in
that dreadful gulf.
As soon as we had settled ourselves a little on the
round stones, we went on to wash and dress our burns as well as we could.
As we had but a little oil for the lantern, we could not spare any for this
purpose, so we skinned one of the swans, and used the fat off its breast,
which proved an excellent substitute. Then we repacked the canoe, and
finally began to take some food, of which I need scarcely say we were in
need, for our insensibility had endured for many hours, and it was, as our
watches showed, midday. Accordingly we seated ourselves in a circle, and
were soon engaged in discussing our cold meat with such appetite as we
could muster, which, in my case at any rate, was not much, as I felt sick
and faint after my sufferings of the previous night, and had besides a
racking headache. It was a curious meal. The gloom was so intense that we
could scarcely see the way to cut our food and convey it to our mouths.
Still we got on pretty well, till I happened to look behind me -- my
attention being attracted by a noise of something crawling over the stones,
and perceived sitting upon a rock in my immediate rear a huge species of
black freshwater crab, only it was five times the size of any crab I ever
saw. This hideous and loathsome-looking animal had projecting eyes that
seemed to glare at one, very long and flexible antennae or feelers, and
gigantic claws. Nor was I especially favoured with its company. From every
quarter dozens of these horrid brutes were creeping up, drawn, I suppose,
by the smell of the food, from between the round stones and out of holes in
the precipice. Some were already quite close to us. I stared quite
fascinated by the unusual sight, and as I did so I saw one of the beasts
stretch out its huge claw and give the unsuspecting Good such a nip behind
that he jumped up with a howl, and set the 'wild echoes flying' in sober
earnest. Just then, too, another, a very large one, got hold of Alphonse's
leg, and declined to part with it, and, as may be imagined, a considerable
scene ensued. Umslopogaas took his axe and cracked the shell of one with
the flat of it, whereon it set up a horrid screaming which the echoes
multiplied a thousandfold, and began to foam at the mouth, a proceeding
that drew hundreds more of its friends out of unsuspected holes and
corners. Those on the spot perceiving that the animal was hurt fell upon
it like creditors on a bankrupt, and literally rent it limb from limb with
their huge pincers and devoured it, using their claws to convey the
fragments to their mouths. Seizing whatever weapons were handy, such as
stones or paddles, we commenced a war upon the monsters -- whose numbers
were increasing by leaps and bounds, and whose stench was overpowering. So
fast as we cracked their armour others seized the injured ones and devoured
them, foaming at the mouth, and screaming as they did so. Nor did the
brutes stop at that. When they could they nipped hold of us -- and awful
nips they were -- or tried to steal the meat. One enormous fellow got hold
of the swan we had skinned and began to drag it off. Instantly a score of
others flung themselves upon the prey, and then began a ghastly and
disgusting scene. How the monsters foamed and screamed, and rent the
flesh, and each other! It was a sickening and unnatural sight, and one that
will haunt all who saw it till their dying day -- enacted as it was in the
deep, oppressive gloom, and set to the unceasing music of the many-toned
nerve-shaking echoes. Strange as it may seem to say so, there was
something so shockingly human about these fiendish creatures -- it was as
though all the most evil passions and desires of man had got into the shell
of a magnified crab and gone mad. They were so dreadfully courageous and
intelligent, and they looked as if they understood. The whole scene
might have furnished material for another canto of Dante's 'Inferno', as
Curtis said.
'I say, you fellows, let's get out of this or we shall
all go off our heads,' sung out Good; and we were not slow to take the
hint. Pushing the canoe, around which the animals were now crawling by
hundreds and making vain attempts to climb, off the rocks, we bundled into
it and got out into mid-stream, leaving behind us the fragments of our meal
and the screaming, foaming, stinking mass of monsters in full possession of
the ground.
'Those are the devils of the place,' said Umslopogaas
with the air of one who has solved a problem, and upon my word I felt
almost inclined to agree with him.
Umslopogaas' remarks were like his axe -- very much to
the point.
'What's to be done next?' said Sir Henry blankly.
'Drift, I suppose,' I answered, and we drifted
accordingly. All the afternoon and well into the evening we floated on in
the gloom beneath the far-off line of blue sky, scarcely knowing when day
ended and night began, for down in that vast gulf the difference was not
marked, till at length Good pointed out a star hanging right above us,
which, having nothing better to do, we observed with great interest.
Suddenly it vanished, the darkness became intense, and a familiar murmuring
sound filled the air. 'Underground again,' I said with a groan, holding up
the lamp. Yes, there was no doubt about it. I could just make out the
roof. The chasm had come to an end and the tunnel had recommenced. And
then there began another long, long night of danger and horror. To
describe all its incidents would be too wearisome, so I will simply say
that about midnight we struck on a flat projecting rock in mid-stream and
were as nearly as possible overturned and drowned. However, at last we got
off, and went upon the uneven tenor of our way. And so the hours passed
till it was nearly three o'clock. Sir Henry, Good, and Alphonse were
asleep, utterly worn out; Umslopogaas was at the bow with the pole, and I
was steering, when I perceived that the rate at which we were travelling
had perceptibly increased. Then, suddenly, I heard Umslopogaas make an
exclamation, and next second came a sound as of parting branches, and I
became aware that the canoe was being forced through hanging bushes or
creepers. Another minute, and the breath of sweet open air fanned my face,
and I felt that we had emerged from the tunnel and were floating upon clear
water. I say felt, for I could see nothing, the darkness being absolutely
pitchy, as it often is just before the dawn. But even this could scarcely
damp my joy. We were out of that dreadful river, and wherever we might
have got to this at least was something to be thankful for. And so I sat
down and inhaled the sweet night air and waited for the dawn with such
patience as I could command.
CHAPTER XI
THE FROWNING CITY
For an hour or more I sat waiting (Umslopogaas having
meanwhile gone to sleep also) till at length the east turned grey, and huge
misty shapes moved over the surface of the water like ghosts of
long-forgotten dawns. They were the vapours rising from their watery bed
to greet the sun. Then the grey turned to primrose, and the primrose grew
to red. Next, glorious bars of light sprang up across the eastern sky, and
through them the radiant messengers of the dawn came speeding upon their
arrowy way, scattering the ghostly vapours and awaking the mountains with a
kiss, as they flew from range to range and longitude to longitude. Another
moment, and the golden gates were open and the sun himself came forth as a
bridegroom from his chamber, with pomp and glory and a flashing as of ten
million spears, and embraced the night and covered her with brightness, and
it was day.
But as yet I could see nothing save the beautiful blue
sky above, for over the water was a thick layer of mist exactly as though
the whole surface had been covered with billows of cotton wool. By degrees,
however, the sun sucked up the mists, and then I saw that we were afloat
upon a glorious sheet of blue water of which I could not make out the
shore. Some eight or ten miles behind us, however, there stretched as far
as the eye could reach a range of precipitous hills that formed a retaining
wall of the lake, and I have no doubt but that it was through some entrance
in these hills that the subterranean river found its way into the open
water. Indeed, I afterwards ascertained this to be the fact, and it will
be some indication of the extraordinary strength and directness of the
current of the mysterious river that the canoe, even at this distance, was
still answering to it. Presently, too, I, or rather Umslopogaas, who woke
up just then, discovered another indication, and a very unpleasant one it
was. Perceiving some whitish object upon the water, Umslopogaas called my
attention to it, and with a few strokes of the paddle brought the canoe to
the spot, whereupon we discovered that the object was the body of a man
floating face downwards. This was bad enough, but imagine my horror when
Umslopogaas having turned him on to his back with the paddle, we recognized
in the sunken features the lineaments of -- whom do you suppose? None
other than our poor servant who had been sucked down two days before in the
waters of the subterranean river. It quite frightened me. I thought that
we had left him behind for ever, and behold! borne by the current, he had
made the awful journey with us, and with us had reached the end. His
appearance also was dreadful, for he bore traces of having touched the
pillar of fire -- one arm being completely shrivelled up and all his hair
being burnt off. The features were, as I have said, sunken, and yet they
preserved upon them that awful look of despair that I had seen upon his
living face as the poor fellow was sucked down. Really the sight unnerved
me, weary and shaken as I felt with all that we had gone through, and I was
heartily glad when suddenly and without any warning the body began to sink
just as though it had had a mission, which having been accomplished, it
retired; the real reason no doubt being that turning it on its back allowed
a free passage to the gas. Down it went to the transparent depths --
fathom after fathom we could trace its course till at last a long line of
bright air-bubbles, swiftly chasing each other to the surface, alone
remained where it had passed. At length these, too, were gone, and that
was an end of our poor servant. Umslopogaas thoughtfully watched the body
vanish.
'What did he follow us for?' he asked. ''Tis an ill
omen for thee and me, Macumazahn.' And he laughed.
I turned on him angrily, for I dislike these unpleasant
suggestions. If people have such ideas, they ought in common decency to
keep them to themselves. I detest individuals who make on the subject of
their disagreeable presentiments, or who, when they dream that they saw one
hanged as a common felon, or some such horror, will insist upon telling one
all about it at breakfast, even if they have to get up early to do it.
Just then, however, the others woke up and began to
rejoice exceedingly at finding that we were out of that dreadful river and
once more beneath the blue sky. Then followed a babel of talk and
suggestions as to what we were to do next, the upshot of all of which was
that, as we were excessively hungry, and had nothing whatsoever left to eat
except a few scraps of biltong (dried game-flesh), having abandoned all
that remained of our provisions to those horrible freshwater crabs, we
determined to make for the shore. But a new difficulty arose. We did not
know where the shore was, and, with the exception of the cliffs through
which the subterranean river made its entry, could see nothing but a wide
expanse of sparkling blue water. Observing, however, that the long flights
of aquatic birds kept flying from our left, we concluded that they were
advancing from their feeding-grounds on shore to pass the day in the lake,
and accordingly headed the boat towards the quarter whence they came, and
began to paddle. Before long, however, a stiffish breeze sprang up,
blowing directly in the direction we wanted, so we improvized a sail with a
blanket and the pole, which took us along merrily. This done, we devoured
the remnants of our biltong, washed down with the sweet lake water, and
then lit our pipes and awaited whatever might turn up.
When we had been sailing for an hour, Good, who was
searching the horizon with the spy-glass, suddenly announced joyfully that
he saw land, and pointed out that, from the change in the colour of the
water, he thought we must be approaching the mouth of a river. In another
minute we perceived a great golden dome, not unlike that of St Paul's,
piercing the morning mists, and while we were wondering what in the world
it could be, Good reported another and still more important discovery,
namely, that a small sailing-boat was advancing towards us. This bit of
news, which we were very shortly able to verify with our own eyes, threw us
into a considerable flutter. That the natives of this unknown lake should
understand the art of sailing seemed to suggest that they possessed some
degree of civilization. In a few more minutes it became evident that the
occupant or occupants of the advancing boat had made us out. For a moment
or two she hung in the wind as though in doubt, and then came tacking
towards us with great swiftness. In ten more minutes she was within a
hundred yards, and we saw that she was a neat little boat -- not a canoe
'dug out', but built more or less in the European fashion with planks, and
carrying a singularly large sail for her size. But our attention was soon
diverted from the boat to her crew, which consisted of a man and a woman,
nearly as white as ourselves.
We stared at each other in amazement, thinking that we
must be mistaken; but no, there was no doubt about it. They were not fair,
but the two people in the boat were decidedly of a white as distinguished
from a black race, as white, for instance, as Spaniards or Italians. It
was a patent fact. So it was true, after all; and, mysteriously led by a
Power beyond our own, we had discovered this wonderful people. I could
have shouted for joy when I thought of the glory and the wonder of the
thing; and as it was, we all shook hands and congratulated each other on
the unexpected success of our wild search. All my life had I heard rumours
of a white race that existed in the highlands of this vast continent, and
longed to put them to the proof, and now here I saw it with my own eyes,
and was dumbfounded. Truly, as Sir Henry said, the old Roman was right when
he wrote 'Ex Africa semper aliquid novi', which he tells me means that out
of Africa there always comes some new thing.
The man in the boat was of a good but not particularly
fine physique, and possessed straight black hair, regular aquiline
features, and an intelligent face. He was dressed in a brown cloth
garment, something like a flannel shirt without the sleeves, and in an
unmistakable kilt of the same material. The legs and feet were bare.
Round the right arm and left leg he wore thick rings of yellow metal that I
judged to be gold. The woman had a sweet face, wild and shy, with large
eyes and curling brown hair. Her dress was made of the same material as the
man's, and consisted, as we afterwards discovered, first of a linen
under-garment that hung down to her knee, and then of a single long strip
of cloth, about four feet wide by fifteen long, which was wound round the
body in graceful folds and finally flung over the left shoulder so that the
end, which was dyed blue or purple or some other colour, according to the
social standing of the wearer, hung down in front, the right arm and breast
being, however, left quite bare. A more becoming dress, especially when,
as in the present case, the wearer was young and pretty, it is quite
impossible to conceive. Good (who has an eye for such things) was greatly
struck with it, and so indeed was I. It was so simple and yet so
effective.
Meanwhile, if we had been astonished at the appearance
of the man and woman, it was clear that they were far more astonished at
us. As for the man, he appeared to be overcome with fear and wonder, and
for a while hovered round our canoe, but would not approach. At last,
however, he came within hailing distance, and called to us in a language
that sounded soft and pleasing enough, but of which we could not understand
one word. So we hailed back in English, French, Latin, Greek, German,
Zulu, Dutch, Sisutu, Kukuana, and a few other native dialects that I am
acquainted with, but our visitor did not understand any of these tongues;
indeed, they appeared to bewilder him. As for the lady, she was busily
employed in taking stock of us, and Good was returning the compliment by
staring at her hard through his eyeglass, a proceeding that she seemed
rather to enjoy than otherwise. At length, the man, being unable to make
anything of us, suddenly turned his boat round and began to head off for
the shore, his little boat skimming away before the wind like a swallow. As
she passed across our bows the man turned to attend to the large sail, and
Good promptly took the opportunity to kiss his hand to the young lady. I
was horrified at this proceeding, both on general grounds and because I
feared that she might take offence, but to my delight she did not, for,
first glancing round and seeing that her husband, or brother, or whoever he
was, was engaged, she promptly kissed hers back.
'Ah!' said I. 'It seems that we have at last found a
language that the people of this country understand.'
'In which case,' said Sir Henry, 'Good will prove an
invaluable interpreter.'
I frowned, for I do not approve of Good's frivolities,
and he knows it, and I turned the conversation to more serious subjects.
'It is very clear to me,' I said, 'that the man will be back before long
with a host of his fellows, so we had best make up our minds as to how we
are going to receive them.'
'The question is how will they receive us?' said Sir
Henry.
As for Good he made no remark, but began to extract a
small square tin case that had accompanied us in all our wanderings from
under a pile of baggage. Now we had often remonstrated with Good about
this tin case, inasmuch as it had been an awkward thing to carry, and he
had never given any very explicit account as to its contents; but he had
insisted on keeping it, saying mysteriously that it might come in very
useful one day.
'What on earth are you going to do, Good?' asked Sir
Henry.
'Do -- why dress, of course! You don't expect me to
appear in a new country in these things, do you?' and he pointed to his
soiled and worn garments, which were however, like all Good's things, very
tidy, and with every tear neatly mended.
We said no more, but watched his proceedings with
breathless interest. His first step was to get Alphonse, who was
thoroughly competent in such matters, to trim his hair and beard in the
most approved fashion. I think that if he had had some hot water and a
cake of soap at hand he would have shaved off the latter; but he had not.
This done, he suggested that we should lower the sail of the canoe and all
take a bath, which we did, greatly to the horror and astonishment of
Alphonse, who lifted his hands and ejaculated that these English were
indeed a wonderful people. Umslopogaas, who, though he was, like most
high-bred Zulus, scrupulously cleanly in his person, did not see the fun of
swimming about in a lake, also regarded the proceeding with mild amusement.
We got back into the canoe much refreshed by the cold water, and sat to dry
in the sun, whilst Good undid his tin box, and produced first a beautiful
clean white shirt, just as it had left a London steam laundry, and then
some garments wrapped first in brown, then in white, and finally in silver
paper. We watched this undoing with the tenderest interest and much
speculation. One by one Good removed the dull husks that hid their
splendours, carefully folding and replacing each piece of paper as he did
so; and there at last lay, in all the majesty of its golden epaulettes,
lace, and buttons, a Commander of the Royal Navy's full-dress uniform --
dress sword, cocked hat, shiny patent leather boots and all. We literally
gasped.
'What!' we said, 'what! Are you going to
put those things on?'
'Certainly,' he answered composedly; 'you see so much
depends upon a first impression, especially,' he added, 'as I observe that
there are ladies about. One at least of us ought to be decently
dressed.'
We said no more; we were simply dumbfounded, especially
when we considered the artful way in which Good had concealed the contents
of that box for all these months. Only one suggestion did we make --
namely, that he should wear his mail shirt next his skin. He replied that
he feared it would spoil the set of his coat, now carefully spread in the
sun to take the creases out, but finally consented to this precautionary
measure. The most amusing part of the affair, however, was to see old
Umslopogaas's astonishment and Alphonse's delight at Good's transformation.
When at last he stood up in all his glory, even down to the medals on his
breast, and contemplated himself in the still waters of the lake, after the
fashion of the young gentleman in ancient history, whose name I cannot
remember, but who fell in love with his own shadow, the old Zulu could no
longer restrain his feelings.
'Oh, Bougwan!' he said. 'Oh, Bougwan! I always thought
thee an ugly little man, and fat -- fat as the cows at calving time; and
now thou art like a blue jay when he spreads his tail out. Surely, Bougwan,
it hurts my eyes to look at thee.'
Good did not much like this allusion to his fat, which,
to tell the truth, was not very well deserved, for hard exercise had
brought him down three inches; but on the whole he was pleased at
Umslopogaas's admiration. As for Alphonse, he was quite delighted.
'Ah! but Monsieur has the beautiful air -- the air of
the warrior. It is the ladies who will say so when we come to get ashore.
Monsieur is complete; he puts me in mind of my heroic grand --'
Here we stopped Alphonse.
As we gazed upon the beauties thus revealed by Good, a
spirit of emulation filled our breasts, and we set to work to get ourselves
up as well as we could. The most, however, that we were able to do was to
array ourselves in our spare suits of shooting clothes, of which we each
had several, all the fine clothes in the world could never make it
otherwise than scrubby and insignificant; but Sir Henry looked what he is,
a magnificent man in his nearly new tweed suit, gaiters, and boots.
Alphonse also got himself up to kill, giving an extra turn to his enormous
moustaches. Even old Umslopogaas, who was not in a general way given to the
vain adorning of his body, took some oil out of the lantern and a bit of
tow, and polished up his head-ring with it till it shone like Good's patent
leather boots. Then he put on the mail shirt Sir Henry had given him and
his 'moocha', and, having cleaned up Inkosi-kaas a little, stood forth
complete.
All this while, having hoisted the sail again as soon as
we had finished bathing, we had been progressing steadily for the land, or,
rather, for the mouth of a great river. Presently -- in all about an hour
and a half after the little boat had left us -- we saw emerging from the
river or harbour a large number of boats, ranging up to ten or twelve tons
burden. One of these was propelled by twenty-four oars, and most of the
rest sailed. Looking through the glass we soon made out that the row-boat
was an official vessel, her crew being all dressed in a sort of uniform,
whilst on the half-deck forward stood an old man of venerable appearance,
and with a flowing white beard, and a sword strapped to his side, who was
evidently the commander of the craft. The other boats were apparently
occupied by people brought out by curiosity, and were rowing or sailing
towards us as quickly as they could.
'Now for it,' said I. 'What is the betting? Are they
going to be friendly or to put an end to us?'
Nobody could answer this question, and, not liking the
warlike appearance of the old gentleman and his sword, we felt a little
anxious.
Just then Good spied a school of hippopotami on the
water about two hundred yards off us, and suggested that it would not be a
bad plan to impress the natives with a sense of our power by shooting some
of them if possible. This, unluckily enough, struck us as a good idea, and
accordingly we at once got out our eight-bore rifles, for which we still
had a few cartridges left, and prepared for action. There were four of the
animals, a big bull, a cow, and two young ones, one three parts grown. We
got up to them without difficulty, the great animals contenting themselves
with sinking down into the water and rising again a few yards farther on;
indeed, their excessive tameness struck me as being peculiar. When the
advancing boats were about five hundred yards away, Sir Henry opened the
ball by firing at the three parts grown young one. The heavy bullet struck
it fair between the eyes, and, crashing through the skull, killed it, and
it sank, leaving a long train of blood behind it. At the same moment I
fired at the cow, and Good at the old bull. My shot took effect, but not
fatally, and down went the hippopotamus with a prodigious splashing, only
to rise again presently blowing and grunting furiously, dyeing all the
water round her crimson, when I killed her with the left barrel. Good, who
is an execrable shot, missed the head of the bull altogether, the bullet
merely cutting the side of his face as it passed. On glancing up, after I
had fired my second shot, I perceived that the people we had fallen among
were evidently ignorant of the nature of firearms, for the consternation
caused by our shots and their effect upon the animals was prodigious. Some
of the parties in the boats began to cry out in fear; others turned and
made off as hard as they could; and even the old gentleman with the sword
looked greatly puzzled and alarmed, and halted his big row-boat. We had,
however, but little time for observation, for just then the old bull,
rendered furious by the wound he had received, rose fair within forty yards
of us, glaring savagely. We all fired, and hit him in various places, and
down he went, badly wounded. Curiosity now began to overcome the fear of
the onlookers, and some of them sailed on up close to us, amongst these
being the man and woman whom we had first seen a couple of hours or so
before, who drew up almost alongside. Just then the great brute rose again
within ten yards of their base, and instantly with a roar of fury made at
it open-mouthed. The woman shrieked, and the man tried to give the boat
way, but without success. In another second I saw the huge red jaws and
gleaming ivories close with a crunch on the frail craft, taking an enormous
mouthful out of its side and capsizing it. Down went the boat, leaving its
occupants struggling in the water. Next moment, before we could do
anything towards saving them, the huge and furious creature was up again
and making open-mouthed at the poor girl, who was struggling in the water.
Lifting my rifle just as the grinding jaws were about to close on her, I
fired over her head right down the hippopotamus's throat. Over he went,
and commenced turning round and round, snorting, and blowing red streams of
blood through his nostrils. Before he could recover himself, however, I
let him have the other barrel in the side of the throat, and that finished
him. He never moved or struggled again, but instantly sank. Our next
effort was directed towards saving the girl, the man having swum off
towards another boat; and in this we were fortunately successful, pulling
her into the canoe (amidst the shouts of the spectators) considerably
exhausted and frightened, but otherwise unhurt.
Meanwhile the boats had gathered together at a distance,
and we could see that the occupants, who were evidently much frightened,
were consulting what to do. Without giving them time for further
consideration, which we thought might result unfavourably to ourselves, we
instantly took our paddles and advanced towards them, Good standing in the
bow and taking off his cocked hat politely in every direction, his amiable
features suffused by a bland but intelligent smile. Most of the craft
retreated as we advanced, but a few held their ground, while the big
row-boat came on to meet us. Presently we were alongside, and I could see
that our appearance -- and especially Good's and Umslopogaas's -- filled
the venerable-looking commander with astonishment, not unmixed with awe.
He was dressed after the same fashion as the man we first met, except that
his shirt was not made of brown cloth, but of pure white linen hemmed with
purple. The kilt, however, was identical, and so were the thick rings of
gold around the arm and beneath the left knee. The rowers wore only a
kilt, their bodies being naked to the waist. Good took off his hat to the
old gentleman with an extra flourish, and inquired after his health in the
purest English, to which he replied by laying the first two fingers of his
right hand horizontally across his lips and holding them there for a
moment, which we took as his method of salutation. Then he also addressed
some remarks to us in the same soft accents that had distinguished our
first interviewer, which we were forced to indicate we did not understand
by shaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders. This last Alphonse, being
to the manner born, did to perfection, and in so polite a way that nobody
could take any offence. Then we came a standstill, till I, being
exceedingly hungry, thought I might as well call attention to the fact, and
did so first by opening my mouth and pointing down it, and then rubbing my
stomach. These signals the old gentleman clearly understood, for he nodded
his head vigorously, and pointed towards the harbour; and at the same time
one of the men on his boat threw us a line and motioned to us to make it
fast, which we did. The row-boat then took us in tow, and went with great
rapidity towards the mouth of the river, accompanied by all the other
boats. In about twenty minutes more we reached the entrance to the
harbour, which was crowded with boats full of people who had come out to
see us. We observed that all the occupants were more or less of the same
type, though some were fairer than others. Indeed, we noticed certain
ladies whose skin was of a most dazzling whiteness; and the darkest shade
of colour which we saw was about that of a rather swarthy Spaniard.
Presently the wide river gave a sweep, and when it did so an exclamation of
astonishment and delight burst from our lips as we caught our first view of
the place that we afterwards knew as Milosis, or the Frowning City (from
mi, which means city, and losis, a frown).
At a distance of some five hundred yards from the
river's bank rose a sheer precipice of granite, two hundred feet or so in
height, which had no doubt once formed the bank itself -- the intermediate
space of land now utilized as docks and roadways having been gained by
draining, and deepening and embanking the stream.
On the brow of this precipice stood a great building of
the same granite that formed the cliff, built on three sides of a square,
the fourth side being open, save for a kind of battlement pierced at its
base by a little door. This imposing place we afterwards discovered was
the palace of the queen, or rather of the queens. At the back of the palace
the town sloped gently upwards to a flashing building of white marble,
crowned by the golden dome which we had already observed. The city was,
with the exception of this one building, entirely built of red granite, and
laid out in regular blocks with splendid roadways between. So far as we
could see also the houses were all one-storied and detached, with gardens
round them, which gave some relief to the eye wearied with the vista of red
granite. At the back of the palace a road of extraordinary width stretched
away up the hill for a distance of a mile and a half or so, and appeared to
terminate at an open space surrounding the gleaming building that crowned
the hill. But right in front of us was the wonder and glory of Milosis --
the great staircase of the palace, the magnificence of which took our
breath away. Let the reader imagine, if he can, a splendid stairway,
sixty-five feet from balustrade to balustrade, consisting of two vast
flights, each of one hundred and twenty-five steps of eight inches in
height by three feet broad, connected by a flat resting-place sixty feet in
length, and running from the palace wall on the edge of the precipice down
to meet a waterway or canal cut to its foot from the river. This
marvellous staircase was supported upon a single enormous granite arch, of
which the resting-place between the two flights formed the crown; that is,
the connecting open space lay upon it. From this archway sprang a
subsidiary flying arch, or rather something that resembled a flying arch in
shape, such as none of us had seen in any other country, and of which the
beauty and wonder surpassed all that we had ever imagined. Three hundred
feet from point to point, and no less than five hundred and fifty round the
curve, that half-arc soared touching the bridge it supported for a space of
fifty feet only, one end resting on and built into the parent archway, and
the other embedded in the solid granite of the side of the precipice.
This staircase with its supports was, indeed, a work of
which any living man might have been proud, both on account of its
magnitude and its surpassing beauty. Four times, as we afterwards learnt,
did the work, which was commenced in remote antiquity, fail, and was then
abandoned for three centuries when half-finished, till at last there rose a
youthful engineer named Rademas, who said that he would complete it
successfully, and staked his life upon it. If he failed he was to be
hurled from the precipice he had undertaken to scale; if he succeeded, he
was to be rewarded by the hand of the king's daughter. Five years was
given to him to complete the work, and an unlimited supply of labour and
material. Three times did his arch fall, till at last, seeing failure to
be inevitable, he determined to commit suicide on the morrow of the third
collapse. That night, however, a beautiful woman came to him in a dream
and touched his forehead, and of a sudden he saw a vision of the completed
work, and saw too through the masonry and how the difficulties connected
with the flying arch that had hitherto baffled his genius were to be
overcome. Then he awoke and once more commenced the work, but on a
different plan, and behold! he achieved it, and on the last day of the five
years he led the princess his bride up the stair and into the palace. And
in due course he became king by right of his wife, and founded the present
Zu-Vendi dynasty, which is to this day called the 'House of the Stairway',
thus proving once more how energy and talent are the natural
stepping-stones to grandeur. And to commemorate his triumph he fashioned a
statue of himself dreaming, and of the fair woman who touched him on the
forehead, and placed it in the great hall of the palace, and there it
stands to this day.
Such was the great stair of Milosis, and such the city
beyond. No wonder they named it the 'Frowning City', for certainly those
mighty works in solid granite did seem to frown down upon our littleness in
their sombre splendour. This was so even in the sunshine, but when the
storm-clouds gathered on her imperial brow Milosis looked more like a
supernatural dwelling-place, or some imagining of a poet's brain, than what
she is -- a mortal city, carven by the patient genius of generations out of
the red silence of the mountain side.
CHAPTER XII
THE SISTER QUEENS
The big rowing-boat glided on up the cutting that ran
almost to the foot of the vast stairway, and then halted at a flight of
steps leading to the landing-place. Here the old gentleman disembarked,
and invited us to do so likewise, which, having no alternative, and being
nearly starved, we did without hesitation -- taking our rifles with us,
however. As each of us landed, our guide again laid his fingers on his
lips and bowed deeply, at the same time ordering back the crowds which had
assembled to gaze on us. The last to leave the canoe was the girl we had
picked out of the water, for whom her companion was waiting. Before she
went away she kissed my hand, I suppose as a token of gratitude for having
saved her from the fury of the hippopotamus; and it seemed to me that she
had by this time quite got over any fear she might have had of us, and was
by no means anxious to return in such a hurry to her lawful owners. At any
rate, she was going to kiss Good's hand as well as mine, when the young man
interfered and led her off. As soon as we were on shore, a number of the
men who had rowed the big boat took possession of our few goods and
chattels, and started with them up the splendid staircase, our guide
indicating to us by means of motions that the things were perfectly safe.
This done, he turned to the right and led the way to a small house, which
was, as I afterwards discovered, an inn. Entering into a good-sized room,
we saw that a wooden table was already furnished with food, presumably in
preparation for us. Here our guide motioned us to be seated on a bench
that ran the length of the table. We did not require a second invitation,
but at once fell to ravenously on the viands before us, which were served
on wooden platters, and consisted of cold goat's-flesh, wrapped up in some
kind of leaf that gave it a delicious flavour, green vegetables resembling
lettuces, brown bread, and red wine poured from a skin into horn mugs. This
wine was peculiarly soft and good, having something of the flavour of
Burgundy. Twenty minutes after we sat down at that hospitable board we
rose from it, feeling like new men. After all that we had gone through we
needed two things, food and rest, and the food of itself was a great
blessing to us. Two girls of the same charming cast of face as the first
whom we had seen waited on us while we ate, and very nicely they did it.
They were also dressed in the same fashion namely, in a white linen
petticoat coming to the knee, and with the toga-like garment of brown
cloth, leaving bare the right arm and breast. I afterwards found out that
this was the national dress, and regulated by an iron custom, though of
course subject to variations. Thus, if the petticoat was pure white, it
signified that the wearer was unmarried; if white, with a straight purple
stripe round the edge, that she was married and a first or legal wife; if
with a black stripe, that she was a widow. In the same way the toga, or
'kaf', as they call it, was of different shades of colour, from pure white
to the deepest brown, according to the rank of the wearer, and embroidered
at the end in various ways. This also applies to the 'shirts' or tunics
worn by the men, which varied in material and colour; but the kilts were
always the same except as regards quality. One thing, however, every man
and woman in the country wore as the national insignia, and that was the
thick band of gold round the right arm above the elbow, and the left leg
beneath the knee. People of high rank also wore a torque of gold round the
neck, and I observed that our guide had one on.
So soon as we had finished our meal our venerable
conductor, who had been standing all the while, regarding us with inquiring
eyes, and our guns with something as like fear as his pride would allow him
to show, bowed towards Good, whom he evidently took for the leader of the
party on account of the splendour of his apparel, and once more led the way
through the door and to the foot of the great staircase. Here we paused
for a moment to admire two colossal lions, each hewn from a single block of
pure black marble, and standing rampant on the terminations of the wide
balustrades of the staircase. These lions are magnificently executed, and
it is said were sculptured by Rademas, the great prince who designed the
staircase, and who was without doubt, to judge from the many beautiful
examples of his art that we saw afterwards, one of the finest sculptors who
ever lived, either in this or any other country. Then we climbed almost
with a feeling of awe up that splendid stair, a work executed for all time
and that will, I do not doubt, be admired thousands of years hence by
generations unborn unless an earthquake should throw it down. Even
Umslopogaas, who as a general rule made it a point of honour not to show
astonishment, which he considered undignified, was fairly startled out of
himself, and asked if the 'bridge had been built by men or devils', which
was his vague way of alluding to any supernatural power. But Alphonse did
not care about it. Its solid grandeur jarred upon the frivolous little
Frenchman, who said that it was all 'tres magnifique, mais triste -- ah,
triste!' and went on to suggest that it would be improved if the
balustrades were gilt.
On we went up the first flight of one hundred and twenty
steps, across the broad platform joining it to the second flight, where we
paused to admire the glorious view of one of the most beautiful stretches
of country that the world can show, edged by the blue waters of the lake.
Then we passed on up the stair till at last we reached the top, where we
found a large standing space to which there were three entrances, all of
small size. Two of these opened on to rather narrow galleries or roadways
cut in the face of the precipice that ran round the palace walls and led to
the principal thoroughfares of the city, and were used by the inhabitants
passing up and down from the docks. These were defended by gates of
bronze, and also, as we afterwards learnt, it was possible to let down a
portion of the roadways themselves by withdrawing certain bolts, and thus
render it quite impracticable for an enemy to pass. The third entrance
consisted of a flight of ten curved black marble steps leading to a doorway
cut in the palace wall. This wall was in itself a work of art, being built
of huge blocks of granite to the height of forty feet, and so fashioned
that its face was concave, whereby it was rendered practically impossible
for it to be scaled. To this doorway our guide led us. The door, which
was massive, and made of wood protected by an outer gate of bronze, was
closed; but on our approach it was thrown wide, and we were met by the
challenge of a sentry, who was armed with a heavy triangular-bladed spear,
not unlike a bayonet in shape, and a cutting sword, and protected by breast
and back plates of skilfully prepared hippopotamus hide, and a small round
shield fashioned of the same tough material. The sword instantly attracted
our attention; it was practically identical with the one in the possession
of Mr Mackenzie which he had obtained from the ill-starred wanderer. There
was no mistaking the gold-lined fretwork cut in the thickness of the blade.
So the man had told the truth after all. Our guide instantly gave a
password, which the soldier acknowledged by letting the iron shaft of his
spear fall with a ringing sound upon the pavement, and we passed on through
the massive wall into the courtyard of the palace. This was about forty
yards square, and laid out in flower-beds full of lovely shrubs and plants,
many of which were quite new to me. Through the centre of this garden ran
a broad walk formed of powdered shells brought from the lake in the place
of gravel. Following this we came to another doorway with a round heavy
arch, which is hung with thick curtains, for there are no doors in the
palace itself. Then came another short passage, and we were in the great
hall of the palace, and once more stood astonished at the simple and yet
overpowering grandeur of the place.
The hall is, as we afterwards learnt, one hundred and
fifty feet long by eighty wide, and has a magnificent arched roof of carved
wood. Down the entire length of the building there are on either side, and
at a distance of twenty feet from the wall, slender shafts of black marble
springing sheer to the roof, beautifully fluted, and with carved capitals.
At one end of this great place which these pillars support is the group of
which I have already spoken as executed by the King Rademas to commemorate
his building of the staircase; and really, when we had time to admire it,
its loveliness almost struck us dumb. The group, of which the figures are
in white, and the rest is black marble, is about half as large again as
life, and represents a young man of noble countenance and form sleeping
heavily upon a couch. One arm is carelessly thrown over the side of this
couch, and his head reposes upon the other, its curling locks partially
hiding it. Bending over him, her hand resting on his forehead, is a draped
female form of such white loveliness as to make the beholder's breath stand
still. And as for the calm glory that shines upon her perfect face --
well, I can never hope to describe it. But there it rests like the shadow
of an angel's smile; and power, love, and divinity all have their part in
it. Her eyes are fixed upon the sleeping youth, and perhaps the most
extraordinary thing about this beautiful work is the success with which the
artist has succeeded in depicting on the sleeper's worn and weary face the
sudden rising of a new and spiritual thought as the spell begins to work
within his mind. You can see that an inspiration is breaking in upon the
darkness of the man's soul as the dawn breaks in upon the darkness of
night. It is a glorious piece of statuary, and none but a genius could
have conceived it. Between each of the black marble columns is some such
group of figures, some allegorical, and some representing the persons and
wives of deceased monarchs or great men; but none of them, in our opinion,
comes up the one I have described, although several are from the hand of
the sculptor and engineer, King Rademas.
In the exact centre of the hall was a solid mass of
black marble about the size of a baby's arm-chair, which it rather
resembled in appearance. This, as we afterwards learnt, was the sacred
stone of this remarkable people, and on it their monarchs laid their hand
after the ceremony of coronation, and swore by the sun to safeguard the
interests of the empire, and to maintain its customs, traditions, and laws.
This stone was evidently exceedingly ancient (as indeed all stones are),
and was scored down its sides with long marks or lines, which Sir Henry
said proved it to have been a fragment that at some remote period in its
history had been ground in the iron jaws of glaciers. There was a curious
prophecy about this block of marble, which was reported among the people to
have fallen from the sun, to the effect that when it was shattered into
fragments a king of alien race should rule over the land. As the stone,
however, looked remarkably solid, the native princes seemed to have a fair
chance of keeping their own for many a long year.
At the end of the hall is a dais spread with rich
carpets, on which two thrones are set side by side. These thrones are
shaped like great chairs, and made of solid gold. The seats are richly
cushioned, but the backs are left bare, and on each is carved the emblem of
the sun, shooting out his fiery rays in all directions. The footstools are
golden lions couchant, with yellow topazes set in them for eyes. There are
no other gems about them.
The place is lighted by numerous but narrow windows,
placed high up, cut on the principle of the loopholes to be seen in ancient
castles, but innocent of glass, which was evidently unknown here.
Such is a brief description of this splendid hall in
which we now found ourselves, compiled of course from our subsequent
knowledge of it. On this occasion we had but little time for observation,
for when we entered we perceived that a large number of men were gathered
together in front of the two thrones, which were unoccupied. The principal
among them were seated on carved wooden chairs ranged to the right and the
left of the thrones, but not in front of them, and were dressed in white
tunics, with various embroideries and different coloured edgings, and armed
with the usual pierced and gold-inlaid swords. To judge from the dignity
of their appearance, they seemed one and all to be individuals of very
great importance. Behind each of these great men stood a small knot of
followers and attendants.
Seated by themselves, in a little group to the left of
the throne, were six men of a different stamp. Instead of wearing the
ordinary kilt, they were clothed in long robes of pure white linen, with
the same symbol of the sun that is to be seen on the back of the chairs,
emblazoned in gold thread upon the breast. This garment was girt up at the
waist with a simple golden curb-like chain, from which hung long elliptic
plates of the same metal, fashioned in shiny scales like those of a fish,
that, as their wearers moved, jingled and reflected the light. They were
all men of mature age and of a severe and impressive cast of features,
which was rendered still more imposing by the long beards they wore.
The personality of one individual among them, however,
impressed us at once. He seemed to stand out among his fellows and refuse
to be overlooked. He was very old -- eighty at least -- and extremely
tall, with a long snow-white beard that hung nearly to his waist. His
features were aquiline and deeply cut, and his eyes were grey and
cold-looking. The heads of the others were bare, but this man wore a round
cap entirely covered with gold embroidery, from which we judged that he was
a person of great importance; and indeed we afterwards discovered that he
was Agon, the High Priest of the country. As we approached, all these men,
including the priests, rose and bowed to us with the greatest courtesy, at
the same time placing the two fingers across the lips in salutation. Then
soft-footed attendants advanced from between the pillars, bearing seats,
which were placed in a line in front of the thrones. We three sat down,
Alphonse and Umslopogaas standing behind us. Scarcely had we done so when
there came a blare of trumpets from some passage to the right, and a
similar blare from the left. Next a man with a long white wand of ivory
appeared just in front of the right-hand throne, and cried out something in
a loud voice, ending with the word Nyleptha, repeated three times;
and another man, similarly attired, called out a similar sentence before
the other throne, but ending with the word Sorais, also repeated
thrice. Then came the tramp of armed men from each side entrance, and in
filed about a score of picked and magnificently accoutred guards, who
formed up on each side of the thrones, and let their heavy iron-handled
spears fall simultaneously with a clash upon the black marble flooring.
Another double blare of trumpets, and in from either side, each attended by
six maidens, swept the two Queens of Zu-Vendis, everybody in the hall
rising to greet them as they came.
I have seen beautiful women in my day, and am no longer
thrown into transports at the sight of a pretty face; but language fails me
when I try to give some idea of the blaze of loveliness that then broke
upon us in the persons of these sister Queens. Both were young -- perhaps
five-and-twenty years of age -- both were tall and exquisitely formed; but
there the likeness stopped. One, Nyleptha, was a woman of dazzling
fairness; her right arm and breast bare, after the custom of her people,
showed like snow even against her white and gold-embroidered 'kaf', or
toga. And as for her sweet face, all I can say is, that it was one that few
men could look on and forget. Her hair, a veritable crown of gold,
clustered in short ringlets over her shapely head, half hiding the ivory
brow, beneath which eyes of deep and glorious grey flashed out in tender
majesty. I cannot attempt to describe her other features, only the mouth
was most sweet, and curved like Cupid's bow, and over the whole countenance
there shone an indescribable look of loving-kindness, lit up by a shadow of
delicate humour that lay upon her face like a touch of silver on a rosy
cloud.
She wore no jewels, but on her neck, arm, and knee were
the usual torques of gold, in this instance fashioned like a snake; and her
dress was of pure white linen of excessive fineness, plentifully
embroidered with gold and with the familiar symbols of the sun.
Her twin sister, Sorais, was of a different and darker
type of beauty. Her hair was wavy like Nyleptha's but coal-black, and fell
in masses on her shoulders; her complexion was olive, her eyes large, dark,
and lustrous; the lips were full, and I thought rather cruel. Somehow her
face, quiet and even cold as it is, gave an idea of passion in repose, and
caused one to wonder involuntarily what its aspect would be if anything
occurred to break the calm. It reminded me of the deep sea, that even on
the bluest days never loses its visible stamp of power, and in its
murmuring sleep is yet instinct with the spirit of the storm. Her figure,
like her sister's, was almost perfect in its curves and outlines, but a
trifle more rounded, and her dress was absolutely the same.
As this lovely pair swept onwards to their respective
thrones, amid the deep attentive silence of the Court, I was bound to
confess to myself that they did indeed fulfil my idea of royalty. Royal
they were in every way -- in form, in grace, and queenly dignity, and in
the barbaric splendour of their attendant pomp. But methought that they
needed no guards or gold to proclaim their power and bind the loyalty of
wayward men. A glance from those bright eyes or a smile from those sweet
lips, and while the red blood runs in the veins of youth women such as
these will never lack subjects ready to do their biddings to the death.
But after all they were women first and queens
afterwards, and therefore not devoid of curiosity. As they passed to their
seats I saw both of them glance swiftly in our direction. I saw, too, that
their eyes passed by me, seeing nothing to charm them in the person of an
insignificant and grizzled old man. Then they looked with evident
astonishment on the grim form of old Umslopogaas, who raised his axe in
salutation. Attracted next by the splendour of Good's apparel, for a
second their glance rested on him like a humming moth upon a flower, then
off it darted to where Sir Henry Curtis stood, the sunlight from a window
playing upon his yellow hair and peaked beard, and marking the outlines of
his massive frame against the twilight of the somewhat gloomy hall. He
raised his eyes, and they met the fair Nyleptha's full, and thus for the
first time the goodliest man and woman that it has ever been my lot to see
looked one upon another. And why it was I know not, but I saw the swift
blood run up Nyleptha's skin as the pink lights run up the morning sky.
Red grew her fair bosom and shapely arm, red the swanlike neck; the rounded
cheeks blushed red as the petals of a rose, and then the crimson flood sank
back to whence it came and left her pale and trembling.
I glanced at Sir Henry. He, too, had coloured up to the
eyes.
'Oh, my word!' thought I to myself, 'the ladies have
come on the stage, and now we may look to the plot to develop itself.' And
I sighed and shook my head, knowing that the beauty of a woman is like the
beauty of the lightning -- a destructive thing and a cause of desolation.
By the time that I had finished my reflections both the Queens were on the
thrones, for all this had happened in about six seconds. Once more the
unseen trumpets blared out, and then the Court seated itself, and Queen
Sorais motioned to us to do likewise.
Next from among the crowd whither he had withdrawn
stepped forward our guide, the old gentleman who had towed us ashore,
holding by the hand the girl whom we had seen first and afterwards rescued
from the hippopotamus. Having made obeisance he proceeded to address the
Queens, evidently describing to them the way and place where we had been
found. It was most amusing to watch the astonishment, not unmixed with
fear, reflected upon their faces as they listened to his tale. Clearly
they could not understand how we had reached the lake and been found
floating on it, and were inclined to attribute our presence to supernatural
causes. Then the narrative proceeded, as I judged from the frequent appeals
that our guide made to the girl, to the point where we had shot the
hippopotami, and we at once perceived that there was something very wrong
about those hippopotami, for the history was frequently interrupted by
indignant exclamations from the little group of white-robed priests and
even from the courtiers, while the two Queens listened with an amazed
expression, especially when our guide pointed to the rifles in our hands as
being the means of destruction. And here, to make matters clear, I may as
well explain at once that the inhabitants of Zu-Vendis are sun-worshippers,
and that for some reason or another the hippopotamus is sacred among them.
Not that they do not kill it, because at a certain season of the year they
slaughter thousands -- which are specially preserved in large lakes up the
country -- and use their hides for armour for soldiers; but this does not
prevent them from considering these animals as sacred to the sun. 11 Now, as ill luck would have it, the particular
hippopotami we had shot were a family of tame animals that were kept in the
mouth of the port and daily fed by priests whose special duty it was to
attend to them. When we shot them I thought that the brutes were
suspiciously tame, and this was, as we afterwards ascertained, the cause of
it. Thus it came about that in attempting to show off we had committed
sacrilege of a most aggravated nature.
When our guide had finished his tale, the old man with
the long beard and round cap, whose appearance I have already described,
and who was, as I have said, the High Priest of the country, and known by
the name of Agon, rose and commenced an impassioned harangue. I did not
like the look of his cold grey eye as he fixed it on us. I should have
liked it still less had I known that in the name of the outraged majesty of
his god he was demanding that the whole lot of us should be offered up as a
sacrifice by means of being burnt alive.
After he had finished speaking the Queen Sorais
addressed him in a soft and musical voice, and appeared, to judge from his
gestures of dissent, to be putting the other side of the question before
him. Then Nyleptha spoke in liquid accents. Little did we know that she
was pleading for our lives. Finally, she turned and addressed a tall,
soldierlike man of middle age with a black beard and a long plain sword,
whose name, as we afterwards learnt, was Nasta, and who was the greatest
lord in the country; apparently appealing to him for support. Now when Sir
Henry had caught her eye and she had blushed so rosy red, I had seen that
the incident had not escaped this man's notice, and, what is more, that it
was eminently disagreeable to him, for he bit his lip and his hand
tightened on his sword-hilt. Afterwards we learnt that he was an aspirant
for the hand of this Queen in marriage, which accounted for it. This being
so, Nyleptha could not have appealed to a worse person, for, speaking in
slow, heavy tones, he appeared to confirm all that the High Priest Agon had
said. As he spoke, Sorais put her elbow on her knee, and, resting her chin
on her hand, looked at him with a suppressed smile upon her lips, as though
she saw through the man, and was determined to be his match; but Nyleptha
grew very angry, her cheek flushed, her eyes flashed, and she did indeed
look lovely. Finally she turned to Agon and seemed to give some sort of
qualified assent, for he bowed at her words; and as she spoke she moved her
hands as though to emphasize what she said; while all the time Sorais kept
her chin on her hand and smiled. Then suddenly Nyleptha made a sign, the
trumpets blew again, and everybody rose to leave the hall save ourselves
and the guards, whom she motioned to stay.
When they were all gone she bent forward and, smiling
sweetly, partially by signs and partially by exclamations made it clear to
us that she was very anxious to know where we came from. The difficulty was
how to explain, but at last an idea struck me. I had my large pocket-book
in my pocket and a pencil. Taking it out, I made a little sketch of a
lake, and then as best I could I drew the underground river and the lake at
the other end. When I had done this I advanced to the steps of the throne
and gave it to her. She understood it at once and clapped her hands with
delight, and then descending from the throne took it to her sister Sorais,
who also evidently understood. Next she took the pencil from me, and after
examining it with curiosity proceeded to make a series of delightful little
sketches, the first representing herself holding out both hands in welcome,
and a man uncommonly like Sir Henry taking them. Next she drew a lovely
little picture of a hippopotamus rolling about dying in the water, and of
an individual, in whom we had no difficulty in recognizing Agon the High
Priest, holding up his hands in horror on the bank. Then followed a most
alarming picture of a dreadful fiery furnace and of the same figure, Agon,
poking us into it with a forked stick. This picture perfectly horrified
me, but I was a little reassured when she nodded sweetly and proceeded to
make a fourth drawing -- a man again uncommonly like Sir Henry, and of two
women, in whom I recognized Sorais and herself, each with one arm around
him, and holding a sword in protection over him. To all of these Sorais,
who I saw was employed in carefully taking us all in -- especially Curtis
-- signified her approval by nodding.
At last Nyleptha drew a final sketch of a rising sun,
indicating that she must go, and that we should meet on the following
morning; whereat Sir Henry looked so disappointed that she saw it, and, I
suppose by way of consolation, extended her hand to him to kiss, which he
did with pious fervour. At the same time Sorais, off whom Good had never
taken his eyeglass during the whole indaba [interview], rewarded him by
giving him her hand to kiss, though, while she did so, her eyes were fixed
upon Sir Henry. I am glad to say that I was not implicated in these
proceedings; neither of them gave me her hand to kiss.
Then Nyleptha turned and addressed the man who appeared
to be in command of the bodyguard, apparently from her manner and his
frequent obeisances, giving him very stringent and careful orders; after
which, with a somewhat coquettish nod and smile, she left the hall,
followed by Sorais and most of the guards.
When the Queens had gone, the officer whom Nyleptha had
addressed came forward and with many tokens of deep respect led us from the
hall through various passages to a sumptuous set of apartments opening out
of a large central room lighted with brazen swinging lamps (for it was now
dusk) and richly carpeted and strewn with couches. On a table in the
centre of the room was set a profusion of food and fruit, and, what is
more, flowers. There was a delicious wine also in ancient-looking sealed
earthenware flagons, and beautifully chased golden and ivory cups to drink
it from. Servants, male and female, also were there to minister to us, and
whilst we ate, from some recess outside the apartment
'The silver lute did speak between The trumpet's
lordly blowing;'
and altogether we found ourselves in a sort of earthly
paradise which was only disturbed by the vision of that disgusting High
Priest who intended to commit us to the flames. But so very weary were we
with our labours that we could scarcely keep ourselves awake through the
sumptuous meal, and as soon as it was over we indicated that we desired to
sleep. As a further precaution against surprise we left Umslopogaas with
his axe to sleep in the main chamber near the curtained doorways leading to
the apartments which we occupied respectively, Good and I in the one, and
Sir Henry and Alphonse in the other. Then throwing off our clothes, with
the exception of the mail shirts, which we considered it safer to keep on,
we flung ourselves down upon the low and luxurious couches, and drew the
silk-embroidered coverlids over us.
In two minutes I was just dropping off when I was
aroused by Good's voice.
'I say, Quatermain,' he said, 'did you ever see such
eyes?'
'Eyes!' I said, crossly; 'what eyes?'
'Why, the Queen's, of course! Sorais, I mean -- at
least I think that is her name.'
'Oh, I don't know,' I yawned; 'I didn't notice them
much: I suppose they are good eyes,' and again I dropped off.
Five minutes or so elapsed, and I was once more
awakened.
'I say, Quatermain,' said the voice.
'Well,' I answered testily, 'what is it now?'
'Did you notice her ankle? The shape --'
This was more than I could stand. By my bed stood the
veldtschoons I had been wearing. Moved quite beyond myself, I took them up
and threw them straight at Good's head -- and hit it.
Afterwards I slept the sleep of the just, and a very
heavy sleep it must be. As for Good, I don't know if he went to sleep or
if he continued to pass Sorais' beauties in mental review, and, what is
more, I don't care.
CHAPTER XIII
ABOUT THE ZU-VENDI PEOPLE
And now the curtain is down for a few hours, and the
actors in this novel drama are plunged in dewy sleep. Perhaps we should
except Nyleptha, whom the reader may, if poetically inclined, imagine lying
in her bed of state encompassed by her maidens, tiring women, guards, and
all the other people and appurtenances that surround a throne, and yet not
able to slumber for thinking of the strangers who had visited a country
where no such strangers had ever come before, and wondering, as she lay
awake, who they were and what their past has been, and if she was ugly
compared to the women of their native place. I, however, not being
poetically inclined, will take advantage of the lull to give some account
of the people among whom we found ourselves, compiled, needless to state,
from information which we subsequently collected.
The name of this country, to begin at the beginning, is
Zu-Vendis, from Zu, 'yellow', and Vendis, 'place or country'. Why it is
called the Yellow Country I have never been able to ascertain accurately,
nor do the inhabitants themselves know. Three reasons are, however, given,
each of which would suffice to account for it. The first is that the name
owes its origin to the great quantity of gold that is found in the land.
Indeed, in this respect Zu-Vendis is a veritable Eldorado, the precious
metal being extraordinarily plentiful. At present it is collected from
purely alluvial diggings, which we subsequently inspected, and which are
situated within a day's journey from Milosis, being mostly found in pockets
and in nuggets weighing from an ounce up to six or seven pounds in weight.
But other diggings of a similar nature are known to exist, and I have
besides seen great veins of gold-bearing quartz. In Zu-Vendis gold is a
much commoner metal than silver, and thus it has curiously enough come to
pass that silver is the legal tender of the country.
The second reason given is, that at certain times of the
year the native grasses of the country, which are very sweet and good, turn
as yellow as ripe corn; and the third arises from a tradition that the
people were originally yellow skinned, but grew white after living for many
generations upon these high lands. Zu-Vendis is a country about the size
of France, is, roughly speaking, oval in shape; and on every side cut off
from the surrounding territory by illimitable forests of impenetrable
thorn, beyond which are said to be hundreds of miles of morasses, deserts,
and great mountains. It is, in short, a huge, high tableland rising up in
the centre of the dark continent, much as in southern Africa flat-topped
mountains rise from the level of the surrounding veldt. Milosis itself
lies, according to my aneroid, at a level of about nine thousand feet above
the sea, but most of the land is even higher, the greatest elevation of the
open country being, I believe, about eleven thousand feet. As a
consequence the climate is, comparatively speaking, a cold one, being very
similar to that of southern England, only brighter and not so rainy. The
land is, however, exceedingly fertile, and grows all cereals and temperate
fruits and timber to perfection; and in the lower-lying parts even produces
a hardy variety of sugar-cane. Coal is found in great abundance, and in
many places crops out from the surface; and so is pure marble, both black
and white. The same may be said of almost every metal except silver, which
is scarce, and only to be obtained from a range of mountains in the
north.
Zu-Vendis comprises in her boundaries a great variety of
scenery, including two ranges of snow-clad mountains, one on the western
boundary beyond the impenetrable belt of thorn forest, and the other
piercing the country from north to south, and passing at a distance of
about eighty miles from Milosis, from which town its higher peaks are
distinctly visible. This range forms the chief watershed of the land.
There are also three large lakes -- the biggest, namely that whereon we
emerged, and which is named Milosis after the city, covering some two
hundred square miles of country -- and numerous small ones, some of them
salt.
The population of this favoured land is, comparatively
speaking, dense, numbering at a rough estimate from ten to twelve millions.
It is almost purely agricultural in its habits, and divided into great
classes as in civilized countries. There is a territorial nobility, a
considerable middle class, formed principally of merchants, officers of the
army, etc.; but the great bulk of the people are well-to-do peasants who
live upon the lands of the lords, from whom they hold under a species of
feudal tenure. The best bred people in the country are, as I think I have
said, pure whites with a somewhat southern cast of countenance; but the
common herd are much darker, though they do not show any negro or other
African characteristics. As to their descent I can give no certain
information. Their written records, which extend back for about a thousand
years, give no hint of it. One very ancient chronicler does indeed, in
alluding to some old tradition that existed in his day, talk of it as
having probably originally 'come down with the people from the coast', but
that may mean little or nothing. In short, the origin of the Zu-Vendi is
lost in the mists of time. Whence they came or of what race they are no
man knows. Their architecture and some of their sculptures suggest an
Egyptian or possibly an Assyrian origin; but it is well known that their
present remarkable style of building has only sprung up within the last
eight hundred years, and they certainly retain no traces of Egyptian
theology or customs. Again, their appearance and some of their habits are
rather Jewish; but here again it seems hardly conceivable that they should
have utterly lost all traces of the Jewish religion. Still, for aught I
know, they may be one of the lost ten tribes whom people are so fond of
discovering all over the world, or they may not. I do not know, and so can
only describe them as I find them, and leave wiser heads than mine to make
what they can out of it, if indeed this account should ever be read at all,
which is exceedingly doubtful.
And now after I have said all this, I am, after all,
going to hazard a theory of my own, though it is only a very little one, as
the young lady said in mitigation of her baby. This theory is founded on a
legend which I have heard among the Arabs on the east coast, which is to
the effect that 'more than two thousand years ago' there were troubles in
the country which was known as Babylonia, and that thereon a vast horde of
Persians came down to Bushire, where they took ship and were driven by the
north-east monsoon to the east coast of Africa, where, according to the
legend, 'the sun and fire worshippers' fell into conflict with the belt of
Arab settlers who even then were settled on the east coast, and finally
broke their way through them, and, vanishing into the interior, were no
more seen. Now, I ask, is it not at least possible that the Zu-Vendi
people are the descendants of these 'sun and fire worshippers' who broke
through the Arabs and vanished? As a matter of fact, there is a good deal
in their characters and customs that tallies with the somewhat vague ideas
that I have of Persians. Of course we have no books of reference here, but
Sir Henry says that if his memory does not fail him, there was a tremendous
revolt in Babylon about 500 BC, whereon a vast multitude were expelled from
the city. Anyhow, it is a well-established fact that there have been many
separate emigrations of Persians from the Persian Gulf to the east coast of
Africa up to as lately as seven hundred years ago. There are Persian tombs
at Kilwa, on the east coast, still in good repair, which bear dates showing
them to be just seven hundred years old. 12
In addition to being an agricultural people, the
Zu-Vendi are, oddly enough, excessively warlike, and as they cannot from
the exigencies of their position make war upon other nations, they fight
among each other like the famed Kilkenny cats, with the happy result that
the population never outgrows the power of the country to support it. This
habit of theirs is largely fostered by the political condition of the
country. The monarchy is nominally an absolute one, save in so far as it
is tempered by the power of the priests and the informal council of the
great lords; but, as in many other institutions, the king's writ does not
run unquestioned throughout the length and breadth of the land. In short,
the whole system is a purely feudal one (though absolute serfdom or slavery
is unknown), all the great lords holding nominally from the throne, but a
number of them being practically independent, having the power of life and
death, waging war against and making peace with their neighbours as the
whim or their interests lead them, and even on occasion rising in open
rebellion against their royal master or mistress, and, safely shut up in
their castles and fenced cities, as far from the seat of government,
successfully defying them for years.
Zu-Vendis has had its king-makers as well as England, a
fact that will be well appreciated when I state that eight different
dynasties have sat upon the throne in the last one thousand years, every
one of which took its rise from some noble family that succeeded in
grasping the purple after a sanguinary struggle. At the date of our arrival
in the country things were a little better than they had been for some
centuries, the last king, the father of Nyleptha and Sorais, having been an
exceptionally able and vigorous ruler, and, as a consequence, he kept down
the power of the priests and nobles. On his death, two years before we
reached Zu-Vendis, the twin sisters, his children, were, following an
ancient precedent, called to the throne, since an attempt to exclude either
would instantly have provoked a sanguinary civil war; but it was generally
felt in the country that this measure was a most unsatisfactory one, and
could hardly be expected to be permanent. Indeed, as it was, the various
intrigues that were set on foot by ambitious nobles to obtain the hand of
one or other of the queens in marriage had disquieted the country, and the
general opinion was that there would be bloodshed before long.
I will now pass on to the question of the Zu-Vendi
religion, which is nothing more or less than sun-worship of a pronounced
and highly developed character. Around this sun-worship is grouped the
entire social system of the Zu-Vendi. It sends its roots through every
institution and custom of the land. From the cradle to the grave the
Zu-Vendi follows the sun in every sense of the saying. As an infant he is
solemnly held up in its light and dedicated to 'the symbol of good, the
expression of power, and the hope of Eternity', the ceremony answering to
our baptism. Whilst still a tiny child, his parents point out the glorious
orb as the presence of a visible and beneficent god, and he worships it at
its up-rising and down-setting. Then when still quite small, he goes,
holding fast to the pendent end of his mother's 'kaf' (toga), up to the
temple of the Sun of the nearest city, and there, when at midday the bright
beams strike down upon the golden central altar and beat back the fire that
burns thereon, he hears the white-robed priests raise their solemn chant of
praise and sees the people fall down to adore, and then, amidst the blowing
of the golden trumpets, watches the sacrifice thrown into the fiery furnace
beneath the altar. Here he comes again to be declared 'a man' by the
priests, and consecrated to war and to good works; here before the solemn
altar he leads his bride; and here too, if differences shall unhappily
arise, he divorces her.
And so on, down life's long pathway till the last mile
is travelled, and he comes again armed indeed, and with dignity, but no
longer a man. Here they bear him dead and lay his bier upon the falling
brazen doors before the eastern altar, and when the last ray from the
setting sun falls upon his white face the bolts are drawn and he vanishes
into the raging furnace beneath and is ended.
The priests of the Sun do not marry, but are recruited
as young men specially devoted to the work by their parents and supported
by the State. The nomination to the higher offices of the priesthood lies
with the Crown, but once appointed the nominees cannot be dispossessed, and
it is scarcely too much to say that they really rule the land. To begin
with, they are a united body sworn to obedience and secrecy, so that an
order issued by the High Priest at Milosis will be instantly and
unhesitatingly acted upon by the resident priest of a little country town
three or four hundred miles off. They are the judges of the land, criminal
and civil, an appeal lying only to the lord paramount of the district, and
from him to the king; and they have, of course, practically unlimited
jurisdiction over religious and moral offences, together with a right of
excommunication, which, as in the faiths of more highly civilized lands, is
a very effective weapon. Indeed, their rights and powers are almost
unlimited, but I may as well state here that the priests of the Sun are
wise in their generation, and do not push things too far. It is but very
seldom that they go to extremes against anybody, being more inclined to
exercise the prerogative of mercy than run the risk of exasperating the
powerful and vigorous-minded people on whose neck they have set their yoke,
lest it should rise and break it off altogether.
Another source of the power of the priests is their
practical monopoly of learning, and their very considerable astronomical
knowledge, which enables them to keep a hold on the popular mind by
predicting eclipses and even comets. In Zu-Vendis only a few of the upper
classes can read and write, but nearly all the priests have this knowledge,
and are therefore looked upon as learned men.
The law of the country is, on the whole, mild and just,
but differs in several respects from our civilized law. For instance, the
law of England is much more severe upon offences against property than
against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money. A
man may half kick his wife to death or inflict horrible sufferings upon his
children at a much cheaper rate of punishment than he can compound for the
theft of a pair of old boots. In Zu-Vendis this is not so, for there they
rightly or wrongly look upon the person as of more consequence than goods
and chattels, and not, as in England, as a sort of necessary appendage to
the latter. For murder the punishment is death, for treason death, for
defrauding the orphan and the widow, for sacrilege, and for attempting to
quit the country (which is looked on as a sacrilege) death. In each case
the method of execution is the same, and a rather awful one. The culprit
is thrown alive into the fiery furnace beneath one of the altars to the
Sun. For all other offences, including the offence of idleness, the
punishment is forced labour upon the vast national buildings which are
always going on in some part of the country, with or without periodical
floggings, according to the crime.
The social system of the Zu-Vendi allows considerable
liberty to the individual, provided he does not offend against the laws and
customs of the country. They are polygamous in theory, though most of them
have only one wife on account of the expense. By law a man is bound to
provide a separate establishment for each wife. The first wife also is the
legal wife, and her children are said to be 'of the house of the Father'.
The children of the other wives are of the houses of their respective
mothers. This does not, however, imply any slur upon either mother or
children. Again, a first wife can, on entering into the married state,
make a bargain that her husband shall marry no other wife. This, however,
is very rarely done, as the women are the great upholders of polygamy,
which not only provides for their surplus numbers but gives greater
importance to the first wife, who is thus practically the head of several
households. Marriage is looked upon as primarily a civil contract, and,
subject to certain conditions and to a proper provision for children, is
dissoluble at the will of both contracting parties, the divorce, or
'unloosing', being formally and ceremoniously accomplished by going through
certain portions of the marriage ceremony backwards.
The Zu-Vendi are on the whole a very kindly, pleasant,
and light-hearted people. They are not great traders and care little about
money, only working to earn enough to support themselves in that class of
life in which they were born. They are exceedingly conservative, and look
with disfavour upon changes. Their legal tender is silver, cut into little
squares of different weights; gold is the baser coin, and is about of the
same value as our silver. It is, however, much prized for its beauty, and
largely used for ornaments and decorative purposes. Most of the trade,
however, is carried on by means of sale and barter, payment being made in
kind. Agriculture is the great business of the country, and is really well
understood and carried out, most of the available acreage being under
cultivation. Great attention is also given to the breeding of cattle and
horses, the latter being unsurpassed by any I have ever seen either in
Europe or Africa.
The land belongs theoretically to the Crown, and under
the Crown to the great lords, who again divide it among smaller lords, and
so on down to the little peasant farmer who works his forty 'reestu'
(acres) on a system of half-profits with his immediate lord. In fact the
whole system is, as I have said, distinctly feudal, and it interested us
much to meet with such an old friend far in the unknown heart of
Africa.
The taxes are very heavy. The State takes a third of a
man's total earnings, and the priesthood about five per cent on the
remainder. But on the other hand, if a man through any cause falls into
bona fide misfortune the State supports him in the position of life to
which he belongs. If he is idle, however, he is sent to work on the
Government undertakings, and the State looks after his wives and children.
The State also makes all the roads and builds all town houses, about which
great care is shown, letting them out to families at a small rent. It also
keeps up a standing army of about twenty thousand men, and provides
watchmen, etc. In return for their five per cent the priests attend to the
service of the temples, carry out all religious ceremonies, and keep
schools, where they teach whatever they think desirable, which is not very
much. Some of the temples also possess private property, but priests as
individuals cannot hold property.
And now comes a question which I find some difficulty in
answering. Are the Zu-Vendi a civilized or barbarous people? Sometimes I
think the one, sometimes the other. In some branches of art they have
attained the very highest proficiency. Take for instance their buildings
and their statuary. I do not think that the latter can be equalled either
in beauty or imaginative power anywhere in the world, and as for the former
it may have been rivalled in ancient Egypt, but I am sure that it has never
been since. But, on the other hand, they are totally ignorant of many
other arts. Till Sir Henry, who happened to know something about it,
showed them how to do it by mixing silica and lime, they could not make a
piece of glass, and their crockery is rather primitive. A water-clock is
their nearest approach to a watch; indeed, ours delighted them exceedingly.
They know nothing about steam, electricity, or gunpowder, and mercifully
for themselves nothing about printing or the penny post. Thus they are
spared many evils, for of a truth our age has learnt the wisdom of the
old-world saying, 'He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.'
As regards their religion, it is a natural one for
imaginative people who know no better, and might therefore be expected to
turn to the sun and worship him as the all-Father, but it cannot justly be
called elevating or spiritual. It is true that they do sometimes speak of
the sun as the 'garment of the Spirit', but it is a vague term, and what
they really adore is the fiery orb himself. They also call him the 'hope
of eternity', but here again the meaning is vague, and I doubt if the
phrase conveys any very clear impression to their minds. Some of them do
indeed believe in a future life for the good -- I know Nyleptha does firmly
-- but it is a private faith arising from the promptings of the spirit, not
an essential of their creed. So on the whole I cannot say that I consider
this sun-worship as a religion indicative of a civilized people, however
magnificent and imposing its ritual, or however moral and high-sounding the
maxims of its priests, many of whom, I am sure, have their own opinions on
the whole subject; though of course they have nothing but praise for a
system which provides them with so many of the good things of this
world.
There are now only two more matters to which I need
allude -- namely, the language and the system of calligraphy. As for the
former, it is soft-sounding, and very rich and flexible. Sir Henry says
that it sounds something like modern Greek, but of course it has no
connection with it. It is easy to acquire, being simple in its
construction, and a peculiar quality about it is its euphony, and the way
in which the sound of the words adapts itself to the meaning to be
expressed. Long before we mastered the language, we could frequently make
out what was meant by the ring of the sentence. It is on this account that
the language lends itself so well to poetical declamation, of which these
remarkable people are very fond. The Zu-Vendi alphabet seems, Sir henry
says, to be derived, like every other known system of letters, from a
Phoenician source, and therefore more remotely still from the ancient
Egyptian hieratic writing. Whether this is a fact I cannot say, not being
learned in such matters. All I know about it is that their alphabet
consists of twenty-two characters, of which a few, notably B, E, and O, are
not very unlike our own. The whole affair is, however, clumsy and
puzzling. 13 But as the people of Zu-Vendi
are not given to the writing of novels, or of anything except business
documents and records of the briefest character, it answers their purpose
well enough.
CHAPTER XIV
THE FLOWER TEMPLE
It was half-past eight by my watch when I woke on the
morning following our arrival at Milosis, having slept almost exactly
twelve hours, and I must say that I did indeed feel better. Ah, what a
blessed thing is sleep! and what a difference twelve hours of it or so
makes to us after days and nights of toil and danger. It is like going to
bed one man and getting up another.
I sat up upon my silken couch -- never had I slept upon
such a bed before -- and the first thing that I saw was Good's eyeglass
fixed on me from the recesses of his silken couch. There was nothing else
of him to be seen except his eyeglass, but I knew from the look of it that
he was awake, and waiting till I woke up to begin.
'I say, Quatermain,' he commenced sure enough, 'did you
observe her skin? It is as smooth as the back of an ivory hairbrush.'
'Now look here, Good,' I remonstrated, when there came a
sound at the curtain, which, on being drawn, admitted a functionary, who
signified by signs that he was there to lead us to the bath. We gladly
consented, and were conducted to a delightful marble chamber, with a pool
of running crystal water in the centre of it, into which we gaily plunged.
When we had bathed, we returned to our apartment and dressed, and then went
into the central room where we had supped on the previous evening, to find
a morning meal already prepared for us, and a capital meal it was, though I
should be puzzled to describe the dishes. After breakfast we lounged round
and admired the tapestries and carpets and some pieces of statuary that
were placed about, wondering the while what was going to happen next.
Indeed, by this time our minds were in such a state of complete
bewilderment that we were, as a matter of fact, ready for anything that
might arrive. As for our sense of astonishment, it was pretty well
obliterated. Whilst we were still thus engaged, our friend the captain of
the guard presented himself, and with many obeisances signified that we
were to follow him, which we did, not without doubts and heart-searchings
-- for we guessed that the time had come when we should have to settle the
bill for those confounded hippopotami with our cold-eyed friend Agon, the
High Priest. However, there was no help for it, and personally I took
great comfort in the promise of the protection of the sister Queens,
knowing that if ladies have a will they can generally find a way; so off we
started as though we liked it. A minute's walk through a passage and an
outer court brought us to the great double gates of the palace that open on
to the wide highway which runs uphill through the heart of Milosis to the
Temple of the Sun a mile away, and thence down the slope on the farther
side of the temple to the outer wall of the city.
These gates are very large and massive, and an
extraordinarily beautiful work in metal. Between them -- for one set is
placed at the entrance to an interior, and one at that of the exterior wall
-- is a fosse, forty-five feet in width. This fosse is filled with water
and spanned by a drawbridge, which when lifted makes the palace nearly
impregnable to anything except siege guns. As we came, one half of the
wide gates were flung open, and we passed over the drawbridge and presently
stood gazing up one of the most imposing, if not the most imposing,
roadways in the world. It is a hundred feet from curb to curb, and on
either side, not cramped and crowded together, as is our European fashion,
but each standing in its own grounds, and built equidistant from and in
similar style to the rest, are a series of splendid, single-storied
mansions, all of red granite. These are the town houses of the nobles of
the Court, and stretch away in unbroken lines for a mile or more till the
eye is arrested by the glorious vision of the Temple of the Sun that crowns
the hill and heads the roadway.
As we stood gazing at this splendid sight, of which more
anon, there suddenly dashed up to the gateway four chariots, each drawn by
two white horses. These chariots are two-wheeled, and made of wood. They
are fitted with a stout pole, the weight of which is supported by leathern
girths that form a portion of the harness. The wheels are made with four
spokes only, are tired with iron, and quite innocent of springs. In the
front of the chariot, and immediately over the pole, is a small seat for
the driver, railed round to prevent him from being jolted off. Inside the
machine itself are three low seats, one at each side, and one with the back
to the horses, opposite to which is the door. The whole vehicle is lightly
and yet strongly made, and, owing to the grace of the curves, though
primitive, not half so ugly as might be expected.
But if the chariots left something to be desired, the
horses did not. They were simply splendid, not very large but strongly
built, and well ribbed up, with small heads, remarkably large and round
hoofs, and a great look of speed and blood. I have often wondered whence
this breed, which presents many distinct characteristics, came, but like
that of its owners, it history is obscure. Like the people the horses have
always been there. The first and last of these chariots were occupied by
guards, but the centre two were empty, except for the driver, and to these
we were conducted. Alphonse and I got into the first, and Sir Henry, Good,
and Umslopogaas into the one behind, and then suddenly off we went. And we
did go! Among the Zu-Vendi it is not usual to trot horses either riding or
driving, especially when the journey to be made is a short one -- they go
at full gallop. As soon as we were seated the driver called out, the
horses sprang forward, and we were whirled away at a speed sufficient to
take one's breath, and which, till I got accustomed to it, kept me in
momentary fear of an upset. As for the wretched Alphonse, he clung with a
despairing face to the side of what he called this 'devil of a fiacre',
thinking that every moment was his last. Presently it occurred to him to
ask where we were going, and I told him that, as far as I could ascertain,
we were going to be sacrificed by burning. You should have seen his face
as he grasped the side of the vehicle and cried out in his terror.
But the wild-looking charioteer only leant forward over
his flying steeds and shouted; and the air, as it went singing past, bore
away the sound of Alphonse's lamentations.
And now before us, in all its marvellous splendour and
dazzling loveliness, shone out the Temple of the Sun -- the peculiar pride
of the Zu-Vendi, to whom it was what Solomon's, or rather Herod's, Temple
was to the Jews. The wealth, and skill, and labour of generations had been
given to the building of this wonderful place, which had been only finally
completed within the last fifty years. Nothing was spared that the country
could produce, and the result was indeed worthy of the effort, not so much
on account of its size -- for there are larger fanes in the world -- as
because of its perfect proportions, the richness and beauty of its
materials, and the wonderful workmanship. The building (that stands by
itself on a space of some eight acres of garden ground on the hilltop,
around which are the dwelling-places of the priests) is built in the shape
of a sunflower, with a dome-covered central hall, from which radiate twelve
petal-shaped courts, each dedicated to one of the twelve months, and
serving as the repositories of statues reared in memory of the illustrious
dead. The width of the circle beneath the dome is three hundred feet, the
height of the dome is four hundred feet, and the length of the rays is one
hundred and fifty feet, and the height of their roofs three hundred feet,
so that they run into the central dome exactly as the petals of the
sunflower run into the great raised heart. Thus the exact measurement from
the centre of the central altar to the extreme point of any one of the
rounded rays would be three hundred feet (the width of the circle itself),
or a total of six hundred feet from the rounded extremity of one ray or
petal to the extremity of the opposite one. 14
The building itself is of pure and polished white
marble, which shows out in marvellous contrast to the red granite of the
frowning city, on whose brow it glistens indeed like an imperial diadem
upon the forehead of a dusky queen. The outer surface of the dome and of
the twelve petal courts is covered entirely with thin sheets of beaten
gold; and from the extreme point of the roof of each of these petals a
glorious golden form with a trumpet in its hand and widespread wings is
figured in the very act of soaring into space. I really must leave whoever
reads this to imagine the surpassing beauty of these golden roofs flashing
when the sun strikes -- flashing like a thousand fires aflame on a mountain
of polished marble -- so fiercely that the reflection can be clearly seen
from the great peaks of the range a hundred miles away.
It is a marvellous sight -- this golden flower upborne
upon the cool white marble walls, and I doubt if the world can show such
another. What makes the whole effect even more gorgeous is that a belt of
a hundred and fifty feet around the marble wall of the temple is planted
with an indigenous species of sunflower, which were at the time when we
first saw them a sheet of golden bloom.
The main entrance to this wonderful place is between the
two northernmost of the rays or petal courts, and is protected first by the
usual bronze gates, and then by doors made of solid marble, beautifully
carved with allegorical subjects and overlaid with gold. When these are
passed there is only the thickness of the wall, which is, however,
twenty-five feet (for the Zu-Vendi build for all time), and another slight
wall also of white marble, introduced in order to avoid causing a visible
gap in the inner skin of the wall, and you stand in the circular hall under
the great dome. Advancing to the central altar you look upon as beautiful
a sight as the imagination of man can conceive. You are in the middle of
the holy place, and above you the great white marble dome (for the inner
skin, like the outer, is of polished marble throughout) arches away in
graceful curves something like that of St Paul's in London, only at a
slighter angle, and from the funnel-like opening at the exact apex a bright
beam of light pours down upon the golden altar. At the east and the west
are other altars, and other beams of light stab the sacred twilight to the
heart. In every direction, 'white, mystic, wonderful', open out the
ray-like courts, each pierced through by a single arrow of light that
serves to illumine its lofty silence and dimly to reveal the monuments of
the dead. 15
Overcome at so awe-inspiring a sight, the vast
loveliness of which thrills the nerves like a glance from beauty's eyes,
you turn to the central golden altar, in the midst of which, though you
cannot see it now, there burns a pale but steady flame crowned with curls
of faint blue smoke. It is of marble overlaid with pure gold, in shape
round like the sun, four feet in height, and thirty-six in circumference.
Here also, hinged to the foundations of the altar, are twelve petals of
beaten gold. All night and, except at one hour, all day also, these petals
are closed over the altar itself exactly as the petals of a water-lily
close over the yellow crown in stormy weather; but when the sun at midday
pierces through the funnel in the dome and lights upon the golden flower,
the petals open and reveal the hidden mystery, only to close again when the
ray has passed.
Nor is this all. Standing in semicircles at equal
distances from each other on the north and south of the sacred place are
ten golden angels, or female winged forms, exquisitely shaped and draped.
These figures, which are slightly larger than life-size, stand with bent
heads in an attitude of adoration, their faces shadowed by their wings, and
are most imposing and of exceeding beauty.
There is but one thing further which calls for
description in this altar, which is, that to the east the flooring in front
of it is not of pure white marble, as elsewhere throughout the building,
but of solid brass, and this is also the case in front of the other two
altars.
The eastern and western altars, which are semicircular
in shape, and placed against the wall of the building, are much less
imposing, and are not enfolded in golden petals. They are, however, also
of gold, the sacred fire burns on each, and a golden-winged figure stands
on either side of them. Two great golden rays run up the wall behind them,
but where the third or middle one should be is an opening in the wall, wide
on the outside, but narrow within, like a loophole turned inwards. Through
the eastern loophole stream the first beams of the rising sun, and strike
right across the circle, touching the folded petals of the great gold
flower as they pass till they impinge upon the western altar. In the same
way at night the last rays of the sinking sun rest for a while on the
eastern altar before they die away into darkness. It is the promise of the
dawn to the evening and the evening to the dawn.
With the exception of those three altars and the winged
figures about them, the whole space beneath the vast white dome is utterly
empty and devoid of ornamentation -- a circumstance that to my fancy adds
greatly to its splendour.
Such is a brief description of this wonderful and lovely
building, to the glories of which, to my mind so much enhanced by their
complete simplicity, I only wish I had the power to do justice. But I
cannot, so it is useless talking more about it. But when I compare this
great work of genius to some of the tawdry buildings and tinsel
ornamentation produced in these latter days by European ecclesiastical
architects, I feel that even highly civilized art might learn something
from the Zu-Vendi masterpieces. I can only say that the exclamation which
sprang to my lips as soon as my eyes first became accustomed to the dim
light of that glorious building, and its white and curving beauties,
perfect and thrilling as those of a naked goddess, grew upon me one by one,
was, 'Well! a dog would feel religious here.' It is vulgarly put, but
perhaps it conveys my meaning more clearly than any polished utterance.
At the temple gates our party was received by a guard of
soldiers, who appeared to be under the orders of a priest; and by them we
were conducted into one of the ray or 'petal' courts, as the priests call
them, and there left for at least half-an-hour. Here we conferred together,
and realizing that we stood in great danger of our lives, determined, if
any attempt should be made upon us, to sell them as dearly as we could --
Umslopogaas announcing his fixed intention of committing sacrilege on the
person of Agon, the High Priest, by splitting his head with Inkosi-kaas.
From where we stood we could perceive that an immense multitude were
pouring into the temple, evidently in expectation of some unusual event,
and I could not help fearing that we had to do with it. And here I may
explain that every day, when the sunlight falls upon the central altar, and
the trumpets sound, a burnt sacrifice is offered to the Sun, consisting
generally of the carcase of a sheep or ox, or sometimes of fruit or corn.
This event comes off about midday; of course, not always exactly at that
hour, but as Zu-Vendis is situated not far from the Line, although -- being
so high above the sea it is very temperate -- midday and the falling of the
sunlight on the altar were generally simultaneous. Today the sacrifice was
to take place at about eight minutes past twelve.
Just at twelve o'clock a priest appeared, and made a
sign, and the officer of the guard signified to us that we were expected to
advance, which we did with the best grace that we could muster, all except
Alphonse, whose irrepressible teeth instantly began to chatter. In a few
seconds we were out of the court and looking at a vast sea of human faces
stretching away to the farthest limits of the great circle, all straining
to catch a glimpse of the mysterious strangers who had committed sacrilege;
the first strangers, mind you, who, to the knowledge of the multitude, had
ever set foot in Zu-Vendis since such time that the memory of man runneth
not to the contrary.
As we appeared there was a murmur through the vast crowd
that went echoing away up the great dome, and we saw a visible blush of
excitement grow on the thousands of faces, like a pink light on a stretch
of pale cloud, and a very curious effect it was. On we passed down a lane
cut through the heart of the human mass, till presently we stood upon the
brazen patch of flooring to the east of the central altar, and immediately
facing it. For some thirty feet around the golden-winged figures the space
was roped off, and the multitudes stood outside the ropes. Within were a
circle of white-robed gold-cinctured priests holding long golden trumpets
in their hands, and immediately in front of us was our friend Agon, the
High Priest, with his curious cap upon his head. His was the only covered
head in that vast assemblage. We took our stand upon the brazen space,
little knowing what was prepared for us beneath, but I noticed a curious
hissing sound proceeding apparently from the floor for which I could not
account. Then came a pause, and I looked around to see if there was any
sign of the two Queens, Nyleptha and Sorais, but they were not there. To
the right of us, however, was a bare space that I guessed was reserved for
them.
We waited, and presently a far-off trumpet blew,
apparently high up in the dome. Then came another murmur from the
multitude, and up a long lane, leading to the open space to our right, we
saw the two Queens walking side by side. Behind them were some nobles of
the Court, among whom I recognized the great lord Nasta, and behind them
again a body of about fifty guards. These last I was very glad to see.
Presently they had all arrived and taken their stand, the two Queens in the
front, the nobles to the right and left, and the guards in a double
semicircle behind them.
Then came another silence, and Nyleptha looked up and
caught my eye; it seemed to me that there was meaning in her glance, and I
watched it narrowly. From my eye it travelled down to the brazen flooring,
on the outer edge of which we stood. Then followed a slight and almost
imperceptible sidelong movement of the head. I did not understand it, and
it was repeated. Then I guessed that she meant us to move back off the
brazen floor. One more glance and I was sure of it -- there was danger in
standing on the floor. Sir Henry was placed on one side of me, Umslopogaas
on the other. Keeping my eyes fixed straight before me, I whispered to
them, first in Zulu and then in English, to draw slowly back inch by inch
till half their feet were resting on the marble flooring where the brass
ceased. Sir Henry whispered on to Good and Alphonse, and slowly, very very
slowly, we shifted backwards; so slowly that nobody, except Nyleptha and
Sorais, who saw everything seemed to notice the movement. Then I glanced
again at Nyleptha, and saw that, by an almost imperceptible nod, she
indicated approval. All the while Agon's eyes were fixed upon the altar
before him apparently in an ecstasy of contemplation, and mine were fixed
upon the small of his back in another sort of ecstasy. Suddenly he flung
up his long arm, and in a solemn and resounding voice commenced a chant, of
which for convenience' sake I append a rough, a very rough,
translation here, though, of course, I did not then comprehend its meaning.
It was an invocation to the Sun, and ran somewhat as follows: --
There is silence upon the face of the Earth and the
waters thereof! Yea, the silence doth brood on the waters like a nesting
bird; The silence sleepeth also upon the bosom of the profound darkness,
Only high up in the great spaces star doth speak unto star, The Earth is
faint with longing and wet with the tears of her desire; The star-girdled
night doth embrace her, but she is not comforted. She lies enshrouded in
mists like a corpse in the grave-clothes, And stretches her pale hands to
the East.
Lo! away in the farthest East there is the shadow of a
light; The Earth seeth and lifts herself. She looks out from beneath the
hollow of her hand. Then thy great angels fly forth from the Holy Place, oh
Sun, They shoot their fiery swords into the darkness and shrivel it up.
They climb the heavens and cast down the pale stars from their thrones;
Yea, they hurl the changeful stars back into the womb of the night; They
cause the moon to become wan as the face of a dying man, And behold! Thy
glory comes, oh Sun!
Oh, Thou beautiful one, Thou drapest thyself in fire.
The wide heavens are thy pathway: thou rollest o'er them as a chariot. The
Earth is thy bride. Thou dost embrace her and she brings forth children;
Yea, Thou favourest her, and she yields her increase. Thou art the All
Father and the giver of life, oh Sun. The young children stretch out their
hands and grow in thy brightness; The old men creep forth and seeing
remember their strength. Only the dead forget Thee, oh Sun!
When Thou art wroth then Thou dost hide Thy face; Thou
drawest around Thee a thick curtain of shadows. Then the Earth grows cold
and the Heavens are dismayed; They tremble, and the sound thereof is the
sound of thunder: They weep, and their tears are outpoured in the rain;
They sigh, and the wild winds are the voice of their sighing. The flowers
die, the fruitful fields languish and turn pale; The old men and the little
children go unto their appointed place When Thou withdrawest thy light, oh
Sun!
Say, what art Thou, oh Thou matchless Splendour -- Who
set Thee on high, oh Thou flaming Terror? When didst Thou begin, and when
is the day of Thy ending? Thou art the raiment of the living Spirit.
16 None did place Thee on high, for Thou was
the Beginning. Thou shalt not be ended when thy children are forgotten;
Nay, Thou shalt never end, for thy hours are eternal. Thou sittest on high
within thy golden house and measurest out the centuries. Oh Father of Life!
oh dark-dispelling Sun!
He ceased this solemn chant, which, though it seems a
poor enough thing after going through my mill, is really beautiful and
impressive in the original; and then, after a moment's pause, he glanced up
towards the funnel-sloped opening in the dome and added --
Oh Sun, descend upon thine Altar!
As he spoke a wonderful and a beautiful thing happened.
Down from on high flashed a splendid living ray of light, cleaving the
twilight like a sword of fire. Full upon the closed petals it fell and ran
shimmering down their golden sides, and then the glorious flower opened as
though beneath the bright influence. Slowly it opened, and as the great
petals fell wide and revealed the golden altar on which the fire ever
burns, the priests blew a blast upon the trumpets, and from all the people
there rose a shout of praise that beat against the domed roof and came
echoing down the marble walls. And now the flower altar was open, and the
sunlight fell full upon the tongue of sacred flame and beat it down, so
that it wavered, sank, and vanished into the hollow recesses whence it
rose. As it vanished, the mellow notes of the trumpets rolled out once
more. Again the old priest flung up his hands and called aloud --
We sacrifice to thee, oh Sun!
Once more I caught Nyleptha's eye; it was fixed upon the
brazen flooring.
'Look out,' I said, aloud; and as I said it, I saw Agon
bend forward and touch something on the altar. As he did so, the great
white sea of faces around us turned red and then white again, and a deep
breath went up like a universal sigh. Nyleptha leant forward, and with an
involuntary movement covered her eyes with her hand. Sorais turned and
whispered to the officer of the royal bodyguard, and then with a rending
sound the whole of the brazen flooring slid from before our feet, and there
in its place was suddenly revealed a smooth marble shaft terminating in a
most awful raging furnace beneath the altar, big enough and hot enough to
heat the iron stern-post of a man-of-war.
With a cry of terror we sprang backwards, all except the
wretched Alphonse, who was paralysed with fear, and would have fallen into
the fiery furnace which had been prepared for us, had not Sir Henry caught
him in his strong hand as he was vanishing and dragged him back.
Instantly there arose the most fearful hubbub, and we
four got back to back, Alphonse dodging frantically round our little circle
in his attempts to take shelter under our legs. We all had our revolvers
on -- for though we had been politely disarmed of our guns on leaving the
palace, of course these people did not know what a revolver was.
Umslopogaas, too, had his axe, of which no effort had been made to deprive
him, and now he whirled it round his head and sent his piercing Zulu
war-shout echoing up the marble walls in fine defiant fashion. Next
second, the priests, baffled of their prey, had drawn swords from beneath
their white robes and were leaping on us like hounds upon a stag at bay. I
saw that, dangerous as action might be, we must act or be lost, so as the
first man came bounding along -- and a great tall fellow he was -- I sent a
heavy revolver ball through him, and down he fell at the mouth of the
shaft, and slid, shrieking frantically, into the fiery gulf that had been
prepared for us.
Whether it was his cries, or the, to them, awful sound
and effect of the pistol shot, or what, I know not, but the other priests
halted, paralysed and dismayed, and before they could come on again Sorais
had called out something, and we, together with the two Queens and most of
the courtiers, were being surrounded with a wall of armed men. In a moment
it was done, and still the priests hesitated, and the people hung in the
balance like a herd of startled buck as it were, making no sign one way or
the other.
The last yell of the burning priest had died away, the
fire had finished him, and a great silence fell upon the place.
Then the High Priest Agon turned, and his face was as
the face of a devil. 'Let the sacrifice be sacrificed,' he cried to the
Queens. 'Has not sacrilege enough been done by these strangers, and would
ye, as Queens, throw the cloak of your majesty over evildoers? Are not the
creatures sacred to the Sun dead? And is not a priest of the Sun also
dead, but now slain by the magic of these strangers, who come as the winds
out of heaven, whence we know not, and who are what we know not? Beware,
oh Queens, how ye tamper with the great majesty of the God, even before His
high altar! There is a Power that is more than your power; there is a
Justice that is higher than your justice. Beware how ye lift an impious
hand against it! Let the sacrifice be sacrificed, oh Queens.'
Then Sorais made answer in her deep quiet tones, that
always seemed to me to have a suspicion of mockery about them, however
serious the theme: 'Oh, Agon, thou hast spoken according to thy desire, and
thou hast spoken truth. But it is thou who wouldst lift an impious hand
against the justice of thy God. Bethink thee the midday sacrifice is
accomplished; the Sun hath claimed his priest as a sacrifice.'
This was a novel idea, and the people applauded it.
'Bethink thee what are these men? They are strangers
found floating on the bosom of a lake. Who brought them here? How came
they here? How know you that they also are not servants of the Sun? Is
this the hospitality that ye would have our nation show to those whom
chance brings to them, to throw them to the flames? Shame on you! Shame on
you! What is hospitality? To receive the stranger and show him favour.
To bind up his wounds, and find a pillow for his head, and food for him to
eat. But thy pillow is the fiery furnace, and thy food the hot savour of
the flame. Shame on thee, I say!'
She paused a little to watch the effect of her speech
upon the multitude, and seeing that it was favourable, changed her tone
from one of remonstrance to one of command.
'Ho! place there,' she cried; 'place, I say; make way
for the Queens, and those whom the Queens cover with their "kaf"
(mantle).'
'And if I refuse, oh Queen?' said Agon between his
teeth.
'Then will I cut a path with my guards,' was the proud
answer; 'ay, even in the presence of thy sanctuary, and through the bodies
of thy priests.'
Agon turned livid with baffled fury. He glanced at the
people as though meditating an appeal to them, but saw clearly that their
sympathies were all the other way. The Zu-Vendi are a very curious and
sociable people, and great as was their sense of the enormity that we had
committed in shooting the sacred hippopotami, they did not like the idea of
the only real live strangers they had seen or heard of being consigned to a
fiery furnace, thereby putting an end for ever to their chance of
extracting knowledge and information from, and gossiping about us. Agon
saw this and hesitated, and then for the first time Nyleptha spoke in her
soft sweet voice.
'Bethink thee, Agon,' she said, 'as my sister Queen has
said, these men may also be servants of the Sun. For themselves they
cannot speak, for their tongues are tied. Let the matter be adjourned till
such time as they have learnt our language. Who can be condemned without a
hearing? When these men can plead for themselves, then it will be time to
put them to the proof.'
Here was a clever loophole of escape, and the vindictive
old priest took it, little as he liked it.
'So be it, oh Queens,' he said. 'Let the men go in
peace, and when they have learnt our tongue then let them speak. And I,
even I, will make humble supplication at the altar lest pestilence fall on
the land by cause of the sacrilege.'
These words were received with a murmur of applause, and
in another minute we were marching out of the temple surrounded by the
royal guards.
But it was not till long afterwards that we learnt the
exact substance of what had passed, and how hardly our lives had been wrung
out of the cruel grip of the Zu-Vendi priesthood, in the face of which even
the Queens were practically powerless. Had it not been for their strenuous
efforts to protect us we should have been slain even before we set foot in
the Temple of the Sun. The attempt to drop us bodily into the fiery pit as
an offering was a last artifice to attain this end when several others
quite unsuspected by us had already failed.
CHAPTER XV
SORAIS' SONG
After our escape from Agon and his pious crew we
returned to our quarters in the palace and had a very good time. The two
Queens, the nobles and the people vied with each other in doing us honour
and showering gifts upon us. As for that painful little incident of the
hippopotami it sank into oblivion, where we were quite content to leave it.
Every day deputations and individuals waited on us to examine our guns and
clothing, our chain shirts, and our instruments, especially our watches,
with which they were much delighted. In short, we became quite the rage,
so much so that some of the fashionable young swells among the Zu-Vendi
began to copy the cut of some of our clothes, notably Sir Henry's shooting
jacket. One day, indeed, a deputation waited on us and, as usual, Good
donned his full-dress uniform for the occasion. This deputation seemed
somehow to be a different class to those who generally came to visit us.
They were little insignificant men of an excessively polite, not to say
servile, demeanour; and their attention appeared to be chiefly taken up
with observing the details of Good's full-dress uniform, of which they took
copious notes and measurements. Good was much flattered at the time, not
suspecting that he had to deal with the six leading tailors of Milosis. A
fortnight afterwards, however, when on attending court as usual he had the
pleasure of seeing some seven or eight Zu-Vendi 'mashers' arrayed in all
the glory of a very fair imitation of his full-dress uniform, he changed
his mind. I shall never forget his face of astonishment and disgust. It was
after this, chiefly to avoid remark, and also because our clothes were
wearing out and had to be saved up, that we resolved to adopt the native
dress; and a very comfortable one we found it, though I am bound to say
that I looked sufficiently ridiculous in it, and as for Alphonse! Only
Umslopogaas would have none of these things; when his moocha was worn out
the fierce old Zulu made him a new one, and went about unconcerned, as grim
and naked as his own battleaxe.
Meanwhile we pursued our study of the language steadily
and made very good progress. On the morning following our adventure in the
temple, three grave and reverend signiors presented themselves armed with
manuscript books, ink-horns and feather pens, and indicated that they had
been sent to teach us. So, with the exception of Umslopogaas, we all
buckled to with a will, doing four hours a day. As for Umslopogaas, he
would have none of that either. He did not wish to learn that 'woman's
talk', not he; and when one of the teachers advanced on him with a book and
an ink-horn and waved them before him in a mild persuasive way, much as a
churchwarden invitingly shakes the offertory bag under the nose of a rich
but niggardly parishioner, he sprang up with a fierce oath and flashed
Inkosi-kaas before the eyes of our learned friend, and there was an end of
the attempt to teach him Zu-Vendi.
Thus we spent our mornings in useful occupation which
grew more and more interesting as we proceeded, and the afternoons were
given up to recreation. Sometimes we made trips, notably one to the gold
mines and another to the marble quarries both of which I wish I had space
and time to describe; and sometimes we went out hunting buck with dogs
trained for that purpose, and a very exciting sport it is, as the country
is full of agricultural enclosures and our horses were magnificent. This
is not to be wondered at, seeing that the royal stables were at our
command, in addition to which we had four splendid saddle horses given to
us by Nyleptha.
Sometimes, again, we went hawking, a pastime that is in
great favour among the Zu-Vendi, who generally fly their birds at a species
of partridge which is remarkable for the swiftness and strength of its
flight. When attacked by the hawk this bird appears to lose its head, and,
instead of seeking cover, flies high into the sky, thus offering wonderful
sport. I have seen one of these partridges soar up almost out of sight
when followed by the hawk. Still better sport is offered by a variety of
solitary snipe as big as a small woodcock, which is plentiful in this
country, and which is flown at with a very small, agile, and highly-trained
hawk with an almost red tail. The zigzagging of the great snipe and the
lightning rapidity of the flight and movements of the red-tailed hawk make
the pastime a delightful one. Another variety of the same amusement is the
hunting of a very small species of antelope with trained eagles; and it
certainly is a marvellous sight to see the great bird soar and soar till he
is nothing but a black speck in the sunlight, and then suddenly come
dashing down like a cannon-ball upon some cowering buck that is hidden in a
patch of grass from everything but that piercing eye. Still finer is the
spectacle when the eagle takes the buck running.
On other days we would pay visits to the country seats
at some of the great lords' beautiful fortified places, and the villages
clustering beneath their walls. Here we saw vineyards and corn-fields and
well-kept park-like grounds, with such timber in them as filled me with
delight, for I do love a good tree. There it stands so strong and sturdy,
and yet so beautiful, a very type of the best sort of man. How proudly it
lifts its bare head to the winter storms, and with what a full heart it
rejoices when the spring has come again! How grand its voice is, too, when
it talks with the wind: a thousand aeolian harps cannot equal the beauty of
the sighing of a great tree in leaf. All day it points to the sunshine and
all night to the stars, and thus passionless, and yet full of life, it
endures through the centuries, come storm, come shine, drawing its
sustenance from the cool bosom of its mother earth, and as the slow years
roll by, learning the great mysteries of growth and of decay. And so on
and on through generations, outliving individuals, customs, dynasties --
all save the landscape it adorns and human nature -- till the appointed day
when the wind wins the long battle and rejoices over a reclaimed space, or
decay puts the last stroke to his fungus-fingered work.
Ah, one should always think twice before one cuts down a
tree!
In the evenings it was customary for Sir Henry, Good,
and myself to dine, or rather sup, with their Majesties -- not every night,
indeed, but about three or four times a week, whenever they had not much
company, or the affairs of state would allow of it. And I am bound to say
that those little suppers were quite the most charming things of their sort
that I ever had to do with. How true is the saying that the very highest in
rank are always the most simple and kindly. It is from your half-and-half
sort of people that you get pomposity and vulgarity, the difference between
the two being very much what one sees every day in England between the old,
out-at-elbows, broken-down county family, and the overbearing, purse-proud
people who come and 'take the place'. I really think that Nyleptha's
greatest charm is her sweet simplicity, and her kindly genuine interest
even in little things. She is the simplest woman I ever knew, and where
her passions are not involved, one of the sweetest; but she can look
queenly enough when she likes, and be as fierce as any savage too.
For instance, never shall I forget that scene when I for
the first time was sure that she was really in love with Curtis. It came
about in this way -- all through Good's weakness for ladies' society. When
we had been employed for some three months in learning Zu-Vendi, it struck
Master Good that he was getting rather tired of the old gentlemen who did
us the honour to lead us in the way that we should go, so he proceeded,
without saying a word to anybody else, to inform them that it was a
peculiar fact, but that we could not make any real progress in the deeper
intricacies of a foreign language unless we were taught by ladies -- young
ladies, he was careful to explain. In his own country, he pointed out, it
was habitual to choose the very best-looking and most charming girls who
could be found to instruct any strangers who happened to come that way,
etc.
All of this the old gentlemen swallowed open-mouthed.
There was, they admitted, reason in what he said, since the contemplation
of the beautiful, as their philosophy taught, induced a certain porosity of
mind similar to that produced upon the physical body by the healthful
influences of sun and air. Consequently it was probable that we might
absorb the Zu-Vendi tongue a little faster if suitable teachers could be
found. Another thing was that, as the female sex was naturally loquacious,
good practice would be gained in the viva voce department of our
studies.
To all of this Good gravely assented, and the learned
gentlemen departed, assuring him that their orders were to fall in with our
wishes in every way, and that, if possible, our views should be met.
Imagine, therefore the surprise and disgust of myself,
and I trust and believe Sir Henry, when, on entering the room where we were
accustomed to carry on our studies the following morning, we found, instead
of our usual venerable tutors, three of the best-looking young women whom
Milosis could produce -- and that is saying a good deal -- who blushed and
smiled and curtseyed, and gave us to understand that they were there to
carry on our instruction. Then Good, as we gazed at one another in
bewilderment, thought fit to explain, saying that it had slipped his memory
before -- but the old gentlemen had told him, on the previous evening, that
it was absolutely necessary that our further education should be carried on
by the other sex. I was overwhelmed, and appealed to Sir Henry for advice
in such a crisis.
'Well,' he said, 'you see the ladies are here, ain't
they? If we sent them away, don't you think it might hurt their feelings,
eh? One doesn't like to be rough, you see; and they look regular
blues, don't they, eh?'
By this time Good had already begun his lessons with the
handsomest of the three, and so with a sigh I yielded. That day everything
went very well: the young ladies were certainly very clever, and they only
smiled when we blundered. I never saw Good so attentive to his books
before, and even Sir Henry appeared to tackle Zu-Vendi with a renewed zest.
'Ah,' thought I, 'will it always be thus?'
Next day we were much more lively, our work was
pleasingly interspersed with questions about our native country, what the
ladies were like there, etc., all of which we answered as best as we could
in Zu-Vendi, and I heard Good assuring his teacher that her loveliness was
to the beauties of Europe as the sun to the moon, to which she replied with
a little toss of the head, that she was a plain teaching woman and nothing
else, and that it was not kind 'to deceive a poor girl so'. Then we had a
little singing that was really charming, so natural and unaffected. The
Zu-Vendi love-songs are most touching. On the third day we were all quite
intimate. Good narrated some of his previous love affairs to his fair
teacher, and so moved was she that her sighs mingled with his own. I
discoursed with mine, a merry blue-eyed girl, upon Zu-Vendian art, and
never saw that she was waiting for an opportunity to drop a specimen of the
cockroach tribe down my back, whilst in the corner Sir Henry and his
governess appeared, so far as I could judge, to be going through a lesson
framed on the great educational principles laid down by Wackford Squeers
Esq., though in a very modified or rather spiritualized form. The lady
softly repeated the Zu-Vendi word for 'hand', and he took hers; 'eyes', and
he gazed deep into her brown orbs; 'lips', and -- but just at that moment
my young lady dropped the cockroach down my back and ran away
laughing. Now if there is one thing I loathe more than another it is
cockroaches, and moved quite beyond myself, and yet laughing at her
impudence, I took up the cushion she had been sitting on and threw it after
her. Imagine then my shame -- my horror, and my distress -- when the door
opened, and, attended by two guards only, in walked Nyleptha. The
cushion could not be recalled (it missed the girl and hit one of the guards
on the head), but I instantly and ineffectually tried to look as though I
had not thrown it. Good ceased his sighing, and began to murder Zu-Vendi
at the top of his voice, and Sir Henry whistled and looked silly. As for
the poor girls, they were utterly dumbfounded.
And Nyleptha! she drew herself up till her frame seemed
to tower even above that of the tall guards, and her face went first red,
and then pale as death.
'Guards,' she said in a quiet choked voice, and pointing
at the fair but unconscious disciple of Wackford Squeers, 'slay me that
woman.'
The men hesitated, as well they might.
'Will ye do my bidding,' she said again in the same
voice, 'or will ye not?'
Then they advanced upon the girl with uplifted spears.
By this time Sir Henry had recovered himself, and saw that the comedy was
likely to turn into a tragedy.
'Stand back,' he said in a voice of thunder, at the same
time getting in front of the terrified girl. 'Shame on thee, Nyleptha --
shame! Thou shalt not kill her.'
'Doubtless thou hast good reason to try to protect her.
Thou couldst hardly do less in honour,' answered the infuriated Queen; 'but
she shall die -- she shall die,' and she stamped her little foot.
'It is well,' he answered; 'then will I die with her. I
am thy servant, oh Queen; do with me even as thou wilt.' And he bowed
towards her, and fixed his clear eyes contemptuously on her face.
'I could wish to slay thee too,' she answered; 'for thou
dost make a mock of me;' and then feeling that she was mastered, and I
suppose not knowing what else to do, she burst into such a storm of tears
and looked so royally lovely in her passionate distress, that, old as I am,
I must say I envied Curtis his task of supporting her. It was rather odd
to see him holding her in his arms considering what had just passed -- a
thought that seemed to occur to herself, for presently she wrenched herself
free and went, leaving us all much disturbed.
Presently, however, one of the guards returned with a
message to the girls that they were, on pain of death, to leave the city
and return to their homes in the country, and that no further harm would
come to them; and accordingly they went, one of them remarking
philosophically that it could not be helped, and that it was a satisfaction
to know that they had taught us a little serviceable Zu-Vendi. Mine was an
exceedingly nice girl, and, overlooking the cockroach, I made her a present
of my favourite lucky sixpence with a hole in it when she went away. After
that our former masters resumed their course of instruction, needless to
say to my great relief.
That night, when in fear and trembling we attended the
royal supper table, we found that Nyleptha was laid up with a bad headache.
That headache lasted for three whole days; but on the fourth she was
present at supper as usual, and with the most gracious and sweet smile gave
Sir Henry her hand to lead her to the table. No allusion was made to the
little affair described above beyond her saying, with a charming air of
innocence, that when she came to see us at our studies the other day she
had been seized with a giddiness from which she had only now recovered.
She supposed, she added with a touch of the humour that was common to her,
that it was the sight of people working so hard which had affected her.
In reply Sir Henry said, dryly, that he had thought she
did not look quite herself on that day, whereat she flashed one of those
quick glances of hers at him, which if he had the feelings of a man must
have gone through him like a knife, and the subject dropped entirely.
Indeed, after supper was over Nyleptha condescended to put us through an
examination to see what we had learnt, and to express herself well
satisfied with the results. Indeed, she proceeded to give us, especially
Sir Henry, a lesson on her own account, and very interesting we found
it.
And all the while that we talked, or rather tried to
talk, and laughed, Sorais would sit there in her carven ivory chair, and
look at us and read us all like a book, only from time to time saying a few
words, and smiling that quick ominous smile of hers which was more like a
flash of summer lightning on a dark cloud than anything else. And as near
to her as he dared would sit Good, worshipping through his eyeglass, for he
really was getting seriously devoted to this sombre beauty, of whom,
speaking personally, I felt terribly afraid. I watched her keenly, and
soon I found out that for all her apparent impassibility she was at heart
bitterly jealous of Nyleptha. Another thing I found out, and the discovery
filled me with dismay, and that was, that she also was growing
devoted to Sir Henry Curtis. Of course I could not be sure; it is not easy
to read so cold and haughty a woman; but I noticed one or two little
things, and, as elephant hunters know, dried grass shows which way the wind
has set.
And so another three months passed over us, by which
time we had all attained to a very considerable mastery of the Zu-Vendi
language, which is an easy one to learn. And as the time went on we became
great favourites with the people, and even with the courtiers, gaining an
enormous reputation for cleverness, because, as I think I have said, Sir
Henry was able to show them how to make glass, which was a national want,
and also, by the help of a twenty-year almanac that we had with us, to
predict various heavenly combinations which were quite unsuspected by the
native astronomers. We even succeeded in demonstrating the principle of
the steam-engine to a gathering of the learned men, who were filled with
amazement; and several other things of the same sort we did. And so it
came about that the people made up their minds that we must on no account
be allowed to go out of the country (which indeed was an apparent
impossibility even if we had wished it), and we were advanced to great
honour and made officers to the bodyguards of the sister Queens while
permanent quarters were assigned to us in the palace, and our opinion was
asked upon questions of national policy.
But blue as the sky seemed, there was a cloud, and a big
one, on the horizon. We had indeed heard no more of those confounded
hippopotami, but it is not on that account to be supposed that our
sacrilege was forgotten, or the enmity of the great and powerful priesthood
headed by Agon appeased. On the contrary, it was burning the more fiercely
because it was necessarily suppressed, and what had perhaps begun in
bigotry was ending in downright direct hatred born of jealousy. Hitherto,
the priests had been the wise men of the land, and were on this account, as
well as from superstitious causes, looked on with peculiar veneration. But
our arrival, with our outlandish wisdom and our strange inventions and
hints of unimagined things, dealt a serious blow to this state of affairs,
and, among the educated Zu-Vendi, went far towards destroying the priestly
prestige. A still worse affront to them, however, was the favour with
which we were regarded, and the trust that was reposed in us. All these
things tended to make us excessively obnoxious to the great sacerdotal
clan, the most powerful because the most united faction in the kingdom.
Another source of imminent danger to us was the rising
envy of some of the great lords headed by Nasta, whose antagonism to us had
at best been but thinly veiled, and which now threatened to break out into
open flame. Nasta had for some years been a candidate for Nyleptha's hand
in marriage, and when we appeared on the scene I fancy, from all I could
gather, that though there were still many obstacles in his path, success
was by no means out of his reach. But now all this had changed; the coy
Nyleptha smiled no more in his direction, and he was not slow to guess the
cause. Infuriated and alarmed, he turned his attention to Sorais, only to
find that he might as well try to woo a mountain side. With a bitter jest
or two about his fickleness, that door was closed on him for ever. So
Nasta bethought himself of the thirty thousand wild swordsmen who would
pour down at his bidding through the northern mountain passes, and no doubt
vowed to adorn the gates of Milosis with our heads.
But first he determined, as I learned, to make one more
attempt and to demand the hand of Nyleptha in the open Court after the
formal annual ceremony of the signing of the laws that had been proclaimed
by the Queens during the year.
Of this astounding fact Nyleptha heard with simulated
nonchalance, and with a little trembling of the voice herself informed us
of it as we sat at supper on the night preceding the great ceremony of the
law-giving.
Sir Henry bit his lip, and do what he could to prevent
it plainly showed his agitation.
'And what answer will the Queen be pleased to give to
the great Lord?' asked I, in a jesting manner.
'Answer, Macumazahn' (for we had elected to pass by our
Zulu names in Zu-Vendis), she said, with a pretty shrug of her ivory
shoulder. 'Nay, I know not; what is a poor woman to do, when the wooer has
thirty thousand swords wherewith to urge his love?' And from under her long
lashes she glanced at Curtis.
Just then we rose from the table to adjourn into another
room. 'Quatermain, a word, quick,' said Sir Henry to me. 'Listen. I have
never spoken about it, but surely you have guessed: I love Nyleptha. What
am I to do?'
Fortunately, I had more or less already taken the
question into consideration, and was therefore able to give such answer as
seemed the wisest to me.
'You must speak to Nyleptha tonight,' I said. 'Now is
your time, now or never. Listen. In the sitting-chamber get near to her,
and whisper to her to meet you at midnight by the Rademas statue at the end
of the great hall. I will keep watch for you there. Now or never,
Curtis.'
We passed on into the other room. Nyleptha was sitting,
her hands before her, and a sad anxious look upon her lovely face. A little
way off was Sorais talking to Good in her slow measured tones.
The time went on; in another quarter of an hour I knew
that, according to their habit, the Queens would retire. As yet, Sir Henry
had had no chance of saying a word in private: indeed, though we saw much
of the royal sisters, it was by no means easy to see them alone. I racked
my brains, and at last an idea came to me.
'Will the Queen be pleased,' I said, bowing low before
Sorais, 'to sing to her servants? Our hearts are heavy this night; sing to
us, oh Lady of the Night' (Sorais' favourite name among the people).
'My songs, Macumazahn, are not such as to lighten the
heavy heart, yet will I sing if it pleases thee,' she answered; and she
rose and went a few paces to a table whereon lay an instrument not unlike a
zither, and struck a few wandering chords.
Then suddenly, like the notes of some deep-throated
bird, her rounded voice rang out in song so wildly sweet, and yet with so
eerie and sad a refrain, that it made the very blood stand still. Up, up
soared the golden notes, that seemed to melt far away, and then to grow
again and travel on, laden with all the sorrow of the world and all the
despair of the lost. It was a marvellous song, but I had not time to
listen to it properly. However, I got the words of it afterwards, and here
is a translation of its burden, so far as it admits of being translated at
all.
SORAIS' SONG
As a desolate bird that through darkness its lost way
is winging, As a hand that is helplessly raised when Death's sickle is
swinging, So is life! ay, the life that lends passion and breath to my
singing.
As the nightingale's song that is full of a sweetness
unspoken, As a spirit unbarring the gates of the skies for a token, So is
love! ay, the love that shall fall when his pinion is broken.
As the tramp of the legions when trumpets their
challenge are sending, As the shout of the Storm-god when lightnings the
black sky are rending, So is power! ay, the power that shall lie in the
dust at its ending.
So short is our life; yet with space for all things to
forsake us, A bitter delusion, a dream from which nought can awake us, Till
Death's dogging footsteps at morn or at eve shall o'ertake us.
Refrain
Oh, the world is fair at the dawning -- dawning --
dawning, But the red sun sinks in blood -- the red sun sinks in blood.
I only wish that I could write down the music too.
'Now, Curtis, now,' I whispered, when she began the
second verse, and turned my back.
'Nyleptha,' he said -- for my nerves were so much on the
stretch that I could hear every word, low as it was spoken, even through
Sorais' divine notes -- 'Nyleptha, I must speak with thee this night, upon
my life I must. Say me not nay; oh, say me not nay!'
'How can I speak with thee?' she answered, looking
fixedly before her; 'Queens are not like other people. I am surrounded and
watched.'
'Listen, Nyleptha, thus. I will be before the statue of
Rademas in the great hall at midnight. I have the countersign and can pass
in. Macumazahn will be there to keep guard, and with him the Zulu. Oh
come, my Queen, deny me not.'
'It is not seemly,' she murmured, 'and tomorrow --'
Just then the music began to die in the last wail of the
refrain, and Sorais slowly turned her round.
'I will be there,' said Nyleptha, hurriedly; 'on thy
life see that thou fail me not.'
CHAPTER XVI
BEFORE THE STATUE
It was night -- dead night -- and the silence lay on the
Frowning City like a cloud.
Secretly, as evildoers, Sir Henry Curtis, Umslopogaas,
and myself threaded our way through the passages towards a by-entrance to
the great Throne Chamber. Once we were met by the fierce rattling
challenge of the sentry. I gave the countersign, and the man grounded his
spear and let us pass. Also we were officers of the Queens' bodyguard, and
in that capacity had a right to come and go unquestioned.
We gained the hall in safety. So empty and so still was
it, that even when we had passed the sound of our footsteps yet echoed up
the lofty walls, vibrating faintly and still more faintly against the
carven roof, like ghosts of the footsteps of dead men haunting the place
that once they trod.
It was an eerie spot, and it oppressed me. The moon was
full, and threw great pencils and patches of light through the high
windowless openings in the walls, that lay pure and beautiful upon the
blackness of the marble floor, like white flowers on a coffin. One of
these silver arrows fell upon the statue of the sleeping Rademas, and of
the angel form bent over him, illumining it, and a small circle round it,
with a soft clear light, reminding me of that with which Catholics illumine
the altars of their cathedrals.
Here by the statue we took our stand, and waited. Sir
Henry and I close together, Umslopogaas some paces off in the darkness, so
that I could only just make out his towering outline leaning on the outline
of an axe.
So long did we wait that I almost fell asleep resting
against the cold marble, but was suddenly aroused by hearing Curtis give a
quick catching breath. Then from far away there came a little sound as
though the statues that lined the walls were whispering to each other some
message of the ages.
It was the faint sweep of a lady's dress. Nearer it
grew, and nearer yet. We could see a figure steal from patch to patch of
moonlight, and even hear the soft fall of sandalled feet. Another second
and I saw the black silhouette of the old Zulu raise its arm in mute
salute, and Nyleptha was before us.
Oh, how beautiful she looked as she paused a moment just
within the circle of the moonlight! Her hand was pressed upon her heart,
and her white bosom heaved beneath it. Round her head a broidered scarf
was loosely thrown, partially shadowing the perfect face, and thus
rendering it even more lovely; for beauty, dependent as it is to a certain
extent upon the imagination, is never so beautiful as when it is half hid.
There she stood radiant but half doubting, stately and yet so sweet. It
was but a moment, but I then and there fell in love with her myself, and
have remained so to this hour; for, indeed, she looked more like an angel
out of heaven than a loving, passionate, mortal woman. Low we bowed before
her, and then she spoke.
'I have come,' she whispered, 'but it was at great risk.
Ye know not how I am watched. The priests watch me. Sorais watches me
with those great eyes of hers. My very guards are spies upon me. Nasta
watches me too. Oh, let him be careful!' and she stamped her foot. 'Let
him be careful; I am a woman, and therefore hard to drive. Ay, and I am a
Queen, too, and can still avenge. Let him be careful, I say, lest in place
of giving him my hand I take his head,' and she ended the outburst with a
little sob, and then smiled up at us bewitchingly and laughed.
'Thou didst bid me come hither, my Lord Incubu' (Curtis
had taught her to call him so). 'Doubtless it is about business of the
State, for I know that thou art ever full of great ideas and plans for my
welfare and my people's. So even as a Queen should I have come, though I
greatly fear the dark alone,' and again she laughed and gave him a glance
from her grey eyes.
At this point I thought it wise to move a little, since
secrets 'of the State' should not be made public property; but she would
not let me go far, peremptorily stopping me within five yards or so, saying
that she feared surprise. So it came to pass that, however unwillingly, I
heard all that passed.
'Thou knowest, Nyleptha,' said Sir Henry, 'that it was
for none of these things that I asked thee to meet me at this lonely place.
Nyleptha, waste not the time in pleasantry, but listen to me, for -- I love
thee.'
As he said the words I saw her face break up, as it
were, and change. The coquetry went out of it, and in its place there
shone a great light of love which seemed to glorify it, and make it like
that of the marble angel overhead. I could not help thinking that it must
have been a touch of prophetic instinct which made the long dead Rademas
limn, in the features of the angel of his inspiring vision, so strange a
likeness of his own descendant. Sir Henry, also, must have observed and
been struck by the likeness, for, catching the look upon Nyleptha's face,
he glanced quickly from it to the moonlit statue, and then back again at
his beloved.
'Thou sayest thou dost love me,' she said in a low
voice, 'and thy voice rings true, but how am I to know that thou dost speak
the truth?'
'Though,' she went on with proud humility, and in the
stately third person which is so largely used by the Zu-Vendi, 'I be as
nothing in the eyes of my lord,' and she curtseyed towards him, 'who comes
from among a wonderful people, to whom my people are but children, yet here
am I a queen and a leader of men, and if I would go to battle a hundred
thousand spears shall sparkle in my train like stars glimmering down the
path of the bent moon. And although my beauty be a little thing in the eyes
of my lord,' and she lifted her broidered skirt and curtseyed again, 'yet
here among my own people am I held right fair, and ever since I was a woman
the great lords of my kingdom have made quarrel concerning me, as though
forsooth,' she added with a flash of passion, 'I were a deer to be pulled
down by the hungriest wolf, or a horse to be sold to the highest bidder.
Let my lord pardon me if I weary my lord, but it hath pleased my lord to
say that he loves me, Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, and therefore
would I say that though my love and my hand be not much to my lord, yet to
me are they all.'
'Oh!' she cried, with a sudden and thrilling change of
voice, and modifying her dignified mode of address. 'Oh, how can I know
that thou lovest but me? How can I know that thou wilt not weary of me and
seek thine own place again, leaving me desolate? Who is there to tell me
but that thou lovest some other woman, some fair woman unknown to me, but
who yet draws breath beneath this same moon that shines on me tonight?
Tell me how am I to know?' And she clasped her hands and stretched
them out towards him and looked appealingly into his face.
'Nyleptha,' answered Sir Henry, adopting the Zu-Vendi
way of speech; 'I have told thee that I love thee; how am I to tell thee
how much I love thee? Is there then a measure for love? Yet will I try. I
say not that I have never looked upon another woman with favour, but this I
say that I love thee with all my life and with all my strength; that I love
thee now and shall love thee till I grow cold in death, ay, and as I
believe beyond my death, and on and on for ever: I say that thy voice is
music to my ear, and thy touch as water to a thirsty land, that when thou
art there the world is beautiful, and when I see thee not it is as though
the light was dead. Oh, Nyleptha, I will never leave thee; here and now
for thy dear sake I will forget my people and my father's house, yea, I
renounce them all. By thy side will I live, Nyleptha, and at thy side will
I die.'
He paused and gazed at her earnestly, but she hung her
head like a lily, and said never a word.
'Look!' he went on, pointing to the statue on which the
moonlight played so brightly. 'Thou seest that angel woman who rests her
hand upon the forehead of the sleeping man, and thou seest how at her touch
his soul flames up and shines out through his flesh, even as a lamp at the
touch of the fire, so is it with me and thee, Nyleptha. Thou hast awakened
my soul and called it forth, and now, Nyleptha, it is not mine, not mine,
but thine and thine only. There is no more for me to say; in thy
hands is my life.' And he leaned back against the pedestal of the statue,
looking very pale, and his eyes shining, but proud and handsome as a
god.
Slowly, slowly she raised her head, and fixed her
wonderful eyes, all alight with the greatness of her passion, full upon his
face, as though to read his very soul. Then at last she spoke, low indeed,
but clearly as a silver bell.
'Of a truth, weak woman that I am, I do believe thee.
Ill will be the day for thee and for me also if it be my fate to learn that
I have believed a lie. And now hearken to me, oh man, who hath wandered
here from far to steal my heart and make me all thine own. I put my hand
upon thy hand thus, and thus I, whose lips have never kissed before, do
kiss thee on the brow; and now by my hand and by that first and holy kiss,
ay, by my people's weal and by my throne that like enough I shall lose for
thee -- by the name of my high House, by the sacred Stone and by the
eternal majesty of the Sun, I swear that for thee will I live and die. And
I swear that I will love thee and thee only till death, ay, and beyond, if
as thou sayest there be a beyond, and that thy will shall be my will, and
thy ways my ways.
'Oh see, see, my lord! thou knowest not how humble is
she who loves; I, who am a Queen, I kneel before thee, even at thy feet I
do my homage;' and the lovely impassioned creature flung herself down on
her knees on the cold marble before him. And after that I really do not
know, for I could stand it no longer, and cleared off to refresh myself
with a little of old Umslopogaas' society, leaving them to settle it their
own way, and a very long time they were about it.
I found the old warrior leaning on Inkosi-kaas as usual,
and surveying the scene in the patch of moonlight with a grim smile of
amusement.
'Ah, Macumazahn,' he said, 'I suppose it is because I am
getting old, but I don't think that I shall ever learn to understand the
ways of you white people. Look there now, I pray thee, they are a pretty
pair of doves, but what is all the fuss about, Macumazahn? He wants a wife,
and she wants a husband, then why does he not pay his cows down 17 like a man and have done with it? It would
save a deal of trouble, and we should have had our night's sleep. But
there they go, talk, talk, talk, and kiss, kiss, kiss, like mad things.
Eugh!'
Some three-quarters of an hour afterwards the 'pair of
doves' came strolling towards us, Curtis looking slightly silly, and
Nyleptha remarking calmly that the moonlight made very pretty effects on
the marble. Then, for she was in a most gracious mood, she took my hand
and said that I was 'her Lord's' dear friend, and therefore most dear to
her -- not a word for my own sake, you see. Next she lifted Umslopogaas'
axe, and examined it curiously, saying significantly as she did so that he
might soon have cause to use it in defence of her.
After that she nodded prettily to us all, and casting a
tender glance at her lover, glided off into the darkness like a beautiful
vision.
When we got back to our quarters, which we did without
accident, Curtis asked me jocularly what I was thinking about.
'I am wondering,' I answered, 'on what principle it is
arranged that some people should find beautiful queens to fall in love with
them, while others find nobody at all, or worse than nobody; and I am also
wondering how many brave men's lives this night's work will cost.' It was
rather nasty of me, perhaps, but somehow all the feelings do not evaporate
with age, and I could not help being a little jealous of my old friend's
luck. Vanity, my sons; vanity of vanities!
On the following morning, Good was informed of the happy
occurrence, and positively rippled with smiles that, originating somewhere
about the mouth, slowly travelled up his face like the rings in a duckpond,
till they flowed over the brim of his eyeglass and went where sweet smiles
go. The fact of the matter, however, was that not only was Good rejoiced
about the thing on its own merits but also for personal reasons. He adored
Sorais quite as earnestly as Sir Henry adored Nyleptha, and his adoration
had not altogether prospered. Indeed, it had seemed to him and to me also
that the dark Cleopatra-like queen favoured Curtis in her own curious
inscrutable way much more than Good. Therefore it was a relief to him to
learn that his unconscious rival was permanently and satisfactorily
attached in another direction. His face fell a little, however, when he was
told that the whole thing was to be kept as secret as the dead, above all
from Sorais for the present, inasmuch as the political convulsion which
would follow such an announcement at the moment would be altogether too
great to face and would very possibly, if prematurely made, shake Nyleptha
from her throne.
That morning we again attended in the Throne Hall, and I
could not help smiling to myself when I compared the visit to our last, and
reflecting that, if walls could speak, they would have strange tales to
tell.
What actresses women are! There, high upon her golden
throne, draped in her blazoned 'kaf' or robe of state, sat the fair
Nyleptha, and when Sir Henry came in a little late, dressed in the full
uniform of an officer of her guard and humbly bent himself before her, she
merely acknowledged his salute with a careless nod and turned her head
coldly aside. It was a very large Court, for not only did the signing of
the laws attract many outside of those whose duty it was to attend, but
also the rumour that Nasta was going to publicly ask the hand of Nyleptha
in marriage had gone abroad, with the result that the great hall was
crowded to its utmost capacity. There were our friends the priests in
force, headed by Agon, who regarded us with a vindictive eye; and a most
imposing band they were, with their long white embroidered robes girt with
a golden chain from which hung the fish-like scales. There, too, were a
number of the lords, each with a band of brilliantly attired attendants,
and prominent among them was Nasta, stroking his black beard meditatively
and looking unusually pleasant. It was a splendid and impressive sight,
especially when the officer after having read out each law handed them to
the Queens to sign, whereon the trumpets blared out and the Queens' guard
grounded their spears with a crash in salute. This reading and signing of
the laws took a long time, but at length it came to an end, the last one
reciting that 'whereas distinguished strangers, etc.', and proceeding to
confer on the three of us the rank of 'lords', together with certain
military commands and large estates bestowed by the Queen. When it was
read the trumpets blared and the spears clashed down as usual, but I saw
some of the lords turn and whisper to each other, while Nasta ground his
teeth. They did not like the favour that was shown to us, which under all
the circumstances was not perhaps unnatural.
Then there came a pause, and Nasta stepped forward and
bowing humbly, though with no humility in his eye, craved a boon at the
hands of the Queen Nyleptha.
Nyleptha turned a little pale, but bowed graciously, and
prayed the 'well-beloved lord' to speak on, whereon in a few
straightforward soldier-like words he asked her hand in marriage.
Then, before she could find words to answer, the High
Priest Agon took up the tale, and in a speech of real eloquence and power
pointed out the many advantages of the proposed alliance; how it would
consolidate the kingdom, for Nasta's dominions, of which he was virtually
king, were to Zu-Vendis much what Scotland used to be to England; how it
would gratify the wild mountaineers and be popular among the soldiery, for
Nasta was a famous general; how it would set her dynasty firmly on the
throne, and would gain the blessing and approval of the 'Sun', i.e. of the
office of the High Priest, and so on. Many of his arguments were
undoubtedly valid, and there was, looking at it from a political point of
view, everything to be said for the marriage. But unfortunately it is
difficult to play the game of politics with the persons of young and lovely
queens as though they were ivory effigies of themselves on a chessboard.
Nyleptha's face, while Agon spouted away, was a perfect study; she smiled
indeed, but beneath the smile it set like a stone, and her eyes began to
flash ominously.
At last he stopped, and she prepared herself to answer.
Before she did so, however, Sorais leant towards her and said in a voice
sufficiently loud for me to catch what she said, 'Bethink thee well, my
sister, ere thou dost speak, for methinks that our thrones may hang upon
thy words.'
Nyleptha made no answer, and with a shrug and a smile
Sorais leant back again and listened.
'Of a truth a great honour has been done to me,' she
said, 'that my poor hand should not only have been asked in marriage, but
that Agon here should be so swift to pronounce the blessing of the Sun upon
my union. Methinks that in another minute he would have wed us fast ere
the bride had said her say. Nasta, I thank thee, and I will bethink me of
thy words, but now as yet I have no mind for marriage, that is a cup of
which none know the taste until they begin to drink it. Again I thank
thee, Nasta,' and she made as though she would rise.
The great lord's face turned almost as black as his
beard with fury, for he knew that the words amounted to a final refusal of
his suit.
'Thanks be to the Queen for her gracious words,' he
said, restraining himself with difficulty and looking anything but
grateful, 'my heart shall surely treasure them. And now I crave another
boon, namely, the royal leave to withdraw myself to my own poor cities in
the north till such time as the Queen shall say my suit nay or yea.
Mayhap,' he added, with a sneer, 'the Queen will be pleased to visit me
there, and to bring with her these stranger lords,' and he scowled darkly
towards us. 'It is but a poor country and a rough, but we are a hardy race
of mountaineers, and there shall be gathered thirty thousand swordsmen to
shout a welcome to her.'
This speech, which was almost a declaration of
rebellion, was received in complete silence, but Nyleptha flushed up and
answered it with spirit.
'Oh, surely, Nasta, I will come, and the strange lords
in my train, and for every man of thy mountaineers who calls thee Prince,
will I bring two from the lowlands who call me Queen, and we will see which
is the staunchest breed. Till then farewell.'
The trumpets blared out, the Queens rose, and the great
assembly broke up in murmuring confusion, and for myself I went home with a
heavy heart foreseeing civil war.
After this there was quiet for a few weeks. Curtis and
the Queen did not often meet, and exercised the utmost caution not to allow
the true relation in which they stood to each other to leak out; but do
what they would, rumours as hard to trace as a buzzing fly in a dark room,
and yet quite as audible, began to hum round and round, and at last to
settle on her throne.
CHAPTER XVII
THE STORM BREAKS
And now it was that the trouble which at first had been
but a cloud as large as a man's hand began to loom very black and big upon
our horizon, namely, Sorais' preference for Sir Henry. I saw the storm
drawing nearer and nearer; and so, poor fellow, did he. The affection of
so lovely and highly-placed a woman was not a thing that could in a general
way be considered a calamity by any man, but, situated as Curtis was, it
was a grievous burden to bear.
To begin with, Nyleptha, though altogether charming,
was, it must be admitted, of a rather jealous disposition, and was
sometimes apt to visit on her lover's head her indignation at the marks of
what Alphonse would have called the 'distinguished consideration' with
which her royal sister favoured him. Then the enforced secrecy of his
relation to Nyleptha prevented Curtis from taking some opportunity of
putting a stop, or trying to put a stop, to this false condition of
affairs, by telling Sorais, in a casual but confidential way, that he was
going to marry her sister. A third sting in Sir Henry's honey was that he
knew that Good was honestly and sincerely attached to the ominous-looking
but most attractive Lady of the Night. Indeed, poor Bougwan was wasting
himself to a shadow of his fat and jolly self about her, his face getting
so thin that his eyeglass would scarcely stick in it; while she, with a
sort of careless coquetry, just gave him encouragement enough to keep him
going, thinking, no doubt, that he might be useful as a stalking-horse. I
tried to give him a hint, in as delicate a way as I could, but he flew into
a huff and would not listen to me, so I was determined to let ill along,
for fear of making it worse. Poor Good, he really was very ludicrous in
his distress, and went in for all sorts of absurdities, under the belief
that he was advancing his suit. One of them was the writing -- with the
assistance of one of the grave and revered signiors who instructed us, and
who, whatever may have been the measure of his erudition, did not
understand how to scan a line -- of a most interminable Zu-Vendi love-song,
of which the continually recurring refrain was something about 'I will kiss
thee; oh yes, I will kiss thee!' Now among the Zu-Vendi it is a common and
most harmless thing for young men to serenade ladies at night, as I believe
they do in the southern countries of Europe, and sing all sorts of
nonsensical songs to them. The young men may or may not be serious; but no
offence is meant and none is taken, even by ladies of the highest rank, who
accept the whole thing as an English girl would a gracefully-turned
compliment.
Availing himself of this custom, Good bethought him that
would serenade Sorais, whose private apartments, together with those of her
maidens, were exactly opposite our own, on the further side of a narrow
courtyard which divided one section of the great palace from another.
Accordingly, having armed himself with a native zither, on which, being an
adept with the light guitar, he had easily learned to strum, he proceeded
at midnight -- the fashionable hour for this sort of caterwauling -- to
make night hideous with his amorous yells. I was fast asleep when they
began, but they soon woke me up -- for Good possesses a tremendous voice
and has no notion of time -- and I ran to my window-place to see what was
the matter. And there, standing in the full moonlight in the courtyard, I
perceived Good, adorned with an enormous ostrich feather head-dress and a
flowing silken cloak, which it is the right thing to wear upon these
occasions, and shouting out the abominable song which he and the old
gentleman had evolved, to a jerky, jingling accompaniment. From the
direction of the quarters of the maids of honour came a succession of faint
sniggerings; but the apartments of Sorais herself -- whom I devoutly pitied
if she happened to be there -- were silent as the grave. There was
absolutely no end to that awful song, with its eternal 'I will kiss thee!'
and at last neither I nor Sir Henry, whom I had summoned to enjoy the
sight, could stand it any longer; so, remembering the dear old story, I put
my head to the window opening, and shouted, 'For Heaven's sake, Good, don't
go on talking about it, but kiss her and let's all go to sleep!'
That choked him off, and we had no more serenading.
The whole thing formed a laughable incident in a tragic
business. How deeply thankful we ought to be that even the most serious
matters have generally a silver lining about them in the shape of a joke,
if only people could see it. The sense of humour is a very valuable
possession in life, and ought to be cultivated in the Board schools --
especially in Scotland.
Well, the more Sir Henry held off the more Sorais came
on, as is not uncommon in such cases, till at last things got very queer
indeed. Evidently she was, by some strange perversity of mind, quite
blinded to the true state of the case; and I, for one, greatly dreaded the
moment of her awakening. Sorais was a dangerous woman to be mixed up with,
either with or without one's consent. At last the evil moment came, as I
saw it must come. One fine day, Good having gone out hawking, Sir Henry
and I were sitting quietly talking over the situation, especially with
reference to Sorais, when a Court messenger arrived with a written note,
which we with some difficulty deciphered, and which was to the effect that
'the Queen Sorais commanded the attendance of the Lord Incubu in her
private apartments, whither he would be conducted by the bearer'.
'Oh my word!' groaned Sir Henry. 'Can't you go instead,
old fellow?'
'Not if I know it,' I said with vigour. 'I had rather
face a wounded elephant with a shot-gun. Take care of your own business,
my boy. If you will be so fascinating you must take the consequences. I
would not be in your place for an empire.'
'You remind me of when I was going to be flogged at
school and the other boys came to console me,' he said gloomily. 'What
right has this Queen to command my attendance, I should like to know? I
won't go.'
'But you must; you are one of her officers and bound to
obey her, and she knows it. And after all it will soon be over.'
'That's just what they used to say,' he said again. 'I
only hope she won't put a knife into me. I believe that she is quite
capable of it.' And off he started very faintheartedly, and no wonder.
I sat and waited, and at the end of about forty-five
minutes he returned, looking a good deal worse than when he went.
'Give me something to drink,' he said hoarsely.
I got him a cup of wine, and asked what was the
matter.
'What is the matter? Why if ever there was trouble
there's trouble now. You know when I left you? Well, I was shown straight
into Sorais' private chamber, and a wonderful place it is; and there she
sat, quite alone, upon a silken couch at the end of the room, playing
gently upon that zither of hers. I stood before her, and for a while she
took no notice of me, but kept on playing and singing a little, and very
sweet music it was. At last she looked up and smiled.
'"So thou art come," she said. "I thought perchance
thou hadst gone about the Queen Nyleptha's business. Thou art ever on her
business, and I doubt not a good servant and a true."
'To this I merely bowed, and said I was there to receive
the Queen's word.
'"Ah yes, I would talk with thee, but be thou seated.
It wearies me to look so high," and she made room for me beside her on the
couch, placing herself with her back against the end, so as to have a view
of my face.
'"It is not meet," I said, "that I should make myself
equal with the Queen."
'"I said be seated," was her answer, so I sat down, and
she began to look at me with those dark eyes of hers. There she sat like
an incarnate spirit of beauty, hardly talking at all, and when she did,
very low, but all the while looking at me. There was a white flower in her
black hair, and I tried to keep my eyes on it and count the petals, but it
was of no use. At last, whether it was her gaze, or the perfume in her
hair, or what I do not know, but I almost felt as though I was being
mesmerized. At last she roused herself.
'"Incubu," she said, "lovest thou power?"
'I replied that I supposed all men loved power of one
sort or another.
'"Thou shalt have it," she said. "Lovest thou
wealth?"
'I said I liked wealth for what it brought.
'"Thou shalt have it," she said. "And lovest thou
beauty?"
'To this I replied that I was very fond of statuary and
architecture, or something silly of that sort, at which she frowned, and
there was a pause. By this time my nerves were on such a stretch that I
was shaking like a leaf. I knew that something awful was going to happen,
but she held me under a kind of spell, and I could not help myself.
'"Incubu," she said at length, "wouldst thou be a king?
Listen, wouldst thou be a king? Behold, stranger, I am minded to make thee
king of all Zu-Vendis, ay and husband of Sorais of the Night. Nay, peace
and hear me. To no man among my people had I thus opened out my secret
heart, but thou art an outlander and therefore I speak without shame,
knowing all I have to offer and how hard it had been thee to ask. See, a
crown lies at thy feet, my lord Incubu, and with that fortune a woman whom
some have wished to woo. Now mayst thou answer, oh my chosen, and soft
shall thy words fall upon mine ears."
'"Oh Sorais," I said, "I pray thee speak not thus" --
you see I had not time to pick and choose my words -- "for this thing
cannot be. I am betrothed to thy sister Nyleptha, oh Sorais, and I love
her and her alone."
'Next moment it struck me that I had said an awful
thing, and I looked up to see the results. When I spoke, Sorais' face was
hidden in her hands, and as my words reached her she slowly raised it, and
I shrank back dismayed. It was ashy white, and her eyes were flaming. She
rose to her feet and seemed to be choking, but the awful thing was that she
was so quiet about it all. Once she looked at a side table, on which lay a
dagger, and from it to me, as though she thought of killing me; but she did
not take it up. At last she spoke one word, and one only --
'"Go!"
'And I went, and glad enough I was to get out of it, and
here I am. Give me another cup of wine, there's a good fellow, and tell
me, what is to be done?'
I shook my head, for the affair was indeed serious. As
one of the poets says,
'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned',
more especially if the woman is a queen and a Sorais,
and indeed I feared the very worst, including imminent danger to
ourselves.
'Nyleptha had better be told of this at once,' I said,
'and perhaps I had better tell her; she might receive your account with
suspicion.'
'Who is captain of her guard tonight?' I went on.
'Good.'
'Very well then, there will be no chance of her being
got at. Don't look surprised. I don't think that her sister would stick at
that. I suppose one must tell Good of what has happened.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Sir Henry. 'It would hurt his
feelings, poor fellow! You see, he takes a lively personal interest in
Sorais.'
'That's true; and after all, perhaps there is no need to
tell him. He will find out the truth soon enough. Now, you mark my words,
Sorais will throw in her lot with Nasta, who is sulking up in the North
there, and there will be such a war as has not been known in Zu-Vendis for
centuries. Look there!' and I pointed to two Court messengers, who were
speeding away from the door of Sorais' private apartments. 'Now follow
me,' and I ran up a stairway into an outlook tower that rose from the roof
of our quarters, taking the spyglass with me, and looked out over the
palace wall. The first thing we saw was one of the messengers speeding
towards the Temple, bearing, without any doubt, the Queen's word to the
High Priest Agon, but for the other I searched in vain. Presently,
however, I spied a horseman riding furiously through the northern gate of
the city, and in him I recognized the other messenger.
'Ah!' I said, 'Sorais is a woman of spirit. She is
acting at once, and will strike quick and hard. You have insulted her, my
boy, and the blood will flow in rivers before the stain is washed away, and
yours with it, if she can get hold of you. Well, I'm off to Nyleptha. Just
you stop where you are, old fellow, and try to get your nerves straight
again. You'll need them all, I can tell you, unless I have observed human
nature in the rough for fifty years for nothing.' And off I went
accordingly.
I gained audience of the Queen without trouble. She was
expecting Curtis, and was not best pleased to see my mahogany-coloured face
instead.
'Is there aught wrong with my Lord, Macumazahn, that he
waits not upon me? Say, is he sick?'
I said that he was well enough, and then, without
further ado, I plunged into my story and told it from beginning to end.
Oh, what a rage she flew into! It was a sight to see her, she looked so
lovely.
'How darest thou come to me with such a tale?' she
cried. 'It is a lie to say that my Lord was making love to Sorais, my
sister.'
'Pardon me, oh Queen,' I answered, 'I said that Sorais
was making love to thy lord.'
'Spin me no spiders' webs of words. Is not the thing
the same thing? The one giveth, the other taketh; but the gift passes, and
what matters it which is the most guilty? Sorais! oh, I hate her -- Sorais
is a queen and my sister. She had not stooped so low had he not shown the
way. Oh, truly hath the poet said that man is like a snake, whom to touch
is poison, and whom none can hold.'
'The remark, oh Queen, is excellent, but methinks thou
hast misread the poet. Nyleptha,' I went on, 'thou knowest well that thy
words are empty foolishness, and that this is no time for folly.'
'How darest thou?' she broke in, stamping her foot.
'Hast my false lord sent thee to me to insult me also? Who art thou,
stranger, that thou shouldst speak to me, the Queen, after this sort? How
darest thou?'
'Yea, I dare. Listen. The moments which thou dost
waste in idle anger may well cost thee thy crown and all of us our lives.
Already Sorais' horsemen go forth and call to arms. In three days' time
Nasta will rouse himself in his fastnesses like a lion in the evening, and
his growling will be heard throughout the North. The "Lady of the Night"
(Sorais) hath a sweet voice, and she will not sing in vain. Her banner
will be borne from range to range and valley to valley, and warriors will
spring up in its track like dust beneath a whirlwind; half the army will
echo her war-cry; and in every town and hamlet of this wide land the
priests will call out against the foreigner and will preach her cause as
holy. I have spoken, oh Queen!'
Nyleptha was quite calm now; her jealous anger had
passed; and putting off the character of a lovely headstrong lady, with a
rapidity and completeness that distinguished her, she put on that of a
queen and a woman of business. The transformation was sudden but
entire.
'Thy words are very wise, Macumazahn. Forgive me my
folly. Ah, what a Queen I should be if only I had no heart! To be
heartless -- that is to conquer all. Passion is like the lightning, it is
beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds!
'And thou thinkest that my sister Sorais would levy war
upon me. So be it. She shall not prevail against me. I, too, have my
friends and my retainers. There are many, I say, who will shout
"Nyleptha!" when my pennon runs up on peak and pinnacle, and the light of
my beacon fires leaps tonight from crag to crag, bearing the message of my
war. I will break her strength and scatter her armies. Eternal night
shall be the portion of Sorais of the Night. Give me that parchment and
the ink. So. Now summon the officer in the ante-room. He is a trusty
man.'
I did as I was bid! and the man, a veteran and
quiet-looking gentleman of the guard, named Kara, entered, bowing low.
'Take this parchment,' said Nyleptha; 'it is thy
warrant; and guard every place of in and outgoing in the apartments of my
sister Sorais, the "Lady of the Night", and a Queen of the Zu-Vendi. Let
none come in and none go out, or thy life shall pay the cost.'
The man looked startled, but he merely said, 'The
Queen's word be done,' and departed. Then Nyleptha sent a messenger to Sir
Henry, and presently he arrived looking uncommonly uncomfortable. I thought
that another outburst was about to follow, but wonderful are the ways of
woman; she said not a word about Sorais and his supposed inconstancy,
greeting him with a friendly nod, and stating simply that she required his
advice upon high matters. All the same there was a look in her eye, and a
sort of suppressed energy in her manner towards him, that makes me think
that she had not forgotten the affair, but was keeping it for a private
occasion.
Just after Curtis arrived the officer returned, and
reported that Sorais was gone. The bird had flown to the Temple,
stating that she was going, as was sometimes the custom among Zu-Vendi
ladies of rank, to spend the night in meditation before the altar. We
looked at each other significantly. The blow had fallen very soon.
Then we set to work.
Generals who could be trusted were summoned from their
quarters, and as much of the State affairs as was thought desirable was
told to each, strict injunctions being given to them to get all their
available force together. The same was done with such of the more powerful
lords as Nyleptha knew she could rely on, several of whom left that very
day for distant parts of the country to gather up their tribesmen and
retainers. Sealed orders were dispatched to the rulers of far-off cities,
and some twenty messengers were sent off before nightfall with instructions
to ride early and late till they reached the distant chiefs to whom their
letters were addressed: also many spies were set to work. All the
afternoon and evening we laboured, assisted by some confidential scribes,
Nyleptha showing an energy and resource of mind that astonished me, and it
was eight o'clock before we got back to our quarters. Here we heard from
Alphonse, who was deeply aggrieved because our non-return had spoilt his
dinner (for he had turned cook again now), that Good had come back from his
hawking and gone on duty. As instructions had already been given to the
officer of the outer guard to double the sentries at the gate, and as we
had no reason to fear any immediate danger, we did not think it worth while
to hunt him up and tell him anything of what had passed, which at best was,
under the peculiar circumstances of the case, one of those tasks that one
prefers to postpone, so after swallowing our food we turned in to get some
much-needed rest. Before we did so, however, it occurred to Curtis to tell
old Umslopogaas to keep a look-out in the neighbourhood of Nyleptha's
private apartments. Umslopogaas was now well known about the place, and by
the Queen's order allowed to pass whither he would by the guards, a
permission of which he often availed himself by roaming about the palace
during the still hours in a nocturnal fashion that he favoured, and which
is by no means uncommon amongst black men generally. His presence in the
corridors would not, therefore, be likely to excite remark. Without any
comment the Zulu took up his axe and departed, and we also departed to
bed.
I seemed to have been asleep but a few minutes when I
was awakened by a peculiar sensation of uneasiness. I felt that somebody
was in the room and looking at me, and instantly sat up, to see to my
surprise that it was already dawn, and that there, standing at the foot of
my couch and looking peculiarly grim and gaunt in the grey light, was
Umslopogaas himself.
'How long hast thou been there?' I asked testily, for it
is not pleasant to be aroused in such a fashion.
'Mayhap the half of an hour, Macumazahn. I have a word
for thee.'
'Speak on,' I said, now wide enough awake.
'As I was bid I went last night to the place of the
White Queen and hid myself behind a pillar in the second anteroom, beyond
which is the sleeping-place of the Queen. Bougwan (Good) was in the first
anteroom alone, and outside the curtain of that room was a sentry, but I
had a mind to see if I could pass in unseen, and I did, gliding behind them
both. There I waited for many hours, when suddenly I perceived a dark
figure coming secretly towards me. It was the figure of a woman, and in
her hand she held a dagger. Behind that figure crept another unseen by the
woman. It was Bougwan following in her tracks. His shoes were off, and
for so fat a man he followed very well. The woman passed me, and the
starlight shone upon her face.'
'Who was it?' I asked impatiently.
'The face was the face of the "Lady of the Night", and
of a truth she is well named.
'I waited, and Bougwan passed me also. Then I followed.
So we went slowly and without a sound up the long chamber. First the woman,
then Bougwan, and then I; and the woman saw not Bougwan, and Bougwan saw
not me. At last the "Lady of the Night" came to the curtains that shut off
the sleeping place of the White Queen, and put out her left hand to part
them. She passed through, and so did Bougwan, and so did I. At the far end
of the room is the bed of the Queen, and on it she lay very fast asleep. I
could hear her breathe, and see one white arm lying on the coverlid like a
streak of snow on the dry grass. The "Lady of the Night" doubled herself
thus, and with the long knife lifted crept towards the bed. So straight
did she gaze thereat that she never thought to look behind her. When she
was quite close Bougwan touched her on the arm, and she caught her breath
and turned, and I saw the knife flash, and heard it strike. Well was it
for Bougwan that he had the skin of iron on him, or he had been pierced.
Then for the first time he saw who the woman was, and without a word he
fell back astonished, and unable to speak. She, too, was astonished, and
spoke not, but suddenly she laid her finger on her lip, thus, and walked
towards and through the curtain, and with her went Bougwan. So close did
she pass to me that her dress touched me, and I was nigh to slaying her as
she went. In the first outer room she spoke to Bougwan in a whisper and,
clasping her hands thus, she pleaded with him, but what she said I know
not. And so they passed on to the second outer room, she pleading and he
shaking his head, and saying, "Nay, nay, nay". And it seemed to me that he
was about to call the guard, when she stopped talking and looked at him
with great eyes, and I saw that he was bewitched by her beauty. Then she
stretched out her hand and he kissed it, whereon I gathered myself together
to advance and take her, seeing that now had Bougwan become a woman, and no
longer knew the good from the evil, when behold! she was gone.'
'Gone!' I ejaculated.
'Ay, gone, and there stood Bougwan staring at the wall
like one asleep, and presently he went too, and I waited a while and came
away also.'
'Art thou sure, Umslopogaas,' said I, 'that thou hast
not been a dreamer this night?'
In reply he opened his left hand, and produced about
three inches of a blade of a dagger of the finest steel. 'If I be,
Macumazahn, behold what the dream left with me. The knife broke upon
Bougwan's bosom and as I passed I picked this up in the sleeping-place of
the White Queen.'
CHAPTER XVIII
WAR! RED WAR!
Telling Umslopogaas to wait, I tumbled into my clothes
and went off with him to Sir Henry's room, where the Zulu repeated his
story word for word. It was a sight to watch Curtis' face as he heard
it.
'Great Heavens!' he said: 'here have I been sleeping
away while Nyleptha was nearly murdered -- and all through me, too. What a
fiend that Sorais must be! It would have served her well if Umslopogaas
had cut her down in the act.'
'Ay,' said the Zulu. 'Fear not; I should have slain her
ere she struck. I was but waiting the moment.'
I said nothing, but I could not help thinking that many
a thousand doomed lives would have been saved if he had meted out to Sorais
the fate she meant for her sister. And, as the issue proved, I was
right.
After he had told his tale Umslopogaas went off
unconcernedly to get his morning meal, and Sir Henry and I fell to
talking.
At first he was very bitter against Good, who, he said,
was no longer to be trusted, having designedly allowed Sorais to escape by
some secret stair when it was his duty to have handed her over to justice.
Indeed, he spoke in the most unmeasured terms on the matter. I let him run
on awhile, reflecting to myself how easy we find it to be hard on the
weaknesses of others, and how tender we are to our own.
'Really, my dear fellow,' I said at length, 'one would
never think, to hear you talk, that you were the man who had an interview
with this same lady yesterday, and found it rather difficult to resist her
fascinations, notwithstanding your ties to one of the loveliest and most
loving women in the world. Now suppose it was Nyleptha who had tried to
murder Sorais, and you had caught her, and she had pleaded with you,
would you have been so very eager to hand her over to an open shame, and to
death by fire? Just look at the matter through Good's eyeglass for a
minute before you denounce an old friend as a scoundrel.'
He listened to this jobation submissively, and then
frankly acknowledged that he had spoken hardly. It is one of the best
points in Sir Henry's character that he is always ready to admit it when he
is in the wrong.
But, though I spoke up thus for Good, I was not blind to
the fact that, however natural his behaviour might be, it was obvious that
he was being involved in a very awkward and disgraceful complication. A
foul and wicked murder had been attempted, and he had let the murderess
escape, and thereby, among other things, allowed her to gain a complete
ascendency over himself. In fact, he was in a fair way to become her tool
-- and no more dreadful fate can befall a man than to become the tool of an
unscrupulous woman, or indeed of any woman. There is but one end to it:
when he is broken, or has served her purpose, he is thrown away -- turned
out on the world to hunt for his lost self-respect. Whilst I was pondering
thus, and wondering what was to be done -- for the whole subject was a
thorny one -- I suddenly heard a great clamour in the courtyard outside,
and distinguished the voice of Umslopogaas and Alphonse, the former cursing
furiously, and the latter yelling in terror.
Hurrying out to see what was the matter, I was met by a
ludicrous sight. The little Frenchman was running up the courtyard at an
extraordinary speed, and after him sped Umslopogaas like a great greyhound.
Just as I came out he caught him, and, lifting him right off his legs,
carried him some paces to a beautiful but very dense flowering shrub which
bore a flower not unlike the gardenia, but was covered with short thorns.
Next, despite his howls and struggles, he with one mighty thrust plunged
poor Alphonse head first into the bush, so that nothing but the calves of
his legs and heels remained in evidence. Then, satisfied with what he had
done, the Zulu folded his arms and stood grimly contemplating the
Frenchman's kicks, and listening to his yells, which were awful.
'What art thou doing?' I said, running up. 'Wouldst
thou kill the man? Pull him out of the bush!'
With a savage grunt he obeyed, seizing the wretched
Alphonse by the ankle, and with a jerk that must have nearly dislocated it,
tearing him out of the heart of the shrub. Never did I see such a sight as
he presented, his clothes half torn off his back, and bleeding as he was in
every direction from the sharp thorns. There he lay and yelled and rolled,
and there was no getting anything out of him.
At last, however, he got up and, ensconcing himself
behind me, cursed old Umslopogaas by every saint in the calendar, vowing by
the blood of his heroic grandfather that he would poison him, and 'have his
revenge'.
At last I got to the truth of the matter. It appeared
that Alphonse habitually cooked Umslopogaas's porridge, which the latter
ate for breakfast in the corner of the courtyard, just as he would have
done at home in Zululand, from a gourd, and with a wooden spoon. Now
Umslopogaas had, like many Zulus, a great horror of fish, which he
considered a species of water-snake; so Alphonse, who was as fond of
playing tricks as a monkey, and who was also a consummate cook, determined
to make him eat some. Accordingly he grated up a quantity of white fish
very finely, and mixed it with the Zulu's porridge, who swallowed it nearly
all down in ignorance of what he was eating. But, unfortunately for
Alphonse, he could not restrain his joy at this sight, and came capering
and peering round, till at last Umslopogaas, who was very clever in his
way, suspected something, and, after a careful examination of the remains
of his porridge, discovered 'the buffalo heifer's trick', and, in revenge,
served him as I have said. Indeed, the little man was fortunate not to get
a broken neck for his pains; for, as one would have thought, he might have
learnt from the episode of his display of axemanship that 'le Monsieur
noir' was an ill person to play practical jokes upon.
This incident was unimportant enough in itself, but I
narrate it because it led to serious consequences. As soon as he had
stanched the bleeding from his scratches and washed himself, Alphonse went
off still cursing, to recover his temper, a process which I knew from
experience would take a very long time. When he had gone I gave
Umslopogaas a jobation and told him that I was ashamed of his
behaviour.
'Ah, well, Macumazahn,' he said, 'you must be gentle
with me, for here is not my place. I am weary of it, weary to death of
eating and drinking, of sleeping and giving in marriage. I love not this
soft life in stone houses that takes the heart out of a man, and turns his
strength to water and his flesh to fat. I love not the white robes and the
delicate women, the blowing of trumpets and the flying of hawks. When we
fought the Masai at the kraal yonder, ah, then life was worth the living,
but here is never a blow struck in anger, and I begin to think I shall go
the way of my fathers and lift Inkosi-kaas no more,' and he held up the axe
and gazed at it in sorrow.
'Ah,' I said, 'that is thy complaint, is it? Thou hast
the blood-sickness, hast thou? And the Woodpecker wants a tree. And at thy
age, too. Shame on thee! Umslopogaas.'
'Ay, Macumazahn, mine is a red trade, yet is it better
and more honest than some. Better is it to slay a man in fair fight than
to suck out his heart's blood in buying and selling and usury after your
white fashion. Many a man have I slain, yet is there never a one that I
should fear to look in the face again, ay, many are there who once were
friends, and whom I should be right glad to snuff with. But there! there!
thou hast thy ways, and I mine: each to his own people and his own place.
The high-veldt ox will die in the fat bush country, and so is it with me,
Macumazahn. I am rough, I know it, and when my blood is warm I know not
what to do, but yet wilt thou be sorry when the night swallows me and I am
utterly lost in blackness, for in thy heart thou lovest me, my father,
Macumazahn the fox, though I be nought but a broken-down Zulu war-dog -- a
chief for whom there is no room in his own kraal, an outcast and a wanderer
in strange places: ay, I love thee, Macumazahn, for we have grown grey
together, and there is that between us that cannot be seen, and yet is too
strong for breaking;' and he took his snuff-box, which was made of an old
brass cartridge, from the slit in his ear where he always carried it, and
handed it to me for me to help myself.
I took the pinch of snuff with some emotion. It was
quite true, I was much attached to the bloodthirsty old ruffian. I do not
know what was the charm of his character, but it had a charm; perhaps it
was its fierce honesty and directness; perhaps one admired his almost
superhuman skill and strength, or it may have been simply that he was so
absolutely unique. Frankly, with all my experience of savages, I never
knew a man quite like him, he was so wise and yet such a child with it all;
and though it seems laughable to say so, like the hero of the Yankee
parody, he 'had a tender heart'. Anyway, I was very fond of him, though I
should never have thought of telling him so.
'Ay, old wolf,' I said, 'thine is a strange love. Thou
wouldst split me to the chin if I stood in thy path tomorrow.'
'Thou speakest truth, Macumazahn, that would I if it
came in the way of duty, but I should love thee all the same when the blow
had gone fairly home. Is there any chance of some fighting here,
Macumazahn?' he went on in an insinuating voice. 'Methought that what I
saw last night did show that the two great Queens were vexed one with
another. Else had the "Lady of the Night" not brought that dagger with
her.'
I agreed with him that it showed that more or less pique
and irritation existed between the ladies, and told him how things stood,
and that they were quarrelling over Incubu.
'Ah, is it so?' he exclaimed, springing up in delight;
'then will there be war as surely as the rivers rise in the rains -- war to
the end. Women love the last blow as well as the last word, and when they
fight for love they are pitiless as a wounded buffalo. See thou,
Macumazahn, a woman will swim through blood to her desire, and think nought
of it. With these eyes have I seen it once, and twice also. Ah,
Macumazahn, we shall see this fine place of houses burning yet, and hear
the battle cries come ringing up the street. After all, I have not
wandered for nothing. Can this folk fight, think ye?'
Just then Sir Henry joined us, and Good arrived, too,
from another direction, looking very pale and hollow-eyed. The moment
Umslopogaas saw the latter he stopped his bloodthirsty talk and greeted
him.
'Ah, Bougwan,' he cried, 'greeting to thee, Inkoos!
Thou art surely weary. Didst thou hunt too much yesterday?' Then, without
waiting for an answer, he went on --
'Listen, Bougwan, and I will tell thee a story; it is
about a woman, therefore wilt thou hear it, is it not so?
'There was a man and he had a brother, and there was a
woman who loved the man's brother and was beloved of the man. But the
man's brother had a favourite wife and loved not the woman, and he made a
mock of her. Then the woman, being very cunning and fierce-hearted for
revenge, took counsel with herself and said to the man, "I love thee, and
if thou wilt make war upon thy brother I will marry thee." And he knew it
was a lie, yet because of his great love of the woman, who was very fair,
did he listen to her words and made war. And when many people had been
killed his brother sent to him, saying, "Why slayest thou me? What hurt
have I done unto thee? From my youth up have I not loved thee? When thou
wast little did I not nurture thee, and have we not gone down to war
together and divided the cattle, girl by girl, ox by ox, and cow by cow?
Why slayest thou me, my brother, son of my own mother?"
'Then the man's heart was heavy, and he knew that his
path was evil, and he put aside the tempting of the woman and ceased to
make war on his brother, and lived at peace in the same kraal with him.
And after a time the woman came to him and said, "I have lost the past, I
will be thy wife." And in his heart he knew that it was a lie and that she
thought the evil thing, yet because of his love did he take her to
wife.
'And the very night that they were wed, when the man was
plunged into a deep sleep, did the woman arise and take his axe from his
hand and creep into the hut of his brother and slay him in his rest. Then
did she slink back like a gorged lioness and place the thong of the red axe
back upon his wrist and go her ways.
'And at the dawning the people came shouting, "Lousta is
slain in the night," and they came unto the hut of the man, and there he
lay asleep and by him was the red axe. Then did they remember the war and
say, "Lo! he hath of a surety slain his brother," and they would have taken
and killed him, but he rose and fled swiftly, and as he fleeted by he slew
the woman.
'But death could not wipe out the evil she had done, and
on him rested the weight of all her sin. Therefore is he an outcast and
his name a scorn among his own people; for on him, and him only, resteth
the burden of her who betrayed. And, therefore, does he wander afar,
without a kraal and without an ox or a wife, and therefore will he die afar
like a stricken buck and his name be accursed from generation to
generation, in that the people say that he slew his brother, Lousta, by
treachery in the night-time.'
The old Zulu paused, and I saw that he was deeply
agitated by his own story. Presently he lifted his head, which he had
bowed to his breast, and went on:
'I was the man, Bougwan. Ou! I was that man, and now
hark thou! Even as I am so wilt thou be -- a tool, a plaything, an ox of
burden to carry the evil deeds of another. Listen! When thou didst creep
after the "Lady of the Night" I was hard upon thy track. When she struck
thee with the knife in the sleeping place of the White Queen I was there
also; when thou didst let her slip away like a snake in the stones I saw
thee, and I knew that she had bewitched thee and that a true man had
abandoned the truth, and he who aforetime loved a straight path had taken a
crooked way. Forgive me, my father, if my words are sharp, but out of a
full heart are they spoken. See her no more, so shalt thou go down with
honour to the grave. Else because of the beauty of a woman that weareth as
a garment of fur shalt thou be even as I am, and perchance with more cause.
I have said.'
Throughout this long and eloquent address Good had been
perfectly silent, but when the tale began to shape itself so aptly to his
own case, he coloured up, and when he learnt that what had passed between
him and Sorais had been overseen he was evidently much distressed. And
now, when at last he spoke, it was in a tone of humility quite foreign to
him.
'I must say,' he said, with a bitter little laugh, 'that
I scarcely thought that I should live to be taught my duty by a Zulu; but
it just shows what we can come to. I wonder if you fellows can understand
how humiliated I feel, and the bitterest part of it is that I deserve it
all. Of course I should have handed Sorais over to the guard, but I could
not, and that is a fact. I let her go and I promised to say nothing, more
is the shame to me. She told me that if I would side with her she would
marry me and make me king of this country, but thank goodness I did find
the heart to say that even to marry her I could not desert my friends. And
now you can do what you like, I deserve it all. All I have to say is that I
hope that you may never love a woman with all your heart and then be so
sorely tempted of her,' and he turned to go.
'Look here, old fellow,' said Sir Henry, 'just stop a
minute. I have a little tale to tell you too.' And he went on to narrate
what had taken place on the previous day between Sorais and himself.
This was a finishing stroke to poor Good. It is not
pleasant to any man to learn that he has been made a tool of, but when the
circumstances are as peculiarly atrocious as in the present case, it is
about as bitter a pill as anybody can be called on to swallow.
'Do you know,' he said, 'I think that between you, you
fellows have about worked a cure,' and he turned and walked away, and I for
one felt very sorry for him. Ah, if the moths would always carefully avoid
the candle, how few burnt wings there would be!
That day was a Court day, when the Queens sat in the
great hall and received petitions, discussed laws, money grants, and so
forth, and thither we adjourned shortly afterwards. On our way we were
joined by Good, who was looking exceedingly depressed.
When we got into the hall Nyleptha was already on her
throne and proceeding with business as usual, surrounded by councillors,
courtiers, lawyers, priests, and an unusually strong guard. It was,
however, easy to see from the air of excitement and expectation on the
faces of everybody present that nobody was paying much attention to
ordinary affairs, the fact being that the knowledge that civil war was
imminent had now got abroad. We saluted Nyleptha and took our accustomed
places, and for a little while things went on as usual, when suddenly the
trumpets began to call outside the palace, and from the great crowd that
was gathered there in anticipation of some unusual event there rose a roar
of 'Sorais! Sorais!'
Then came the roll of many chariot wheels, and presently
the great curtains at the end of the hall were drawn wide and through them
entered the 'Lady of the Night' herself. Nor did she come alone.
Preceding her was Agon, the High Priest, arrayed in his most gorgeous
vestments, and on either side were other priests. The reason for their
presence was obvious -- coming with them it would have been sacrilege to
attempt to detain her. Behind her were a number of the great lords, and
behind them a small body of picked guards. A glance at Sorais herself was
enough to show that her mission was of no peaceful kind, for in place of
her gold embroidered 'kaf' she wore a shining tunic formed of golden
scales, and on her head a little golden helmet. In her hand, too, she bore
a toy spear, beautifully made and fashioned of solid silver. Up the hall
she came, looking like a lioness in her conscious pride and beauty, and as
she came the spectators fell back bowing and made a path for her. By the
sacred stone she halted, and laying her hand on it, she cried out with a
loud voice to Nyleptha on the throne, 'Hail, oh Queen!'
'All hail, my royal sister!' answered Nyleptha. 'Draw
thou near. Fear not, I give thee safe conduct.'
Sorais answered with a haughty look, and swept on up the
hall till she stood right before the thrones.
'A boon, oh Queen!' she cried again.
'Speak on, my sister; what is there that I can give thee
who hath half our kingdom?'
'Thou canst tell me a true word -- me and the people of
Zu-Vendis. Art thou, or art thou not, about to take this foreign wolf,' and
she pointed to Sir Henry with her toy spear, 'to be a husband to thee, and
share thy bed and throne?'
Curtis winced at this, and turning towards Sorais, said
to her in a low voice, 'Methinks that yesterday thou hadst other names than
wolf to call me by, oh Queen!' and I saw her bite her lips as, like a
danger flag, the blood flamed red upon her face. As for Nyleptha, who is
nothing if not original, she, seeing that the thing was out, and that there
was nothing further to be gained by concealment, answered the question in a
novel and effectual manner, inspired thereto, as I firmly believe, by
coquetry and a desire to triumph over her rival.
Up she rose and, descending from the throne, swept in
all the glory of her royal grace on to where her lover stood. There she
stopped and untwined the golden snake that was wound around her arm. Then
she bade him kneel, and he dropped on one knee on the marble before her,
and next, taking the golden snake with both her hands, she bent the pure
soft metal round his neck, and when it was fast, deliberately kissed him on
the brow and called him her 'dear lord'.
'Thou seest,' she said, when the excited murmur of the
spectators had died away, addressing her sister as Sir Henry rose to his
feet, 'I have put my collar round the "wolf's" neck, and behold! he shall
be my watchdog, and that is my answer to thee, Queen Sorais, my sister, and
to those with thee. Fear not,' she went on, smiling sweetly on her lover,
and pointing to the golden snake she had twined round his massive throat,
'if my yoke be heavy, yet is it of pure gold, and it shall not gall
thee.'
Then, turning to the audience, she continued in a clear
proud tone, 'Ay, Lady of the Night, Lords, Priests, and People here
gathered together, by this sign do I take the foreigner to husband, even
here in the face of you all. What, am I a Queen, and yet not free to
choose the man whom I will love? Then should I be lower than the meanest
girl in all my provinces. Nay, he hath won my heart, and with it goes my
hand, and throne, and all I have -- ay, had he been a beggar instead of a
great lord fairer and stronger than any here, and having more wisdom and
knowledge of strange things, I had given him all, how much more so being
what he is!' And she took his hand and gazed proudly on him, and holding
it, stood there boldly facing the people. And such was her sweetness and
the power and dignity of her person, and so beautiful she looked standing
hand in hand there at her lover's side, so sure of him and of herself, and
so ready to risk all things and endure all things for him, that most of
those who saw the sight, which I am sure no one of them will ever forget,
caught the fire from her eyes and the happy colour from her blushing face,
and cheered her like wild things. It was a bold stroke for her to make,
and it appealed to the imagination; but human nature in Zu-Vendis, as
elsewhere, loves that which is bold and not afraid to break a rule, and is
moreover peculiarly susceptible to appeals to its poetical side.
And so the people cheered till the roof rang; but Sorais
of the Night stood there with downcast eyes, for she could not bear to see
her sister's triumph, which robbed her of the man whom she had hoped to
win, and in the awfulness of her jealous anger she trembled and turned
white like an aspen in the wind. I think I have said somewhere of her that
she reminded me of the sea on a calm day, having the same aspect of
sleeping power about her. Well, it was all awake now, and like the face of
the furious ocean it awed and yet fascinated me. A really handsome woman
in a royal rage is always a beautiful sight, but such beauty and such a
rage I never saw combined before, and I can only say that the effect
produced was well worthy of the two.
She lifted her white face, the teeth set, and there were
purple rings beneath her glowing eyes. Thrice she tried to speak and
thrice she failed, but at last her voice came. Raising her silver spear,
she shook it, and the light gleamed from it and from the golden scales of
her cuirass.
'And thinkest thou, Nyleptha,' she said in notes which
pealed through the great hall like a clarion, 'thinkest thou that I,
Sorais, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, will brook that this base outlander shall
sit upon my father's throne and rear up half-breeds to fill the place of
the great House of the Stairway? Never! never! while there is life in my
bosom and a man to follow me and a spear to strike with. Who is on my
side? Who?
'Now hand thou over this foreign wolf and those who came
hither to prey with him to the doom of fire, for have they not committed
the deadly sin against the sun? or, Nyleptha, I give thee War -- red War!
Ay, I say to thee that the path of thy passion shall be marked out by the
blazing of thy towns and watered with the blood of those who cleave to
thee. On thy head rest the burden of the deed, and in thy ears ring the
groans of the dying and the cries of the widows and those who are left
fatherless for ever and for ever.
'I tell thee I will tear thee, Nyleptha, the White
Queen, from thy throne, and that thou shalt be hurled -- ay, hurled even
from the topmost stair of the great way to the foot thereof, in that thou
hast covered the name of the House of him who built it with black shame.
And I tell ye strangers -- all save Bougwan, whom because thou didst do me
a service I will save alive if thou wilt leave these men and follow me'
(here poor Good shook his head vigorously and ejaculated 'Can't be done' in
English) -- 'that I will wrap you in sheets of gold and hang you yet alive
in chains from the four golden trumpets of the four angels that fly east
and west and north and south from the giddiest pinnacles of the Temple, so
that ye may be a token and a warning to the land. And as for thee, Incubu,
thou shalt die in yet another fashion that I will not tell thee now.'
She ceased, panting for breath, for her passion shook
her like a storm, and a murmur, partly of horror and partly of admiration,
ran through the hall. Then Nyleptha answered calmly and with dignity:
'Ill would it become my place and dignity, oh sister, so
to speak as thou hast spoken and so to threat as thou hast threatened. Yet
if thou wilt make war, then will I strive to bear up against thee, for if
my hand seem soft, yet shalt thou find it of iron when it grips thine
armies by the throat. Sorais, I fear thee not. I weep for that which thou
wilt bring upon our people and on thyself, but for myself I say -- I fear
thee not. Yet thou, who but yesterday didst strive to win my lover and my
lord from me, whom today thou dost call a "foreign wolf", to be thy
lover and thy lord' (here there was an immense sensation in the
hall), 'thou who but last night, as I have learnt but since thou didst
enter here, didst creep like a snake into my sleeping-place -- ay, even by
a secret way, and wouldst have foully murdered me, thy sister, as I lay
asleep --'
'It is false, it is false!' rang out Agon's and a score
of other voices.
'It is not false,' said I, producing the broken
point of the dagger and holding it up. 'Where is the haft from which this
flew, oh Sorais?'
'It is not false,' cried Good, determined at last to act
like a loyal man. 'I took the Lady of the Night by the White Queen's bed,
and on my breast the dagger broke.'
'Who is on my side?' cried Sorais, shaking her silver
spear, for she saw that public sympathy was turning against her. 'What,
Bougwan, thou comest not?' she said, addressing Good, who was standing
close to her, in a low, concentrated voice. 'Thou pale-souled fool, for a
reward thou shalt eat out thy heart with love of me and not be satisfied,
and thou mightest have been my husband and a king! At least I hold
thee in chains that cannot be broken.
'War! War! War!' she cried. 'Here, with my
hand upon the sacred stone that shall endure, so runs the prophecy, till
the Zu-Vendi set their necks beneath an alien yoke, I declare war to the
end. Who follows Sorais of the Night to victory and honour?'
Instantly the whole concourse began to break up in
indescribable confusion. Many present hastened to throw in their lot with
the 'Lady of the Night', but some came from her following to us. Amongst
the former was an under officer of Nyleptha's own guard, who suddenly
turned and made a run for the doorway through which Sorais' people were
already passing. Umslopogaas, who was present and had taken the whole
scene in, seeing with admirable presence of mind that if this soldier got
away others would follow his example, seized the man, who drew his sword
and struck at him. Thereon the Zulu sprang back with a wild shout, and,
avoiding the sword cuts, began to peck at his foe with his terrible axe,
till in a few seconds the man's fate overtook him and he fell with a clash
heavily and quite dead upon the marble floor.
This was the first blood spilt in the war.
'Shut the gates,' I shouted, thinking that we might
perhaps catch Sorais so, and not being troubled with the idea of committing
sacrilege. But the order came too late, her guards were already passing
through them, and in another minute the streets echoed with the furious
galloping of horses and the rolling of her chariots.
So, drawing half the people after her, Sorais was soon
passing like a whirlwind through the Frowning City on her road to her
headquarters at M'Arstuna, a fortress situated a hundred and thirty miles
to the north of Milosis.
And after that the city was alive with the endless tramp
of regiments and preparations for the gathering war, and old Umslopogaas
once more began to sit in the sunshine and go through a show of sharpening
Inkosi-kaas's razor edge.
CHAPTER XIX
A STRANGE WEDDING
One person, however, did not succeed in getting out in
time before the gates were shut, and that was the High Priest Agon, who, as
we had every reason to believe, was Sorais' great ally, and the heart and
soul of her party. This cunning and ferocious old man had not forgiven us
for those hippopotami, or rather that was what he said. What he meant was
that he would never brook the introduction of our wider ways of thought and
foreign learning and influence while there was a possibility of stamping us
out. Also he knew that we possessed a different system of religion, and no
doubt was in daily terror of our attempting to introduce it into Zu-Vendis.
One day he asked me if we had any religion in our country, and I told him
that so far as I could remember we had ninety-five different ones. You
might have knocked him down with a feather, and really it is difficult not
to pity a high priest of a well-established cult who is haunted by the
possible approach of one or all of ninety-five new religions.
When we knew that Agon was caught, Nyleptha, Sir Henry,
and I discussed what was to be done with him. I was for closely
incarcerating him, but Nyleptha shook her head, saying that it would
produce a disastrous effect throughout the country. 'Ah!' she added, with
a stamp of her foot, 'if I win and am once really Queen, I will break the
power of those priests, with their rites and revels and dark secret ways.'
I only wished that old Agon could have heard her, it would have frightened
him.
'Well,' said Sir Henry, 'if we are not to imprison him,
I suppose that we may as well let him go. He is of no use here.'
Nyleptha looked at him in a curious sort of way, and
said in a dry little voice, 'Thinkest thou so, my lord?'
'Eh?' said Curtis. 'No, I do not see what is the use of
keeping him.'
She said nothing, but continued looking at him in a way
that was as shy as it was sweet.
Then at last he understood.
'Forgive me, Nyleptha,' he said, rather tremulously.
'Dost thou mean that thou wilt marry me, even now?'
'Nay, I know not; let my lord say,' was her rapid
answer; 'but if my lord wills, the priest is there and the altar is there'
-- pointing to the entrance to a private chapel -- 'and am I not ready to
do the will of my lord? Listen, oh my lord! In eight days or less thou
must leave me and go down to war, for thou shalt lead my armies, and in war
-- men sometimes fall, and so I would for a little space have had thee all
my own, if only for memory's sake;' and the tears overflowed her lovely
eyes and rolled down her face like heavy drops of dew down the red heart of
a rose.
'Mayhap, too,' she went on, 'I shall lose my crown, and
with my crown my life and thine also. Sorais is very strong and very
bitter, and if she prevails she will not spare. Who can read the future?
Happiness is the world's White Bird, that alights seldom, and flies fast
and far till one day he is lost in the clouds. Therefore should we hold
him fast if by any chance he rests for a little space upon our hand. It is
not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the
future will be, Incubu? Let us pluck our flowers while the dew is on them,
for when the sun is up they wither and on the morrow will others bloom that
we shall never see.' And she lifted her sweet face to him and smiled into
his eyes, and once more I felt a curious pang of jealousy and turned and
went away. They never took much notice of whether I was there or not,
thinking, I suppose, that I was an old fool, and that it did not matter one
way or the other, and really I believe that they were right.
So I went back to our quarters and ruminated over things
in general, and watched old Umslopogaas whetting his axe outside the window
as a vulture whets his beak beside a dying ox.
And in about an hour's time Sir Henry came tearing over,
looking very radiant and wildly excited, and found Good and myself and even
Umslopogaas, and asked us if we should like to assist at a real wedding.
Of course we said yes, and off we went to the chapel, where we found Agon
looking as sulky as any High Priest possibly could, and no wonder. It
appeared that he and Nyleptha had a slight difference of opinion about the
coming ceremony. He had flatly refused to celebrate it, or to allow any of
his priests to do so, whereupon Nyleptha became very angry and told him
that she, as Queen, was head of the Church, and meant to be obeyed.
Indeed, she played the part of a Zu-Vendi Henry the Eighth to perfection,
and insisted that, if she wanted to be married, she would be married, and
that he should marry her. 18
He still refused to go through the ceremony, so she
clinched her argument thus --
'Well, I cannot execute a High Priest, because there is
an absurd prejudice against it, and I cannot imprison him because all his
subordinates would raise a crying that would bring the stars down on
Zu-Vendis and crush it; but I can leave him to contemplate the altar
of the Sun without anything to eat, because that is his natural vocation,
and if thou wilt not marry me, O Agon! thou shalt be placed before the
altar yonder with nought but a little water till such time as thou hast
reconsidered the matter.'
Now, as it happened, Agon had been hurried away that
morning without his breakfast, and was already exceedingly hungry, so he
presently modified his views and consented to marry them, saying at the
same time that he washed his hands of all responsibility in the matter.
So it chanced that presently, attended only by two of
her favourite maidens, came the Queen Nyleptha, with happy blushing face
and downcast eyes, dressed in pure white, without embroidery of any sort,
as seems to be the fashion on these occasions in most countries of the
world. She did not wear a single ornament, even her gold circlets were
removed, and I thought that if possible she looked more lovely than ever
without them, as really superbly beautiful women do.
She came, curtseyed low to Sir Henry, and then took his
hand and led him up before the altar, and after a little pause, in a slow,
clear voice uttered the following words, which are customary in Zu-Vendis
if the bride desires and the man consents: --
'Thou dost swear by the Sun that thou wilt take no other
woman to wife unless I lay my hand upon her and bid her come?'
'I swear it,' answered Sir Henry; adding in English,
'One is quite enough for me.'
Then Agon, who had been sulking in a corner near the
altar, came forward and gabbled off something into his beard at such a rate
that I could not follow it, but it appeared to be an invocation to the Sun
to bless the union and make it fruitful. I observed that Nyleptha listened
very closely to every word, and afterwards discovered that she was afraid
lest Agon should play her a trick, and by going through the invocations
backwards divorce them instead of marry them. At the end of the
invocations they were asked, as in our service, if they took each other for
husband and wife, and on their assenting they kissed each other before the
altar, and the service was over, so far as their rites were concerned. But
it seemed to me that there was yet something wanting, and so I produced a
Prayer-Book, which has, together which the 'Ingoldsby Legends', that I
often read when I lie awake at night, accompanied me in all my later
wanderings. I gave it to my poor boy Harry years ago, and after his death
I found it among his things and took it back again.
'Curtis,' I said, 'I am not a clergyman, and I do not
know if what I am going to propose is allowable -- I know it is not legal
-- but if you and the Queen have no objection I should like to read the
English marriage service over you. It is a solemn step which you are
taking, and I think that you ought, so far as circumstances will allow, to
give it the sanction of your own religion.'
'I have thought of that,' he said, 'and I wish you
would. I do not feel half married yet.'
Nyleptha raised no objection, fully understanding that
her husband wished to celebrate the marriage according to the rites
prevailing in his own country, and so I set to work and read the service,
from 'Dearly beloved' to 'amazement', as well as I could; and when I came
to 'I, Henry, take thee, Nyleptha,' I translated, and also 'I, Nyleptha,
take thee, Henry,' which she repeated after me very well. Then Sir Henry
took a plain gold ring from his little finger and placed it on hers, and so
on to the end. The ring had been Curtis' mother's wedding-ring, and I could
not help thinking how astonished the dear old Yorkshire lady would have
been if she could have foreseen that her wedding-ring was to serve a
similar purpose for Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi.
As for Agon, he was with difficulty kept calm while this
second ceremony was going on, for he at once understood that it was
religious in its nature, and doubtless bethought him of the ninety-five new
faiths which loomed so ominously in his eyes. Indeed, he at once set me
down as a rival High Priest, and hated me accordingly. However, in the end
off he went, positively bristling with indignation, and I knew that we
might look out for danger from his direction.
And off went Good and I, and old Umslopogaas also,
leaving the happy pair to themselves, and very low we all felt. Marriages
are supposed to be cheerful things, but my experience is that they are very
much the reverse to everybody, except perhaps the two people chiefly
interested. They mean the breaking-up of so many old ties as well as the
undertaking of so many new ones, and there is always something sad about
the passing away of the old order. Now to take this case for instance: Sir
Henry Curtis is the best and kindest fellow and friend in the world, but he
has never been quite the same since that little scene in the chapel. It is
always Nyleptha this and Nyleptha that -- Nyleptha, in short, from morning
till night in one way or another, either expressed or understood. And as
for the old friends -- well, of course they have taken the place that old
friends ought to take, and which ladies are as a rule very careful to see
they do take when a man marries, and that is, the second place. Yes, he
would be angry if anybody said so, but it is a fact for all that. He is
not quite the same, and Nyleptha is very sweet and very charming, but I
think that she likes him to understand that she has married him, and
not Quatermain, Good, and Co. But there! what is the use of grumbling? It
is all very right and proper, as any married lady would have no difficulty
in explaining, and I am a selfish, jealous old man, though I hope I never
show it.
So Good and I went and ate in silence and then indulged
in an extra fine flagon of old Zu-Vendian to keep our spirits up, and
presently one of our attendants came and told a story that gave us
something to think about.
It may, perhaps, be remembered that, after his quarrel
with Umslopogaas, Alphonse had gone off in an exceedingly ill temper to
sulk over his scratches. Well, it appears that he walked right past the
Temple to the Sun, down the wide road on the further side of the slope it
crowns, and thence on into the beautiful park, or pleasure gardens, which
are laid out just beyond the outer wall. After wandering about there for a
little he started to return, but was met near the outer gate by Sorais'
train of chariots, which were galloping furiously along the great northern
road. When she caught sight of Alphonse, Sorais halted her train and
called to him. On approaching he was instantly seized and dragged into one
of the chariots and carried off, 'crying out loudly', as our informant
said, and as from my general knowledge of him I can well believe.
At first I was much puzzled to know what object Sorais
could have had in carrying off the poor little Frenchman. She could hardly
stoop so low as to try to wreak her fury on one whom she knew was only a
servant. At last, however, an idea occurred to me. We three were, as I
think I have said, much revered by the people of Zu-Vendis at large, both
because we were the first strangers they had ever seen, and because we were
supposed to be the possessors of almost supernatural wisdom. Indeed,
though Sorais' cry against the 'foreign wolves' -- or, to translate it more
accurately, 'foreign hyenas' -- was sure to go down very well with the
nobles and the priests, it was not as we learnt, likely to be particularly
effectual amongst the bulk of the population. The Zu-Vendi people, like the
Athenians of old, are ever seeking for some new thing, and just because we
were so new our presence was on the whole acceptable to them. Again, Sir
Henry's magnificent personal appearance made a deep impression upon a race
who possess a greater love of beauty than any other I have ever been
acquainted with. Beauty may be prized in other countries, but in Zu-Vendis
it is almost worshipped, as indeed the national love of statuary shows.
The people said openly in the market-places that there was not a man in the
country to touch Curtis in personal appearance, as with the exception of
Sorais there was no woman who could compete with Nyleptha, and that
therefore it was meet that they should marry; and that he had been sent by
the Sun as a husband for their Queen. Now, from all this it will be seen
that the outcry against us was to a considerable extent fictitious, and
nobody knew it better than Sorais herself. Consequently it struck me that
it might have occurred to her that down in the country and among the
country people, it would be better to place the reason of her conflict with
her sister upon other and more general grounds than Nyleptha's marriage
with the stranger. It would be easy in a land where there had been so many
civil wars to rake out some old cry that would stir up the recollection of
buried feuds, and, indeed, she soon found an effectual one. This being so,
it was of great importance to her to have one of the strangers with her
whom she could show to the common people as a great Outlander, who had been
so struck by the justice of her cause that he had elected to leave his
companions and follow her standard.
This, no doubt, was the cause of her anxiety to get a
hold of Good, whom she would have used till he ceased to be of service and
then cast off. But Good having drawn back she grasped at the opportunity
of securing Alphonse, who was not unlike him in personal appearance though
smaller, no doubt with the object of showing him off in the cities and
country as the great Bougwan himself. I told Good that I thought that that
was her plan, and his face was a sight to see -- he was so horrified at the
idea.
'What,' he said, 'dress up that little wretch to
represent me? Why, I shall have to get out of the country! My reputation
will be ruined for ever.'
I consoled him as well as I could, but it is not
pleasant to be personated all over a strange country by an arrant little
coward, and I can quite sympathize with his vexation.
Well, that night Good and I messed as I have said in
solitary grandeur, feeling very much as though we had just returned from
burying a friend instead of marrying one, and next morning the work began
in good earnest. The messages and orders which had been despatched by
Nyleptha two days before now began to take effect, and multitudes of armed
men came pouring into the city. We saw, as may be imagined, but very little
of Nyleptha and not too much of Curtis during those next few days, but Good
and I sat daily with the council of generals and loyal lords, drawing up
plans of action, arranging commissariat matters, the distribution of
commands, and a hundred and one other things. Men came in freely, and all
the day long the great roads leading to Milosis were spotted with the
banners of lords arriving from their distant places to rally round
Nyleptha.
After the first few days it became clear that we should
be able to take the field with about forty thousand infantry and twenty
thousand cavalry, a very respectable force considering how short was the
time we had to collect it, and that about half the regular army had elected
to follow Sorais.
But if our force was large, Sorais' was, according to
the reports brought in day by day by our spies, much larger. She had taken
up her headquarters at a very strong town called M'Arstuna, situated, as I
have said, to the north of Milosis, and all the countryside was flocking to
her standard. Nasta had poured down from his highlands and was on his way
to join her with no less than twenty-five thousand of his mountaineers, the
most terrible soldiers to face in all Zu-Vendis. Another mighty lord,
named Belusha, who lived in the great horse-breeding district, had come in
with twelve thousand cavalry, and so on. Indeed, what between one thing
and another, it seemed certain that she would gather a fully armed host of
nearly one hundred thousand men.
And then came news that Sorais was proposing to break up
her camp and march on the Frowning City itself, desolating the country as
she came. Thereon arose the question whether it would be best to meet her
at Milosis or to go out and give her battle. When our opinion was asked
upon the subject, Good and I unhesitatingly gave it in favour of an
advance. If we were to shut ourselves up in the city and wait to be
attacked, it seemed to us that our inaction would be set down to fear. It
is so important, especially on an occasion of this sort, when a very little
will suffice to turn men's opinions one way or the other, to be up and
doing something. Ardour for a cause will soon evaporate if the cause does
not move but sits down to conquer. Therefore we cast our vote for moving
out and giving battle in the open, instead of waiting till we were drawn
from our walls like a badger from a hole.
Sir Henry's opinion coincided with ours, and so,
needless to say, did that of Nyleptha, who, like a flint, was always ready
to flash out fire. A great map of the country was brought and spread out
before her. About thirty miles this side of M'Arstuna, where Sorais lay,
and ninety odd miles from Milosis, the road ran over a neck of land some
two and a half miles in width, and flanked on either side by forest-clad
hills which, without being lofty, would, if the road were blocked, be quite
impracticable for a great baggage-laden army to cross. She looked
earnestly at the map, and then, with a quickness of perception that in some
women amounts almost to an instinct, she laid her finger upon this neck of
rising ground, and turning to her husband, said, with a proud air of
confidence and a toss of the golden head --
'Here shalt thou meet Sorais' armies. I know the spot,
here shalt thou meet them, and drive them before thee like dust before the
storm.'
But Curtis looked grave and said nothing.
CHAPTER XX
THE BATTLE OF THE PASS
It was on the third morning after this incident of the
map that Sir Henry and I started. With the exception of a small guard, all
the great host had moved on the night before, leaving the Frowning City
very silent and empty. Indeed, it was found impossible to leave any
garrison with the exception of a personal guard for Nyleptha, and about a
thousand men who from sickness or one cause or another were unable to
proceed with the army; but as Milosis was practically impregnable, and as
our enemy was in front of and not behind us, this did not so much
matter.
Good and Umslopogaas had gone on with the army, but
Nyleptha accompanied Sir Henry and myself to the city gates, riding a
magnificent white horse called Daylight, which was supposed to be the
fleetest and most enduring animal in Zu-Vendis. Her face bore traces of
recent weeping, but there were no tears in her eyes now, indeed she was
bearing up bravely against what must have been a bitter trial to her. At
the gate she reined in her horse and bade us farewell. On the previous day
she had reviewed and addressed the officers of the great army, speaking to
them such high, eloquent words, and expressing so complete a confidence in
their valour and in their ultimate victory, that she quite carried their
hearts away, and as she rode from rank to rank they cheered her till the
ground shook. And now today the same mood seemed to be on her.
'Fare thee well, Macumazahn!' she said. 'Remember, I
trust to thy wits, which are as a needle to a spear-handle compared to
those of my people, to save us from Sorais. I know that thou wilt do thy
duty.'
I bowed and explained to her my horror of fighting, and
my fear lest I should lose my head, at which she laughed gently and turned
to Curtis.
'Fare thee well, my lord!' she said. 'Come back with
victory, and as a king, or on thy soldiers' spears.' 19
Sir Henry said nothing, but turned his horse to go;
perhaps he had a bit of a lump in his throat. One gets over it afterwards,
but these sort of partings are trying when one has only been married a
week.
'Here,' added Nyleptha, 'will I greet thee when ye
return in triumph. And now, my lords, once more, farewell!'
Then we rode on, but when we had gone a hundred and
fifty yards or so, we turned and perceived her still sitting on her horse
at the same spot, and looking out after us beneath her hand, and that was
the last we saw of her. About a mile farther on, however, we heard
galloping behind us, and looking round, saw a mounted soldier coming
towards us, leading Nyleptha's matchless steed -- Daylight.
'The Queen sends the white stallion as a farewell gift
to her Lord Incubu, and bids me tell my lord that he is the fleetest and
most enduring horse in all the land,' said the soldier, bending to his
saddle-bow before us.
At first Sir Henry did not want to take the horse,
saying that he was too good for such rough work, but I persuaded him to do
so, thinking that Nyleptha would be hurt if he did not. Little did I guess
at the time what service that noble horse would render in our sorest need.
It is curious to look back and realize upon what trivial and apparently
coincidental circumstances great events frequently turn as easily and
naturally as a door on its hinges.
Well, we took the horse, and a beauty he was, it was a
perfect pleasure to see him move, and Curtis having sent back his greetings
and thanks, we proceeded on our journey.
By midday we overtook the rear-guard of the great army
of which Sir Henry then formally took over the command. It was a heavy
responsibility, and it oppressed him very much, but the Queen's injunctions
on the point were such as did not admit of being trifled with. He was
beginning to find out that greatness has its responsibilities as well as
its glories.
Then we marched on without meeting with any opposition,
almost indeed without seeing anybody, for the populations of the towns and
villages along our route had for the most part fled, fearing lest they
should be caught between the two rival armies and ground to powder like
grain between the upper and the nether stones.
On the evening of the fourth day, for the progress of so
great a multitude was necessarily slow, we camped two miles this side of
the neck or ridge I have spoken of, and our outposts brought us word that
Sorais with all her power was rolling down upon us, and had pitched her
camp that night ten miles the farther side of the neck.
Accordingly before dawn we sent forward fifteen hundred
cavalry to seize the position. Scarcely had they occupied it, however,
before they were attacked by about as many of Sorais' horsemen, and a very
smart little cavalry fight ensued, with a loss to us of about thirty men
killed. On the advance of our supports, however, Sorais' force drew off,
carrying their dead and wounded with them.
The main body of the army reached the neck about
dinner-time, and I must say that Nyleptha's judgment had not failed her, it
was an admirable place to give battle in, especially to a superior
force.
The road ran down a mile or more, through ground too
broken to admit of the handling of any considerable force, till it reached
the crest of a great green wave of land, that rolled down a gentle slope to
the banks of a little stream, and then rolled away again up a still gentler
slope to the plain beyond, the distance from the crest of the land-wave
down to the stream being a little over half a mile, and from the stream up
to the plain beyond a trifle less. The length of this wave of land at its
highest point, which corresponded exactly with the width of the neck of the
land between the wooded hills, was about two miles and a quarter, and it
was protected on either side by dense, rocky, bush-clad ground, that
afforded a most valuable cover to the flanks of the army and rendered it
almost impossible for them to be turned.
It was on the hither slope of this neck of land that
Curtis encamped his army in the same formation that he had, after
consultation with the various generals, Good, and myself, determined that
they should occupy in the great pitched battle which now appeared to be
imminent.
Our force of sixty thousand men was, roughly speaking,
divided as follows. In the centre was a dense body of twenty thousand
foot-soldiers, armed with spears, swords, and hippopotamus-hide shields,
breast and back plates. 20 These formed the
chest of the army, and were supported by five thousand foot, and three
thousand horse in reserve. On either side of this chest were stationed
seven thousand horse arranged in deep, majestic squadrons; and beyond and
on either side but slightly in front of them again were two bodies, each
numbering about seven thousand five hundred spearmen, forming the right and
left wings of the army, and each supported by a contingent of some fifteen
hundred cavalry. This makes in all sixty thousand men.
Curtis commanded in chief, I was in command of the seven
thousand horse between the chest and right wing, which was commanded by
Good, and the other battalions and squadrons were entrusted to Zu-Vendis
generals.
Scarcely had we taken up our positions before Sorais'
vast army began to swarm on the opposite slope about a mile in front of us,
till the whole place seemed alive with the multitude of her spearpoints,
and the ground shook with the tramp of her battalions. It was evident that
the spies had not exaggerated; we were outnumbered by at least a third. At
first we expected that Sorais was going to attack us at once, as the clouds
of cavalry which hung upon her flanks executed some threatening
demonstrations, but she thought better of it, and there was no fight that
day. As for the formation of her great forces I cannot now describe it
with accuracy, and it would only serve to bewilder if I did, but I may say,
generally, that in its leading features it resembled our own, only her
reserve was much greater.
Opposite our right wing, and forming Sorais' left wing,
was a great army of dark, wild-looking men, armed with sword and shield
only, which, I was informed, was composed of Nasta's twenty-five thousand
savage hillsmen.
'My word, Good,' said I, when I saw them, 'you will
catch it tomorrow when those gentlemen charge!' whereat Good not
unnaturally looked rather anxious.
All day we watched and waited, but nothing happened, and
at last night fell, and a thousand watch-fires twinkled brightly on the
slopes, to wane and die one by one like the stars they resembled. As the
hours wore on, the silence gradually gathered more deeply over the opposing
hosts.
It was a very wearying night, for in addition to the
endless things that had to be attended to, there was our gnawing suspense
to reckon with. The fray which tomorrow would witness would be so vast,
and the slaughter so awful, that stout indeed must the heart have been that
was not overwhelmed at the prospect. And when I thought of all that hung
upon it, I own I felt ill, and it made me very sad to reflect that these
mighty forces were gathered for destruction, simply to gratify the jealous
anger of a woman. This was the hidden power which was to send those dense
masses of cavalry, flashing like human thunderbolts across the plain, and
to roll together the fierce battalions as clouds when hurricane meets
hurricane. It was a dreadful thought, and set one wondering about the
responsibilities of the great ones of the earth. Deep into the night we
sat, with pale faces and heavy hearts, and took counsel, whilst the
sentries tramped up and down, down and up, and the armed and plumed
generals came and went, grim and shadow-like.
And so the time wore away, till everything was ready for
the coming slaughter; and I lay down and thought, and tried to get a little
rest, but could not sleep for fear of the morrow -- for who could say what
the morrow would bring forth? Misery and death, this was certain; beyond
that we knew not, and I confess I was very much afraid. But as I realized
then, it is useless to question that eternal Sphinx, the future. From day
to day she reads aloud the riddles of the yesterday, of which the puzzled
wordlings of all ages have not answered one, nor ever will, guess they
never so wildly or cry they never so loud.
And so at length I gave up wondering, being forced
humbly to leave the issue in the balancing hands of Providence and the
morrow.
And at last up came the red sun, and the huge camps
awoke with a clash, and a roar, and gathered themselves together for
battle. It was a beautiful and awe-inspiring scene, and old Umslopogaas,
leaning on his axe, contemplated it with grim delight.
'Never have I seen the like, Macumazahn, never,' he
said. 'The battles of my people are as the play of children to what this
will be. Thinkest thou that they will fight it out?'
'Ay,' I answered sadly, 'to the death. Content thyself,
"Woodpecker", for once shalt thou peck thy fill.'
Time went on, and still there was no sign of an attack.
A force of cavalry crossed the brook, indeed, and rode slowly along our
front, evidently taking stock of our position and numbers. With this we
did not attempt to interfere, as our decision was to stand strictly on the
defensive, and not to waste a single man. The men breakfasted and stood to
their arms, and the hours wore on. About midday, when the men were eating
their dinner, for we thought they would fight better on full stomachs, a
shout of 'Sorais, Sorais' arose like thunder from the enemy's
extreme right, and taking the glass, I was able to clearly distinguish the
'Lady of the Night' herself, surrounded by a glittering staff, and riding
slowly down the lines of her battalions. And as she went, that mighty,
thundering shout rolled along before her like the rolling of ten thousand
chariots, or the roaring of the ocean when the gale turns suddenly and
carries the noise of it to the listener's ears, till the earth shook, and
the air was full of the majesty of sound.
Guessing that this was a prelude to the beginning of the
battle, we remained still and made ready.
We had not long to wait. Suddenly, like flame from a
cannon's mouth, out shot two great tongue-like forces of cavalry, and came
charging down the slope towards the little stream, slowly at first, but
gathering speed as they came. Before they got to the stream, orders
reached me from Sir Henry, who evidently feared that the shock of such a
charge, if allowed to fall unbroken upon our infantry, would be too much
for them, to send five thousand sabres to meet the force opposite to me, at
the moment when it began to mount the stiffest of the rise about four
hundred yards from our lines. This I did, remaining behind myself with the
rest of my men.
Off went the five thousand horsemen, drawn up in a
wedge-like form, and I must say that the general in command handled them
very ably. Starting at a hand gallop, for the first three hundred yards he
rode straight at the tip of the tongue-shaped mass of cavalry which,
numbering, so far as I could judge, about eight thousand sabres, was
advancing to charge us. Then he suddenly swerved to the right and put on
the pace, and I saw the great wedge curl round, and before the foe could
check himself and turn to meet it, strike him about halfway down his
length, with a crashing rending sound, like that of the breaking-up of vast
sheets of ice. In sank the great wedge, into his heart, and as it cut its
way hundreds of horsemen were thrown up on either side of it, just as the
earth is thrown up by a ploughshare, or more like still, as the foaming
water curls over beneath the bows of a rushing ship. In, yet in, vainly
does the tongue twist its ends round in agony, like an injured snake, and
strive to protect its centre; still farther in, by Heaven! right through,
and so, amid cheer after cheer from our watching thousands, back again upon
the severed ends, beating them down, driving them as a gale drives spray,
till at last, amidst the rushing of hundreds of riderless horses, the
flashing of swords, and the victorious clamour of their pursuers, the great
force crumples up like an empty glove, then turns and gallops pell-mell for
safety back to its own lines.
I do not think it reached them more than two-thirds as
strong as it went out ten minutes before. The lines which were now
advancing to the attack, opened and swallowed them up, and my force
returned, having only suffered a loss of about five hundred men -- not
much, I thought, considering the fierceness of the struggle. I could also
see that the opposing bodies of cavalry on our left wing were drawing back,
but how the fight went with them I do not quite know. It is as much as I
can do to describe what took place immediately around me.
By this time the dense masses of the enemy's left,
composed almost entirely of Nasta's swordsmen, were across the little
stream, and with alternate yells of 'Nasta' and 'Sorais', with dancing
banners and gleaming swords, were swarming up towards us like ants.
Again I received orders to try and check this movement,
and also the main advance against the chest of our army, by means of
cavalry charges, and this I did to the best of my ability, by continually
sending squadrons of about a thousand sabres out against them. These
squadrons did the enemy much damage, and it was a glorious sight to see
them flash down the hillside, and bury themselves like a living knife in
the heart of the foe. But, also, we lost many men, for after the
experience of a couple of these charges, which had drawn a sort of bloody
St Andrew's cross of dead and dying through the centre of Nasta's host, our
foes no longer attempted to offer an unyielding front to their irresistible
weight, but opened out to let the rush go through, throwing themselves on
the ground and hamstringing hundreds of horses as they passed.
And so, notwithstanding all that we could do, the enemy
drew nearer, till at last he hurled himself upon Good's force of seven
thousand five hundred regulars, who were drawn up to receive them in three
strong squares. About the same time, too, an awful and heartshaking roar
told me that the main battle had closed in on the centre and extreme left.
I raised myself in my stirrups and looked down to my left; so far as the
eye could see there was a long dazzling shimmer of steel as the sun glanced
upon falling sword and thrusting spear.
To and fro swung the contending lines in that dread
struggle, now giving way, now gaining a little in the mad yet ordered
confusion of attack and defence. But it was as much as I could do to keep
count of what was happening to our own wing; and, as for the moment the
cavalry had fallen back under cover of Good's three squares, I had a fair
view of this.
Nasta's wild swordsmen were now breaking in red waves
against the sullen rock-like squares. Time after time did they yell out
their war-cries, and hurl themselves furiously against the long triple
ridges of spear points, only to be rolled back as billows are when they
meet the cliff.
And so for four long hours the battle raged almost
without a pause, and at the end of that time, if we had gained nothing we
had lost nothing. Two attempts to turn our left flank by forcing a way
through the wood by which it was protected had been defeated; and as yet
Nasta's swordsmen had, notwithstanding their desperate efforts, entirely
failed to break Good's three squares, though they had thinned their numbers
by quite a third.
As for the chest of the army where Sir Henry was with
his staff and Umslopogaas, it had suffered dreadfully, but it had held its
own with honour, and the same may be said of our left battle.
At last the attacks slackened, and Sorais' army drew
back, having, I began to think, had enough of it. On this point, however,
I was soon undeceived, for splitting up her cavalry into comparatively
small squadrons, she charged us furiously with them, all along the line,
and then once more sullenly rolled her tens of thousands of sword and
spearmen down upon our weakened squares and squadrons; Sorais herself
directing the movement, as fearless as a lioness heading the main attack.
On they came like an avalanche -- I saw her golden helm gleaming in the van
-- our counter charges of cavalry entirely failing to check their forward
sweep. Now they had struck us, and our centre bent in like a bow beneath
the weight of their rush -- it parted, and had not the ten thousand men in
reserve charged down to its support it must have been utterly destroyed.
As for Good's three squares, they were swept backwards like boats upon an
incoming tide, and the foremost one was burst into and lost half its
remaining men. But the effort was too fierce and terrible to last.
Suddenly the battle came, as it were, to a turning-point, and for a minute
or two stood still.
Then it began to move towards Sorais' camp. Just then,
too, Nasta's fierce and almost invincible highlanders, either because they
were disheartened by their losses or by way of a ruse, fell back, and the
remains of Good's gallant squares, leaving the positions they had held for
so many hours, cheered wildly, and rashly followed them down the slope,
whereon the swarms of swordsmen turned to envelop them, and once more flung
themselves upon them with a yell. Taken thus on every side, what remained
of the first square was quickly destroyed, and I perceived that the second,
in which I could see Good himself mounted on a large horse, was on the
point of annihilation. A few more minutes and it was broken, its streaming
colours sank, and I lost sight of Good in the confused and hideous
slaughter that ensued.
Presently, however, a cream-coloured horse with a
snow-white mane and tail burst from the ruins of the square and came
rushing past me riderless and with wide streaming reins, and in it I
recognized the charger that Good had been riding. Then I hesitated no
longer, but taking with me half my effective cavalry force, which now
amounted to between four and five thousand men, I commended myself to God,
and, without waiting for orders, I charged straight down upon Nasta's
swordsmen. Seeing me coming, and being warned by the thunder of my horses'
hoofs, the majority of them faced round, and gave us a right warm welcome.
Not an inch would they yield; in vain did we hack and trample them down as
we ploughed a broad red furrow through their thousands; they seemed to
re-arise by hundreds, driving their terrible sharp swords into our horses,
or severing their hamstrings, and then hacking the troopers who came to the
ground with them almost into pieces. My horse was speedily killed under
me, but luckily I had a fresh one, my own favourite, a coal-black mare
Nyleptha had given me, being held in reserve behind, and on this I
afterwards mounted. Meanwhile I had to get along as best I could, for I
was pretty well lost sight of by my men in the mad confusion of the moment.
My voice, of course, could not be heard in the midst of the clanging of
steel and the shrieks of rage and agony. Presently I found myself mixed up
with the remnants of the square, which had formed round its leader Good,
and was fighting desperately for existence. I stumbled against somebody,
and glancing down, caught sight of Good's eyeglass. He had been beaten to
his knee. Over him was a great fellow swinging a heavy sword. Somehow I
managed to run the man through with the sime I had taken from the Masai
whose hand I had cut off; but as I did so, he dealt me a frightful blow on
the left side and breast with the sword, and though my chain shirt saved my
life, I felt that I was badly hurt. For a minute I fell on to my hands and
knees among the dead and dying, and turned sick and faint. When I came to
again I saw that Nasta's spearmen, or rather those of them who remained,
were retreating back across the stream, and that Good was there by me
smiling sweetly.
'Near go that,' he shouted; 'but all's well that ends
well.'
I assented, but I could not help feeling that it had not
ended well for me. I was sorely hurt.
Just then we saw the smaller bodies of cavalry stationed
on our extreme right and left, and which were now reinforced by the three
thousand sabres which we had held in reserve, flash out like arrows from
their posts and fall upon the disordered flanks of Sorais' forces, and that
charge decided the issue of the battle. In another minute or two the enemy
was in slow and sullen retreat across the little stream, where they once
more re-formed. Then came another lull, during which I managed to get a
second horse, and received my orders to advance from Sir Henry, and then
with one fierce deep-throated roar, with a waving of banners and a wide
flashing of steel, the remains of our army took the offensive and began to
sweep down, slowly indeed, but irresistibly from the positions they had so
gallantly held all day.
At last it was our turn to attack.
On we moved, over the piled-up masses of dead and dying,
and were approaching the stream, when suddenly I perceived an extraordinary
sight. Galloping wildly towards us, his arms tightly clasped around his
horse's neck, against which his blanched cheek was tightly pressed, was a
man arrayed in the full costume of a Zu-Vendi general, but in whom, as he
came nearer, I recognized none other than our lost Alphonse. It was
impossible even then to mistake those curling mustachios. In a minute he
was tearing through our ranks and narrowly escaped being cut down, till at
last somebody caught his horse's bridle, and he was brought to me just as a
momentary halt occurred in our advance to allow what remained of our
shattered squares to form into line.
'Ah, monsieur,' he gasped out in a voice that was nearly
inarticulate with fright, 'grace to the sky, it is you! Ah, what I have
endured! But you win, monsieur, you win; they fly, the laches. But listen,
monsieur -- I forget, it is no good; the Queen is to be murdered tomorrow
at the first light in the palace of Milosis; her guards will leave their
posts, and the priests are going to kill her. Ah yes! they little thought
it, but I was ensconced beneath a banner, and I heard it all.'
'What?' I said, horror-struck; 'what do you mean?'
'What I say, monsieur; that devil of a Nasta he went
last night to settle the affair with the Archbishop [Agon]. The guard will
leave open the little gate leading from the great stair and go away, and
Nasta and Agon's priests will come in and kill her. Themselves they would
not kill her.'
'Come with me,' I said, and, shouting to the
staff-officer next to me to take over the command, I snatched his bridle
and galloped as hard as I could for the spot, between a quarter and half a
mile off, where I saw the royal pennon flying, and where I knew that I
should find Curtis if he were still alive. On we tore, our horses clearing
heaps of dead and dying men, and splashing through pools of blood, on past
the long broken lines of spearmen to where, mounted on the white stallion
Nyleptha had sent to him as a parting gift, I saw Sir Henry's form towering
above the generals who surrounded him.
Just as we reached him the advance began again. A
bloody cloth was bound around his head, but I saw that his eye was as
bright and keen as ever. Beside him was old Umslopogaas, his axe red with
blood, but looking quite fresh and uninjured.
'What's wrong, Quatermain?' he shouted.
'Everything. There is a plot to murder the Queen
tomorrow at dawn. Alphonse here, who has just escaped from Sorais, has
overheard it all,' and I rapidly repeated to him what the Frenchman had
told me.
Curtis' face turned deadly pale and his jaw dropped.
'At dawn,' he gasped, 'and it is now sunset; it dawns
before four and we are nearly a hundred miles off -- nine hours at the
outside. What is to be done?'
An idea entered into my head. 'Is that horse of yours
fresh?' I said.
'Yes, I have only just got on to him -- when my last was
killed, and he has been fed.'
'So is mine. Get off him, and let Umslopogaas mount; he
can ride well. We will be at Milosis before dawn, or if we are not --
well, we cannot help it. No, no; it is impossible for you to leave now.
You would be seen, and it would turn the fate of the battle. It is not
half won yet. The soldiers would think you were making a bolt of it.
Quick now.'
In a moment he was down, and at my bidding Umslopogaas
sprang into the empty saddle.
'Now farewell,' I said. 'Send a thousand horsemen with
remounts after us in an hour if possible. Stay, despatch a general to the
left wing to take over the command and explain my absence.'
'You will do your best to save her, Quatermain?' he said
in a broken voice.
'Ay, that I will. Go on; you are being left
behind.'
He cast one glance at us, and accompanied by his staff
galloped off to join the advance, which by this time was fording the little
brook that now ran red with the blood of the fallen.
As for Umslopogaas and myself, we left that dreadful
field as arrows leave a bow, and in a few minutes had passed right out of
the sight of slaughter, the smell of blood, and the turmoil and shouting,
which only came to our ears as a faint, far-off roaring like the sound of
distant breakers.
CHAPTER XXI
AWAY! AWAY!
At the top of the rise we halted for a second to breathe
our horses; and, turning, glanced at the battle beneath us, which,
illumined as it was by the fierce rays of the sinking sun staining the
whole scene red, looked from where we were more like some wild titanic
picture than an actual hand-to-hand combat. The distinguishing scenic
effect from that distance was the countless distinct flashes of light
reflected from the swords and spears, otherwise the panorama was not so
grand as might have been expected. The great green lap of sward in which
the struggle was being fought out, the bold round outline of the hills
behind, and the wide sweep of the plain beyond, seemed to dwarf it; and
what was tremendous enough when one was in it, grew insignificant when
viewed from the distance. But is it not thus with all the affairs and
doings of our race about which we blow the loud trumpet and make such a
fuss and worry? How utterly antlike, and morally and physically
insignificant, must they seem to the calm eyes that watch them from the
arching depths above!
'We win the day, Macumazahn,' said old Umslopogaas,
taking in the whole situation with a glance of his practised eye. 'Look,
the Lady of the Night's forces give on every side, there is no stiffness
left in them, they bend like hot iron, they are fighting with but half a
heart. But alas! the battle will in a manner be drawn, for the darkness
gathers, and the regiments will not be able to follow and slay!' -- and he
shook his head sadly. 'But,' he added, 'I do not think that they will fight
again. We have fed them with too strong a meat. Ah! it is well to have
lived! At last I have seen a fight worth seeing.'
By this time we were on our way again, and as we went
side by side I told him what our mission was, and how that, if it failed,
all the lives that had been lost that day would have been lost in vain.
'Ah!' he said, 'nigh on a hundred miles and no horses
but these, and to be there before the dawn! Well -- away! away! man can
but try, Macumazahn; and mayhap we shall be there in time to split that old
"witch-finder's" [Agon's] skull for him. Once he wanted to burn us, the
old "rain-maker", did he? And now he would set a snare for my mother
[Nyleptha], would he? Good! So sure as my name is the name of the
Woodpecker, so surely, be my mother alive or dead, will I split him to the
beard. Ay, by T'Chaka's head I swear it!' and he shook Inkosi-kaas as he
galloped. By now the darkness was closing in, but fortunately there would
be a moon later, and the road was good.
On we sped through the twilight, the two splendid horses
we bestrode had got their wind by this, and were sweeping along with a wide
steady stride that neither failed nor varied for mile upon mile. Down the
side of slopes we galloped, across wide vales that stretched to the foot of
far-off hills. Nearer and nearer grew the blue hills; now we were
travelling up their steeps, and now we were over and passing towards others
that sprang up like visions in the far, faint distance beyond.
On, never pausing or drawing rein, through the perfect
quiet of the night, that was set like a song to the falling music of our
horses' hoofs; on, past deserted villages, where only some forgotten
starving dog howled a melancholy welcome; on, past lonely moated dwellings;
on, through the white patchy moonlight, that lay coldly upon the wide bosom
of the earth, as though there was no warmth in it; on, knee to knee, for
hour after hour!
We spake not, but bent us forward on the necks of those
two glorious horses, and listened to their deep, long-drawn breaths as they
filled their great lungs, and to the regular unfaltering ring of their
round hoofs. Grim and black indeed did old Umslopogaas look beside me,
mounted upon the great white horse, like Death in the Revelation of St
John, as now and again lifting his fierce set face he gazed out along the
road, and pointed with his axe towards some distant rise or house.
And so on, still on, without break or pause for hour
after hour.
At last I felt that even the splendid animal that I rode
was beginning to give out. I looked at my watch; it was nearly midnight,
and we were considerably more than half way. On the top of a rise was a
little spring, which I remembered because I had slept by it a few nights
before, and here I motioned to Umslopogaas to pull up, having determined to
give the horses and ourselves ten minutes to breathe in. He did so, and we
dismounted -- that is to say, Umslopogaas did, and then helped me off, for
what with fatigue, stiffness, and the pain of my wound, I could not do so
for myself; and then the gallant horses stood panting there, resting first
one leg and then another, while the sweat fell drip, drip, from them, and
the steam rose and hung in pale clouds in the still night air.
Leaving Umslopogaas to hold the horses, I hobbled to the
spring and drank deep of its sweet waters. I had had nothing but a single
mouthful of wine since midday, when the battle began, and I was parched up,
though my fatigue was too great to allow me to feel hungry. Then, having
laved my fevered head and hands, I returned, and the Zulu went and drank.
Next we allowed the horses to take a couple of mouthfuls each -- no more;
and oh, what a struggle we had to get the poor beasts away from the water!
There were yet two minutes, and I employed it in hobbling up and down to
try and relieve my stiffness, and in inspecting the condition of the
horses. My mare, gallant animal though she was, was evidently much
distressed; she hung her head, and her eye looked sick and dull; but
Daylight, Nyleptha's glorious horse -- who, if he is served aright, should,
like the steeds who saved great Rameses in his need, feed for the rest of
his days out of a golden manger -- was still comparatively speaking fresh,
notwithstanding the fact that he had had by far the heavier weight to
carry. He was 'tucked up', indeed, and his legs were weary, but his eye
was bright and clear, and he held his shapely head up and gazed out into
the darkness round him in a way that seemed to say that whoever failed
he was good for those five-and-forty miles that yet lay between us
and Milosis. Then Umslopogaas helped me into the saddle and -- vigorous
old savage that he was! -- vaulted into his own without touching a stirrup,
and we were off once more, slowly at first, till the horses got into their
stride, and then more swiftly. So we passed over another ten miles, and
then came a long, weary rise of some six or seven miles, and three times
did my poor black mare nearly come to the ground with me. But on the top
she seemed to gather herself together, and rattled down the slope with
long, convulsive strides, breathing in gasps. We did that three or four
miles more swiftly than any since we had started on our wild ride, but I
felt it to be a last effort, and I was right. Suddenly my poor horse took
the bit between her teeth and bolted furiously along a stretch of level
ground for some three or four hundred yards, and then, with two or three
jerky strides, pulled herself up and fell with a crash right on to her
head, I rolling myself free as she did so. As I struggled to my feet the
brave beast raised her head and looked at me with piteous bloodshot eyes,
and then her head dropped with a groan and she was dead. Her heart was
broken.
Umslopogaas pulled up beside the carcase, and I looked
at him in dismay. There were still more than twenty miles to do by dawn,
and how were we to do it with one horse? It seemed hopeless, but I had
forgotten the old Zulu's extraordinary running powers.
Without a single word he sprang from the saddle and
began to hoist me into it.
'What wilt thou do?' I asked.
'Run,' he answered, seizing my stirrup-leather.
Then off we went again, almost as fast as before; and
oh, the relief it was to me to get that change of horses! Anybody who has
ever ridden against time will know what it meant.
Daylight sped along at a long stretching hand-gallop,
giving the gaunt Zulu a lift at every stride. It was a wonderful thing to
see old Umslopogaas run mile after mile, his lips slightly parted and his
nostrils agape like the horse's. Every five miles or so we stopped for a
few minutes to let him get his breath, and then flew on again.
'Canst thou go farther,' I said at the third of these
stoppages, 'or shall I leave thee to follow me?'
He pointed with his axe to a dim mass before us. It was
the Temple of the Sun, now not more than five miles away.
'I reach it or I die,' he gasped.
Oh, that last five miles! The skin was rubbed from the
inside of my legs, and every movement of my horse gave me anguish. Nor was
that all. I was exhausted with toil, want of food and sleep, and also
suffering very much from the blow I had received on my left side; it seemed
as though a piece of bone or something was slowly piercing into my lung.
Poor Daylight, too, was pretty nearly finished, and no wonder. But there
was a smell of dawn in the air, and we might not stay; better that all
three of us should die upon the road than that we should linger while there
was life in us. The air was thick and heavy, as it sometimes is before the
dawn breaks, and -- another infallible sign in certain parts of Zu-Vendis
that sunrise is at hand -- hundreds of little spiders pendant on the end of
long tough webs were floating about in it. These early-rising creatures,
or rather their webs, caught upon the horse's and our own forms by scores,
and, as we had neither the time nor the energy to brush them off, we rushed
along covered with hundreds of long grey threads that streamed out a yard
or more behind us -- and a very strange appearance they must have given
us.
And now before us are the huge brazen gates of the outer
wall of the Frowning City, and a new and horrible doubt strikes me: What if
they will not let us in?
'Open! open!' I shout imperiously, at the same
time giving the royal password. 'Open! open! a messenger, a
messenger with tidings of the war!'
'What news?' cried the guard. 'And who art thou that
ridest so madly, and who is that whose tongue lolls out' -- and it actually
did -- 'and who runs by thee like a dog by a chariot?'
'It is the Lord Macumazahn, and with him is his dog, his
black dog. Open! open! I bring tidings.'
The great gates ran back on their rollers, and the
drawbridge fell with a rattling crash, and we dashed on through the one and
over the other.
'What news, my lord, what news?' cried the guard.
'Incubu rolls Sorais back, as the wind a cloud,' I
answered, and was gone.
One more effort, gallant horse, and yet more gallant
man!
So, fall not now, Daylight, and hold thy life in thee
for fifteen short minutes more, old Zulu war-dog, and ye shall both live
for ever in the annals of the land.
On, clattering through the sleeping streets. We are
passing the Flower Temple now -- one mile more, only one little mile --
hold on, keep your life in thee, see the houses run past of themselves.
Up, good horse, up, there -- but fifty yards now. Ah! you see your stables
and stagger on gallantly.
'Thank God, the palace at last!' and see, the first
arrows of the dawn are striking on the Temple's golden dome. 21 But shall I get in here, or is the deed done
and the way barred?
Once more I give the password and shout 'Open!
open!'
No answer, and my heart grows very faint.
Again I call, and this time a single voice replies, and
to my joy I recognize it as belonging to Kara, a fellow-officer of
Nyleptha's guards, a man I know to be as honest as the light -- indeed, the
same whom Nyleptha had sent to arrest Sorais on the day she fled to the
temple.
'Is it thou, Kara?' I cry; 'I am Macumazahn. Bid the
guard let down the bridge and throw wide the gate. Quick, quick!'
Then followed a space that seemed to me endless, but at
length the bridge fell and one half of the gate opened and we got into the
courtyard, where at last poor Daylight fell down beneath me, as I thought,
dead. Except Kara, there was nobody to be seen, and his look was wild, and
his garments were all torn. He had opened the gate and let down the bridge
alone, and was now getting them up and shut again (as, owing to a very
ingenious arrangement of cranks and levers, one man could easily do, and
indeed generally did do).
'Where are the guard?' I gasped, fearing his answer as I
never feared anything before.
'I know not,' he answered; 'two hours ago, as I slept,
was I seized and bound by the watch under me, and but now, this very
moment, have I freed myself with my teeth. I fear, I greatly fear, that we
are betrayed.'
His words gave me fresh energy. Catching him by the
arm, I staggered, followed by Umslopogaas, who reeled after us like a
drunken man, through the courtyards, up the great hall, which was silent as
the grave, towards the Queen's sleeping-place.
We reached the first ante-room -- no guards; the second,
still no guards. Oh, surely the thing was done! we were too late after
all, too late! The silence and solitude of those great chambers was
dreadful, and weighed me down like an evil dream. On, right into
Nyleptha's chamber we rushed and staggered, sick at heart, fearing the very
worst; we saw there was a light in it, ay, and a figure bearing the light.
Oh, thank God, it is the White Queen herself, the Queen unharmed! There
she stands in her night gear, roused, by the clatter of our coming, from
her bed, the heaviness of sleep yet in her eyes, and a red blush of fear
and shame mantling her lovely breast and cheek.
'Who is it?' she cries. 'What means this? Oh,
Macumazahn, is it thou? Why lookest thou so wildly? Thou comest as one
bearing evil tidings -- and my lord -- oh, tell me not my lord is dead --
not dead!' she wailed, wringing her white hands.
'I left Incubu wounded, but leading the advance against
Sorais last night at sundown; therefore let thy heart have rest. Sorais is
beaten back all along her lines, and thy arms prevail.'
'I knew it,' she cried in triumph. 'I knew that he
would win; and they called him Outlander, and shook their wise heads when I
gave him the command! Last night at sundown, sayest thou, and it is not
yet dawn? Surely --'
'Throw a cloak around thee, Nyleptha,' I broke in, 'and
give us wine to drink; ay, and call thy maidens quick if thou wouldst save
thyself alive. Nay, stay not.'
Thus adjured she ran and called through the curtains
towards some room beyond, and then hastily put on her sandals and a thick
cloak, by which time a dozen or so of half-dressed women were pouring into
the room.
'Follow us and be silent,' I said to them as they gazed
with wondering eyes, clinging one to another. So we went into the first
ante-room.
'Now,' I said, 'give us wine to drink and food, if ye
have it, for we are near to death.'
The room was used as a mess-room for the officers of the
guards, and from a cupboard some flagons of wine and some cold flesh were
brought forth, and Umslopogaas and I drank, and felt life flow back into
our veins as the good red wine went down.
'Hark to me, Nyleptha,' I said, as I put down the empty
tankard. 'Hast thou here among these thy waiting-ladies any two of
discretion?'
'Ay,' she said, 'surely.'
'Then bid them go out by the side entrance to any
citizens whom thou canst bethink thee of as men loyal to thee, and pray
them come armed, with all honest folk that they can gather, to rescue thee
from death. Nay, question not; do as I say, and quickly. Kara here will
let out the maids.'
She turned, and selecting two of the crowd of damsels,
repeated the words I had uttered, giving them besides a list of the names
of the men to whom each should run.
'Go swiftly and secretly; go for your very lives,' I
added.
In another moment they had left with Kara, whom I told
to rejoin us at the door leading from the great courtyard on to the
stairway as soon as he had made fast behind the girls. Thither, too,
Umslopogaas and I made our way, followed by the Queen and her women. As we
went we tore off mouthfuls of food, and between them I told her what I knew
of the danger which encompassed her, and how we found Kara, and how all the
guards and men-servants were gone, and she was alone with her women in that
great place; and she told me, too, that a rumour had spread through the
town that our army had been utterly destroyed, and that Sorais was marching
in triumph on Milosis, and how in consequence thereof all men had fallen
away from her.
Though all this takes some time to tell, we had not been
but six or seven minutes in the palace; and notwithstanding that the golden
roof of the temple being very lofty was ablaze with the rays of the rising
sun, it was not yet dawn, nor would be for another ten minutes. We were in
the courtyard now, and here my wound pained me so that I had to take
Nyleptha's arm, while Umslopogaas rolled along after us, eating as he
went.
Now we were across it, and had reached the narrow
doorway through the palace wall that opened on to the mighty stair.
I looked through and stood aghast, as well I might. The
door was gone, and so were the outer gates of bronze -- entirely gone. They
had been taken from their hinges, and as we afterwards found, hurled from
the stairway to the ground two hundred feet beneath. There in front of us
was the semicircular standing-space, about twice the size of a large oval
dining-table, and the ten curved black marble steps leading on to the main
stair -- and that was all.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW UMSLOPOGAAS HELD THE STAIR
We looked at one another.
'Thou seest,' I said, 'they have taken away the door.
Is there aught with which we may fill the place? Speak quickly for they
will be on us ere the daylight.' I spoke thus, because I knew that we must
hold this place or none, as there were no inner doors in the palace, the
rooms being separated one from another by curtains. I also knew that if we
could by any means defend this doorway the murderers could get in nowhere
else; for the palace is absolutely impregnable, that is, since the secret
door by which Sorais had entered on that memorable night of attempted
murder had, by Nyleptha's order, been closed up with masonry.
'I have it,' said Nyleptha, who, as usual with her, rose
to the emergency in a wonderful way. 'On the farther side of the courtyard
are blocks of cut marble -- the workmen brought them there for the bed of
the new statue of Incubu, my lord; let us block the door with them.'
I jumped at the idea; and having despatched one of the
remaining maidens down the great stair to see if she could obtain
assistance from the docks below, where her father, who was a great merchant
employing many men, had his dwelling-place, and set another to watch
through the doorway, we made our way back across the courtyard to where the
hewn marble lay; and here we met Kara returning from despatching the first
two messengers. There were the marble blocks, sure enough, broad, massive
lumps, some six inches thick, and weighing about eighty pounds each, and
there, too, were a couple of implements like small stretchers, that the
workmen used to carry them on. Without delay we got some of the blocks on
to the stretchers, and four of the girls carried them to the doorway.
'Listen, Macumazahn,' said Umslopogaas, 'if those low
fellows come, it is I who will hold the stair against them till the door is
built up. Nay, nay, it will be a man's death: gainsay me not, old friend.
It has been a good day, let it now be good night. See, I throw myself down
to rest on the marble there; when their footsteps are nigh, wake thou me,
not before, for I need my strength,' and without a word he went outside and
flung himself down on the marble, and was instantly asleep.
At this time, I too was overcome, and was forced to sit
down by the doorway, and content myself with directing operations. The
girls brought the block, while Kara and Nyleptha built them up across the
six-foot-wide doorway, a triple row of them, for less would be useless.
But the marble had to be brought forty yards and then there were forty
yards to run back, and though the girls laboured gloriously, even
staggering along alone, each with a block in her arms, it was slow work,
dreadfully slow.
The light was growing now, and presently, in the
silence, we heard a commotion at the far-bottom of the stair, and the faint
clinking of armed men. As yet the wall was only two feet high, and we had
been eight minutes at the building of it. So they had come. Alphonse had
heard aright.
The clanking sound came nearer, and in the ghostly grey
of the dawning we could make out long files of men, some fifty or so in
all, slowly creeping up the stair. They were now at the half-way standing
place that rested on the great flying arch; and here, perceiving that
something was going on above, they, to our great gain, halted for three or
four minutes and consulted, then slowly and cautiously advanced again.
We had been nearly a quarter of an hour at the work now,
and it was almost three feet high.
Then I woke Umslopogaas. The great man rose, stretched
himself, and swung Inkosi-kaas round his head.
'It is well,' he said. 'I feel as a young man once
more. My strength has come back to me, ay, even as a lamp flares up before
it dies. Fear not, I shall fight a good fight; the wine and the sleep have
put a new heart into me.
'Macumazahn, I have dreamed a dream. I dreamed that
thou and I stood together on a star, and looked down on the world, and thou
wast as a spirit, Macumazahn, for light flamed through thy flesh, but I
could not see what was the fashion of mine own face. The hour has come for
us, old hunter. So be it: we have had our time, but I would that in it I
had seen some more such fights as yesterday's.
'Let them bury me after the fashion of my people,
Macumazahn, and set my eyes towards Zululand;' and he took my hand and
shook it, and then turned to face the advancing foe.
Just then, to my astonishment, the Zu-Vendi officer Kara
clambered over our improvised wall in his quiet, determined sort of way,
and took his stand by the Zulu, unsheathing his sword as he did so.
'What, comest thou too?' laughed out the old warrior.
'Welcome -- a welcome to thee, brave heart! Ow! for the man who can die
like a man; ow! for the death grip and the ringing of steel. Ow! we are
ready. We wet our beaks like eagles, our spears flash in the sun; we shake
our assegais, and are hungry to fight. Who comes to give greeting to the
Chieftainess [Inkosi-kaas]? Who would taste her kiss, whereof the fruit is
death? I, the Woodpecker, I, the Slaughterer, I the Swiftfooted! I,
Umslopogaas, of the tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of Amazulu, a
captain of the regiment of the Nkomabakosi: I, Umslopogaas, the son of
Indabazimbi, the son of Arpi the son of Mosilikaatze, I of the royal blood
of T'Chaka, I of the King's House, I the Ringed Man, I the Induna, I call
to them as a buck calls, I challenge them, I await them. Ow! it is thou,
it is thou!'
As he spake, or rather chanted, his wild war-song, the
armed men, among whom in the growing light I recognized both Nasta and
Agon, came streaming up the stair with a rush, and one big fellow, armed
with a heavy spear, dashed up the ten semicircular steps ahead of his
comrades and struck at the great Zulu with the spear. Umslopogaas moved
his body but not his legs, so that the blow missed him, and next instant
Inkosi-kaas crashed through headpiece, hair and skull, and the man's corpse
was rattling down the steps. As he dropped, his round hippopotamus-hide
shield fell from his hand on to the marble, and the Zulu stooped down and
seized it, still chanting as he did so.
In another second the sturdy Kara had also slain a man,
and then began a scene the like of which has not been known to me.
Up rushed the assailants, one, two, three at a time, and
as fast as they came, the axe crashed and the sword swung, and down they
rolled again, dead or dying. And ever as the fight thickened, the old
Zulu's eye seemed to get quicker and his arm stronger. He shouted out his
war-cries and the names of chiefs whom he had slain, and the blows of his
awful axe rained straight and true, shearing through everything they fell
on. There was none of the scientific method he was so fond of about this
last immortal fight of his; he had no time for it, but struck with his full
strength, and at every stroke a man sank in his tracks, and went rattling
down the marble steps.
They hacked and hewed at him with swords and spears,
wounding him in a dozen places till he streamed red with blood; but the
shield protected his head and the chain-shirt his vitals, and for minute
after minute, aided by the gallant Zu-Vendi, he still held the stair.
At last Kara's sword broke, and he grappled with a foe,
and they rolled down together, and he was cut to pieces, dying like the
brave man that he was.
Umslopogaas was alone now, but he never blenched or
turned. Shouting out some wild Zulu battle-cry, he beat down a foe, ay, and
another, and another, till at last they drew back from the slippery
blood-stained steps, and stared at him with amazement, thinking that he was
no mortal man.
The wall of marble block was four feet six high now, and
hope rose in my teeth as I leaned there against it a miserable helpless
log, and ground my teeth, and watched that glorious struggle. I could do no
more for I had lost my revolver in the battle.
And old Umslopogaas, he leaned too on his good axe, and,
faint as he was with wounds, he mocked them, he called them 'women' -- the
grand old warrior, standing there one against so many! And for a breathing
space none would come against him, notwithstanding Nasta's exhortations,
till at last old Agon, who, to do him justice, was a brave man, mad with
baffled rage, and seeing that the wall would soon be built and his plans
defeated, shook the great spear he held, and rushed up the dripping
steps.
'Ah, ah!' shouted the Zulu, as he recognized the
priest's flowing white beard, 'it is thou, old "witch-finder"! Come on! I
await thee, white "medicine man"; come on! come on! I have sworn to slay
thee, and I ever keep my faith.'
On he came, taking him at his word, and drave the big
spear with such force at Umslopogaas that it sunk right through the tough
shield and pierced him in the neck. The Zulu cast down the transfixed
shield, and that moment was Agon's last, for before he could free his spear
and strike again, with a shout of '_There's for thee, Rain-maker!_'
Umslopogaas gripped Inkosi-kaas with both hands and whirled on high and
drave her right on to his venerable head, so that Agon rolled down dead
among the corpses of his fellow-murderers, and there was an end to him and
his plots altogether. And even as he fell, a great cry rose from the foot
of the stair, and looking out through the portion of the doorway that was
yet unclosed, we saw armed men rushing up to the rescue, and called an
answer to their shouts. Then the would-be murderers who yet remained on
the stairway, and amongst whom I saw several priests, turned to fly, but,
having nowhere to go, were butchered as they fled. Only one man stayed,
and he was the great lord Nasta, Nyleptha's suitor, and the father of the
plot. For a moment the black-bearded Nasta stood with bowed face leaning
on his long sword as though in despair, and then, with a dreadful shout, he
too rushed up at the Zulu, and, swinging the glittering sword around his
head, dealt him such a mighty blow beneath his guard, that the keen steel
of the heavy blade bit right through the chain armour and deep into
Umslopogaas' side, for a moment paralysing him and causing him to drop his
axe.
Raising the sword again, Nasta sprang forward to make an
end of him, but little he knew his foe. With a shake and a yell of fury,
the Zulu gathered himself together and sprang straight at Nasta's throat,
as I have sometimes seen a wounded lion spring. He struck him full as his
foot was on the topmost stair, and his long arms closing round him like
iron bands, down they rolled together struggling furiously. Nasta was a
strong man and a desperate, but he could not match the strongest man in
Zululand, sore wounded though he was, whose strength was as the strength of
a bull. In a minute the end came. I saw old Umslopogaas stagger to his
feet -- ay, and saw him by a single gigantic effort swing up the struggling
Nasta and with a shout of triumph hurl him straight over the parapet of the
bridge, to be crushed to powder on the rocks two hundred feet below.
The succour which had been summoned by the girl who had
passed down the stair before the assassins passed up was at hand, and the
loud shouts which reached us from the outer gates told us that the town was
also aroused, and the men awakened by the women were calling to be
admitted. Some of Nyleptha's brave ladies, who in their night-shifts and
with their long hair streaming down their backs, just as they had been
aroused from rest, went off to admit them at the side entrance, whilst
others, assisted by the rescuing party outside, pushed and pulled down the
marble blocks they had placed there with so much labour.
Soon the wall was down again, and through the doorway,
followed by a crowd of rescuers, staggered old Umslopogaas, an awful and,
in a way, a glorious figure. The man was a mass of wounds, and a glance at
his wild eye told me that he was dying. The 'keshla' gum-ring upon his
head was severed in two places by sword-cuts, one just over the curious
hole in his skull, and the blood poured down his face from the gashes.
Also on the right side of his neck was a stab from a spear, inflicted by
Agon; there was a deep cut on his left arm just below where the mail
shirt-sleeve stopped, and on the right side of his body the armour was
severed by a gash six inches long, where Nasta's mighty sword had bitten
through it and deep into its wearer's vitals.
On, axe in hand, he staggered, that dreadful-looking,
splendid savage, and the ladies forgot to turn faint at the scene of blood,
and cheered him, as well they might, but he never stayed or heeded. With
outstretched arms and tottering gait he pursued his way, followed by us all
along the broad shell-strewn walk that ran through the courtyard, past the
spot where the blocks of marble lay, through the round arched doorway and
the thick curtains that hung within it, down the short passage and into the
great hall, which was now filling with hastily-armed men, who poured
through the side entrance. Straight up the hall he went, leaving behind
him a track of blood on the marble pavement, till at last he reached the
sacred stone, which stood in the centre of it, and here his strength seemed
to fail him, for he stopped and leaned upon his axe. Then suddenly he
lifted up his voice and cried aloud --
'I die, I die -- but it was a kingly fray. Where are
they who came up the great stair? I see them not. Art thou there,
Macumazahn, or art thou gone before to wait for me in the dark whither I
go? The blood blinds me -- the place turns round -- I hear the voice of
waters.'
Next, as though a new thought had struck him, he lifted
the red axe and kissed the blade.
'Farewell, Inkosi-kaas,' he cried. 'Nay, nay, we will
go together; we cannot part, thou and I. We have lived too long one with
another, thou and I.
'One more stroke, only one! A good stroke! a straight
stroke! a strong stroke!' and, drawing himself to his full height, with a
wild heart-shaking shout, he with both hands began to whirl the axe round
his head till it looked like a circle of flaming steel. Then, suddenly,
with awful force he brought it down straight on to the crown of the mass of
sacred stone. A shower of sparks flew up, and such was the almost
superhuman strength of the blow, that the massive marble split with a
rending sound into a score of pieces, whilst of Inkosi-kaas there remained
but some fragments of steel and a fibrous rope of shattered horn that had
been the handle. Down with a crash on to the pavement fell the fragments
of the holy stone, and down with a crash on to them, still grasping the
knob of Inkosi-kaas, fell the brave old Zulu -- dead.
And thus the hero died.
A gasp of wonder and astonishment rose from all those
who witnessed the extraordinary sight, and then somebody cried, '_The
prophecy! the prophecy!_ He has shattered the sacred stone!' and at once a
murmuring arose.
'Ay,' said Nyleptha, with that quick wit which
distinguishes her. 'Ay, my people, he has shattered the stone, and behold
the prophecy is fulfilled, for a stranger king rules in Zu-Vendis. Incubu,
my lord, hath beat Sorais back, and I fear her no more, and to him who hath
saved the Crown it shall surely be. And this man,' she said, turning to me
and laying her hand upon my shoulder, 'wot ye that, though wounded in the
fight of yesterday, he rode with that old warrior who lies there, one
hundred miles 'twixt sun set and rise to save me from the plots of cruel
men. Ay, and he has saved me, by a very little, and therefore because of
the deeds that they have done -- deeds of glory such as our history cannot
show the like -- therefore I say that the name of Macumazahn and the name
of dead Umslopogaas, ay, and the name of Kara, my servant, who aided him to
hold the stair, shall be blazoned in letters of gold above my throne, and
shall be glorious for ever while the land endures. I, the Queen, have said
it.'
This spirited speech was met with loud cheering, and I
said that after all we had only done our duty, as it is the fashion of both
Englishmen and Zulus to do, and there was nothing to make an outcry about;
at which they cheered still more, and then I was supported across the outer
courtyard to my old quarters, in order that I might be put to bed. As I
went, my eyes lit upon the brave horse Daylight that lay there, his white
head outstretched on the pavement, exactly as he had fallen on entering the
yard; and I bade those who supported me take me near him, that I might look
on the good beast once more before he was dragged away. And as I looked,
to my astonishment he opened his eyes and, lifting his head a little,
whinnied faintly. I could have shouted for joy to find that he was not
dead, only unfortunately I had not a shout left in me; but as it was,
grooms were sent for and he was lifted up and wine poured down his throat,
and in a fortnight he was as well and strong as ever, and is the pride and
joy of all the people of Milosis, who, whenever they see him, point him out
to the little children as the 'horse which saved the White Queen's
life'.
Then I went on and got off to bed, and was washed and
had my mail shirt removed. They hurt me a great deal in getting it off,
and no wonder, for on my left breast and side was a black bruise the size
of a saucer.
The next thing that I remember was the tramp of horsemen
outside the palace wall, some ten hours later. I raised myself and asked
what was the news, and they told me that a large body of cavalry sent by
Curtis to assist the Queen had arrived from the scene of the battle, which
they had left two hours after sundown. When they left, the wreck of Sorais'
army was in full retreat upon M'Arstuna, followed by all our effective
cavalry. Sir Henry was encamping the remains of his worn-out forces on the
site (such is the fortune of war) that Sorais had occupied the night
before, and proposed marching to M'Arstuna on the morrow. Having heard
this, I felt that I could die with a light heart, and then everything
became a blank.
When next I awoke the first thing I saw was the round
disc of a sympathetic eyeglass, behind which was Good.
'How are you getting on, old chap?' said a voice from
the neighbourhood of the eyeglass.
'What are you doing here?' I asked faintly. 'You ought
to be at M'Arstuna -- have you run away, or what?'
'M'Arstuna,' he replied cheerfully. 'Ah, M'Arstuna fell
last week -- you've been unconscious for a fortnight, you see -- with all
the honours of war, you know -- trumpets blowing, flags flying, just as
though they had had the best of it; but for all that, weren't they glad to
go. Israel made for his tents, I can tell you -- never saw such a sight in
my life.'
'And Sorais?' I asked.
'Sorais -- oh, Sorais is a prisoner; they gave her up,
the scoundrels,' he added, with a change of tone -- 'sacrificed the Queen
to save their skins, you see. She is being brought up here, and I don't
know what will happen to her, poor soul!' and he sighed.
'Where is Curtis?' I asked.
'He is with Nyleptha. She rode out to meet us today,
and there was a grand to-do, I can tell you. He is coming to see you
tomorrow; the doctors (for there is a medical "faculty" in Zu-Vendis as
elsewhere) thought that he had better not come today.'
I said nothing, but somehow I thought to myself that
notwithstanding the doctors he might have given me a look; but there, when
a man is newly married and has just gained a great victory, he is apt to
listen to the advice of doctors, and quite right too.
Just then I heard a familiar voice informing me that
'Monsieur must now couch himself,' and looking up perceived Alphonse's
enormous black mustachios curling away in the distance.
'So you are here?' I said.
'Mais oui, Monsieur; the war is now finished, my
military instincts are satisfied, and I return to nurse Monsieur.'
I laughed, or rather tried to; but whatever may have
been Alphonse's failings as a warrior (and I fear that he did not come up
to the level of his heroic grandfather in this particular, showing thereby
how true is the saying that it is a bad thing to be overshadowed by some
great ancestral name), a better or kinder nurse never lived. Poor
Alphonse! I hope he will always think of me as kindly as I think of
him.
On the morrow I saw Curtis and Nyleptha with him, and he
told me the whole history of what had happened since Umslopogaas and I
galloped wildly away from the battle to save the life of the Queen. It
seemed to me that he had managed the thing exceedingly well, and showed
great ability as a general. Of course, however, our loss had been
dreadfully heavy -- indeed, I am afraid to say how many perished in the
desperate battle I have described, but I know that the slaughter has
appreciably affected the male population of the country. He was very
pleased to see me, dear fellow that he is, and thanked me with tears in his
eyes for the little that I had been able to do. I saw him, however, start
violently when his eyes fell upon my face.
As for Nyleptha, she was positively radiant now that
'her dear lord' had come back with no other injury than an ugly scar on his
forehead. I do not believe that she allowed all the fearful slaughter that
had taken place to weigh ever so little in the balance against this one
fact, or even to greatly diminish her joy; and I cannot blame her for it,
seeing that it is the nature of loving woman to look at all things through
the spectacles of her love, and little does she reck of the misery of the
many if the happiness of the one be assured. That is human nature,
which the Positivists tell us is just perfection; so no doubt it is all
right.
'And what art thou going to do with Sorais?' I asked
her.
Instantly her bright brow darkened to a frown.
'Sorais,' she said, with a little stamp of the foot;
'ah, but Sorais!'
Sir Henry hastened to turn the subject.
'You will soon be about and all right again now, old
fellow,' he said.
I shook my head and laughed.
'Don't deceive yourselves,' I said. 'I may be about for
a little, but I shall never be all right again. I am a dying man, Curtis.
I may die slow, but die I must. Do you know I have been spitting blood all
the morning? I tell you there is something working away into my lung; I
can feel it. There, don't look distressed; I have had my day, and am ready
to go. Give me the mirror, will you? I want to look at myself.'
He made some excuse, but I saw through it and insisted,
and at last he handed me one of the discs of polished silver set in a
wooden frame like a hand-screen, which serve as looking-glasses in
Zu-Vendis. I looked and put it down.
'Ah,' I said quietly, 'I thought so; and you talk of my
getting all right!' I did not like to let them see how shocked I really
was at my own appearance. My grizzled stubby hair was turned snow-white,
and my yellow face was shrunk like an aged woman's and had two deep purple
rings painted beneath the eyes.
Here Nyleptha began to cry, and Sir Henry again turned
the subject, telling me that the artists had taken a cast of the dead body
of old Umslopogaas, and that a great statue in black marble was to be
erected of him in the act of splitting the sacred stone, which was to be
matched by another statue in white marble of myself and the horse Daylight
as he appeared when, at the termination of that wild ride, he sank beneath
me in the courtyard of the palace. I have since seen these statues, which
at the time of writing this, six months after the battle, are nearly
finished; and very beautiful they are, especially that of Umslopogaas,
which is exactly like him. As for that of myself, it is good, but they
have idealized my ugly face a little, which is perhaps as well, seeing that
thousands of people will probably look at it in the centuries to come, and
it is not pleasant to look at ugly things.
Then they told me that Umslopogaas' last wish had been
carried out, and that, instead of being cremated, as I shall be, after the
usual custom here, he had been tied up, Zulu fashion, with his knees
beneath his chin, and, having been wrapped in a thin sheet of beaten gold,
entombed in a hole hollowed out of the masonry of the semicircular space at
the top of the stair he defended so splendidly, which faces, as far as we
can judge, almost exactly towards Zululand. There he sits, and will sit
for ever, for they embalmed him with spices, and put him in an air-tight
stone coffer, keeping his grim watch beneath the spot he held alone against
a multitude; and the people say that at night his ghost rises and stands
shaking the phantom of Inkosi-kaas at phantom foes. Certainly they fear
during the dark hours to pass the place where the hero is buried.
Oddly enough, too, a new legend or prophecy has arisen
in the land in that unaccountable way in which such things to arise among
barbarous and semi-civilized people, blowing, like the wind, no man knows
whence. According to this saying, so long as the old Zulu sits there,
looking down the stairway he defended when alive, so long will the New
House of the Stairway, springing from the union of the Englishman and
Nyleptha, endure and flourish; but when he is taken from thence, or when,
ages after, his bones at last crumble into dust, the House will fall, and
the Stairway shall fall, and the Nation of the Zu-Vendi shall cease to be a
Nation.
CHAPTER XXIII
I HAVE SPOKEN
It was a week after Nyleptha's visit, when I had begun
to get about a little in the middle of the day, that a message came to me
from Sir Henry to say that Sorais would be brought before them in the
Queen's first antechamber at midday, and requesting my attendance if
possible. Accordingly, greatly drawn by curiosity to see this unhappy
woman once more, I made shift, with the help of that kind little fellow
Alphonse, who is a perfect treasure to me, and that of another waiting-man,
to reach the antechamber. I got there, indeed, before anybody else, except
a few of the great Court officials who had been bidden to be present, but I
had scarcely seated myself before Sorais was brought in by a party of
guards, looking as beautiful and defiant as ever, but with a worn
expression on her proud face. She was, as usual, dressed in her royal
'kaf', emblazoned with the emblem of the Sun, and in her right hand she
still held the toy spear of silver. A pang of admiration and pity went
through me as I looked at her, and struggling to my feet I bowed deeply, at
the same time expressing my sorrow that I was not able, owing to my
condition, to remain standing before her.
She coloured a little and then laughed bitterly. 'Thou
dost forget, Macumazahn,' she said, 'I am no more a Queen, save in blood; I
am an outcast and a prisoner, one whom all men should scorn, and none show
deference to.'
'At least,' I replied, 'thou art still a lady, and
therefore one to whom deference is due. Also, thou art in an evil case,
and therefore it is doubly due.'
'Ah!' she answered, with a little laugh, 'thou dost
forget that I would have wrapped thee in a sheet of gold and hung thee to
the angel's trumpet at the topmost pinnacle of the Temple.'
'No,' I answered, 'I assure thee that I forgot it not;
indeed, I often thought of it when it seemed to me that the battle of the
Pass was turning against us; but the trumpet is there, and I am still here,
though perchance not for long, so why talk of it now?'
'Ah!' she went on, 'the battle! the battle! Oh, would
that I were once more a Queen, if only for one little hour, and I would
take such a vengeance on those accursed jackals who deserted me in my need;
that it should only be spoken of in whispers; those woman, those
pigeon-hearted half-breeds who suffered themselves to be overcome!' and she
choked in her wrath.
'Ay, and that little coward beside thee,' she went on,
pointing at Alphonse with the silver spear, whereat he looked very
uncomfortable; 'he escaped and betrayed my plans. I tried to make a
general of him, telling the soldiers it was Bougwan, and to scourge valour
into him' (here Alphonse shivered at some unhappy recollection), 'but it
was of no avail. He hid beneath a banner in my tent and thus overheard my
plans. I would that I had slain him, but, alas! I held my hand.
'And thou, Macumazahn, I have heard of what thou didst;
thou art brave, and hast a loyal heart. And the black one too, ah, he was
a man. I would fain have seen him hurl Nasta from the
stairway.'
'Thou art a strange woman, Sorais,' I said; 'I pray thee
now plead with the Queen Nyleptha, that perchance she may show mercy unto
thee.'
She laughed out loud. 'I plead for mercy!' she said and
at that moment the Queen entered, accompanied by Sir Henry and Good, and
took her seat with an impassive face. As for poor Good, he looked
intensely ill at ease.
'Greeting, Sorais!' said Nyleptha, after a short pause.
'Thou hast rent the kingdom like a rag, thou hast put thousands of my
people to the sword, thou hast twice basely plotted to destroy my life by
murder, thou hast sworn to slay my lord and his companions and to hurl me
from the Stairway. What hast thou to say why thou shouldst not die?
Speak, O Sorais!'
'Methinks my sister the Queen hath forgotten the chief
count of the indictment,' answered Sorais in her slow musical tones. 'It
runs thus: "Thou didst strive to win the love of my lord Incubu." It is
for this crime that my sister will slay me, not because I levied war. It
is perchance happy for thee, Nyleptha, that I fixed my mind upon his love
too late.
'Listen,' she went on, raising her voice. 'I have
nought to say save that I would I had won instead of lost. Do thou with me
even as thou wilt, O Queen, and let my lord the King there' (pointing to
Sir Henry) -- 'for now will he be King -- carry out the sentence, as it is
meet he should, for as he is the beginning of the evil, let him also be the
end.' And she drew herself up and shot one angry glance at him from her
deep fringed eyes, and then began to toy with her spear.
Sir Henry bent towards Nyleptha and whispered something
that I could not catch, and then the Queen spoke.
'Sorais, ever have I been a good sister to thee. When
our father died, and there was much talk in the land as to whether thou
shouldst sit upon the throne with me, I being the elder, I gave my voice
for thee and said, "Nay, let her sit. She is twin with me; we were born at
a birth; wherefore should the one be preferred before the other?" And so
has it ever been 'twixt thee and me, my sister. But now thou knowest in
what sort thou hast repaid me, but I have prevailed, and thy life is
forfeit, Sorais. And yet art thou my sister, born at a birth with me, and
we played together when we were little and loved each other much, and at
night we slept in the same cot with our arms each around the other's neck,
and therefore even now does my heart go out to thee, Sorais.
'But not for that would I spare thy life, for thy
offence has been too heavy; it doth drag down the wide wings of my mercy
even to the ground. Also, while thou dost live the land will never be at
peace.
'Yet shalt thou not die, Sorais, because my dear lord
here hath begged thy life of me as a boon; therefore as a boon and as a
marriage gift give I it to him, to do with even as he wills, knowing that,
though thou dost love him, he loves thee not, Sorais, for all thy beauty.
Nay, though thou art lovely as the night in all her stars, O Lady of the
Night, yet it is me his wife whom he loves, and not thee, and therefore do
I give thy life to him.'
Sorais flushed up to her eyes and said nothing, and I do
not think that I ever saw a man look more miserable than did Sir Henry at
that moment. Somehow, Nyleptha's way of putting the thing, though true and
forcible enough, was not altogether pleasant.
'I understand,' stammered Curtis, looking at Good, 'I
understood that he were attached -- eh -- attached to -- to the Queen
Sorais. I am -- eh -- not aware what the -- in short, the state of your
feelings may be just now; but if they happened to be that way inclined, it
has struck me that -- in short, it might put a satisfactory end to an
unpleasant business. The lady also has ample private estates, where I am
sure she would be at liberty to live unmolested as far as we are concerned,
eh, Nyleptha? Of course, I only suggest.'
'So far as I am concerned,' said Good, colouring up, 'I
am quite willing to forget the past; and if the Lady of the Night thinks me
worth the taking I will marry her tomorrow, or when she likes, and try to
make her a good husband.'
All eyes were now turned to Sorais, who stood with that
same slow smile upon her beautiful face which I had noticed the first time
that I ever saw her. She paused a little while, and cleared her throat,
and then thrice she curtseyed low, once to Nyleptha, once to Curtis, and
once to Good, and began to speak in measured tones.
'I thank thee, most gracious Queen and royal sister, for
the loving-kindness thou hast shown me from my youth up, and especially in
that thou hast been pleased to give my person and my fate as a gift to the
Lord Incubu -- the King that is to be. May prosperity, peace and plenty
deck the life-path of one so merciful and so tender, even as flowers do.
Long mayst thou reign, O great and glorious Queen, and hold thy husband's
love in both thy hands, and many be the sons and daughters of thy beauty.
And I thank thee, my Lord Incubu -- the King that is to be -- I thank thee
a thousand times in that thou hast been pleased to accept that gracious
gift, and to pass it on to thy comrade in arms and in adventure, the Lord
Bougwan. Surely the act is worthy of thy greatness, my Lord Incubu. And
now, lastly, I thank thee also, my Lord Bougwan, who in thy turn hast
deigned to accept me and my poor beauty. I thank thee a thousand times,
and I will add that thou art a good and honest man, and I put my hand upon
my heart and swear that I would that I could say thee "yea". And now that
I have rendered thanks to all in turn' -- and again she smiled -- 'I will
add one short word.
'Little can you understand of me, Queen Nyleptha and my
lords, if ye know not that for me there is no middle path; that I scorn
your pity and hate you for it; that I cast off your forgiveness as though
it were a serpent's sting; and that standing here, betrayed, deserted,
insulted, and alone, I yet triumph over you, mock you, and defy you, one
and all, and thus I answer you.' And then, of a sudden, before
anybody guessed what she intended to do, she drove the little silver spear
she carried in her hand into her side with such a strong and steady aim
that the keen point projected through her back, and she fell prone upon the
pavement.
Nyleptha shrieked, and poor Good almost fainted at the
sight, while the rest of us rushed towards her. But Sorais of the Night
lifted herself upon her hand, and for a moment fixed her glorious eyes
intently on Curtis' face, as though there were some message in the glance,
then dropped her head and sighed, and with a sob her dark but splendid
spirit passed.
Well, they gave her a royal funeral, and there was an
end of her.
It was a month after the last act of the Sorais tragedy
that a great ceremony was held in the Flower Temple, and Curtis was
formally declared King-Consort of Zu-Vendis. I was too ill to go myself;
and indeed, I hate all that sort of thing, with the crowds and the
trumpet-blowing and banner-waving; but Good, who was there (in his
full-dress uniform), came back much impressed, and told me that Nyleptha
had looked lovely, and Curtis had borne himself in a right royal fashion,
and had been received with acclamations that left no doubt as to his
popularity. Also he told me that when the horse Daylight was led along in
the procession, the populace had shouted 'Macumazahn, Macumazahn!'
till they were hoarse, and would only be appeased when he, Good, rose in
his chariot and told them that I was too ill to be present.
Afterwards, too, Sir Henry, or rather the King, came to
see me, looking very tired, and vowing that he had never been so bored in
his life; but I dare say that that was a slight exaggeration. It is not in
human nature that a man should be altogether bored on such an extraordinary
occasion; and, indeed, as I pointed out to him, it was a marvellous thing
that a man, who but little more than one short year before had entered a
great country as an unknown wanderer, should today be married to its
beautiful and beloved Queen, and lifted, amidst public rejoicings, to its
throne. I even went the length to exhort him in the future not to be
carried away by the pride and pomp of absolute power, but always to strive
to remember that he was first a Christian gentleman, and next a public
servant, called by Providence to a great and almost unprecedented trust.
These remarks, which he might fairly have resented, he was so good as to
receive with patience, and even to thank me for making them.
It was immediately after this ceremony that I caused
myself to be moved to the house where I am now writing. It is a very
pleasant country seat, situated about two miles from the Frowning City, on
to which it looks. That was five months ago, during the whole of which
time I have, being confined to a kind of couch, employed my leisure in
compiling this history of our wanderings from my journal and from our joint
memories. It is probable that it will never be read, but it does not much
matter whether it is or not; at any rate, it has served to while away many
hours of suffering, for I have suffered a deal of pain lately. Thank God,
however, there will not be much more of it.
It is a week since I wrote the above, and now I take up
my pen for the last time, for I know that the end is at hand. My brain is
still clear and I can manage to write, though with difficulty. The pain in
my lung, which has been very bad during the last week, has suddenly quite
left me, and been succeeded by a feeling of numbness of which I cannot
mistake the meaning. And just as the pain has gone, so with it all fear of
that end has departed, and I feel only as though I were going to sink into
the arms of an unutterable rest. Happily, contentedly, and with the same
sense of security with which an infant lays itself to sleep in its mother's
arms, do I lay myself down in the arms of the Angel Death. All the
tremors, all the heart-shaking fears which have haunted me through a life
that seems long as I looked back upon it, have left me now; the storms have
passed, and the Star of our Eternal Hope shines clear and steady on the
horizon that seems so far from man, and yet is so very near to me
tonight.
And so this is the end of it -- a brief space of
troubling, a few restless, fevered, anguished years, and then the arms of
that great Angel Death. Many times have I been near to them, and now it is
my turn at last, and it is well. Twenty-four hours more and the world will
be gone from me, and with it all its hopes and all its fears. The air will
close in over the space that my form filled and my place know me no more;
for the dull breath of the world's forgetfulness will first dim the
brightness of my memory, and then blot it out for ever, and of a truth I
shall be dead. So is it with us all. How many millions have lain as I
lie, and thought these thoughts and been forgotten! -- thousands upon
thousands of years ago they thought them, those dying men of the dim past;
and thousands on thousands of years hence will their descendants think them
and be in their turn forgotten. 'As the breath of the oxen in winter, as
the quick star that runs along the sky, as a little shadow that loses
itself at sunset,' as I once heard a Zulu called Ignosi put it, such is the
order of our life, the order that passeth away.
Well, it is not a good world -- nobody can say that it
is, save those who wilfully blind themselves to facts. How can a world be
good in which Money is the moving power, and Self-interest the guiding
star? The wonder is not that it is so bad, but that there should be any
good left in it.
Still, now that my life is over, I am glad to have
lived, glad to have known the dear breath of woman's love, and that true
friendship which can even surpass the love of woman, glad to have heard the
laughter of little children, to have seen the sun and the moon and the
stars, to have felt the kiss of the salt sea on my face, and watched the
wild game trek down to the water in the moonlight. But I should not wish
to live again!
Everything is changing to me. The darkness draws near,
and the light departs. And yet it seems to me that through that darkness I
can already see the shining welcome of many a long-lost face. Harry is
there, and others; one above all, to my mind the sweetest and most perfect
woman that ever gladdened this grey earth. But of her I have already
written elsewhere, and at length, so why speak of her now? Why speak of
her after this long silence, now that she is again so near to me, now that
I go where she has gone?
The sinking sun is turning the golden roof of the great
Temple to a fiery flame, and my fingers tire.
So to all who have known me, or known of me, to all who
can think one kindly thought of the old hunter, I stretch out my hand from
the far-off shore and bid a long farewell.
And now into the hands of Almighty God, who sent it, do
I commit my spirit.
'I have spoken,' as the Zulus say.
CHAPTER XXIV
BY ANOTHER HAND
A year has elapsed since our most dear friend Allan
Quatermain wrote the words 'I have spoken' at the end of his record
of our adventures. Nor should I have ventured to make any additions to the
record had it not happened that by a most strange accident a chance has
arisen of its being conveyed to England. The chance is but a faint one, it
is true; but, as it is not probable that another will arise in our
lifetimes, Good and myself think that we may as well avail ourselves of it,
such as it is. During the last six months several Frontier Commissions
have been at work on the various boundaries of Zu-Vendis, with a view of
discovering whether there exists any possible means of ingress or egress
from the country, with the result that a channel of communication with the
outer world hitherto overlooked has been discovered. This channel,
apparently the only one (for I have discovered that it was by it that the
native who ultimately reached Mr Mackenzie's mission station, and whose
arrival in the country, together with the fact of his expulsion -- for he
did arrive about three years before ourselves -- was for reasons of
their own kept a dead secret by the priests to whom he was brought), is
about to be effectually closed. But before this is done, a messenger is to
be despatched bearing with him this manuscript, and also one or two letters
from Good to his friends, and from myself to my brother George, whom it
deeply grieves me to think I shall never see again, informing them, as our
next heirs, that they are welcome to our effects in England, if the Court
of Probate will allow them to take them 22,
inasmuchas we have made up our minds never to return to Europe. Indeed, it
would be impossible for us to leave Zu-Vendis even if we wished to do
so.
The messenger who is to go -- and I wish him joy of his
journey -- is Alphonse. For a long while he has been wearied to death of
Zu-Vendis and its inhabitants. 'Oh, oui, c'est beau,' he says, with an
expressive shrug; 'mais je m'ennuie; ce n'est pas chic.' Again, he
complains dreadfully of the absence of cafes and theatres, and moans
continually for his lost Annette, of whom he says he dreams three times a
week. But I fancy his secret cause of disgust at the country, putting
aside the homesickness to which every Frenchman is subject, is that the
people here laugh at him so dreadfully about his conduct on the occasion of
the great battle of the Pass about eighteen months ago, when he hid beneath
a banner in Sorais's tent in order to avoid being sent forth to fight,
which he says would have gone against his conscience. Even the little boys
call out at him in the streets, thereby offending his pride and making his
life unbearable. At any rate, he has determined to brave the horrors of a
journey of almost unprecedented difficulty and danger, and also to run the
risk of falling into the hands of the French police to answer for a certain
little indiscretion of his own some years old (though I do not consider
that a very serious matter), rather than remain in ce triste pays. Poor
Alphonse! we shall be very sorry to part with him; but I sincerely trust,
for his own sake and also for the sake of this history, which is, I think,
worth giving to the world, that he may arrive in safety. If he does, and
can carry the treasure we have provided him with in the shape of bars of
solid gold, he will be, comparatively speaking, a rich man for life, and
well able to marry his Annette, if she is still in the land of the living
and willing to marry her Alphonse.
Anyhow, on the chance, I may as well add a word or two
to dear old Quatermain's narrative.
He died at dawn on the day following that on which he
wrote the last words of the last chapter. Nyleptha, Good and myself were
present, and a most touching and yet in its way beautiful scene it was. An
hour before the daybreak it became apparent to us that he was sinking, and
our distress was very keen. Indeed, Good melted into tears at the idea --
a fact that called forth a last gentle flicker of humour from our dying
friend, for even at that hour he could be humorous. Good's emotion had, by
loosening the muscles, naturally caused his eyeglass to fall from its
accustomed place, and Quatermain, who always observed everything, observed
this also.
'At last,' he gasped, with an attempt at a smile, 'I
have seen Good without his eyeglass.'
After that he said no more till the day broke, when he
asked to be lifted up to watch the rising of the sun for the last time.
'In a very few minutes,' he said, after gazing earnestly
at it, 'I shall have passed through those golden gates.'
Ten minutes afterwards he raised himself and looked us
fixedly in the face.
'I am going a stranger journey than any we have ever
taken together. Think of me sometimes,' he murmured. 'God bless you all. I
shall wait for you.' And with a sigh he fell back dead.
And so passed away a character that I consider went as
near perfection as any it has ever been my lot to encounter.
Tender, constant, humorous, and possessing of many of
the qualities that go to make a poet, he was yet almost unrivalled as a man
of action and a citizen of the world. I never knew any one so competent to
form an accurate judgment of men and their motives. 'I have studied human
nature all my life,' he would say, 'and I ought to know something about
it,' and he certainly did. He had but two faults -- one was his excessive
modesty, and the other a slight tendency which he had to be jealous of
anybody on whom he concentrated his affections. As regards the first of
these points, anybody who reads what he has written will be able to form
his own opinion; but I will add one last instance of it.
As the reader will doubtless remember, it is a favourite
trick of his to talk of himself as a timid man, whereas really, though very
cautious, he possessed a most intrepid spirit, and, what is more, never
lost his head. Well, in the great battle of the Pass, where he got the
wound that finally killed him, one would imagine from the account which he
gives of the occurrence that it was a chance blow that fell on him in the
scrimmage. As a matter of fact, however, he was wounded in a most gallant
and successful attempt to save Good's life, at the risk and, as it
ultimately turned out, at the cost of his own. Good was down on the
ground, and one of Nasta's highlanders was about to dispatch him, when
Quatermain threw himself on to his prostrate form and received the blow on
his own body, and then, rising, killed the soldier.
As regards his jealousy, a single instance which I give
in justice to myself and Nyleptha will suffice. The reader will, perhaps,
recollect that in one or two places he speaks as though Nyleptha
monopolized me, and he was left by both of us rather out in the cold. Now
Nyleptha is not perfect, any more than any other woman is, and she may be a
little exigeante at times, but as regards Quatermain the whole thing is
pure imagination. Thus when he complains about my not coming to see him
when he is ill, the fact was that, in spite of my entreaties, the doctors
positively forbade it. Those little remarks of his pained me very much
when I read them, for I loved Quatermain as dearly as though he were my own
father, and should never have dreamed of allowing my marriage to interfere
with that affection. But let it pass; it is, after all, but one little
weakness, which makes no great show among so many and such lovable
virtues.
Well, he died, and Good read the Burial Service over him
in the presence of Nyleptha and myself; and then his remains were, in
deference to the popular clamour, accorded a great public funeral, or
rather cremation. I could not help thinking, however, as I marched in that
long and splendid procession up to the Temple, how he would have hated the
whole thing could he have been there to see it, for he had a horror of
ostentation.
And so, a few minutes before sunset, on the third night
after his death, they laid him on the brazen flooring before the altar, and
waited for the last ray of the setting sun to fall upon his face.
Presently it came, and struck him like a golden arrow, crowning the pale
brows with glory, and then the trumpets blew, and the flooring revolved,
and all that remained of our beloved friend fell into the furnace
below.
We shall never see his like again if we live a hundred
years. He was the ablest man, the truest gentleman, the firmest friend, the
finest sportsman, and, I believe, the best shot in all Africa.
And so ended the very remarkable and adventurous life of
Hunter Quatermain.
Since then things have gone very well with us. Good has
been, and still is, busily employed in the construction of a navy on Lake
Milosis and another of the large lakes, by means of which we hope to be
able to increase trade and commerce, and also to overcome some very
troublesome and warlike sections of the population who live upon their
borders. Poor fellow! he is beginning to get over the sad death of that
misguided but most attractive woman, Sorais, but it is a sad blow to him,
for he was really deeply attached to her. I hope, however, that he will in
time make a suitable marriage and get that unhappy business out of his
head. Nyleptha has one or two young ladies in view, especially a daughter
of Nasta's (who was a widower), a very fine imperial-looking girl, but with
too much of her father's intriguing, and yet haughty, spirit to suit my
taste.
As for myself, I should scarcely know where to begin if
I set to work to describe my doings, so I had best leave them undescribed,
and content myself with saying that, on the whole, I am getting on very
well in my curious position of King-Consort -- better, indeed, than I had
any right to expect. But, of course, it is not all plain sailing, and I
find the responsibilities very heavy. Still, I hope to be able to do some
good in my time, and I intend to devote myself to two great ends -- namely,
to the consolidation of the various clans which together make up the
Zu-Vendi people, under one strong central government, and to the sapping of
the power of the priesthood. The first of these reforms will, if it can be
carried out, put an end to the disastrous civil wars that have for
centuries devastated this country; and the second, besides removing a
source of political danger, will pave the road for the introduction of true
religion in the place of this senseless Sun worship. I yet hope to see the
shadow of the Cross of Christ lying on the golden dome of the Flower
Temple; or, if I do not, that my successors may.
There is one more thing that I intend to devote myself
to, and that is the total exclusion of all foreigners from Zu-Vendis. Not,
indeed, that any more are ever likely to get here, but if they do, I warn
them fairly that they will be shown the shortest way out of the country. I
do not say this from any sense of inhospitality, but because I am convinced
of the sacred duty that rests upon me of preserving to this, on the whole,
upright and generous-hearted people the blessings of comparative barbarism.
Where would all my brave army be if some enterprising rascal were to attack
us with field-guns and Martini-Henrys? I cannot see that gunpowder,
telegraphs, steam, daily newspapers, universal suffrage, etc., etc., have
made mankind one whit the happier than they used to be, and I am certain
that they have brought many evils in their train. I have no fancy for
handing over this beautiful country to be torn and fought for by
speculators, tourists, politicians and teachers, whose voice is as the
voice of Babel, just as those horrible creatures in the valley of the
underground river tore and fought for the body of the wild swan; nor will I
endow it with the greed, drunkenness, new diseases, gunpowder, and general
demoralization which chiefly mark the progress of civilization amongst
unsophisticated peoples. If in due course it pleases Providence to throw
Zu-Vendis open to the world, that is another matter; but of myself I will
not take the responsibility, and I may add that Good entirely approves of
my decision. Farewell.
Henry Curtis
December 15, 18--.
PS -- I quite forgot to say that about nine months ago
Nyleptha (who is very well and, in my eyes at any rate, more beautiful than
ever) presented me with a son and heir. He is a regular curly-haired,
blue-eyed young Englishman in looks, and, though he is destined, if he
lives, to inherit the throne of Zu-Vendis, I hope I may be able to bring
him up to become what an English gentleman should be, and generally is --
which is to my mind even a prouder and a finer thing than being born heir
apparent to the great House of the Stairway, and, indeed, the highest rank
that a man can reach upon this earth.
H. C.
NOTE BY GEORGE CURTIS, Esq.
The MS of this history, addressed to me in the
handwriting of my dear brother Henry Curtis, whom we had given up for dead,
and bearing the Aden postmark, reached me in safety on December 20, 18--,
or a little more than two years after it left his hands in the far centre
of Africa, and I hasten to give the astonishing story it contains to the
world. Speaking for myself, I have read it with very mixed feelings; for
though it is a great relief to know that he and Good are alive and
strangely prosperous, I cannot but feel that for me and for all their
friends they might as well be dead, since we can never hope to see them
more.
They have cut themselves off from old England and from
their homes and their relations for ever, and perhaps, under the
circumstances, they were right and wise to do so.
How the MS came to be posted I have been quite unable to
discover; but I presume, from the fact of its being posted at all, that the
little Frenchman, Alphonse, accomplished his hazardous journey in safety.
I have, however, advertised for him and caused various inquiries to be made
in Marseilles and elsewhere with a view of discovering his whereabouts, but
so far without the slightest success. Possibly he is dead, and the packet
was posted by another hand; or possibly he is now happily wedded to his
Annette, but still fears the vengeance of the law, and prefers to remain
incognito. I cannot say, I have not yet abandoned my hopes of finding him,
but I am bound to say that they grow fainter day by day, and one great
obstacle to my search is that nowhere in the whole history does Mr
Quatermain mention his surname. He is always spoken of as 'Alphonse', and
there are so many Alphonses. The letters which my brother Henry says he is
sending with the packet of manuscript have never arrived, so I presume that
they are lost or destroyed.
George Curtis
AUTHORITIES
A novelist is not usually asked, like a historian, for
his 'Quellen'. As I have, however, judging from certain experiences in the
past, some reason to anticipate such a demand, I wish to acknowledge my
indebtedness to Mr Thomson's admirable history of travel 'Through Masai
Land' for much information as to the habits and customs of the tribes
inhabiting that portion of the East Coast, and the country where they live;
also to my brother, John G. Haggard, RN, HBM's consul at Madagascar, and
formerly consul at Lamu, for many details furnished by him of the mode of
life and war of those engaging people the Masai; also to my sister-in-law,
Mrs John Haggard, who kindly put the lines of p. 183 into rhyme for me;
also to an extract in a review from some book of travel of which I cannot
recollect the name, to which I owe the idea of the great crabs in the
valley of the subterranean river. 23 But if I
remember right, the crabs in the book when irritated projected their eyes
quite out of their heads. I regret that I was not able to 'plagiarize' this
effect, but I felt that, although crabs may, and doubtless do, behave thus
in real life, in romance they 'will not do so.'
There is an underground river in 'Peter Wilkins', but at
the time of writing the foregoing pages I had not read that quaint but
entertaining work.
It has been pointed out to me that there exists a
similarity between the scene of Umslopogaas frightening Alphonse with his
axe and a scene in Far from the Madding Crowd. I regret this coincidence,
and believe that the talented author of that work will not be inclined to
accuse me of literary immorality on its account.
Finally, I may say that Mr Quatermain's little Frenchman
appears to belong to the same class of beings as those English ladies whose
long yellow teeth and feet of enormous size excite our hearty amusement in
the pages of the illustrated Gallic press.
The Writer of 'Allan Quatermain'
Endnote 1
Among the Zulus a man assumes the ring, which is made of
a species of black gum twisted in with the hair, and polished a brilliant
black, when he has reached a certain dignity and age, or is the husband of
a sufficient number of wives. Till he is in a position to wear a ring he
is looked on as a boy, though he may be thirty-five years of age, or even
more. -- A. Q.
Endnote 2
One of the fleetest of the African antelopes. -- A.
Q.
Endnote 3
Alluding to the Zulu custom of opening the stomach of a
dead foe. They have a superstition that, if this is not done, as the body
of their enemy swells up so will the bodies of those who killed him swell
up. -- A. Q.
Endnote 4
No doubt this owl was a wingless bird. I afterwards
learnt that the hooting of an owl is a favourite signal among the Masai
tribes. -- A. Q.
Endnote 5
Since I saw the above I have examined hundreds of these
swords, but have never been able to discover how the gold plates were
inlaid in the fretwork. The armourers who make them in Zu-vendis bind
themselves by oath not to reveal the secret. -- A. Q.
Endnote 6
The Masai Elmoran or young warriors can own no property,
so all the booty they may win in battle belongs to their fathers alone. --
A. Q.
Endnote 7
As I think I have already said, one of Umslopogaas's
Zulu names was the 'Woodpecker'. I could never make out why he was called
so until I saw him in action with Inkosi-kaas, when I at once recognized
the resemblance. -- A. Q.
Endnote 8
By a sad coincidence, since the above was written by Mr
Quatermain, the Masai have, in April 1886, massacred a missionary and his
wife -- Mr and Mrs Houghton -- on this very Tana River, and at the spot
described. These are, I believe, the first white people who are known to
have fallen victims to this cruel tribe. -- Editor.
Endnote 9
Mr Allan Quatermain misquotes -- Pleasure sat at the
helm. -- Editor.
Endnote 10
Where Alph the sacred river ran Through caverns
measureless to man Down to a sunless sea
Endnote 11
Mr Quatermain does not seem to have been aware that it
is common for animal-worshipping people to annually sacrifice the beasts
they adore. See Herodotus, ii. 45. -- Editor.
Endnote 12
There is another theory which might account for the
origin of the Zu-Vendi which does not seem to have struck my friend Mr
Quatermain and his companions, and that is, that they are descendants of
the Phoenicians. The cradle of the Phoenician race is supposed to have
been on the western shore of the Persian Gulf. Thence, as there is good
evidence to show, they emigrated in two streams, one of which took
possession of the shores of Palestine, while the other is supposed by
savants to have immigrated down the coast of Eastern Africa where, near
Mozambique, signs and remains of their occupation are not wanting. Indeed,
it would have been very extraordinary if they did not, when leaving the
Persian Gulf, make straight for the East Coast, seeing that the north-east
monsoon blows for six months in the year dead in that direction, while for
the other six months it blows back again. And, by the way of illustrating
the probability, I may add that to this day a very extensive trade is
carried on between the Persian Gulf and Lamu and other East African ports
as far south as Madagascar, which is of course the ancient Ebony Isle of
the 'Arabian Nights'. -- Editor.
Endnote 13
There are twenty-two letters in the Phoenician alphabet
(see Appendix, Maspero's Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient, p. 746,
etc.) Unfortunately Mr Quatermain gives us no specimen of the Zu-Vendi
writing, but what he here states seems to go a long way towards
substantiating the theory advanced in the note on p. 149. -- Editor.
Endnote 14
These are internal measurements. -- A. Q.
Endnote 15
Light was also admitted by sliding shutters under the
eaves of the dome and in the roof. -- A. Q.
Endnote 16
This line is interesting as being one of the few
allusions to be found in the Zu-Vendi ritual to a vague divine essence
independent of the material splendour of the orb they worship. 'Taia', the
word used here, has a very indeterminate meaning, and signifies essence,
vital principle, spirit, or even God.
Endnote 17
Alluding to the Zulu custom. -- A. Q.
Endnote 18
In Zu-Vendis members of the Royal House can only be
married by the High Priest or a formally appointed deputy. -- A. Q.
Endnote 19
Alluding to the Zu-Vendi custom of carrying dead
officers on a framework of spears.
Endnote 20</p>
The Zu-Vendi people do not use bows. -- A. Q.
Endnote 21
Of course, the roof of the Temple, being so high, caught
the light some time before the breaking of the dawn. -- A. Q.
Endnote 22
Of course the Court of Probate would allow nothing of
the sort. -- Editor.
Endnote 23
It is suggested to me that this book is The Cruise of
the "Falcon", with which work I am personally unacquainted.
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