She and Allan

NOTE BY THE LATE MR. ALLAN QUATERMAIN

My friend, into whose hands I hope that all these manuscripts of mine will pass
one day, of this one I have something to say to you.

A long while ago I jotted down in it the history of the events that it details
with more or less completeness. This I did for my own satisfaction. You will
have noted how memory fails us as we advance in years; we recollect, with an
almost painful exactitude, what we experienced and saw in our youth, but the
happenings of our middle life slip away from us or become blurred, like a
stretch of low-lying landscape overflowed by grey and nebulous mist. Far off
the sun still seems to shine upon the plains and hills of adolescence and early
manhood, as yet it shines about us in the fleeting hours of our age, that
ground on which we stand to-day, but the valley between is filled with fog.
Yes, even its prominences, which symbolise the more startling events of that
past, often are lost in this confusing fog.

It was an appreciation of these truths which led me to set down the following
details (though of course much is omitted) of my brief intercourse with the
strange and splendid creature whom I knew under the names of Ayesha, or
Híya, or She-who-commands; not indeed with any view to their
publication, but before I forgot them that, if I wished to do so, I might
re-peruse them in the evening of old age to which I hope to attain.

Indeed, at the time the last thing I intended was that they should be given to
the world even after my own death, because they, or many of them, are so
unusual that I feared lest they should cause smiles and in a way cast a slur
upon my memory and truthfulness. Also, as you will read, as to this matter I
made a promise and I have always tried to keep my promises and to guard the
secrets of others. For these reasons I proposed, in case I neglected or forgot
to destroy them myself, to leave a direction that this should be done by my
executors. Further, I have been careful to make no allusion whatever to
them either in casual conversation or in anything else that I may have written,
my desire being that this page of my life should be kept quite private,
something known only to myself. Therefore, too, I never so much as hinted of
them to anyone, not even to yourself to whom I have told so much.

Well, I recorded the main facts concerning this expedition and its issues,
simply and with as much exactness as I could, and laid them aside. I do not say
that I never thought of them again, since amongst them were some which,
together with the problems they suggested, proved to be of an unforgettable
nature.

Also, whenever any of Ayesha’s sayings or stories which are not preserved
in these pages came back to me, as has happened from time to time, I jotted
them down and put them away with this manuscript. Thus among these notes you
will find a history of the city of Kôr as she told it to me, which I have
omitted here. Still, many of these remarkable events did more or less fade from
my mind, as the image does from an unfixed photograph, till only their outlines
remained, faint if distinguishable.

To tell the truth, I was rather ashamed of the whole story in which I cut so
poor a figure. On reflection it was obvious to me, although honesty had
compelled me to set out all that is essential exactly as it occurred, adding
nothing and taking nothing away, that I had been the victim of very gross
deceit. This strange woman, whom I had met in the ruins of a place called Kôr,
without any doubt had thrown a glamour over my senses and at the moment almost
caused me to believe much that is quite unbelievable.

For instance, she had told me ridiculous stories as to interviews between
herself and certain heathen goddesses, though it is true that, almost with her
next breath, these she qualified or contradicted. Also, she had suggested that
her life had been prolonged far beyond our mortal span, for hundreds and
hundreds of years, indeed; which, as Euclid says, is absurd, and had pretended
to supernatural powers, which is still more absurd. Moreover, by a clever use
of some hypnotic or mesmeric power, she had feigned to transport me to some
place beyond the earth and in the Halls of Hades to show me what is veiled from
the eyes of man, and not only me, but the savage warrior Umhlopekazi, commonly
called Umslopogaas of the Axe, who, with Hans, a Hottentot, was my companion
upon that adventure. There were like things equally incredible, such as her
appearance, when all seemed lost, in the battle with the troll-like Rezu. To
omit these, the sum of it was that I had been shamefully duped, and if anyone
finds himself in that position, as most people have at one time or another in
their lives, Wisdom suggests that he had better keep the circumstances to
himself.

Well, so the matter stood, or rather lay in the recesses of my mind—and
in the cupboard where I hide my papers—when one evening someone, as a
matter of fact it was Captain Good, an individual of romantic tendencies who is
fond, sometimes I think too fond, of fiction, brought a book to this house
which he insisted over and over again really I must peruse.

Ascertaining that it was a novel I declined, for to tell the truth I am not
fond of romance in any shape, being a person who has found the hard facts of
life of sufficient interest as they stand.

Reading I admit I like, but in this matter, as in everything else, my range is
limited. I study the Bible, especially the Old Testament, both because of its
sacred lessons and of the majesty of the language of its inspired translators;
whereof that of Ayesha, which I render so poorly from her flowing and melodious
Arabic, reminded me. For poetry I turn to Shakespeare, and, at the other end of
the scale, to the Ingoldsby Legends, many of which I know almost by heart,
while for current affairs I content myself with the newspapers.

For the rest I peruse anything to do with ancient Egypt that I happen to come
across, because this land and its history have a queer fascination for me, that
perhaps has its roots in occurrences or dreams of which this is not the place
to speak. Lastly now and again I read one of the Latin or Greek authors in a
translation, since I regret to say that my lack of education does not enable me
to do so in the original. But for modern fiction I have no taste, although from
time to time I sample it in a railway train and occasionally am amused by such
excursions into the poetic and unreal.

So it came about that the more Good bothered me to read this particular
romance, the more I determined that I would do nothing of the sort. Being a
persistent person, however, when he went away about ten o’clock at night,
he deposited it by my side, under my nose indeed, so that it might not be
overlooked. Thus it came about that I could not help seeing some Egyptian
hieroglyphics in an oval on the cover, also the title, and underneath it your
own name, my friend, all of which excited my curiosity, especially the title,
which was brief and enigmatic, consisting indeed of one word,
“She.”

I took up the work and on opening it the first thing my eye fell upon was a
picture of a veiled woman, the sight of which made my heart stand still, so
painfully did it remind me of a certain veiled woman whom once it had been my
fortune to meet. Glancing from it to the printed page one word seemed to leap
at me. It was Kôr! Now of veiled women there are plenty in the world,
but were there also two Kôrs?

Then I turned to the beginning and began to read. This happened in the autumn
when the sun does not rise till about six, but it was broad daylight before I
ceased from reading, or rather rushing through that book.

Oh! what was I to make of it? For here in its pages (to say nothing of old
Billali, who, by the way lied, probably to order, when he told Mr. Holly that
no white man had visited his country for many generations, and those gloomy,
man-eating Amahagger scoundrels) once again I found myself face to face with
She-who-commands, now rendered as She-who-must-be-obeyed, which
means much the same thing—in her case at least; yes, with Ayesha the
lovely, the mystic, the changeful and the imperious.

Moreover the history filled up many gaps in my own limited experiences of that
enigmatical being who was half divine (though, I think, rather wicked or at any
rate unmoral in her way) and yet all woman. It is true that it showed her in
lights very different from and higher than those in which she had presented
herself to me. Yet the substratum of her character was the same, or rather of
her characters, for of these she seemed to have several in a single body,
being, as she said of herself to me, “not One but Many and not Here but
Everywhere.”

Further, I found the story of Kallikrates, which I had set down as a mere
falsehood invented for my bewilderment, expanded and explained. Or rather not
explained, since, perhaps that she might deceive, to me she had spoken of this
murdered Kallikrates without enthusiasm, as a handsome person to whom, because
of an indiscretion of her youth, she was bound by destiny and whose
return—somewhat to her sorrow—she must wait. At least she did so at
first, though in the end when she bared her heart at the moment of our
farewell, she vowed she loved him only and was “appointed” to him
“by a divine decree.”

Also I found other things of which I knew nothing, such as the Fire of Life
with its fatal gift of indefinite existence, although I remember that like the
giant Rezu whom Umslopogaas defeated, she did talk of a “Cup of
Life” of which she had drunk, that might have been offered to my lips,
had I been politic, bowed the knee and shown more faith in her and her
supernatural pretensions.

Lastly I saw the story of her end, and as I read it I wept, yes, I confess I
wept, although I feel sure that she will return again. Now I understood why she
had quailed and even seemed to shrivel when, in my last interview with her,
stung beyond endurance by her witcheries and sarcasms, I had suggested that
even for her with all her powers, Fate might reserve one of its shrewdest
blows. Some prescience had told her that if the words seemed random, Truth
spoke through my lips, although, and this was the worst of it, she did not know
what weapon would deal the stroke or when and where it was doomed to fall.

I was amazed, I was overcome, but as I closed that book I made up my mind,
first that I would continue to preserve absolute silence as to Ayesha and my
dealings with her, as, during my life, I was bound by oath to do, and secondly
that I would not cause my manuscript to be destroyed. I did not feel
that I had any right to do so in view of what already had been published to the
world. There let it lie to appear one day, or not to appear, as might be fated.
Meanwhile my lips were sealed. I would give Good back his book without comment
and—buy another copy!

One more word. It is clear that I did not touch more than the fringe of the
real Ayesha. In a thousand ways she bewitched and deceived me so that I never
plumbed her nature’s depths. Perhaps this was my own fault because from
the first I shewed a lack of faith in her and she wished to pay me back in her
own fashion, or perhaps she had other private reasons for her secrecy.
Certainly the character she discovered to me differed in many ways from that
which she revealed to Mr. Holly and to Leo Vincey, or Kallikrates, whom, it
seems, once she slew in her jealousy and rage.

She told me as much as she thought it fit that I should know, and no more!

Allan Quatermain.

The Grange, Yorkshire.

SHE AND ALLAN

CHAPTER I.

THE TALISMAN

I believe it was the old Egyptians, a very wise people, probably indeed much
wiser than we know, for in the leisure of their ample centuries they had time
to think out things, who declared that each individual personality is made up
of six or seven different elements, although the Bible only allows us three,
namely, body, soul, and spirit. The body that the man or woman wore, if I
understand their theory aright which perhaps I, an ignorant person, do not, was
but a kind of sack or fleshly covering containing these different principles.
Or mayhap it did not contain them all, but was simply a house as it were, in
which they lived from time to time and seldom all together, although one or
more of them was present continually, as though to keep the place warmed and
aired.

This is but a casual illustrative suggestion, for what right have I, Allan
Quatermain, out of my little reading and probably erroneous deductions, to form
any judgment as to the theories of the old Egyptians? Still these, as I
understand them, suffice to furnish me with the text that man is not one, but
many, in which connection it may be remembered that often in Scripture he is
spoken of as being the home of many demons, seven, I think. Also, to come to
another far-off example, the Zulus talk of their witch-doctors as being
inhabited by “a multitude of spirits.”

Anyhow of one thing I am quite sure, we are not always the same. Different
personalities actuate us at different times. In one hour passion of this sort
or the other is our lord; in another we are reason itself. In one hour we
follow the basest appetites; in another we hate them and the spirit arising
through our mortal murk shines within or above us like a star. In one hour our
desire is to kill and spare not; in another we are filled with the holiest
compassion even towards an insect or a snake, and are ready to forgive like a
god. Everything rules us in turn, to such an extent indeed, that sometimes one
begins to wonder whether we really rule anything.

Now the reason of all this homily is that I, Allan, the most practical and
unimaginative of persons, just a homely, half-educated hunter and trader who
chances to have seen a good deal of the particular little world in which his
lot was cast, at one period of my life became the victim of spiritual longings.

I am a man who has suffered great bereavements in my time such as have seared
my soul, since, perhaps because of my rather primitive and simple nature, my
affections are very strong. By day or night I can never forget those whom I
have loved and whom I believe to have loved me.

For you know, in our vanity some of us are apt to hold that certain people with
whom we have been intimate upon the earth, really did care for us and, in our
still greater vanity—or should it be called madness?—to imagine
that they still care for us after they have left the earth and entered on some
new state of society and surroundings which, if they exist, inferentially are
much more congenial than any they can have experienced here. At times, however,
cold doubts strike us as to this matter, of which we long to know the truth.
Also behind looms a still blacker doubt, namely whether they live at all.

For some years of my lonely existence these problems haunted me day by day,
till at length I desired above everything on earth to lay them at rest in one
way or another. Once, at Durban, I met a man who was a spiritualist to whom I
confided a little of my perplexities. He laughed at me and said that they could
be settled with the greatest ease. All I had to do was to visit a certain local
medium who for a fee of one guinea would tell me everything I wanted to know.
Although I rather grudged the guinea, being more than usually hard up at the
time, I called upon this person, but over the results of that visit, or rather
the lack of them, I draw a veil.

My queer and perhaps unwholesome longing, however, remained with me and would
not be abated. I consulted a clergyman of my acquaintance, a good and
spiritually-minded man, but he could only shrug his shoulders and refer me to
the Bible, saying, quite rightly I doubt not, that with what it reveals I ought
to be contented. Then I read certain mystical books which were recommended to
me. These were full of fine words, undiscoverable in a pocket dictionary, but
really took me no forwarder, since in them I found nothing that I could not
have invented myself, although while I was actually studying them, they seemed
to convince me. I even tackled Swedenborg, or rather samples of him, for he is
very copious, but without satisfactory results. [Ha!—JB]

Then I gave up the business.

Some months later I was in Zululand and being near the Black Kloof where he
dwelt, I paid a visit to my acquaintance of whom I have written elsewhere, the
wonderful and ancient dwarf, Zikali, known as
“The-Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born,” also more universally
among the Zulus as “Opener-of-Roads.” When we had talked of many
things connected with the state of Zululand and its politics, I rose to leave
for my waggon, since I never cared for sleeping in the Black Kloof if it could
be avoided.

“Is there nothing else that you want to ask me, Macumazahn?” asked
the old dwarf, tossing back his long hair and looking at—I had almost
written through—me.

I shook my head.

“That is strange, Macumazahn, for I seem to see something written on your
mind—something to do with spirits.”

Then I remembered all the problems that had been troubling me, although in
truth I had never thought of propounding them to Zikali.

“Ah! it comes back, does it?” he exclaimed, reading my thought.
“Out with it, then, Macumazahn, while I am in a mood to answer, and
before I grow tired, for you are an old friend of mine and will so remain till
the end, many years hence, and if I can serve you, I will.”

I filled my pipe and sat down again upon the stool of carved red-wood which had
been brought for me.

“You are named ‘Opener-of-Roads,’ are you not, Zikali?”
I said.

“Yes, the Zulus have always called me that, since before the days of
Chaka. But what of names, which often enough mean nothing at all?”

“Only that I want to open a road, Zikali, that which runs across
the River of Death.”

“Oho!” he laughed, “it is very easy,” and snatching up
a little assegai that lay beside him, he proffered it to me, adding, “Be
brave now and fall on that. Then before I have counted sixty the road will be
wide open, but whether you will see anything on it I cannot tell you.”

Again I shook my head and answered,

“It is against our law. Also while I still live I desire to know whether
I shall meet certain others on that road after my time has come to cross the
River. Perhaps you who deal with spirits, can prove the matter to me, which no
one else seems able to do.”

“Oho!” laughed Zikali again. “What do my ears hear? Am I, the
poor Zulu cheat, as you will remember once you called me, Macumazahn, asked to
show that which is hidden from all the wisdom of the great White People?”

“The question is,” I answered with irritation, “not what you
are asked to do, but what you can do.”

“That I do not know yet, Macumazahn. Whose spirits do you desire to see?
If that of a woman called Mameena is one of them, I think that perhaps I whom
she loved——“^[1]

[1]
For the history of Mameena see the book called “Child of
Storm.”—Editor.

“She is not one of them, Zikali. Moreover, if she loved you, you
paid back her love with death.”

“Which perhaps was the kindest thing I could do, Macumazahn, for reasons
that you may be able to guess, and others with which I will not trouble you.
But if not hers, whose? Let me look, let me look! Why, there seems to be two of
them, head-wives, I mean, and I thought that white men only took one wife. Also
a multitude of others; their faces float up in the water of your mind. An old
man with grey hair, little children, perhaps they were brothers and sisters,
and some who may be friends. Also very clear indeed that Mameena whom you do
not wish to see. Well, Macumazahn, this is unfortunate, since she is the only
one whom I can show you, or rather put you in the way of finding. Unless indeed
there are other Kaffir women——”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, Macumazahn, that only black feet travel on the road which I can
open; over those in which ran white blood I have no power.”

“Then it is finished,” I said, rising again and taking a step or
two towards the gate.

“Come back and sit down, Macumazahn. I did not say so. Am I the only
ruler of magic in Africa, which I am told is a big country?”

I came back and sat down, for my curiosity, a great failing with me, was
excited.

“Thank you, Zikali,” I said, “but I will have no dealings
with more of your witch-doctors.”

“No, no, because you are afraid of them; quite without reason,
Macumazahn, seeing that they are all cheats except myself. I am the last child
of wisdom, the rest are stuffed with lies, as Chaka found out when he killed
every one of them whom he could catch. But perhaps there might be a white
doctor who would have rule over white spirits.”

“If you mean missionaries——” I began hastily.

“No, Macumazahn, I do not mean your praying men who are cast in one mould
and measured with one rule, and say what they are taught to say, not thinking
for themselves.”

“Some of them think, Zikali.”

“Yes, and then the others fall on them with big sticks. The real priest
is he to whom the Spirit comes, not he who feeds upon its wrappings, and speaks
through a mask carved by his father’s fathers. I am a priest like that,
which is why all my fellowship have hated me.”

“If so, you have paid back their hate, Zikali, but cease to cast round
the lion, like a timid hound, and tell me what you mean. Of whom do you
speak?”

“That is the trouble, Macumazahn. I do not know. This lion, or rather
lioness, lies hid in the caves of a very distant mountain and I have never seen
her—in the flesh.”

“Then how can you talk of what you have never seen?”

“In the same way, Macumazahn, that your priests talk of what they have
never seen, because they, or a few of them, have knowledge of it. I will tell
you a secret. All seers who live at the same time, if they are great, commune
with each other because they are akin and their spirits meet in sleep or
dreams. Therefore I know of a mistress of our craft, a very lioness among
jackals, who for thousands of years has lain sleeping in the northern caves
and, humble though I am, she knows of me.”

“Quite so,” I said, yawning, “but perhaps, Zikali, you will
come to the point of the spear. What of her? How is she named, and if she
exists will she help me?”

“I will answer your question backwards, Macumazahn. I think that she will
help you if you help her, in what way I do not know, because although
witch-doctors sometimes work without pay, as I am doing now, Macumazahn,
witch-doctoresses never do. As for her name, the only one that she has among
our company is ‘Queen,’ because she is the first of all of them and
the most beauteous among women. For the rest I can tell you nothing, except
that she has always been and I suppose, in this shape or in that, will always
be while the world lasts, because she has found the secret of life
unending.”

“You mean that she is immortal, Zikali,” I answered with a smile.

“I do not say that, Macumazahn, because my little mind cannot shape the
thought of immortality. But when I was a babe, which is far ago, she had lived
so long that scarce would she know the difference between then and now, and
already in her breast was all wisdom gathered. I know it, because although, as
I have said, we have never seen each other, at times we walk together in our
sleep, for thus she shares her loneliness, and I think, though this may be but
a dream, that last night she told me to send you on to her to seek an answer to
certain questions which you would put to me to-day. Also to me she seemed to
desire that you should do her a service; I know not what service.”

Now I grew angry and asked,

“Why does it please you to fool me, Zikali, with such talk as this? If
there is any truth in it, show me where the woman called Queen lives and
how I am to come to her.”

The old wizard took up the little assegai which he had offered to me and with
its blade raked out ashes from the fire that always burnt in front of him.
While he did so, he talked to me, as I thought in a random fashion, perhaps to
distract my attention, of a certain white man whom he said I should meet upon
my journey and of his affairs, also of other matters, none of which interested
me much at the time. These ashes he patted down flat and then on them drew a
map with the point of his spear, making grooves for streams, certain marks for
bush and forest, wavy lines for water and swamps and little heaps for hills.

When he had finished it all he bade me come round the fire and study the
picture across which by an after-thought he drew a wandering furrow with the
edge of the assegai to represent a river, and gathered the ashes in a lump at
the northern end to signify a large mountain.

“Look at it well, Macumazahn,” he said, “and forget nothing,
since if you make this journey and forget, you die. Nay, no need to copy it in
that book of yours, for see, I will stamp it on your mind.”

Then suddenly he gathered up the warm ashes in a double handful and threw them
into my face, muttering something as he did so and adding aloud,

“There, now you will remember.”

“Certainly I shall,” I answered, coughing, “and I beg that
you will not play such a joke upon me again.”

As a matter of fact, whatever may have been the reason, I never forgot any
detail of that extremely intricate map.

“That big river must be the Zambesi,” I stuttered, “and even
then the mountain of your Queen, if it be her mountain, is far away, and how
can I come there alone?”

“I don’t know, Macumazahn, though perhaps you might do so in
company. At least I believe that in the old days people used to travel to the
place, since I have heard a great city stood there once which was the heart of
a mighty empire.”

Now I pricked up my ears, for though I believed nothing of Zikali’s story
of a wonderful Queen, I was always intensely interested in past civilisations
and their relics. Also I knew that the old wizard’s knowledge was
extensive and peculiar, however he came by it, and I did not think that he
would lie to me in this matter. Indeed to tell the truth, then and there I made
up my mind that if it were in any way possible, I would attempt this journey.

“How did people travel to the city, Zikali?”

“By sea, I suppose, Macumazahn, but I think that you will be wise not to
try that road, since I believe that on the sea side the marshes are now
impassable and you will be safer on your feet.”

“You want me to go on this adventure, Zikali. Why? I know you never do
anything without motive.”

“Oho! Macumazahn, you are clever and see deeper into the trunk of a tree
than most. Yes, I want you to go for three reasons. First, that you may satisfy
your soul on certain matters and I would help you to do so. Secondly, because I
want to satisfy mine, and thirdly, because I know that you will come back safe
to be a prop to me in things that will happen in days unborn. Otherwise I would
have told you nothing of this story, since it is necessary to me that you
should remain living beneath the sun.”

“Have done, Zikali. What is it that you desire?”

“Oh! a great deal that I shall get, but chiefly two things, so with the
rest I will not trouble you. First I desire to know whether these dreams of
mine of a wonderful white witch-doctoress, or witch, and of my converse with
her are indeed more than dreams. Next I would learn whether certain plots of
mine at which I have worked for years, will succeed.”

“What plots, Zikali, and how can my taking a distant journey tell you
anything about them?”

“You know them well enough, Macumazahn; they have to do with the
overthrow of a Royal House that has worked me bitter wrong. As to how your
journey can help me, why, thus. You shall promise to me to ask of this Queen
whether Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, shall triumph or be overthrown in that on
which he has set his heart.”

“As you seem to know this witch so well, why do you not ask her yourself,
Zikali?”

“To ask is one thing, Macumazahn. To get an answer is another. I have
asked in the watches of the night, and the reply was, ‘Come hither and
perchance I will tell you.’ ‘Queen,’ I said, ‘how can I
come save in the spirit, who am an ancient and a crippled dwarf scarcely able
to stand upon my feet?’

“‘Then send a messenger, Wizard, and be sure that he is white, for
of black savages I have seen more than enough. Let him bear a token also that
he comes from you and tell me of it in your sleep. Moreover let that token be
something of power which will protect him on the journey.’

“Such is the answer that comes to me in my dreams, Macumazahn.”

“Well, what token will you give me, Zikali?”

He groped about in his robe and produced a piece of ivory of the size of a
large chessman, that had a hole in it, through which ran a plaited cord of the
stiff hairs from an elephant’s tail. On this article, which was of a
rusty brown colour, he breathed, then having whispered to it for a while,
handed it to me.

I took the talisman, for such I guessed it to be, idly enough, held it to the
light to examine it, and started back so violently that almost I let it fall. I
do not quite know why I started, but I think it was because some influence
seemed to leap from it to me. Zikali started also and cried out,

“Have a care, Macumazahn. Am I young that I can bear being dashed to the
ground?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, still staring at the thing which I
perceived to be a most wonderfully fashioned likeness of the old dwarf himself
as he appeared before me crouched upon the ground. There were the deepset eyes,
the great head, the toad-like shape, the long hair, all.

“It is a clever carving, is it not, Macumazahn? I am skilled in that art,
you know, and therefore can judge of carving.”

“Yes, I know,” I answered, bethinking me of another statuette of
his which he had given to me on the morrow of the death of her from whom it was
modelled. “But what of the thing?”

“Macumazahn, it has come down to me through the ages. As you may have
heard, all great doctors when they die pass on their wisdom and something of
their knowledge to another doctor of spirits who is still living on the earth,
that nothing may be lost, or as little as possible. Also I have learned that to
such likenesses as these may be given the strength of him or her from whom they
were shaped.”

Now I bethought me of the old Egyptians and their Ka statues of which I
had read, and that these statues, magically charmed and set in the tombs of the
departed, were supposed to be inhabited everlastingly by the Doubles of the
dead endued with more power even than ever these possessed in life. But of this
I said nothing to Zikali, thinking that it would take too much explanation,
though I wondered very much how he had come by the same idea.

“When that ivory is hung over your heart, Macumazahn, where you must
always wear it, learn that with it goes the strength of Zikali; the thought
that would have been his thought and the wisdom that is his wisdom, will be
your companions, as much as though he walked at your side and could instruct
you in every peril. Moreover north and south and east and west this image is
known to men who, when they see it, will bow down and obey, opening a road to
him who wears the medicine of the Opener-of-Roads.”

“Indeed,” I said, smiling, “and what is this colour on the
ivory?”

“I forget, Macumazahn, who have had it a great number of years, ever
since it descended to me from a forefather of mine, who was fashioned in the
same mould as I am. It looks like blood, does it not? It is a pity that Mameena
is not still alive, since she whose memory was so excellent might have been
able to tell you,” and as he spoke, with a motion that was at once sure
and swift, he threw the loop of elephant hair over my head.

Hastily I changed the subject, feeling that after his wont this old wizard, the
most terrible man whom ever I knew, who had been so much concerned with the
tragic death of Mameena, was stabbing at me in some hidden fashion.

“You tell me to go on this journey,” I said, “and not alone.
Yet for companion you give me only an ugly piece of ivory shaped as no man ever
was,” here I got one back at Zikali, “and from the look of it,
steeped in blood, which ivory, if I had my way, I would throw into the camp
fire. Who, then, am I to take with me?”

“Don’t do that, Macumazahn—I mean throw the ivory into the
fire—since I have no wish to burn before my time, and if you do, you who
have worn it might burn with me. At least certainly you would die with the
magic thing and go to acquire knowledge more quickly than you desire. No, no,
and do not try to take it off your neck, or rather try if you will.”

I did try, but something seemed to prevent me from accomplishing my purpose of
giving the carving back to Zikali as I wished to do. First my pipe got in the
way of my hand, then the elephant hairs caught in the collar of my coat; then a
pang of rheumatism to which I was accustomed from an old lion-bite, developed
of a sudden in my arm, and lastly I grew tired of bothering about the thing.

Zikali, who had been watching my movements, burst out into one of his terrible
laughs that seemed to fill the whole kloof and to re-echo from its rocky walls.
It died away and he went on, without further reference to the talisman or
image.

“You asked whom you were to take with you, Macumazahn. Well, as to this I
must make inquiry of those who know. Man, my medicines!”

From the shadows in the hut behind darted out a tall figure carrying a great
spear in one hand and in the other a catskin bag which with a salute he laid
down at the feet of his master. This salute, by the way, was that of a Zulu
word which means “Lord” or “Home” of Ghosts.

Zikali groped in the bag and produced from it certain knuckle-bones.

“A common method,” he muttered, “such as every vulgar wizard
uses, but one that is quick and, as the matter concerned is small, will serve
my turn. Let us see now, whom you shall take with you, Macumazahn.”

Then he breathed upon the bones, shook them up in his thin hands and with a
quick turn of the wrist, threw them into the air. After this he studied them
carefully, where they lay among the ashes which he had raked out of the fire,
those that he had used for the making of his map.

“Do you know a man named Umslopogaas, Macumazahn, the chief of a tribe
that is called The People of the Axe, whose titles of praise are Bulalio or the
Slaughterer, and Woodpecker, the latter from the way he handles his ancient
axe? He is a savage fellow, but one of high blood and higher courage, a great
captain in his way, though he will never come to anything, save a glorious
death—in your company, I think, Macumazahn.” (Here he studied the
bones again for a while.) “Yes, I am sure, in your company, though not
upon this journey.”

“I have heard of him,” I answered cautiously. “It is said in
the land that he is a son of Chaka, the great king of the Zulus.”

“Is it, Macumazahn? And is it said also that he was the slayer of
Chaka’s brother, Dingaan, also the lover of the fairest woman that the
Zulus have ever seen, who was called Nada the Lily? Unless indeed a certain
Mameena, who, I seem to remember, was a friend of yours, may have been even
more beautiful?”

“I know nothing of Nada the Lily,” I answered.

“No, no, Mameena, ‘the Waiting Wind,’ has blown over her
fame, so why should you know of one who has been dead a long while? Why also,
Macumazahn, do you always bring women into every business? I begin to believe
that although you are so strict in a white man’s fashion, you must be too
fond of them, a weakness which makes for ruin to any man. Well, now, I think
that this wolf-man, this axe-man, this warrior, Umslopogaas should be a good
fellow to you on your journey to visit the white witch, Queen—another
woman by the way, Macumazahn, and therefore one of whom you should be careful.
Oh! yes, he will come with you—because of a man called Lousta and a woman
named Monazi, a wife of his who hates him and does—not hate Lousta. I am
almost sure that he will come with you, so do not stop to ask questions about
him.”

“Is there anyone else?” I inquired.

Zikali glanced at the bones again, poking them about in the ashes with his toe,
then replied with a yawn,

“You seem to have a little yellow man in your service, a clever snake who
knows how to creep through grass, and when to strike and when to lie hidden. I
should take him too, if I were you.”

“You know well that I have such a man, Zikali, a Hottentot named Hans,
clever in his way but drunken, very faithful too, since he loved my father
before me. He is cooking my supper in the waggon now. Are there to be any
others?”

“No, I think you three will be enough, with a guard of soldiers from the
People of the Axe, for you will meet with fighting and a ghost or two.
Umslopogaas has always one at his elbow named Nada, and perhaps you have
several. For instance, there was a certain Mameena whom I always seem to feel
about me when you are near, Macumazahn.

“Why, the wind is rising again, which is odd on so still an evening.
Listen to how it wails, yes, and stirs your hair, though mine hangs straight
enough. But why do I talk of ghosts, seeing that you travel to seek other
ghosts, white ghosts, beyond my ken, who can only deal with those who were
black?

“Good-night, Macumazahn, good-night. When you return from visiting the
white Queen, that Great One beneath whose feet I, Zikali, who am also great in
my way, am but a grain of dust, come and tell me her answer to my question.

“Meanwhile, be careful always to wear that pretty little image which I
have given you, as a young lover sometimes wears a lock of hair cut from the
head of some fool-girl that he thinks is fond of him. It will bring you safety
and luck, Macumazahn, which, for the most part, is more than the lock of hair
does to the lover. Oh! it is a strange world, full of jest to those who can see
the strings that work it. I am one of them, and perhaps, Macumazahn, you are
another, or will be before all is done—or begun.

“Good-night, and good fortune to you on your journeyings, and,
Macumazahn, although you are so fond of women, be careful not to fall in love
with that white Queen, because it would make others jealous; I mean some whom
you have lost sight of for a while, also I think that being under a curse of
her own, she is not one whom you can put into your sack. Oho! Oho-ho!
Slave, bring me my blanket, it grows cold, and my medicine also, that which
protects me from the ghosts, who are thick to-night. Macumazahn brings them, I
think. Oho-ho!”

I turned to depart but when I had gone a little way Zikali called me back again
and said, speaking very low,

“When you meet this Umslopogaas, as you will meet him, he who is called
the Woodpecker and the Slaughterer, say these words to him,

“‘A bat has been twittering round the hut of the Opener-of-Roads,
and to his ears it squeaked the name of a certain Lousta and the name of a
woman called Monazi. Also it twittered another greater name that may not be
uttered, that of an elephant who shakes the earth, and said that this elephant
sniffs the air with his trunk and grows angry, and sharpens his tusks to dig a
certain Woodpecker out of his hole in a tree that grows near the Witch
Mountain. Say, too, that the Opener-of-Roads thinks that this Woodpecker would
be wise to fly north for a while in the company of one who watches by night,
lest harm should come to a bird that pecks at the feet of the great and
chatters of it in his nest.’”

Then Zikali waved his hand and I went, wondering into what plot I had stumbled.

CHAPTER II.

THE MESSENGERS

I did not rest as I should that night who somehow was never able to sleep well
in the neighbourhood of the Black Kloof. I suppose that Zikali’s constant
talk about ghosts, with his hints and innuendoes concerning those who were
dead, always affected my nerves till, in a subconscious way, I began to believe
that such things existed and were hanging about me. Many people are open to the
power of suggestion, and I am afraid that I am one of them.

However, the sun which has such strength to kill noxious things, puts an end to
ghosts more quickly even than it does to other evil vapours and emanations, and
when I woke up to find it shining brilliantly in a pure heaven, I laughed with
much heartiness over the whole affair.

Going to the spring near which we were outspanned, I took off my shirt to have
a good wash, still chuckling at the memory of all the hocus-pocus of my old
friend, the Opener-of-Roads.

While engaged in this matutinal operation I struck my hand against something
and looking, observed that it was the hideous little ivory image of Zikali,
which he had set about my neck. The sight of the thing and the memory of his
ridiculous talk about it, especially of its assertion that it had come down to
him through the ages, which it could not have done, seeing that it was a
likeness of himself, irritated me so much that I proceeded to take it off with
the full intention of throwing it into the spring.

As I was in the act of doing this, from a clump of reeds mixed with bushes,
quite close to me, there came a sound of hissing, and suddenly above them
appeared the head of a great black immamba, perhaps the deadliest of all
our African snakes, and the only one I know which will attack man without
provocation.

Leaving go of the image, I sprang back in a great hurry towards where my gun
lay. Then the snake vanished and making sure that it had departed to its hole,
which was probably at a distance, I returned to the pool, and once more began
to take off the talisman in order to consign it to the bottom of the pool.

After all, I reflected, it was a hideous and probably a blood-stained thing
which I did not in the least wish to wear about my neck like a lady’s
love-token.

Just as it was coming over my head, suddenly from the other side of the bush
that infernal snake popped up again, this time, it was clear, really intent on
business. It began to move towards me in the lightning-like way immambas
have, hissing and flicking its tongue.

I was too quick for my friend, however, for snatching up the gun that I had
lain down beside me, I let it have a charge of buckshot in the neck which
nearly cut it in two, so that it fell down and expired with hideous convulsive
writhings.

Hearing the shot Hans came running from the waggon to see what was the matter.
Hans, I should say, was that same Hottentot who had been the companion of most
of my journeyings since my father’s day. He was with me when as a young
fellow I accompanied Retief to Dingaan’s kraal, and like myself, escaped
the massacre.^[1]
Also we shared many other adventures, including the great one in the Land of
the Ivory Child where he slew the huge elephant-god, Jana, and himself was
slain. But of this journey we did not dream in those days.

[1]
See the book called “Marie.”—Editor.

For the rest Hans was a most entirely unprincipled person, but as the Boers
say, “as clever as a waggonload of monkeys.” Also he drank when he
got the chance. One good quality he had, however; no man was ever more
faithful, and perhaps it would be true to say that neither man nor woman ever
loved me, unworthy, quite so well.

In appearance he rather resembled an antique and dilapidated baboon; his face
was wrinkled like a dried nut and his quick little eyes were bloodshot. I never
knew what his age was, any more than he did himself, but the years had left him
tough as whipcord and absolutely untiring. Lastly he was perhaps the best hand
at following a spoor that ever I knew and up to a hundred and fifty yards or
so, a very deadly shot with a rifle especially when he used a little
single-barrelled, muzzle-loading gun of mine made by Purdey which he named
Intombi or Maiden. Of that gun, however, I have written in “The
Holy Flower” and elsewhere.

“What is it, Baas?” he asked. “Here there are no lions, nor
any game.”

“Look the other side of the bush, Hans.”

He slipped round it, making a wide circle with his usual caution, then, seeing
the snake which was, by the way, I think, the biggest immamba I ever
killed, suddenly froze, as it were, in a stiff attitude that reminded me of a
pointer when it scents game. Having made sure that it was dead, he nodded and
said,

“Black ‘mamba, or so you would call it, though I know it for
something else.”

“What else, Hans?”

“One of the old witch-doctor Zikali’s spirits which he sets at the
mouth of this kloof to warn him of who comes or goes. I know it well, and so do
others. I saw it listening behind a stone when you were up the kloof last
evening talking with the Opener-of-Roads.”

“Then Zikali will lack a spirit,” I answered, laughing,
“which perhaps he will not miss amongst so many. It serves him right for
setting the brute on me.”

“Quite so, Baas. He will be angry. I wonder why he did it?” he
added suspiciously, “seeing that he is such a friend of yours.”

“He didn’t do it, Hans. These snakes are very fierce and give
battle, that is all.”

Hans paid no attention to my remark, which probably he thought only worthy of a
white man who does not understand, but rolled his yellow, bloodshot eyes about,
as though in search of explanations. Presently they fell upon the ivory that
hung about my neck, and he started.

“Why do you wear that pretty likeness of the Great One yonder over your
heart, as I have known you do with things that belonged to women in past days,
Baas? Do you know that it is Zikali’s Great Medicine, nothing less, as
everyone does throughout the land? When Zikali sends an order far away, he
always sends that image with it, for then he who receives the order knows that
he must obey or die. Also the messenger knows that he will come to no harm if
he does not take it off, because, Baas, the image is Zikali himself, and Zikali
is the image. They are one and the same. Also it is the image of his
father’s father’s father—or so he says.”

“That is an odd story,” I said.

Then I told Hans as much as I thought advisable of how this horrid little
talisman came into my possession.

Hans nodded without showing any surprise.

“So we are going on a long journey,” he said. “Well, I
thought it was time that we did something more than wander about these tame
countries selling blankets to stinking old women and so forth, Baas. Moreover,
Zikali does not wish that you should come to harm, doubtless because he does
wish to make use of you afterwards—oh! it’s safe to talk now when
that spirit is away looking for another snake. What were you doing with the
Great Medicine, Baas, when the ‘mamba attacked you?”

“Taking it off to throw it into the pool, Hans, as I do not like the
thing. I tried twice and each time the immamba appeared.”

“Of course it appeared, Baas, and what is more, if you had taken that
Medicine off and thrown it away you would have disappeared, since the
‘mamba would have killed you. Zikali wanted to show you that,
Baas, and that is why he set the snake at you.”

“You are a superstitious old fool, Hans.”

“Yes, Baas, but my father knew all about that Great Medicine before me,
for he was a bit of a doctor, and so does every wizard and witch for a thousand
miles or more. I tell you, Baas, it is known by all though no one ever talks
about it, no, not even the king himself. Baas, speaking to you, not with the
voice of Hans the old drunkard, but with that of the Predikant, your reverend
father, who made so good a Christian of me and who tells me to do so from up in
Heaven where the hot fires are which the wood feeds of itself, I beg you not to
try to throw away the Medicine again, or if you wish to do so, to leave me
behind on this journey. For you see, Baas, although I am now so good, almost
like one of those angels with the pretty goose’s wings in the pictures, I
feel that I should like to grow a little better before I go to the Place of
Fires to make report to your reverend father, the Predikant.”

Thinking of how horrified my dear father would be if he could hear all this
string of ridiculous nonsense and learn the result of his moral and religious
lessons on raw Hottentot material, I burst out laughing. But Hans went on as
gravely as a judge,

“Wear the Great Medicine, Baas, wear it; part with the liver inside you
before you part with that, Baas. It may not be as pretty or smell as sweet as a
woman’s hair in a little gold bottle, but it is much more useful. The
sight of the woman’s hair will only make you sick in your stomach and
cause you to remember a lot of things which you had much better forget, but the
Great Medicine, or rather Zikali who is in it, will keep the assegais and
sickness out of you and turn back bad magic on to the heads of those who sent
it, and always bring us plenty to eat and perhaps, if we are lucky, a little to
drink too sometimes.”

“Go away,” I said, “I want to wash.”

“Yes, Baas, but with the Baas’s leave I will sit on the other side
of that bush with the gun—not to look at the Baas without his clothes,
because white people are always so ugly that it makes me feel ill to see them
undressed, also because—the Baas will forgive me—but because they
smell. No, not for that, but just to see that no other snake comes.”

“Get out of the road, you dirty little scoundrel, and stop your
impudence,” I said, lifting my foot suggestively.

Thereon he scooted with a subdued grin round the other side of the bush, whence
as I knew well he kept his eye fixed on me to be sure that I made no further
attempt to take off the Great Medicine.

Now of this talisman I may as well say at once that I am no believer in it or
its precious influences. Therefore, although it was useful sometimes, notably
twice when Umslopogaas was concerned, I do not know whether personally I should
have done better or worse upon that journey if I had thrown it into the pool.

It is true, however, that until quite the end of this history when it became
needful to do so to save another, I never made any further attempt to remove it
from my neck, not even when it rubbed a sore in my skin, because I did not wish
to offend the prejudices of Hans.

It is true, moreover, that this hideous ivory had a reputation which stretched
very far from the place where it was made and was regarded with great reverence
by all kinds of queer people, even by the Amahagger themselves, of whom
presently, as they say in pedigrees, a fact of which I found sundry proofs.
Indeed, I saw a first example of it when a little while later I met that great
warrior, Umslopogaas, Chief of the People of the Axe.

For, after determining firmly, for reasons which I will set out, that I would
not visit this man, in the end I did so, although by then I had given up any
idea of journeying across the Zambesi to look for a mysterious and non-existent
witch-woman, as Zikali had suggested that I should do. To begin with I knew
that his talk was all rubbish and, even if it were not, that at the bottom of
it was some desire of the Opener-of-Roads that I should make a path for him to
travel towards an indefinite but doubtless evil object of his own. Further, by
this time I had worn through that mood of mine which had caused me to yearn for
correspondence with the departed and a certain knowledge of their existence.

I wonder whether many people understand, as I do, how entirely distinct and how
variable are these moods which sway us, or at any rate some of us, at sundry
periods of our lives. As I think I have already suggested, at one time we are
all spiritual; at another all physical; at one time we are sure that our lives
here are as a dream and a shadow and that the real existence lies elsewhere; at
another that these brief days of ours are the only business with which we have
to do and that of it we must make the best. At one time we think our loves much
more immortal than the stars; at another that they are mere shadows cast by the
baleful sun of desire upon the shallow and fleeting water we call Life which
seems to flow out of nowhere into nowhere. At one time we are full of faith, at
another all such hopes are blotted out by a black wall of Nothingness, and so
on ad infinitum. Only very stupid people, or humbugs, are or pretend to
be, always consistent and unchanging.

To return, I determined not only that I would not travel north to seek that
which no living man will ever find, certainty as to the future, but also, to
show my independence of Zikali, that I would not visit this chief, Umslopogaas.
So, having traded all my goods and made a fair profit (on paper), I set myself
to return to Natal, proposing to rest awhile in my little house at Durban, and
told Hans my mind.

“Very good, Baas,” he said. “I, too, should like to go to
Durban. There are lots of things there that we cannot get here,” and he
fixed his roving eye upon a square-faced gin bottle, which as it happened was
filled with nothing stronger than water, because all the gin was drunk.
“Yet, Baas, we shall not see the Berea for a long while.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked sharply.

“Oh! Baas, I don’t know, but you went to visit the Opener-of-Roads,
did you not, and he told you to go north and lent you a certain Great Medicine,
did he not?”

Here Hans proceeded to light his corncob pipe with an ash from the fire, all
the time keeping his beady eyes fixed upon that part of me where he knew the
talisman was hung.

“Quite true, Hans, but now I mean to show Zikali that I am not his
messenger, for south or north or east or west. So to-morrow morning we cross
the river and trek for Natal.”

“Yes, Baas, but then why not cross it this evening? There is still
light.”

“I have said that we will cross it to-morrow morning,” I answered
with that firmness which I have read always indicates a man of character,
“and I do not change my word.”

“No, Baas, but sometimes other things change besides words. Will the Baas
have that buck’s leg for supper, or the stuff out of a tin with a dint in
it, which we bought at a store two years ago? The flies have got at the
buck’s leg, but I cut out the bits with the maggots on it and ate them
myself.”

Hans was right, things do change, especially the weather. That night,
unexpectedly, for when I turned in the sky seemed quite serene, there came a
terrible rain long before it was due, which lasted off and on for three whole
days and continued intermittently for an indefinite period. Needless to say the
river, which it would have been so easy to cross on this particular evening, by
the morning was a raging torrent, and so remained for several weeks.

In despair at length I trekked south to where a ford was reported, which, when
reached, proved impracticable.

I tried another, a dozen miles further on, which was very hard to come to over
boggy land. It looked all right and we were getting across finely, when
suddenly one of the wheels sank in an unsuspected hole and there we stuck.
Indeed, I believe the waggon, or bits of it, would have remained in the
neighbourhood of that ford to this day, had I not managed to borrow some extra
oxen belonging to a Christian Kaffir, and with their help to drag it back to
the bank whence we had started.

As it happened I was only just in time, since a new storm which had burst
further up the river, brought it down in flood again, a very heavy flood.

In this country, England, where I write, there are bridges everywhere and no
one seems to appreciate them. If they think of them at all it is to grumble
about the cost of their upkeep. I wish they could have experienced what a lack
of them means in a wild country during times of excessive rain, and the same
remark applied to roads. You should think more of your blessings, my friends,
as the old woman said to her complaining daughter who had twins two years
running, adding that they might have been triplets.

To return—after this I confessed myself beaten and gave up until such
time as it should please Providence to turn off the water-tap. Trekking out of
sight of that infernal river which annoyed me with its constant gurgling, I
camped on a comparatively dry spot that overlooked a beautiful stretch of
rolling veld. Towards sunset the clouds lifted and I saw a mile or two away a
most extraordinary mountain on the lower slopes of which grew a dense forest.
Its upper part, which was of bare rock, looked exactly like the seated figure
of a grotesque person with the chin resting on the breast. There was the head,
there were the arms, there were the knees. Indeed, the whole mass of it
reminded me strongly of the effigy of Zikali which was tied about my neck, or
rather of Zikali himself.

“What is that called?” I said to Hans, pointing to this strange
hill, now blazing in the angry fire of the setting sun that had burst out
between the storm clouds, which made it appear more ominous even than before.

“That is the Witch Mountain, Baas, where the Chief Umslopogaas and a
blood brother of his who carried a great club used to hunt with the wolves. It
is haunted and in a cave at the top of it lie the bones of Nada the Lily, the
fair woman whose name is a song, she who was the love of Umslopogaas.”^[2]

[2]
For the story of Umslopogaas and Nada see the book called “Nada the
Lily.”—Editor.

“Rubbish,” I said, though I had heard something of all that story
and remembered that Zikali had mentioned this Nada, comparing her beauty to
that of another whom once I knew.

“Where then lives the Chief Umslopogaas?”

“They say that his town is yonder on the plain, Baas. It is called the
Place of the Axe and is strongly fortified with a river round most of it, and
his people are the People of the Axe. They are a fierce people, and all the
country round here is uninhabited because Umslopogaas has cleaned out the
tribes who used to live in it, first with his wolves and afterwards in war. He
is so strong a chief and so terrible in battle that even Chaka himself was
afraid of him, and they say that he brought Dingaan the King to his end because
of a quarrel about this Nada. Cetywayo, the present king, too leaves him alone
and to him he pays no tribute.”

Whilst I was about to ask Hans from whom he had collected all this information,
suddenly I heard sounds, and looking up, saw three tall men clad in full
herald’s dress rushing towards us at great speed.

“Here come some chips from the Axe,” said Hans, and promptly bolted
into the waggon.

I did not bolt because there was no time to do so without loss of dignity, but,
although I wished I had my rifle with me, just sat still upon my stool and with
great deliberation lighted my pipe, taking not the slightest notice of the
three savage-looking fellows.

These, who I noted carried axes instead of assegais, rushed straight at me with
the axes raised in such a fashion that anyone unacquainted with the habits of
Zulu warriors of the old school, might have thought that they intended nothing
short of murder.

As I expected, however, within about six feet of me they halted suddenly and
stood there still as statues. For my part I went on lighting my pipe as though
I did not see them and when at length I was obliged to lift my head, surveyed
them with an air of mild interest.

Then I took a little book out of my pocket, it was my favourite copy of the
Ingoldsby Legends—and began to read.

The passage which caught my eye, if “axe” be substituted for
“knife” was not inappropriate. It was from “The Nurse’s
Story,” and runs,

“But, oh! what a thing ‘tis to see and to know

That the bare knife is raised in the hand of the foe,

Without hope to repel or to ward off the blow!”

This proceeding of mine astonished them a good deal who felt that they had, so
to speak, missed fire. At last the soldier in the middle said,

“Are you blind, White Man?”

“No, Black Fellow,” I answered, “but I am short-sighted.
Would you be so good as to stand out of my light?” a remark which puzzled
them so much that all three drew back a few paces.

When I had read a little further I came to the following lines,

“‘Tis plain,

As anatomists tell us, that never again,

Shall life revisit the foully slain

When once they’ve been cut through the jugular vein.”

In my circumstances at that moment this statement seemed altogether too
suggestive, so I shut up the book and remarked,

“If you are wanderers who want food, as I judge by your being so thin, I
am sorry that I have little meat, but my servants will give you what they
can.”

“Ow!” said the spokesman, “he calls us wanderers!
Either he must be a very great man or he is mad.”

“You are right. I am a great man,” I answered, yawning,
“and if you trouble me too much you will see that I can be mad also. Now
what do you want?”

“We are messengers from the great Chief Umslopogaas, Captain of the
People of the Axe, and we want tribute,” answered the man in a somewhat
changed tone.

“Do you? Then you won’t get it. I thought that only the King of
Zululand had a right to tribute, and your Captain’s name is not Cetywayo,
is it?”

“Our Captain is King here,” said the man still more uncertainly.

“Is he indeed? Then away with you back to him and tell this King of whom
I have never heard, though I have a message for a certain Umslopogaas, that
Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, intends to visit him to-morrow, if he will send a
guide at the first light to show the best path for the waggon.”

“Hearken,” said the man to his companions, “this is
Macumazahn himself and no other. Well, we thought it, for who else would have
dared——”

Then they saluted with their axes, calling me “Chief” and other
fine names, and departed as they had come, at a run, calling out that my
message should be delivered and that doubtless Umslopogaas would send the
guide.

So it came about that, quite contrary to my intention, after all circumstances
brought me to the Town of the Axe. Even to the last moment I had not meant to
go there, but when the tribute was demanded I saw that it was best to do so,
and having once passed my word it could not be altered. Indeed, I felt sure
that in this event there would be trouble and that my oxen would be stolen, or
worse.

So Fate having issued its decree, of which Hans’s version was that
Zikali, or his Great Medicine, had so arranged things, I shrugged my shoulders
and waited.

CHAPTER III.

UMSLOPOGAAS OF THE AXE

Next morning at the dawn guides arrived from the Town of the Axe, bringing with
them a yoke of spare oxen, which showed that its Chief was really anxious to
see me. So, in due course we inspanned and started, the guides leading us by a
rough but practicable road down the steep hillside to the saucer-like plain
beneath, where I saw many cattle grazing. Travelling some miles across this
plain, we came at last to a river of no great breadth that encircled a
considerable Kaffir town on three sides, the fourth being protected by a little
line of koppies which were joined together with walls. Also the place was
strongly fortified with fences and in every other way known to the native mind.

With the help of the spare oxen we crossed the river safely at the ford,
although it was very full, and on the further side were received by a guard of
men, tall, soldierlike fellows, all of them armed with axes as the messengers
had been. They led us up to the cattle enclosure in the centre of the town,
which although it could be used to protect beasts in case of emergency, also
served the practical purpose of a public square.

Here some ceremony was in progress, for soldiers stood round the kraal while
heralds pranced and shouted. At the head of the place in front of the
chief’s big hut was a little group of people, among whom a big, gaunt man
sat upon a stool clad in a warrior’s dress with a great and very long axe
hafted with wire-lashed rhinoceros horn, laid across his knees.

Our guides led me, with Hans sneaking after me like a dejected and low-bred dog
(for the waggon had stopped outside the gate), across the kraal to where the
heralds shouted and the big man sat yawning. At once I noted that he was a very
remarkable person, broad and tall and spare of frame, with long, tough-looking
arms and a fierce face which reminded me of that of the late King Dingaan. Also
he had a great hole in his head above the temple where the skull had been
driven in by some blow, and keen, royal-looking eyes.

He looked up and seeing me, cried out,

“What! Has a white man come to fight me for the chieftainship of the
People of the Axe? Well, he is a small one.”

“No,” I answered quietly, “but Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night,
has come to visit you in answer to your request, O Umslopogaas; Macumazahn
whose name was known in this land before yours was told of, O
Umslopogaas.”

The Chief heard and rising from his seat, lifted the big axe in salute.

“I greet you, O Macumazahn,” he said, “who although you are
small in stature, are very great indeed in fame. Have I not heard how you
conquered Bangu, although Saduko slew him, and of how you gave up the six
hundred head of cattle to Tshoza and the men of the Amangwane who fought with
you, the cattle that were your own? Have I not heard how you led the Tulwana
against the Usutu and stamped flat three of Cetywayo’s regiments in the
days of Panda, although, alas! because of an oath of mine I lifted no steel in
that battle, I who will have nothing to do with those that spring from the
blood of Senzangacona—perhaps because I smell too strongly of it,
Macumazahn. Oh! yes, I have heard these and many other things concerning you,
though until now it has never been my fortune to look upon your face, O
Watcher-by-Night, and therefore I greet you well, Bold one, Cunning one,
Upright one, Friend of us Black People.”

“Thank you,” I answered, “but you said something about
fighting. If there is to be anything of the sort, let us get it over. If you
want to fight, I am quite ready,” and I tapped the rifle which I carried.

The grim Chief broke into a laugh and said,

“Listen. By an ancient law any man on this day in each year may fight me
for this Chieftainship, as I fought and conquered him who held it before me,
and take it from me with my life and the axe, though of late none seems to like
the business. But that law was made before there were guns, or men like
Macumazahn who, it is said, can hit a lizard on a wall at fifty paces.
Therefore I tell you that if you wish to fight me with a rifle, O Macumazahn, I
give in and you may have the chieftainship,” and he laughed again in his
fierce fashion.

“I think it is too hot for fighting either with guns or axes, and
Chieftainships are honey that is full of stinging bees,” I answered.

Then I took my seat on a stool that had been brought for me and placed by the
side of Umslopogaas, after which the ceremony went on.

The heralds cried out the challenge to all and sundry to come and fight the
Holder of the Axe for the chieftainship of the Axe without the slightest
result, since nobody seemed to desire to do anything of the sort. Then, after a
pause, Umslopogaas rose, swinging his formidable weapon round his head and
declared that by right of conquest he was Chief of the Tribe for the ensuing
year, an announcement that everybody accepted without surprise.

Again the heralds summoned all and sundry who had grievances, to come forward
and to state them and receive redress.

After a little pause there appeared a very handsome woman with large eyes,
particularly brilliant eyes that rolled as though they were in search of
someone. She was finely dressed and I saw by the ornaments she wore that she
held the rank of a chief’s wife.

“I, Monazi, have a complaint to make,” she said, “as it is
the right of the humblest to do on this day. In succession to Zinita whom
Dingaan slew with her children, I am your Inkosikaas, your head-wife, O
Umslopogaas.”

“That I know well enough,” said Umslopogaas, “what of
it?”

“This, that you neglect me for other women, as you neglected Zinita for
Nada the Beautiful, Nada the witch. I am childless, as are all your wives
because of the curse that this Nada left behind her. I demand that this curse
should be lifted from me. For your sake I abandoned Lousta the Chief, to whom I
was betrothed, and this is the end of it, that I am neglected and
childless.”

“Am I the Heavens Above that I can cause you to bear children,
woman?” asked Umslopogaas angrily. “Would that you had clung to
Lousta, my blood-brother and my friend, whom you lament, and left me
alone.”

“That still may chance, if I am not better treated,” answered
Monazi with a flash of her eyes. “Will you dismiss yonder new wife of
yours and give me back my place, and will you lift the curse of Nada off me, or
will you not?”

“As to the first,” answered Umslopogaas, “learn, Monazi, that
I will not dismiss my new wife, who at least is gentler-tongued and
truer-hearted than you are. As to the second, you ask that which it is not in
my power to give, since children are the gift of Heaven, and barrenness is its
bane. Moreover, you have done ill to bring into this matter the name of one who
is dead, who of all women was the sweetest and most innocent. Lastly, I warn
you before the people to cease from your plottings or traffic with Lousta, lest
ill come of them to you, or him, even though he be my blood-brother, or to
both.”

“Plottings!” cried Monazi in a shrill and furious voice.
“Does Umslopogaas talk of plottings? Well, I have heard that Chaka the
Lion left a son, and that this son has set a trap for the feet of him who sits
on Chaka’s throne. Perchance that king has heard it also; perchance the
People of the Axe will soon have another Chief.”

“Is it thus?” said Umslopogaas quietly. “And if so, will he
be named Lousta?”

Then his smouldering wrath broke out and in a kind of roaring voice he went on,

“What have I done that the wives of my bosom should be my betrayers,
those who would give me to death? Zinita betrayed me to Dingaan and in reward
was slain, and my children with her. Now would you, Monazi, betray me to
Cetywayo—though in truth there is naught to betray? Well, if so, bethink
you and let Lousta bethink him of what chanced to Zinita, and of what chances
to those who stand before the axe of Umslopogaas. What have I done, I say, that
women should thus strive to work me ill?”

“This,” answered Monazi with a mocking laugh, “that you have
loved one of them too well. If he would live in peace, he who has wives should
favour all alike. Least of anything should he moan continually over one who is
dead, a witch who has left a curse behind her and thus insulted and do wrong to
the living. Also he would be wise to attend to the matters of his own tribe and
household and to cease from ambitions that may bring him to the assegai, and
them with him.”

“I have heard your counsel, Wife, so now begone!” said Umslopogaas,
looking at her very strangely, and it seemed to me not without fear.

“Have you wives, Macumazahn?” he asked of me in a low voice when
she was out of hearing.

“Only among the spirits,” I answered.

“Well for you then; moreover, it is a bond between us, for I too have but
one true wife and she also is among the spirits. But go rest a while, and later
we will talk.”

So I went, leaving the Chief to his business, thinking as I walked away of a
certain message with which I was charged for him and of how into that message
came names that I had just heard, namely that of a man called Lousta and of a
woman called Monazi. Also I thought of the hints which in her jealous anger and
disappointment at her lack of children, this woman had dropped about a plot
against him who sat on the throne of Chaka, which of course must mean King
Cetywayo himself.

I came to the guest-hut, which proved to be a very good place and clean; also
in it I found plenty of food made ready for me and for my servants. After
eating I slept for a time as it is always my fashion to do when I have nothing
else on hand, since who knows for how long he may be kept awake at night?
Indeed, it was not until the sun had begun to sink that a messenger came,
saying that the Chief desired to see me if I had rested. So I went to his big
hut which stood alone with a strong fence set round it at a distance, so that
none could come within hearing of what was said, even at the door of the hut. I
observed also that a man armed with an axe kept guard at the gateway in this
fence round which he walked from time to time.

The Chief Umslopogaas was seated on a stool by the door of his hut with his
rhinoceros-horn-handled axe which was fastened to his right wrist by a thong,
leaning against his thigh, and a wolfskin hanging from his broad shoulders.
Very grim and fierce he looked thus, with the red light of the sunset playing
on him. He greeted me and pointed to another stool on which I sat myself down.
Apparently he had been watching my eyes, for he said,

“I see that like other creatures which move at night, such as leopards
and hyenas, you take note of all, O Watcher-by-Night, even of the soldier who
guards this place and of where the fence is set and of how its gate is
fashioned.”

“Had I not done so I should have been dead long ago, O Chief.”

“Yes, and because it is not my nature to do so as I should, perchance I
shall soon be dead. It is not enough to be fierce and foremost in the battle,
Macumazahn. He who would sleep safe and of whom, when he dies, folk will say
‘He has eaten’ (i.e., he has lived out his life), must do more than
this. He must guard his tongue and even his thoughts! he must listen to the
stirring of rats in the thatch and look for snakes in the grass; he must trust
few, and least of all those who sleep upon his bosom. But those who have the
Lion’s blood in them or who are prone to charge like a buffalo, often
neglect these matters and therefore in the end they fall into a pit.”

“Yes,” I answered, “especially those who have the
lion’s blood in them, whether that lion be man or beast.”

This I said because of the rumours I had heard that this Slaughterer was in
truth the son of Chaka. Therefore not knowing whether or no he were playing on
the word “lion,” which was Chaka’s title, I wished to draw
him, especially as I saw in his face a great likeness to Chaka’s brother
Dingaan, whom, it was whispered, this same Umslopogaas had slain. As it
happened I failed, for after a pause he said,

“Why do you come to visit me, Macumazahn, who have never done so
before?”

“I do not come to visit you, Umslopogaas. That was not my intention. You
brought me, or rather the flooded rivers and you together brought me, for I was
on my way to Natal and could not cross the drifts.”

“Yet I think you have a message for me, White Man, for not long ago a
certain wandering witch-doctor who came here told me to expect you and that you
had words to say to me.”

“Did he, Umslopogaas? Well, it is true that I have a message, though it
is one that I did not mean to deliver.”

“Yet being here, perchance you will deliver it, Macumazahn, for those who
have messages and will not speak them, sometimes come to trouble.”

“Yes, being here, I will deliver it, seeing that so it seems to be fated.
Tell me, do you chance to know a certain Small One who is great, a certain Old
One whose brain is young, a doctor who is called Opener-of-Roads?”

“I have heard of him, as have my forefathers for generations.”

“Indeed, and if it pleases you to tell me, Umslopogaas, what might be the
names of those forefathers of yours, who have heard of this doctor for
generations? They must have been short-lived men and as such I should like to
know of them.”

“That you cannot,” replied Umslopogaas shortly, “since they
are hlonipa (i.e. not to be spoken) in this land.”

“Indeed,” I said again. “I thought that rule applied only to
the names of kings, but of course I am but an ignorant white man who may well
be mistaken on such matters of your Zulu customs.”

“Yes, O Macumazahn, you may be mistaken or—you may not. It matters
nothing. But what of this message of yours?”

“It came at the end of a long story, O Bulalio. But since you seek to
know, these were the words of it, so nearly as I can remember them.”

Then sentence by sentence I repeated to him all that Zikali had said to me when
he called me back after bidding me farewell, which doubtless he did because he
wished to cut his message more deeply into the tablets of my mind.

Umslopogaas listened to every syllable with a curious intentness, and then
asked me to repeat it all again, which I did.

“Lousta! Monazi!” he said slowly. “Well, you heard those
names to-day, did you not, White Man? And you heard certain things from the
lips of this Monazi who was angry, that give colour to that talk of the
Opener-of-Roads. It seems to me,” he added, glancing about him and
speaking in a low voice, “that what I suspected is true and that without
doubt I am betrayed.”

“I do not understand,” I replied indifferently. “All this
talk is dark to me, as is the message of the Opener-of-Roads, or rather its
meaning. By whom and about what are you betrayed?”

“Let that snake sleep. Do not kick it with your foot. Suffice it you to
know that my head hangs upon this matter; that I am a rat in a forked stick,
and if the stick is pressed on by a heavy hand, then where is the rat?”

“Where all rats go, I suppose, that is, unless they are wise rats that
bite the hand which holds the stick before it is pressed down.”

“What is the rest of this story of yours, Macumazahn, which was told
before the Opener-of-Roads gave you that message? Does it please you to repeat
it to me that I may judge of it with my ears?”

“Certainly,” I answered, “on one condition, that what the
ears hear, the heart shall keep to itself alone.”

Umslopogaas stooped and laid his hand upon the broad blade of the weapon beside
him, saying,

“By the Axe I swear it. If I break the oath be the Axe my doom.”

Then I told him the tale, as I have set it down already, thinking to myself
that of it he would understand little, being but a wild warrior-man. As it
chanced, however, I was mistaken, for he seemed to understand a great deal,
perchance because such primitive natures are in closer touch with high and
secret things than we imagine; perchance for other reasons with which I became
acquainted later.

“It stands thus,” he said when I had finished, “or so I
think. You, Macumazahn, seek certain women who are dead to learn whether they
still live, or are really dead, but so far have failed to find them. Still
seeking, you asked the counsel of Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, he who among other
titles is also called ‘Home of Spirits.’ He answered that he could
not satisfy your heart because this tree was too tall for him to climb, but
that far to the north there lives a certain white witch who has powers greater
than his, being able to fly to the top of any tree, and to this white witch he
bade you go. Have I the story right thus far?”

I answered that he had.

“Good! Then Zikali went on to choose you companions for your journey, but
two, leaving out the guards or servants. I, Umhlopekazi, called Bulalio the
Slaughterer, called the Woodpecker also, was one of these, and that little
yellow monkey of a man whom I saw with you to-day, called Hansi, was the other.
Then you made a mock of Zikali by determining not to visit me, Umhlopekazi, and
not to go north to find the great white Queen of whom he had told you, but to
return to Natal. Is that so?”

I said it was.

“Then the rain fell and the winds blew and the rivers rose in wrath so
that you could not return to Natal, and after all by chance, or by fate, or by
the will of Zikali, the wizard of wizards, you drifted here to the kraal of me,
Umhlopekazi, and told me this story.”

“Just so,” I answered.

“Well, White Man, how am I to know that all this is not but a trap for my
feet which already seem to feel cords between the toes of both of them? What
token do you bring, O Watcher-by-Night? How am I to know that the
Opener-of-Roads really sent me this message which has been delivered so
strangely by one who wished to travel on another path? The wandering
witch-doctor told me that he who came would bear some sign.”

“I can’t say,” I answered, “at least in words.
But,” I added after reflection, “as you ask for a token, perhaps I
might be able to show you something that would bring proof to your heart, if
there were any secret place——”

Umslopogaas walked to the gateway of the fence and saw that the sentry was at
his post. Then he walked round the hut casting an eye upon its roof, and
muttered to me as he returned.

“Once I was caught thus. There lived a certain wife of mine who set her
ear to the smoke-hole and so brought about the death of many, and among them of
herself and of our children. Enter. All is safe. Yet if you talk, speak
low.”

So we went into the hut taking the stools with us, and seated ourselves by the
fire that burned there on to which Umslopogaas threw chips of resinous wood.

“Now,” he said.

I opened my shirt and by the clear light of the flame showed him the image of
Zikali which hung about my neck. He stared at it, though touch it he would not.
Then he stood up and lifting his great axe, he saluted the image with the word
“Makosi!” the salute that is given to great wizards because
they are supposed to be the home of many spirits.

“It is the big Medicine, the Medicine itself,” he said, “that
which has been known in the land since the time of Senzangacona, the father of
the Zulu Royal House, and as it is said, before him.”

“How can that be?” I asked, “seeing that this image
represents Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, as an old man, and Senzangacona died many
years ago?”

“I do not know,” he answered, “but it is so. Listen. There
was a certain Mopo, or as some called him, Umbopo, who was Chaka’s
body-servant and my foster-father, and he told me that twice this
Medicine,” and he pointed to the image, “was sent to Chaka, and
that each time the Lion obeyed the message that came with it. A third time it
was sent, but he did not obey the message and then—where was
Chaka?”

Here Umslopogaas passed his hand across his mouth, a significant gesture
amongst the Zulus.

“Mopo,” I said, “yes, I have heard the story of Mopo, also
that Chaka’s body became his servant in the end, since Mopo killed
him with the help of the princes Dingaan and Umhlangana. Also I have heard that
this Mopo still lives, though not in Zululand.”

“Does he, Macumazahn?” said Umslopogaas, taking snuff from a spoon
and looking at me keenly over the spoon. “You seem to know a great deal,
Macumazahn; too much as some might think.”

“Yes,” I answered, “perhaps I do know too much, or at any
rate more than I want to know. For instance, O fosterling of Mopo and son
of—was the lady named Baleka?—I know a good deal about
you.”

Umslopogaas stared at me and laying his hand upon the great axe, half rose.
Then he sat down again.

“I think that this,” and I touched the image of Zikali upon my
breast, “would turn even the blade of the axe named Groan-maker,” I
said and paused. As nothing happened, I went on, “For instance, again I
think I know—or have I dreamed it?—that a certain chief, whose
mother’s name I believe was Baleka—by the way, was she not one of
Chaka’s ‘sisters’?—has been plotting against that son
of Panda who sits upon the throne, and that his plots have been betrayed, so
that he is in some danger of his life.”

“Macumazahn,” said Umslopogaas hoarsely, “I tell you that did
you not wear the Great Medicine on your breast, I would kill you where you sit
and bury you beneath the floor of the hut, as one who knows—too
much.”

“It would be a mistake, Umslopogaas, one of the many that you have made.
But as I do wear the Medicine, the question does not arise, does
it?”

Again he made no answer and I went on, “And now, what about this journey
to the north? If indeed I must make it, would you wish to accompany me?”

Umslopogaas rose from the stool and crawled out of the hut, apparently to make
some inspection. Presently he returned and remarked that the night was clear
although there were heavy storm clouds on the horizon, by which I understood
him to convey in Zulu metaphor that it was safe for us to talk, but that danger
threatened from afar.

“Macumazahn,” he said, “we speak under the blanket of the
Opener-of-Roads who sits upon your heart, and whose sign you bring to me, as he
sent me word that you would, do we not?”

“I suppose so,” I answered. “At any rate we speak as man to
man, and hitherto the honour of Macumazahn has not been doubted in Zululand. So
if you have anything to say, Chief Bulalio, say it at once, for I am tired and
should like to eat and rest.”

“Good, Macumazahn. I have this to say. I who am the son of one who was
greater than he, have plotted to seize the throne of Zululand from him who sits
upon that throne. It is true, for I grew weary of my idleness as a petty chief.
Moreover, I should have succeeded with the help of Zikali, who hates the House
of Senzangacona, though me, who am of its blood, he does not hate, because ever
I have striven against that House. But it seems from his message and those
words spoken by an angry woman, that I have been betrayed, and that to-night or
to-morrow night, or by the next moon, the slayers will be upon me, smiting me
before I can smite, at which I cannot grumble.”

“By whom have you been betrayed, Umslopogaas?”

“By that wife of mine, as I think, Macumazahn. Also by Lousta, my
blood-brother, over whom she has cast her net and made false to me, so that he
hopes to win her whom he has always loved and with her the Chieftainship of the
Axe. Now what shall I do?—Tell me, you whose eyes can see in the
dark.”

I thought a moment and answered, “I think that if I were you, I would
leave this Lousta to sit in my place for a while as Chief of the People of the
Axe, and take a journey north, Umslopogaas. Then if trouble comes from the
Great House where a king sits, it will come to Lousta who can show that the
People of the Axe are innocent and that you are far away.”

“That is cunning, Macumazahn. There speaks the Great Medicine. If I go
north, who can say that I have plotted, and if I leave my betrayer in my place,
who can say that I was a traitor, who have set him where I used to sit and left
the land upon a private matter? And now tell me of this journey of
yours.”

So I told him everything, although until that moment I had not made up my mind
to go upon this journey, I who had come here to his kraal by accident, or so it
seemed, and by accident had delivered to him a certain message.

“You wish to consult a white witch-doctoress, Macumazahn, who according
to Zikali lives far to the north, as to the dead. Now I too, though perchance
you will not think it of a black man, desire to learn of the dead; yes, of a
certain wife of my youth who was sister and friend as well as wife, whom too I
loved better than all the world. Also I desire to learn of a brother of mine
whose name I never speak, who ruled the wolves with me and who died at my side
on yonder Witch-Mountain, having made him a mat of men to lie on in a great and
glorious fight. For of him as of the woman I think all day and dream all night,
and I would know if they still live anywhere and I may look to see them again
when I have died as a warrior should and as I hope to do. Do you understand,
Watcher-by-Night?”

I answered that I understood very well, as his case seemed to be like my own.

“It may happen,” went on Umslopogaas, “that all this talk of
the dead who are supposed to live after they are dead, is but as the sound of
wind whispering in the reeds at night, that comes from nowhere and goes nowhere
and means nothing. But at least ours will be a great journey in which we shall
find adventure and fighting, since it is well known in the land that wherever
Macumazahn goes there is plenty of both. Also it seems well for reasons that
have been spoken of between us, as Zikali says, that I should leave the country
of the Zulus for a while, who desire to die a man’s death at the last and
not to be trapped like a jackal in a pit. Lastly I think that we shall agree
well together though my temper is rough at times, and that neither of us will
desert the other in trouble, though of that little yellow dog of yours I am not
so sure.”

“I answer for him,” I replied. “Hans is a true man, cunning
also when once he is away from drink.”

Then we spoke of plans for our journey, and of when and where we should meet to
make it, talking till it was late, after which I went to sleep in the
guest-hut.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LION AND THE AXE

Next day early I left the town of the People of the Axe, having bid a formal
farewell to Umslopogaas, saying in a voice that all could hear that as the
rivers were still flooded, I proposed to trek to the northern parts of Zululand
and trade there until the weather was better. Our private arrangement, however,
was that on the night of the next full moon, which happened about four weeks
later, we should meet at the eastern foot of a certain great, flat-topped
mountain known to both of us, which stands to the north of Zululand but well
beyond its borders.

So northward I trekked, slowly to spare my oxen, trading as I went. The details
do not matter, but as it happened I met with more luck upon that journey than
had come my way for many a long year. Although I worked on credit since nearly
all my goods were sold, as owing to my repute I could always do in Zululand, I
made some excellent bargains in cattle, and to top up with, bought a large lot
of ivory so cheap that really I think it must have been stolen.

All of this, cattle and ivory together, I sent to Natal in charge of a white
friend of mine whom I could trust, where the stuff was sold very well indeed,
and the proceeds paid to my account, the “trade” equivalents being
duly remitted to the native vendors.

In fact, my good fortune was such that if I had been superstitious like Hans, I
should have been inclined to attribute it to the influence of Zikali’s
“Great Medicine.” As it was I knew it to be one of the chances of a
trader’s life and accepted it with a shrug as often as I had been
accustomed to do in the alternative of losses.

Only one untoward incident happened to me. Of a sudden a party of the
King’s soldiers under the command of a well-known Induna or
Councillor, arrived and insisted upon searching my waggon, as I thought at
first in connection with that cheap lot of ivory which had already departed to
Natal. However, never a word did they say of ivory, nor indeed was a single
thing belonging to me taken by them.

I was very indignant and expressed my feelings to the Induna in no
measured terms. He on his part was most apologetic, and explained that what he
did he was obliged to do “by the King’s orders.” Also he let
it slip that he was seeking for a certain “evil-doer” who, it was
thought, might be with me without my knowing his real character, and as this
“evil-doer,” whose name he would not mention, was a very fierce
man, it had been necessary to bring a strong guard with him.

Now I bethought me of Umslopogaas, but merely looked blank and shrugged my
shoulders, saying that I was not in the habit of consorting with evil-doers.

Still unsatisfied, the Induna questioned me as to the places where I had
been during this journey of mine in the Zulu country. I told him with the
utmost frankness, mentioning among others—because I was sure that already
he knew all my movements well—the town of the People of the Axe.

Then he asked me if I had seen its Chief, a certain Umslopogaas or Bulalio. I
answered, Yes, that I had met him there for the first time and thought him a
very remarkable man.

With this the Induna agreed emphatically, saying that perhaps I did not
know how remarkable. Next he asked me where he was now, to which I
replied that I had not the faintest idea, but I presumed in his kraal where I
had left him. The Induna explained that he was not in his kraal;
that he had gone away leaving one Lousta and his own head wife Monazi to
administer the chieftainship for a while, because, as he stated, he wished to
make a journey.

I yawned as if weary of the subject of this chief, and indeed of the whole
business. Then the Induna said that I must come to the King and repeat
to him all the words that I had spoken. I replied that I could not possibly do
so as, having finished my trading, I had arranged to go north to shoot
elephants. He answered that elephants lived a long while and would not die
while I was visiting the King.

Then followed an argument which grew heated and ended in his declaring that to
the King I must come, even if he had to take me there by force.

I sat silent, wondering what to say or do and leant forward to pick a piece of
wood out of the fire wherewith to light my pipe. Now my shirt was not buttoned
and as it chanced this action caused the ivory image of Zikali that hung about
my neck to appear between its edges. The Induna saw it and his eyes grew
big with fear.

“Hide that!” he whispered, “hide that, lest it should bewitch
me. Indeed, already I feel as though I were being bewitched. It is the Great
Medicine itself.”

“That will certainly happen to you,” I said, yawning again,
“if you insist upon my taking a week’s trek to visit the Black One,
or interfere with me in any way now or afterwards,” and I lifted my hand
towards the talisman, looking him steadily in the face.

“Perhaps after all, Macumazahn, it is not necessary for you to visit the
King,” he said in an uncertain voice. “I will go and make report to
him that you know nothing of this evil-doer.”

And he went in such a hurry that he never waited to say good-bye. Next morning
before the dawn I went also and trekked steadily until I was clear of Zululand.

In due course and without accident, for the weather, which had been so wet, had
now turned beautifully fine and dry, we came to the great, flat-topped hill
that I have mentioned, trekking thither over high, sparsely-timbered veld that
offered few difficulties to the waggon. This peculiar hill, known to such
natives as lived in those parts by a long word that means
“Hut-with-a-flat-roof,” is surrounded by forest, for here trees
grow wonderfully well, perhaps because of the water that flows from its slopes.
Forcing our way through this forest, which was full of game, I reached its
eastern foot and there camped, five days before that night of full moon on
which I had arranged to meet Umslopogaas.

That I should meet him I did not in the least believe, firstly because I
thought it very probable that he would have changed his mind about coming, and
secondly for the excellent reason that I expected he had gone to call upon the
King against his will, as I had been asked to do. It was evident to me that he
was up to his eyes in some serious plot against Cetywayo, in which he was the
old dwarf Zikali’s partner, or rather, tool; also that his plot had been
betrayed, with the result that he was “wanted” and would have
little chance of passing safely through Zululand. So taking one thing with
another I imagined that I had seen his grim face and his peculiar,
ancient-looking axe for the last time.

To tell the truth I was glad. Although at first the idea had appealed to me a
little, I did not want to make this wild-goose, or wild-witch chase through
unknown lands to seek for a totally fabulous person who dwelt far across the
Zambesi. I had, as it were, been forced into the thing, but if Umslopogaas did
not appear, my obligations would be at an end and I should return to Natal at
my leisure. First, however, I would do a little shooting since I found that a
large herd of elephants haunted this forest. Indeed I was tempted to attack
them at once, but did not do so since, as Hans pointed out, if we were going
north it would be difficult to carry the ivory, especially if we had to leave
the waggon, and I was too old a hunter to desire to kill the great beasts for
the fun of the thing.

So I just sat down and rested, letting the oxen feed throughout the hours of
light on the rich grasses which grew upon the bottom-most slopes of the big
mountain where we were camped by a stream, not more than a hundred yards above
the timber line.

At some time or other there had been a native village at this spot; probably
the Zulus had cleaned it out in long past years, for I found human bones black
with age lying in the long grass. Indeed, the cattle-kraal still remained and
in such good condition that by piling up a few stones here and there on the
walls and closing the narrow entrances with thorn bushes, we could still use it
to enclose our oxen at night. This I did for fear lest there should be lions
about, though I had neither seen nor heard them.

So the days went by pleasantly enough with lots to eat, since whenever we
wanted meat I had only to go a few yards to shoot a fat buck at a spot whither
they trekked to drink in the evening, till at last came the time of full moon.
Of this I was also glad, since, to tell the truth, I had begun to be bored.
Rest is good, but for a man who has always led an active life too much of it is
very bad, for then he begins to think and thought in large doses is depressing.

Of the fire-eating Umslopogaas there was no sign, so I made up my mind that on
the morrow I would start after those elephants and when I had shot—or
failed to shoot—some of them, return to Natal. I felt unable to remain
idle any more; it never was my gift to do so, which is perhaps why I employ my
ample leisure here in England in jotting down such reminiscences as these.

Well, the full moon came up in silver glory and after I had taken a good look
at her for luck, also at all the veld within sight, I turned in. An hour or two
later some noise from the direction of the cattle-kraal woke me up. As it did
not recur, I thought that I would go to sleep again. Then an uneasy thought
came to me that I could not remember having looked to see whether the entrance
was properly closed, as it was my habit to do. It was the same sort of
troublesome doubt which in a civilised house makes a man get out of bed and go
along the cold passages to the sitting-room to see whether he has put out the
lamp. It always proves that he has put it out, but that does not prevent
a repetition of the performance next time the perplexity arises.

I reflected that perhaps the noise was caused by the oxen pushing their way
through the carelessly-closed entrance, and at any rate that I had better go to
see. So I slipped on my boots and a coat and went without waking Hans or the
boys, only taking with me a loaded, single-barrelled rifle which I used for
shooting small buck, but no spare cartridges.

Now in front of the gateway of the cattle-kraal, shading it, grew a single big
tree of the wild fig order. Passing under this tree I looked and saw that the
gateway was quite securely closed, as now I remembered I had noted at sunset.
Then I started to go back but had not stepped more than two or three paces
when, in the bright moonlight, I saw the head of my smallest ox, a beast of the
Zulu breed, suddenly appear over the top of the wall. About this there would
have been nothing particularly astonishing, had it not been for the fact that
this head belonged to a dead animal, as I could tell from the closed eyes and
the hanging tongue.

“What in the name of goodness——” I began to myself,
when my reflections were cut short by the appearance of another head, that of
one of the biggest lions I ever saw, which had the ox by the throat, and with
the enormous strength that is given to these creatures, by getting its back
beneath the body, was deliberately hoisting it over the wall, to drag it away
to devour at its leisure.

There was the brute within twelve feet of me, and what is more, it saw me as I
saw it, and stopped, still holding the ox by the throat.

“What a chance for Allan Quatermain! Of course he shot it dead,”
one can fancy anyone saying who knows me by repute, also that by the gift of
God I am handy with a rifle. Well, indeed, it should have been, for even with
the small-bore piece that I carried, a bullet ought to have pierced through the
soft parts of its throat to the brain and to have killed that lion as dead as
Julius Cæsar. Theoretically the thing was easy enough; indeed, although I was
startled for a moment, by the time that I had the rifle to my shoulder I had
little fear of the issue, unless there was a miss-fire, especially as the beast
seemed so astonished that it remained quite still.

Then the unexpected happened as generally it does in life, particularly in
hunting, which, in my case, is a part of life. I fired, but by misfortune the
bullet struck the tip of the horn of that confounded ox, which tip either was
or at that moment fell in front of the spot on the lion’s throat whereat
half-unconsciously I had aimed. Result: the ball was turned and, departing at
an angle, just cut the skin of the lion’s neck deeply enough to hurt it
very much and to make it madder than all the hatters in the world.

Dropping the ox, with a most terrific roar it came over the wall at me—I
remember that there seemed to be yards of it—I mean of the lion—in
front of which appeared a cavernous mouth full of gleaming teeth.

I skipped back with much agility, also a little to one side, because there was
nothing else to do, reflecting in a kind of inconsequent way, that after all
Zikali’s Great Medicine was not worth a curse. The lion landed on my side
of the wall and reared itself upon its hind legs before getting to business,
towering high above me but slightly to my left.

Then I saw a strange thing. A shadow thrown by the moon flitted past
me—all I noted of it was the distorted shape of a great, lifted axe,
probably because the axe came first. The shadow fell and with it another
shadow, that of a lion’s paw dropping to the ground. Next there was a
most awful noise of roaring, and wheeling round I saw such a fray as never I
shall see again. A tall, grim, black man was fighting the great lion, that now
lacked one paw, but still stood upon its hind legs, striking at him with the
other.

The man, who was absolutely silent, dodged the blow and hit back with the axe,
catching the beast upon the breast with such weight that it came to the ground
in a lopsided fashion, since now it had only one fore-foot on which to light.

The axe flashed up again and before the lion could recover itself, or do
anything else, fell with a crash upon its skull, sinking deep into the head.
After this all was over, for the beast’s brain was cut in two.

“I am here at the appointed time, Macumazahn,” said Umslopogaas,
for it was he, as with difficulty he dragged his axe from the lion’s
severed skull, “to find you watching by night as it is reported that you
always do.”

“No,” I retorted, for his tone irritated me, “you are late,
Bulalio, the moon has been up some hours.”

“I said, O Macumazahn, that I would meet you on the night of the
full moon, not at the rising of the moon.”

“That is true,” I replied, mollified, “and at any rate you
came at a good moment.”

“Yes,” he answered, “though as it happens in this clear light
the thing was easy to anyone who can handle an axe. Had it been darker the end
might have been different. But, Macumazahn, you are not so clever as I thought,
since otherwise you would not have come out against a lion with a toy like
that,” and he pointed to the little rifle in my hand.

“I did not know that there was a lion, Umslopogaas.”

“That is why you are not so clever as I thought, since of one sort or
another there is always a lion which wise men should be prepared to meet,
Macumazahn.”

“You are right again,” I replied.

At that moment Hans arrived upon the scene, followed at a discreet distance by
the waggon boys, and took in the situation at a glance.

“The Great Medicine of the Opener-of-Roads has worked well,” was
all he said.

“The great medicine of the Opener-of-Heads has worked better,”
remarked Umslopogaas with a little laugh and pointing to his red axe.
“Never before since she came into my keeping has Inkosikaas (i.e.
‘Chieftainess,’ for so was this famous weapon named) sunk so low as
to drink the blood of beasts. Still, the stroke was a good one so she need not
be ashamed. But, Yellow Man, how comes it that you who, I have been told, are
cunning, watch your master so ill?”

“I was asleep,” stuttered Hans indignantly.

“Those who serve should never sleep,” replied Umslopogaas sternly.
Then he turned and whistled, and behold! out of the long grass that grew at a
little distance, emerged twelve great men, all of them bearing axes and wearing
cloaks of hyena skins, who saluted me by raising their axes.

“Set a watch and skin me this beast by dawn. It will make us a
mat,” said Umslopogaas, whereon again they saluted silently and melted
away.

“Who are these?” I asked.

“A few picked warriors whom I brought with me, Macumazahn. There were one
or two more, but they got lost on the way.”

Then we went to the waggon and spoke no more that night.

Next morning I told Umslopogaas of the visit I had received from the
Induna of the King who wished me to come to the royal kraal. He nodded
and said,

“As it chances certain thieves attacked me on my journey, which is why
one or two of my people remain behind who will never travel again. We made good
play with those thieves; not one of them escaped,” he added grimly,
“and their bodies we threw into a river where are many crocodiles. But
their spears I brought away and I think that they are such as the King’s
guard use. If so, his search for them will be long, since the fight took place
where no man lives and we burned the shields and trappings. Oho! he will think
that the ghosts have taken them.”

That morning we trekked on fast, fearing lest a regiment searching for these
“thieves” should strike and follow our spoor. Luckily the ox that
the lion had killed was one of some spare cattle which I was driving with me,
so its loss did not inconvenience us. As we went Umslopogaas told me that he
had duly appointed Lousta and his wife Monazi to rule the tribe during his
absence, an office which they accepted doubtfully, Monazi acting as
Chieftainess and Lousta as her head Induna or Councillor.

I asked him whether he thought this wise under all the circumstances, seeing
that it had occurred to me since I made the suggestion, that they might be
unwilling to surrender power on his return, also that other domestic
complications might ensue.

“It matters little, Macumazahn,” he said with a shrug of his great
shoulders, “for of this I am sure, that I have played my part with the
People of the Axe and to stop among them would have meant my death, who am a
man betrayed. What do I care who love none and now have no children? Still, it
is true that I might have fled to Natal with the cattle and there have led a
fat and easy life. But ease and plenty I do not desire who would live and fall
as a warrior should.

“Never again, mayhap, shall I see the Ghost-Mountain where the wolves
ravened and the old Witch sits in stone waiting for the world to die, or sleep
in the town of the People of the Axe. What do I want with wives and oxen while
I have Inkosikaas the Groan-maker and she is true to me?” he
added, shaking the ancient axe above his head so that the sun gleamed upon the
curved blade and the hollow gouge or point at the back beyond the shaft socket.
“Where the Axe goes, there go the strength and virtue of the Axe, O
Macumazahn.”

“It is a strange weapon,” I said.

“Aye, a strange and an old, forged far away, says Zikali, by a
warrior-wizard hundreds of years ago, a great fighter who was also the first of
smiths and who sits in the Under-world waiting for it to return to his hand
when its work is finished beneath the sun. That will be soon, Macumazahn, since
Zikali told me that I am the last Holder of the Axe.”

“Did you then see the Opener-of-Roads?” I asked.

“Aye, I saw him. He it was who told me which way to go to escape from
Zululand. Also he laughed when he heard how the flooded rivers brought you to
my kraal, and sent you a message in which he said that the spirit of a snake
had told him that you tried to throw the Great Medicine into a pool, but were
stopped by that snake, whilst it was still alive. This, he said, you must do no
more, lest he should send another snake to stop you.”

“Did he?” I replied indignantly, for Zikali’s power of seeing
or learning about things that happened at a distance puzzled and annoyed me.

Only Hans grinned and said,

“I told you so, Baas.”

On we travelled from day to day, meeting with such difficulties and dangers as
are common on roadless veld in Africa, but no more, for the grass was good and
there was plenty of game, of which we shot what we wanted for meat. Indeed,
here in the back regions of what is known as Portuguese South East Africa,
every sort of wild animal was so numerous that personally I wished we could
turn our journey into a shooting expedition.

But of this Umslopogaas, whom hunting bored, would not hear. In fact, he was
much more anxious than myself to carry out our original purpose. When I asked
him why, he answered because of something Zikali had told him. What this was he
would not say, except that in the country whither we wandered he would fight a
great fight and win much honour.

Now Umslopogaas was by nature a fighting man, one who took a positive joy in
battle, and like an old Norseman, seemed to think that thus only could a man
decorously die. This amazed me, a peaceful person who loves quiet and a home.
Still, I gave way, partly to please him, partly because I hoped that we might
discover something of interest, and still more because, having once undertaken
an enterprise, my pride prompted me to see it through.

Now while he was preparing to draw his map in the ashes, or afterwards, I
forget which, Zikali had told me that when we drew near to the great river we
should come to a place on the edge of bush-veld that ran down to the river,
where a white man lived, adding, after casting his bones and reading from them,
that he thought this white man was a “trek-Boer.” This, I should
explain, means a Dutchman who has travelled away from wherever he lived and
made a home for himself in the wilderness, as some wandering spirit and the
desire to be free of authority often prompt these people to do. Also, after
another inspection of his enchanted knuckle-bones, he had declared that
something remarkable would happen to this man or his family, while I was
visiting him. Lastly in that map he drew in the ashes, the details of which
were impressed so indelibly upon my memory, he had shown me where I should find
the dwelling of this white man, of whom and of whose habitation doubtless he
knew through the many spies who seemed to be at the service of all
witch-doctors, and more especially of Zikali, the greatest among them.

Travelling by the sun and the compass I had trekked steadily in the exact
direction which he indicated, to find that in this useful particular he was
well named the “Opener-of-Roads,” since always before me I found a
practicable path, although to the right or to the left there would have been
none. Thus when we came to mountains, it was at a spot where we discovered a
pass; when we came to swamps it was where a ridge of high ground ran between,
and so forth. Also such tribes as we met upon our journey always proved of a
friendly character, although perhaps the aspect of Umslopogaas and his fierce
band whom, rather irreverently, I named his twelve Apostles, had a share in
inducing this peaceful attitude.

So smooth was our progress and so well marked by water at certain intervals,
that at last I came to the conclusion that we must be following some ancient
road which at a forgotten period of history, had run from south to north, or
vice versâ. Or rather, to be honest, it was the observant Hans who made
this discovery from various indications which had escaped my notice. I need not
stop to detail them, but one of these was that at certain places the
water-holes on a high, rather barren land had been dug out, and in one or more
instances, lined with stones after the fashion of an ancient well. Evidently we
were following an old trade route made, perhaps, in forgotten ages when Africa
was more civilised than it is now.

Passing over certain high, misty lands during the third week of our trek, where
frequently at this season of the year the sun never showed itself before ten
o’clock and disappeared at three or four in the afternoon, and where
twice we were held up for two whole days by dense fog, we came across a queer
nomadic people who seemed to live in movable grass huts and to keep great herds
of goats and long-tailed sheep.

These folk ran away from us at first, but when they found that we did them no
harm, became friendly and brought us offerings of milk, also of a kind of slug
or caterpillar which they seemed to eat. Hans, who was a great master of
different native dialects, discovered a tongue, or a mixture of tongues, in
which he could make himself understood to some of them.

They told him that in their day they had never seen a white man, although their
fathers’ fathers (an expression by which they meant their remote
ancestors) had known many of them. They added, however, that if we went on
steadily towards the north for another seven days’ journey, we should
come to a place where a white man lived, one, they had heard, who had a long
beard and killed animals with guns, as we did.

Encouraged by this intelligence we pushed forward, now travelling down hill out
of the mists into a more genial country. Indeed, the veld here was beautiful,
high, rolling plains like those of the East African plateau, covered with a
deep and fertile chocolate-coloured soil, as we could see where the rains had
washed out dongas. The climate, too, seemed to be cool and very healthful.
Altogether it was a pity to see such lands lying idle and tenanted only by
countless herds of game, for there were not any native inhabitants, or at least
we met none.

On we trekked, our road still sloping slightly down hill, till at length we saw
far away a vast sea of bush-veld which, as I guessed correctly, must fringe the
great Zambesi River. Moreover we, or rather Hans, whose eyes were those of a
hawk, saw something else, namely buildings of a more or less civilised kind,
which stood among trees by the side of a stream several miles on this side of
the great belt of bush.

“Look, Baas,” said Hans, “those wanderers did not lie; there
is the house of the white man. I wonder if he drinks anything stronger than
water,” he added with a sigh and a kind of reminiscent contraction of his
yellow throat.

As it happened, he did.

CHAPTER V.

INEZ

We had sighted the house from far away shortly after sunrise and by midday we
were there. As we approached I saw that it stood almost immediately beneath two
great baobab trees, babyan trees we call them in South Africa, perhaps because
monkeys eat their fruit. It was a thatched house with whitewashed walls and a
stoep or veranda round it, apparently of the ordinary Dutch type. Moreover,
beyond it, at a little distance were other houses or rather shanties with
waggon sheds, etc., and beyond and mixed up with these a number of native huts.
Further on were considerable fields green with springing corn; also we saw
herds of cattle grazing on the slopes. Evidently our white man was rich.

Umslopogaas surveyed the place with a soldier’s eye and said to me,

“This must be a peaceful country, Macumazahn, where no attack is feared,
since of defences I see none.”

“Yes,” I answered, “why not, with a wilderness behind it and
bush-veld and a great river in front?”

“Men can cross rivers and travel through bush-veld,” he answered,
and was silent.

Up to this time we had seen no one, although it might have been presumed that a
waggon trekking towards the house was a sufficiently unusual sight to have
attracted attention.

“Where can they be?” I asked.

“Asleep, Baas, I think,” said Hans, and as a matter of fact he was
right. The whole population of the place was indulging in a noonday siesta.

At last we came so near to the house that I halted the waggon and descended
from the driving-box in order to investigate. At this moment someone did
appear, the sight of whom astonished me not a little, namely, a very
striking-looking young woman. She was tall, handsome, with large dark eyes,
good features, a rather pale complexion, and I think the saddest face that I
ever saw. Evidently she had heard the noise of the waggon and had come out to
see what caused it, for she had nothing on her head, which was covered with
thick hair of a raven blackness. Catching sight of the great Umslopogaas with
his gleaming axe and of his savage-looking bodyguard, she uttered an
exclamation and not unnaturally turned to fly.

“It’s all right,” I sang out, emerging from behind the oxen,
and in English, though before the words had left my lips I reflected that there
was not the slightest reason to suppose that she would understand them.
Probably she was Dutch, or Portuguese, although by some instinct I had
addressed her in English.

To my surprise she answered me in the same tongue, spoken, it is true, with a
peculiar accent which I could not place, as it was neither Scotch nor Irish.

“Thank you,” she said. “I, sir, was frightened. Your friends
look——” Here she stumbled for a word, then added,
“terrocious.”

I laughed at this composite adjective and answered,

“Well, so they are in a way, though they will not harm you or me. But,
young lady, tell me, can we outspan here? Perhaps your
husband——”

“I have no husband, I have only a father, sir,” and she sighed.

“Well, then, could I speak to your father? My name is Allan Quatermain
and I am making a journey of exploration, to find out about the country beyond,
you know.”

“Yes, I will go to wake him. He is asleep. Everyone sleeps here at
midday—except me,” she said with another sigh.

“Why do you not follow their example?” I asked jocosely, for this
young woman puzzled me and I wanted to find out about her.

“Because I sleep little, sir, who think too much. There will be plenty of
time to sleep soon for all of us, will there not?”

I stared at her and inquired her name, because I did not know what else to say.

“My name is Inez Robertson,” she answered. “I will go to wake
my father. Meanwhile please unyoke your oxen. They can feed with the others;
they look as though they wanted rest, poor things.” Then she turned and
went into the house.

“Inez Robertson,” I said to myself, “that’s a queer
combination. English father and Portuguese mother, I suppose. But what can an
Englishman be doing in a place like this? If it had been a trek-Boer I should
not have been surprised.” Then I began to give directions about
out-spanning.

We had just got the oxen out of the yokes, when a big, raw-boned, red-bearded,
blue-eyed, roughly-clad man of about fifty years of age appeared from the
house, yawning. I threw my eye over him as he advanced with a peculiar rolling
gait, and formed certain conclusions. A drunkard who has once been a gentleman,
I reflected to myself, for there was something peculiarly dissolute in his
appearance, also one who has had to do with the sea, a diagnosis which proved
very accurate.

“How do you do, Mr. Allan Quatermain, which I think my daughter said is
your name, unless I dreamed it, for it is one that I seem to have heard
before,” he exclaimed with a broad Scotch accent which I do not attempt
to reproduce. “What in the name of blazes brings you here where no real
white man has been for years? Well, I am glad enough to see you any way, for I
am sick of half-breed Portuguese and niggers, and snuff-and-butter girls, and
gin and bad whisky. Leave your people to attend to those oxen and come in and
have a drink.”

“Thank you, Mr. Robertson——”

“Captain Robertson,” he interrupted. “Man, don’t look
astonished. You mightn’t guess it, but I commanded a mail-steamer once
and should like to hear myself called rightly again before I die.”

“I beg your pardon—Captain Robertson, but myself, I don’t
drink anything before sundown. However, if you have something to
eat——?”

“Oh yes, Inez—she’s my daughter—will find you a bite.
Those men of yours,” and he also looked doubtfully at Umslopogaas and his
savage company, “will want food as well. I’ll have a beast killed
for them; they look as if they could eat it, horns and all. Where are my
people? All asleep, I suppose, the lazy lubbers. Wait a bit, I’ll wake
them up.”

Going to the house he snatched a great sjambok cut from hippopotamus hide, from
where it hung on a nail in the wall, and ran towards the group of huts which I
have mentioned, roaring out the name Thomaso, also a string of oaths such as
seamen use, mixed with others of a Portuguese variety. What happened there I
could not see because boughs were in the way, but presently I heard blows and
screams, and caught sight of people, all dark-skinned, flying from the huts.

A little later a fat, half-breed man—I should say from his curling hair
that his mother was a negress and his father a Portuguese—appeared with
some other nondescript fellows and began to give directions in a competent
fashion about our oxen, also as to the killing of a calf. He spoke in bastard
Portuguese, which I could understand, and I heard him talk of Umslopogaas to
whom he pointed, as “that nigger,” after the fashion of such
cross-bred people who choose to consider themselves white men. Also he made
uncomplimentary remarks about Hans, who of course understood every word he
said. Evidently Thomaso’s temper had been ruffled by this sudden and
violent disturbance of his nap.

Just then our host appeared puffing with his exertions and declaring that he
had stirred up the swine with a vengeance, in proof of which he pointed to the
sjambok that was reddened with blood.

“Captain Robertson,” I said, “I wish to give you a hint to be
passed on to Mr. Thomaso, if that is he. He spoke of the Zulu soldier there as
a nigger, etc. Well, he is a chief of a high rank and rather a terrible fellow
if roused. Therefore I recommend Mr. Thomaso not to let him understand that he
is insulting him.”

“Oh! that’s the way of these ‘snuff-and-butters’ one of
whose grandmothers once met a white man,” replied the Captain, laughing,
“but I’ll tell him,” and he did in Portuguese.

His retainer listened in silence, looking at Umslopogaas rather sulkily. Then
we walked into the house. As we went the Captain said,

“Señor Thomaso—he calls himself Señor—is my manager here and
a clever man, honest too in his way and attached to me, perhaps because I saved
his life once. But he has a nasty temper, as have all these cross-breeds, so I
hope he won’t get wrong with that native who carries a big axe.”

“I hope so too, for his own sake,” I replied emphatically.

The Captain led the way into the sitting-room; there was but one in the house.
It proved a queer kind of place with rude furniture seated with strips of hide
after the Boer fashion, and yet bearing a certain air of refinement which was
doubtless due to Inez, who, with the assistance of a stout native girl, was
already engaged in setting the table. Thus there was a shelf with books,
Shakespeare was one of these, I noticed—over which hung an ivory
crucifix, which suggested that Inez was a Catholic. On the walls, too, were
some good portraits, and on the window-ledge a jar full of flowers. Also the
forks and spoons were of silver, as were the mugs, and engraved with a
tremendous coat-of-arms and a Portuguese motto.

Presently the food appeared, which was excellent and plentiful, and the
Captain, his daughter and I sat down and ate. I noted that he drank gin and
water, an innocent-looking beverage but strong as he took it. It was offered to
me, but like Miss Inez, I preferred coffee.

During the meal and afterwards while we smoked upon the veranda, I told them as
much as I thought desirable of my plans. I said that I was engaged upon a
journey of exploration of the country beyond the Zambesi, and that having heard
of this settlement, which, by the way, was called Strathmuir, as I gathered
after a place in far away Scotland where the Captain had been born and passed
his childhood, I had come here to inquire as to how to cross the great river,
and about other things.

The Captain was interested, especially when I informed him that I was that same
“Hunter Quatermain” of whom he had heard in past years, but he told
me that it would be impossible to take the waggon down into the low bush-veld
which we could see beneath us, as there all the oxen would die of the bite of
the tsetse fly. I answered that I was aware of this and proposed to try to make
an arrangement to leave it in his charge till I returned.

“That might be managed, Mr. Quatermain,” he answered. “But,
man, will you ever return? They say there are queer folk living on the other
side of the Zambesi, savage men who are cannibals, Amahagger I think they call
them. It was they who in past years cleaned out all this country, except a few
river tribes who live in floating huts or on islands among the reeds, and
that’s why it is so empty. But this happened long ago, much before my
time, and I don’t suppose they will ever cross the river again.”

“If I might ask, what brought you here, Captain?” I said, for the
point was one on which I felt curious.

“That which brings most men to wild places, Mr. Quatermain—trouble.
If you want to know, I had a misfortune and piled up my ship. There were some
lives lost and, rightly or wrongly, I got the sack. Then I started as a trader
in a God-forsaken hole named Chinde, one of the Zambesi mouths, you know, and
did very well, as we Scotchmen have a way of doing.

“There I married a Portuguese lady, a real lady of high blood, one of the
old sort. When my girl, Inez, was about twelve years old I got into more
trouble, for my wife died and it pleased a certain relative of hers to say that
it was because I had neglected her. This ended in a row and the truth is that I
killed him—in fair fight, mind you. Still, kill him I did though I
scarcely knew that I had done it at the time, after which the place grew too
hot to hold me. So I sold up and swore that I would have no more to do with
what they are pleased to call civilisation on the East Coast.

“During my trading I had heard that there was fine country up this way,
and here I came and settled years ago, bringing my girl and Thomaso, who was
one of my managers, also a few other people with me. And here I have been ever
since, doing very well as before, for I trade a lot of ivory and other things
and grow stuff and cattle, which I sell to the River natives. Yes, I am a rich
man now and could go to live on my means in Scotland, or anywhere.”

“Why don’t you?” I asked.

“Oh! for many reasons. I have lost touch with all that and become half
wild and I like this life and the sunshine and being my own master. Also, if I
did, things might be raked up against me, about that man’s death. Also,
though I daresay it will make you think badly of me for it, Mr. Quatermain, I
have ties down there,” and he waved his hand towards the village, if so
it could be called, “which it wouldn’t be easy for me to break. A
man may be fond of his children, Mr. Quatermain, even if their skins
ain’t so white as they ought to be. Lastly I have habits—you see, I
am speaking out to you as man to man—which might get me into trouble
again if I went back to the world,” and he nodded his fine,
capable-looking head in the direction of the bottle on the table.

“I see,” I said hastily, for this kind of confession bursting out
of the man’s lonely heart when what he had drunk took a hold of him, was
painful to hear. “But how about your daughter, Miss Inez?”

“Ah!” he said, with a quiver in his voice, “there you touch
it. She ought to go away. There is no one for her to marry here, where we
haven’t seen a white man for years, and she’s a lady right enough,
like her mother. But who is she to go to, being a Roman Catholic whom my own
dour Presbyterian folk in Scotland, if any of them are left, would turn their
backs on? Moreover, she loves me in her own fashion, as I love her, and she
wouldn’t leave me because she thinks it her duty to stay and knows that
if she did, I should go to the devil altogether. Still—perhaps you might
help me about her, Mr. Quatermain, that is if you live to come back from your
journey,” he added doubtfully.

I felt inclined to ask how I could possibly help in such a matter, but thought
it wisest to say nothing. This, however, he did not notice, for he went on,

“Now I think I will have a nap, as I do my work in the early morning, and
sometimes late at night when my brain seems to clear up again, for you see I
was a sailor for many years and accustomed to keeping watches. You’ll
look after yourself, won’t you, and treat the place as your own?”
Then he vanished into the house to lie down.

When I had finished my pipe I went for a walk. First I visited the waggon where
I found Umslopogaas and his company engaged in cooking the beast that had been
given them, Zulu fashion; Hans with his usual cunning had already secured a
meal, probably from the servants, or from Inez herself; at least he left them
and followed me. First we went down to the huts, where we saw a number of
good-looking young women of mixed blood, all decently dressed and engaged about
their household duties. Also we saw four or five boys and girls, to say nothing
of a baby in arms, fine young people, one or two of whom were more white than
coloured.

“Those children are very like the Baas with the red beard,”
remarked Hans reflectively.

“Yes,” I said, and shivered, for now I understood the awfulness of
this poor man’s case. He was the father of a number of half-breeds who
tied him to this spot as anchors tie a ship. I went on rather hastily past some
sheds to a long, low building which proved to be a store. Here the
quarter-blood called Thomaso, and some assistants were engaged in trading with
natives from the Zambesi swamps, men of a kind that I had never seen, but in a
way more civilised than many further south. What they were selling or buying, I
did not stop to see, but I noticed that the store was full of goods of one sort
or another, including a great deal of ivory, which, as I supposed, had come
down the river from inland.

Then we walked on to the cultivated fields where we saw corn growing very well,
also tobacco and other crops. Beyond this were cattle kraals and in the
distance we perceived a great number of cattle and goats feeding on the slopes.

“This red-bearded Baas must be very rich in all things,” remarked
the observant Hans when we had completed our investigations.

“Yes,” I answered, “rich and yet poor.”

“How can a man be both rich and yet poor, Baas?” asked Hans.

Just at that moment some of the half-breed children whom I have mentioned, ran
past us more naked than dressed and whooping like little savages. Hans
contemplated them gravely, then said,

“I think I understand now, Baas. A man may be rich in things he loves and
yet does not want, which makes him poor in other ways.”

“Yes,” I answered, “as you are, Hans, when you take
too much to drink.”

Just then we met the stately Miss Inez returning from the store, carrying some
articles in a basket, soap, I think, and tea in a packet, amongst them. I told
Hans to take the basket and bear it to the house for her. He went off with it
and, walking slowly, we fell into conversation.

“Your father must do very well here,” I said, nodding at the store
with the crowd of natives round it.

“Yes,” she answered, “he makes much money which he puts in a
bank at the coast, for living costs us nothing and there is great profit in
what he buys and sells, also in the crops he grows and in the cattle.
But,” she added pathetically, “what is the use of money in a place
like this?”

“You can get things with it,” I answered vaguely.

“That is what my father says, but what does he get? Strong stuff to
drink; dresses for those women down there, and sometimes pearls, jewels and
other things for me which I do not want. I have a box full of them set in ugly
gold, or loose which I cannot use, and if I put them on, who is there to see
them? That clever half-breed, Thomaso—for he is clever in his way,
faithful too—or the women down there—no one else.”

“You do not seem to be happy, Miss Inez.”

“No. I cannot tell how unhappy others are, who have met none, but
sometimes I think that I must be the most miserable woman in the world.”

“Oh! no,” I replied cheerfully, “plenty are worse off.”

“Then, Mr. Quatermain, it must be because they cannot feel. Did you ever
have a father whom you loved?”

“Yes, Miss Inez. He is dead, but he was a very good man, a kind of saint.
Ask my servant, the little Hottentot Hans; he will tell you about him.”

“Ah! a very good man. Well, as you may have guessed, mine is not, though
there is much good in him, for he has a kind heart, and a big brain. But the
drink and those women down there, they ruin him,” and she wrung her
hands.

“Why don’t you go away?” I blurted out.

“Because it is my duty to stop. That is what my religion teaches me,
although of it I know little except through books, who have seen no priest for
years except one who was a missionary, a Baptist, I think, who told me that my
faith was false and would lead me to hell. Yes, not understanding how I lived,
he said that, who did not know that hell is here. No, I cannot go, who hopes
always that still God and the Saints will show me how to save my father, even
though it be with my blood. And now I have said too much to you who are quite a
stranger. Yet, I do not know why, I feel that you will not betray me, and what
is more, that you will help me if you can, since you are not one of those who
drink, or——” and she waved her hand towards the huts.

“I have my faults, Miss Inez,” I answered.

“Yes, no doubt, else you would be a saint, not a man, and even the saints
had their faults, or so I seem to remember, and became saints by repentance and
conquering them. Still, I am sure that you will help me if you can.”

Then with a sudden flash of her dark eyes that said more than all her words,
she turned and left me.

Here’s a pretty kettle of fish, thought I to myself as I strolled back to
the waggon to see how things were going on there, and how to get the live fish
out of the kettle before they boil or spoil is more than I know. I wonder why
fate is always finding me such jobs to do.

Even as I thought thus a voice in my heart seemed to echo that poor
girl’s words—because it is your duty—and to add others to
them—woe betide him who neglects his duty. I was appointed to try to hook
a few fish out of the vast kettle of human woe, and therefore I must go on
hooking. Meanwhile this particular problem seemed beyond me. Perhaps Fate would
help, I reflected. As a matter of fact, in the end Fate did, if Fate is the
right word to use in this connection.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEA-COW HUNT

Now it had been my intention to push forward across the river at once, but here
luck, or our old friend, Fate, was against me. To begin with several of
Umslopogaas’ men fell sick with a kind of stomach trouble, arising no
doubt from something they had eaten. This, however, was not their view, or that
of Umslopogaas himself. It happened that one of these men, Goroko by name, who
practised as a witch-doctor in his lighter moments, naturally suspected that a
spell had been cast upon them, for such people see magic in everything.

Therefore he organised a “smelling-out” at which Umslopogaas, who
was as superstitious as the rest, assisted. So did Hans, although he called
himself a Christian, partly out of curiosity, for he was as curious as a
magpie, and partly from fear lest some implication should be brought against
him in his absence. I saw the business going on from a little distance, and,
unseen myself, thought it well to keep an eye upon the proceedings in case
anything untoward should occur. This I did with Miss Inez, who had never
witnessed anything of the sort, as a companion.

The circle, a small one, was formed in the usual fashion; Goroko rigged up in
the best witch-doctor’s costume that he could improvise, duly came under
the influence of his “Spirit” and skipped about, waving a
wildebeeste’s tail, and so forth.

Finally to my horror he broke out of the ring, and running to a group of
spectators from the village, switched Thomaso, who was standing among them with
a lordly and contemptuous air, across the face with the gnu’s tail,
shouting out that he was the wizard who had poisoned the bowels of the sick
men. Thereon Thomaso, who although he could be insolent, like most crossbreeds
was not remarkable for courage, seeing the stir that this announcement created
amongst the fierce-faced Zulus and fearing developments, promptly bolted, none
attempting to follow him.

After this, just as I thought that everything was over and that the time had
come for me to speak a few earnest words to Umslopogaas, pointing out that
matters must go no further as regards Thomaso, whom I knew that he and his
people hated, Goroko went back to the circle and was seized with a new burst of
inspiration.

Throwing down his whisk, he lifted his arms above his head and stared at the
heavens. Then he began to shout out something in a loud voice which I was too
far off to catch. Whatever it may have been, evidently it frightened his
hearers, as I could see from the expressions on their faces. Even Umslopogaas
was alarmed, for he let his axe fall for a moment, rose as though to speak,
then sat down again and covered his eyes with his hands.

In a minute it was over; Goroko seemed to become normal, took some snuff and as
I guessed, after the usual fashion of these doctors, began to ask what he had
been saying while the “Spirit” possessed him, which he either had,
or affected to have, forgotten. The circle, too, broke up and its members began
to talk to each other in a subdued way, while Umslopogaas remained seated on
the ground, brooding, and Hans slipped away in his snake-like fashion,
doubtless in search of me.

“What was it all about, Mr. Quatermain?” asked Inez.

“Oh! a lot of nonsense,” I said. “I fancy that witch-doctor
declared that your friend Thomaso put something into those men’s food to
make them sick.”

“I daresay that he did; it would be just like him, Mr. Quatermain, as I
know that he hates them, especially Umslopogaas, of whom I am very fond. He
brought me some beautiful flowers this morning which he had found somewhere,
and made a long speech which I could not understand.”

The idea of Umslopogaas, that man of blood and iron, bringing flowers to a
young lady, was so absurd that I broke out laughing and even the sad-faced Inez
smiled. Then she left me to see about something and I went to speak to Hans and
asked him what had happened.

“Something rather queer, I think, Baas,” he answered vacuously,
“though I did not quite understand the last part. The doctor, Goroko,
smelt out Thomaso as the man who had made them sick, and though they will not
kill him because we are guests here, those Zulus are very angry with Thomaso
and I think will beat him if they get a chance. But that is only the small half
of the stick,” and he paused.

“What is the big half, then?” I asked with irritation.

“Baas, the Spirit in Goroko——”

“The jackass in Goroko, you mean,” I interrupted. “How can
you, who are a Christian, talk such rubbish about spirits? I only wish that my
father could hear you.”

“Oh! Baas, your reverend father, the Predikant, is now wise enough to
know all about Spirits and that there are some who come into black
witch-doctors though they turn up their noses at white men and leave them
alone. However, whatever it is that makes Goroko speak, got hold of him so that
his lips said, though he remembered nothing of it afterwards, that soon this
place would be red with blood—that there would be a great killing here,
Baas. That is all.”

“Red with blood! Whose blood? What did the fool mean?”

“I don’t know, Baas, but what you call the jackass in Goroko,
declared that those who are ‘with the Great Medicine’—meaning
what you wear, Baas—will be quite safe. So I hope that it will not be our
blood; also that you will get out of this place as soon as you can.”

Well, I scolded Hans because he believed in what this doctor said, for I could
see that he did believe it, then went to question Umslopogaas, whom I found
looking quite pleased, which annoyed me still more.

“What is it that Goroko has been saying and why do you smile,
Bulalio?” I asked.

“Nothing much, Macumazahn, except that the man who looks like tallow that
has gone bad, put something in our food which made us sick, for which I would
kill him were he not Red-beard’s servant and that it would frighten the
lady his daughter. Also he said that soon there will be fighting, which is why
I smiled, who grow weary of peace. We came out to fight, did we not?”

“Certainly not,” I answered. “We came out to make a quiet
journey in strange lands, which is what I mean to do.”

“Ah! well, Macumazahn, in strange lands one meets strange men with whom
one does not always agree, and then Inkosikaas begins to talk,”
and he whirled the great axe round his head, making the air whistle as it was
forced through the gouge at its back.

I could get no more out of him, so having extracted a promise from him that
nothing should happen to Thomaso who, I pointed out, was probably quite
unjustly accused, I went away.

Still, the whole incident left a disagreeable impression on my mind, and I
began to wish that we were safe across the Zambesi without more trouble. But we
could not start at once because two of the Zulus were still not well enough to
travel and there were many preparations to be made about the loads, and so
forth, since the waggon must be left behind. Also, and this was another
complication—Hans had a sore upon his foot, resulting from the prick of a
poisonous thorn, and it was desirable that this should be quite healed before
we marched.

So it came about that I was really glad when Captain Robertson suggested that
we should go down to a certain swamp formed, I gathered, by some small
tributary of the Zambesi to take part in a kind of hippopotamus battue. It
seemed that at this season of the year these great animals always frequented
the place in numbers, also that by barring a neck of deep water through which
they gained it, they, or a proportion of them, could be cut off and killed.

This had been done once or twice in the past, though not of late, perhaps
because Captain Robertson had lacked the energy to organise such a hunt. Now he
wished to do so again, taking advantage of my presence, both because of the
value of the hides of the sea-cows which were cut up to be sent to the coast
and sold as sjamboks or whips, and because of the sport of the thing.
Also I think he desired to show me that he was not altogether sunk in sloth and
drink.

I fell in with the idea readily enough, since in all my hunting life I had
never seen anything of the sort, especially as I was told that the expedition
would not take more than a week and I reckoned that the sick men and Hans would
not be fit to travel sooner. So great preparations were made. The riverside
natives, whose share of the spoil was to be the carcases of the slain sea-cows,
were summoned by hundreds and sent off to their appointed stations to beat the
swamps at a signal given by the firing of a great pile of reeds. Also many
other things were done upon which I need not enter.

Then came the time for us to depart to the appointed spot over twenty miles
away, most of which distance it seemed we could trek in the waggon. Captain
Robertson, who for the time had cut off his gin, was as active about the affair
as though he were once more in command of a mail-steamer. Nothing escaped his
attention; indeed, in the care which he gave to details he reminded me of the
captain of a great ship that is leaving port, and from it I learned how able a
man he must once have been.

“Does your daughter accompany us?” I asked on the night before we
started.

“Oh! no,” he answered, “she would only be in the way. She
will be quite safe here, especially as Thomaso, who is no hunter, remains in
charge of the place with some of the older natives to look after the women and
children.”

Later I saw Inez herself, who said that she would have liked to come, although
she hated to see great beasts killed, but that her father was against it
because he thought she might catch fever. So she supposed that she had better
remain where she was.

I agreed, though in my heart I was doubtful, and said that I would leave Hans,
whose foot was not as yet quite well, and with whom she had made friends as she
had done with Umslopogaas, to look after her. Also there would be with him the
two great Zulus who were now recovering from their attack of stomach sickness,
so that she would have nothing to fear. She answered with her slow smile that
she feared nothing, still, she would have liked to come with us. Then we
parted, as it proved for a long time.

It was quite a ceremony. Umslopogaas, “in the name of the Axe”
solemnly gave over Inez to the charge of his two followers, bidding them guard
her with so much earnestness that I began to suspect he feared something which
he did not choose to mention. My mind went back indeed to the prophecy of the
witch-doctor Goroko, of which it was possible that he might be thinking, but as
while he spoke he kept his fierce eyes fixed upon the fat and pompous
quarter-breed, Thomaso, I concluded that here was the object of his doubts.

It might have occurred to him that this Thomaso would take the opportunity of
her father’s absence to annoy Inez. If so I was sure that he was mistaken
for various reasons, of which I need only quote one, namely, that even if such
an idea had ever entered his head, Thomaso was far too great a coward to
translate it into action. Still, suspecting something, I also gave Hans
instructions to keep a sharp eye on Inez and generally to watch the place, and
if he saw anything suspicious, to communicate with us at once.

“Yes, Baas,” said Hans, “I will look after
‘Sad-Eyes’”—for so with their usual quickness of
observation our Zulus had named Inez—“as though she were my
grandmother, though what there is to fear for her, I do not know. But, Baas, I
would much rather come and look after you, as your reverend father, the
Predikant, told me to do always, which is my duty, not girl-herding, Baas. Also
my foot is now quite well and—I want to shoot sea-cows,
and——” Here he paused.

“And what, Hans?”

“And Goroko said that there was going to be much fighting and if there
should be fighting and you should come to harm because I was not there to
protect you, what would your reverend father think of me then?”

All of which meant two things: that Hans never liked being separated from me if
he could help it, and that he much preferred a shooting trip to stopping alone
in this strange place with nothing to do except eat and sleep. So I concluded,
though indeed I did not get quite to the bottom of the business. In reality
Hans was putting up a most gallant struggle against temptation.

As I found out afterwards, Captain Robertson had been giving him strong drink
on the sly, moved thereto by sympathy with a fellow toper. Also he had shown
him where, if he wanted it, he could get more, and Hans always wanted gin very
badly indeed. To leave it within his reach was like leaving a handful of
diamonds lying about in the room of a thief. This he knew, but was ashamed to
tell me the truth, and thence came much trouble.

“You will stop here, Hans, look after the young lady and nurse your
foot,” I said sternly, whereon he collapsed with a sigh and asked for
some tobacco.

Meanwhile Captain Robertson, who I think had been taking a stirrup cup to cheer
him on the road, was making his farewells down in what was known as “the
village,” for I saw him there kissing a collection of half-breed
children, and giving Thomaso instructions to look after them and their mothers.
Returning at length, he called to Inez, who remained upon the veranda, for she
always seemed to shrink from her father after his visits to the village, to
“keep a stiff upper lip” and not feel lonely, and commanded the
cavalcade to start.

So off we went, about twenty of the village natives, a motley crew armed with
every kind of gun, marching ahead and singing songs. Then came the waggon with
Captain Robertson and myself seated on the driving-box, and lastly Umslopogaas
and his Zulus, except the two who had been left behind.

We trekked along a kind of native road over fine veld of the same character as
that on which Strathmuir stood, having the lower-lying bush-veld which ran down
to the Zambesi on our right. Before nightfall we came to a ridge whereon this
bush-veld turned south, fringing that tributary of the great river in the
swamps of which we were to hunt for sea-cows. Here we camped and next morning,
leaving the waggon in charge of my voorlooper and a couple of the
Strathmuir natives, for the driver was to act as my gun-bearer—we marched
down into the sea of bush-veld. It proved to be full of game, but at this we
dared not fire for fearing of disturbing the hippopotami in the swamps beneath,
whence in that event they might escape us back to the river.

About midday we passed out of the bush-veld and reached the place where the
drive was to be. Here, bordered by steep banks covered with bush, was swampy
ground not more than two hundred yards wide, down the centre of which ran a
narrow channel of rather deep water, draining a vast expanse of morass above.
It was up this channel that the sea-cows travelled to the feeding ground where
they loved to collect at that season of the year.

There with the assistance of some of the riverside natives we made our
preparations under the direction of Captain Robertson. The rest of these men,
to the number of several hundreds, had made a wide détour to the head of the
swamps, miles away, whence they were to advance at a certain signal. These
preparations were simple. A quantity of thorn trees were cut down and by means
of heavy stones fastened to their trunks, anchored in the narrow channel of
deep water. To their tops, which floated on the placid surface, were tied a
variety of rags which we had brought with us, such as old red flannel shirts,
gay-coloured but worn-out blankets, and I know not what besides. Some of these
fragments also were attached to the anchored ropes under water.

Also we selected places for the guns upon the steep banks that I have
mentioned, between which this channel ran. Foreseeing what would happen, I
chose one for myself behind a particularly stout rock and what is more, built a
stone wall to the height of several feet on the landward side of it, as I
guessed that the natives posted near to me would prove wild in their shooting.

These labours occupied the rest of that day, and at night we retired to higher
ground to sleep. Before dawn on the following morning we returned and took up
our stations, some on one side of the channel and some on the other which we
had to reach in a canoe brought for the purpose by the river natives.

Then, before the sun rose, Captain Robertson fired a huge pile of dried reeds
and bushes, which was to give the signal to the river natives far away to begin
their beat. This done, we sat down and waited, after making sure that every gun
had plenty of ammunition ready.

As the dawn broke, by climbing a tree near my schanze or shelter, I saw
a good many miles away to the south a wide circle of little fires, and guessed
that the natives were beginning to burn the dry reeds of the swamp. Presently
these fires drew together into a thin wall of flame. Then I knew that it was
time to return to the schanze and prepare. It was full daylight,
however, before anything happened.

Watching the still channel of water, I saw ripples on it and bubbles of air
rising. Suddenly there appeared the head of a great bull-hippopotamus which,
having caught sight of our rag barricade, either above or below water, had
risen to the surface to see what it might be. I put a bullet from an eight-bore
rifle through its brain, whereon it sank, as I guessed, stone dead to the
bottom of the channel, thus helping to increase the barricade by the bulk of
its great body. Also it had another effect. I have observed that sea-cows
cannot bear the smell and taint of blood, which frightens them horribly, so
that they will expose themselves to almost any risk, rather than get it into
their nostrils.

Now, in this still water where there was no perceptible current, the blood from
the dead bull soon spread all about so that when the herd, following their
leader, began to arrive they were much alarmed. Indeed, the first of them on
winding or tasting it, turned and tried to get back up the channel where,
however, they met others following, and there ensued a tremendous confusion.
They rose to the surface, blowing, snorting, bellowing and scrambling over each
other in the water, while continually more and more arrived behind them, till
there was a perfect pandemonium in that narrow place.

All our guns opened fire wildly upon the mass; it was like a battle and through
the smoke I caught sight of the riverside natives who were acting as beaters,
advancing far away, fantastically dressed, screaming with excitement and waving
spears, or sometimes torches of flaming reeds. Most of these were scrambling
along the banks, but some of the bolder spirits advanced over the lagoon in
canoes, driving the hippopotami towards the mouth of the channel by which alone
they could escape into the great swamps below and so on to the river. In all my
hunting experience I do not think I ever saw a more remarkable scene. Still, in
a way, to me it was unpleasant, for I flatter myself that I am a sportsman and
a battle of this sort is not sport as I understand the term.

At length it came to this; the channel for quite a long way was literally full
of hippopotami—I should think there must have been a hundred of them or
more of all sorts and sizes, from great bulls down to little calves. Some of
these were killed, not many, for the shooting of our gallant company was
execrable and almost at hazard. Also for every sea-cow that died, of which
number I think that Captain Robertson and myself accounted for most—many
were only wounded.

Still, the unhappy beasts, crazed with noise and fire and blood, did not seem
to dare to face our frail barricade, probably for the reason that I have given.
For a while they remained massed together in the water, or under it, making a
most horrible noise. Then of a sudden they seemed to take a resolution. A few
of them broke back towards the burning reeds, the screaming beaters and the
advancing canoes. One of these, indeed, a wounded bull, charged a canoe,
crushed it in its huge jaws and killed the rower, how exactly I do not know,
for his body was never found. The majority of them, however, took another
counsel, for emerging from the water on either side, they began to scramble
towards us along the steep banks, or even to climb up them with surprising
agility. It was at this point in the proceedings that I congratulated myself
earnestly upon the solid character of the water-worn rock which I had selected
as a shelter.

Behind this rock together with my gun-bearer and Umslopogaas, who, as he did
not shoot, had elected to be my companion, I crouched and banged away at the
unwieldy creatures as they advanced. But fire fast as I might with two rifles,
I could not stop the half of them—they were drawing unpleasantly near. I
glanced at Umslopogaas and even then was amused to see that probably for the
first time in his life that redoubtable warrior was in a genuine fright.

“This is madness, Macumazahn,” he shouted above the din. “Are
we to stop here and be stamped flat by a horde of water-pigs?”

“It seems so,” I answered, “unless you prefer to be stamped
flat outside—or eaten,” I added, pointing to a great crocodile that
had also emerged from the channel and was coming along towards us with open
jaws.

“By the Axe!” shouted Umslopogaas again, “I—a
warrior—will not die thus, trodden on like a slug by an ox.”

Now I have mentioned a tree which I climbed. In his extremity Umslopogaas
rushed for that tree and went up it like a lamplighter, just as the crocodile
wriggled past its trunk, snapping at his retreating legs.

After this I took no more note of him, partly because of the advancing
sea-cows, and more for the reason that one of the village natives posted above
me, firing wildly, put a large round bullet through the sleeve of my coat.
Indeed, had it not been for the wall which I built that protected us, I am
certain that both my bearer and I would have been killed, for afterwards I
found it splashed over with lead from bullets which had struck the stones.

Well, thanks to the strength of my rock and to the wall, or as Hans said
afterwards, to Zikali’s Great Medicine, we escaped unhurt. The rush went
by me; indeed, I killed one sea-cow so close that the powder from the rifle
actually burned its hide. But it did go by, leaving us untouched. All, however,
were not so fortunate, since of the village natives two were trampled to death,
while a third had his leg broken.

Also, and this was really amusing—a bewildered bull charging at full
speed, crashed into the trunk of Umslopogaas’ tree, and as it was not
very thick, snapped it in two. Down came the top in which the dignified chief
was ensconced like a bird in a nest, though at that moment there was precious
little dignity about him. However, except for scratches he was not hurt, as the
hippopotamus had other business in urgent need of attention and did not stop to
settle with him.

“Such are the things which happen to a man who mixes himself up with
matters of which he knows nothing,” said Umslopogaas sententiously to me
afterwards. But all the same he could never bear any allusion to this
tree-climbing episode in his martial career, which, as it happened, had taken
place in full view of his retainers, among whom it remained the greatest of
jokes. Indeed, he wanted to kill a man, the wag of the party, who gave him a
slang name which, being translated, means
“He-who-is-so-brave-that-he-dares-to-ride-a-water-horse-up-a-tree.
”

It was all over at last, for which I thanked Providence devoutly. A good many
of the sea-cows were dead, I think twenty-one was our exact bag, but the
majority of them had escaped in one way or another, many as I fear, wounded. I
imagine that at the last the bulk of the herd overcame its fears and swimming
through our screen, passed away down the channel. At any rate they were gone,
and having ascertained that there was nothing to be done for the man who had
been trampled on my side of the channel, I crossed it in the canoe with the
object of returning quietly to our camp to rest.

But as yet there was to be no quiet for me, for there I found Captain
Robertson, who I think had been refreshing himself out of a bottle and was in a
great state of excitement about a native who had been killed near him who was a
favourite of his, and another whose leg was broken. He declared vehemently that
the hippopotamus which had done this had been wounded and rushed into some
bushes a few hundred yards away, and that he meant to take vengeance upon it.
Indeed, he was just setting off to do so.

Seeing his agitated state I thought it wisest to follow him. What happened need
not be set out in detail. It is sufficient to say that he found that
hippopotamus and blazed both barrels at it in the bushes, hitting it, but not
seriously. Out lumbered the creature with its mouth open, wishing to escape.
Robertson turned to fly as he was in its path, but from one cause or another,
tripped and fell down. Certainly he would have been crushed beneath its huge
feet had I not stepped in front of him and sent two solid eight-bore bullets
down that yawning throat, killing it dead within three feet of where Robertson
was trying to rise, and I may add, of myself.

This narrow escape sobered him, and I am bound to say that his gratitude was
profuse.

“You are a brave man,” he said, “and had it not been for you
by now I should be wherever bad people go. I’ll not forget it, Mr.
Quatermain, and if ever you want anything that John Robertson can give, why,
it’s yours.”

“Very well,” I answered, being seized by an inspiration, “I
do want something that you can give easily enough.”

“Give it a name and it’s yours, half my place, if you like.”

“I want,” I went on as I slipped new cartridges into the rifle,
“I want you to promise to give up drink for your daughter’s sake.
That’s what nearly did for you just now, you know.”

“Man, you ask a hard thing,” he said slowly. “But by God
I’ll try for her sake and for yours too.”

Then I went to help to set the leg of the injured man, which was all the rest I
got that morning.

CHAPTER VII.

THE OATH

We spent three more days at that place. First it was necessary to allow time to
elapse before the gases which generated in their great bodies caused those of
the sea-cows which had been killed in the water, to float. Then they must be
skinned and their thick hides cut into strips and pieces to be traded for
sjamboks or to make small native shields for which some of the East
Coast tribes will pay heavily.

All this took a long while, during which I amused, or disgusted myself in
watching those river natives devouring the flesh of the beasts. The lean, what
there was of it, they dried and smoked into a kind of “biltong,”
but a great deal of the fat they ate at once. I had the curiosity to weigh a
lump which was given to one thin, hungry-looking fellow. It scaled quite twenty
pounds. Within four hours he had eaten it to the last ounce and lay there, a
distended and torpid log. What would not we white people give for such a
digestion!

At last all was over and we started homewards, the man with a broken leg being
carried in a kind of litter. On the edge of the bush-veld we found the waggon
quite safe, also one of Captain Robertson’s that had followed us from
Strathmuir in order to carry the expected load of hippopotamus’ hides and
ivory. I asked my voorlooper if anything had happened during our
absence. He answered nothing, but on the previous evening after dark, he had
seen a glow in the direction of Strathmuir which lay on somewhat lower ground
about twenty miles away, as though numerous fires had been lighted there. It
struck him so much, he added, that he climbed a tree to observe it better. He
did not think, however, that any building had been burned there, as the glow
was not strong enough for that.

I suggested that it was caused by some grass fire or reed-burning, to which he
replied indifferently that he did not think so as the line of the glow was not
sufficiently continuous.

There the matter ended, though I confess that the story made me anxious, for
what exact reason I could not say. Umslopogaas also, who had listened to it,
for our talk was in Zulu, looked grave, but made no remark. But as since his
tree-climbing experience he had been singularly silent, of this I thought
little.

We had trekked at a time which we calculated would bring us to Strathmuir about
an hour before sundown, allowing for a short halt half way. As my oxen were got
in more quickly than those of the other waggon after this outspan, I was the
first away, followed at a little distance by Umslopogaas, who preferred to walk
with his Zulus. The truth was that I could not get that story about the glow of
fires out of my mind and was anxious to push on, which had caused me to hurry
up the inspanning.

Perhaps we had covered a couple of miles of the ten or twelve which still lay
between us and Strathmuir, when far off on the crest of one of the waves of the
veld which much resembled those of the swelling sea frozen while in motion, I
saw a small figure approaching us at a rapid trot. Somehow that figure
suggested Hans to my mind, so much so that I fetched my glasses to examine it
more closely. A short scrutiny through them convinced me that Hans it was, Hans
and no other, advancing at a great pace.

Filled with uneasiness, I ordered the driver to flog up the oxen, with the
result that in a little over five minutes we met. Halting the waggon, I leapt
from the waggon-box and calling to Umslopogaas who had kept up with us at a
slow, swinging trot, went to Hans, who, when he saw me, stood still at a little
distance, swinging his apology for a hat in his hand, as was his fashion when
ashamed or perplexed.

“What is the matter, Hans?” I asked when we were within speaking
distance.

“Oh! Baas, everything,” he answered, and I noticed that he kept his
eyes fixed upon the ground and that his lips twitched.

“Speak, you fool, and in Zulu,” I said, for by now Umslopogaas had
joined me.

“Baas,” he answered in that tongue, “a terrible thing has
come about at the farm of Red-Beard yonder. Yesterday afternoon at the time
when people are in the habit of sleeping there till the sun grows less hot, a
body of great men with fierce faces who carried big spears—perhaps there
were fifty of them, Baas—crept up to the place through the long grass and
growing crops, and attacked it.”

“Did you see them come?” I asked.

“No, Baas. I was watching at a little distance as you bade me do and the
sun being hot, I shut my eyes to keep out the glare of it, so that I did not
see them until they had passed me and heard the noise.”

“You mean that you were asleep or drunk, Hans, but go on.”

“Baas, I do not know,” he answered shamefacedly, “but after
that I climbed a tall tree with a kind of bush at the top of it” (I
ascertained afterwards that this was a sort of leafy-crowned palm), “and
from it I saw everything without being seen.”

“What did you see, Hans?” I asked him.

“I saw the big men run up and make a kind of circle round the village.
Then they shouted, and the people in the village came out to see what was the
matter. Thomaso and some of the men caught sight of them first and ran away
fast into the hillside at the back where the trees grow, before the circle was
complete. Then the women and the children came out and the big men killed them
with their spears—all, all!”

“Good God!” I exclaimed. “And what happened at the house and
to the lady?”

“Baas, some of the men had surrounded that also and when she heard the
noise the lady Sad-Eyes came out on to the stoep and with her came the two
Zulus of the Axe who had been left sick but were now quite recovered. A number
of the big men ran as though to take her, but the two Zulus made a great fight
in front of the little steps to the stoep, having their backs protected by the
stoep, and killed six of them before they themselves were killed. Also Sad-Eyes
shot one with a pistol she carried, and wounded another so that the spear fell
out of his hand.

“Then the rest fell on her and tied her up, setting her in a chair on the
stoep where two remained to watch her. They did her no hurt, Baas; indeed, they
seemed to treat her as gently as they could. Also they went into the house and
there they caught that tall fat yellow girl who always smiles and is called
Janee, she who waits upon the Lady Sad-Eyes, and brought her out to her. I
think they told her, Baas, that she must look after her mistress and that if
she tried to run away she would be killed, for afterwards I saw Janee bring her
food and other things.”

“And then, Hans?”

“Then, Baas, most of the great men rested a while, though some of them
went through the store gathering such things as they liked, blankets, knives
and iron cooking-pots, but they set fire to nothing, nor did they try to catch
the cattle. Also they took dry wood from the pile and lit big fires, eight or
nine of them, and when the sun set they began to feast.”

“What did they feast on, Hans, if they took no cattle?” I asked
with a shiver, for I was afraid of I knew not what.

“Baas,” answered Hans, turning his head away and looking at the
ground, “they feasted on the children whom they had killed, also on some
of the young women. These tall soldiers are men-eaters, Baas.”

At this horrible intelligence I turned faint and felt as though I was going to
fall, but recovering myself, signed to him to go on with his story.

“They feasted quite nicely, Baas,” he continued, “making no
noise. Then some of them slept while others watched, and that went on all
night. As soon as it was dark, but before the moon rose, I slid down the tree
and crept round to the back of the house without being seen or heard, as I can,
Baas. I got into the house by the back door and crawled to the window of the
sitting-room. It was open and peeping through I saw Sad-Eyes still tied to the
seat on the stoep not more than a pace away, while the girl Janee crouched on
the floor at her feet—I think she was asleep or fainting.

“I made a little noise, like a night-adder hissing, and kept on making
it, till at last Sad-Eyes turned her head. Then I spoke in a very low whisper,
for fear lest I should wake the two guards who were dozing on either side of
her wrapped in their blankets, saying, ‘It is I, Hans, come to help
you.’ ‘You cannot,’ she answered, also speaking very low.
‘Get to your master and tell him and my father to follow. These men are
called Amahagger and live far away across the river. They are going to take me
to their home, as I understand, to rule them, because they want a white woman
to be a queen over them who have always been ruled by a certain white queen,
against whom they have rebelled. I do not think they mean to do me any harm,
unless perhaps they want to marry me to their chief, but of this I am not sure
from their talk which I understand badly. Now go, before they catch you.’

“‘I think you might get away,’ I whispered back. ‘I
will cut your bonds. When you are free, slip through the window and I will
guide you.’

“‘Very well, try it,’ she said.

“So I drew my knife and stretched out my arm. But then, Baas, I showed
myself a fool—if the Great Medicine had still been there I might have
known better. I forgot the starlight which shone upon the blade of the knife.
That girl Janee came out of her sleep or swoon, lifted her head and saw the
knife. She screamed once, then at a word from her mistress was silent. But it
was enough, for it woke up the guards who glared about them and threatened
Janee with their great spears, also they went to sleep no more, but began to
talk together, though what they said I could not hear, for I was hiding on the
floor of the room. After this, knowing that I could do no good and might do
harm and get myself killed, I crept out of the house as I had crept in, and
crawled back to my tree.”

“Why did you not come to me?” I asked.

“Because I still hoped I might be able to help Sad-Eyes, Baas. Also I
wanted to see what happened, and I knew that I could not bring you here in time
to be any good. Yet it is true I thought of coming though I did not know the
road.”

“Perhaps you were right.”

“At the first dawn,” continued Hans, “the great men who are
called Amahagger rose and ate what was left over from the night before. Then
they gathered themselves together and went to the house. Here they found a
large chair, that seated with rimpis in which the Baas Red-Beard sits,
and lashed two poles to the chair. Beneath the chair they tied the garments and
other things of the Lady Sad-Eyes which they made Janee gather as Sad-Eyes
directed her. This done, very gently they sat Sad-Eyes herself in the chair,
bowing while they made her fast. After this eight of them set the poles upon
their shoulders, and they all went away at a trot, heading for the bush-veld,
driving with them a herd of goats which they had stolen from the farm, and
making Janee run by the chair. I saw everything, Baas, for they passed just
beneath my tree. Then I came to seek you, following the outward spoor of the
waggons which I could not have done well at night. That is all, Baas.”

“Hans,” I said, “you have been drinking and because of it the
lady Sad-Eyes is taken a prisoner by cannibals; for had you been awake and
watching, you might have seen them coming and saved her and the rest. Still,
afterwards you did well, and for the rest you must answer to Heaven.”

“I must tell your reverend father, the Predikant, Baas, that the white
master, Red-Beard, gave me the liquor and it is rude not to do as a great white
master does, and drink it up. I am sure he will understand, Baas,” said
Hans abjectly.

I thought to myself that it was true and that the spear which Robertson cast
had fallen upon his own head, as the Zulus say, but I made no answer, lacking
time for argument.

“Did you say,” asked Umslopogaas, speaking for the first time,
“that my servants killed only six of these men-eaters?”

Hans nodded and answered, “Yes, six. I counted the bodies.”

“It was ill done, they should have killed six each,” said
Umslopogaas moodily. “Well, they have left the more for us to
finish,” and he fingered the great axe.

Just then Captain Robertson arrived in his waggon, calling out anxiously to
know what was the matter, for some premonition of evil seemed to have struck
him. My heart sank at the sight of him, for how was I to tell such a story to
the father of the murdered children and of the abducted girl?

In the end I felt that I could not. Yes, I turned coward and saying that I must
fetch something out of the waggon, bolted into it, bidding Hans go forward and
repeat his tale. He obeyed unwillingly enough and looking out between the
curtains of the waggon tent I saw all that happened, though I could not hear
the words that passed.

Robertson had halted the oxen and jumping from the waggon-box strode forward
and met Hans, who began to speak with him, twitching his hat in his hands.
Gradually as the tale progressed, I saw the Captain’s face freeze into a
mask of horror. Then he began to argue and deny, then to weep—oh! it was
a terrible sight to see that great man weeping over those whom he had lost, and
in such a fashion.

After this a kind of blind rage seized him and I thought he was going to kill
Hans, who was of the same opinion, for he ran away. Next he staggered about,
shaking his fists, cursing and shouting, till presently he fell of a heap and
lay face downwards, beating his head against the ground and groaning.

Now I went to him because I must.

He saw me coming and sat up.

“That’s a pretty story, Quatermain, which this little yellow monkey
has been gibbering at me. Man, do you understand what he says? He says that all
those half-blood children of mine are dead, murdered by savages from over the
Zambesi, yes, and eaten, too, with their mothers. Do you take the point? Eaten
like lambs. Those fires your man saw last night were the fires on which they
were cooked, my little so-and-so and so-and-so,” and he
mentioned half a dozen different names. “Yes, cooked, Quatermain. And
that isn’t all of it, they have taken Inez too. They didn’t eat
her, but they have dragged her off a captive for God knows what reason. I
couldn’t understand. The whole ship’s crew is gone, except the
captain absent on leave and the first officer, Thomaso, who deserted with some
Lascar stokers, and left the women and children to their fate. My God,
I’m going mad. I’m going mad! If you have any mercy in you, give me
something to drink.”

“All right,” I said, “I will. Sit here and wait a
minute.”

Then I went to the waggon and poured out a stiff tot of spirits into which I
put an amazing dose of bromide from a little medicine chest I always carry with
me, and thirty drops of chlorodyne on the top of it. All this compound I mixed
up with a little water and took it to him in a tin cup so that he could not see
the colour.

He drank it at a gulp and throwing the pannikin aside, sat down on the veld,
groaning while the company watched him at a respectful distance, for Hans had
joined the others and his tale had spread like fire in drought-parched grass.

In a few minutes the drugs began to take effect upon Robertson’s tortured
nerves, for he rose and said quietly,

“What now?”

“Vengeance, or rather justice,” I answered.

“Yes,” he exclaimed, “vengeance. I swear that I will be
avenged, or die—or both.”

Again I saw my opportunity and said, “You must swear more than that,
Robertson. Only sober men can accomplish great things, for drink destroys the
judgment. If you wish to be avenged for the dead and to rescue the living, you
must be sober, or I for one will not help you.”

“Will you help me if I do, to the end, good or ill, Quatermain?” he
added.

I nodded.

“That’s as much as another’s oath,” he muttered.
“Still, I will put my thought in words. I swear by God, by my
mother—like these natives—and by my daughter born in honest
marriage, that I will never touch another drop of strong drink, until I have
avenged those poor women and their little children, and rescued Inez from their
murderers. If I do you may put a bullet through me.”

“That’s all right,” I said in an offhand fashion, though
inwardly I glowed with pride at the success of my great idea, for at the time I
thought it great, and went on,

“Now let us get to business. The first thing to do is to trek to
Strathmuir and make preparations; the next to start upon the trail. Come to sit
on the waggon with me and tell me what guns and ammunition you have got, for
according to Hans those savages don’t seem to have touched anything,
except a few blankets and a herd of goats.”

He did as I asked, telling me all he could remember. Then he said,

“It is a strange thing, but now I recall that about two years ago a great
savage with a high nose, who talked a sort of Arabic which, like Inez, I
understand, having lived on the coast, turned up one day and said he wanted to
trade. I asked him what in, and he answered that he would like to buy some
children. I told him that I was not a slave-dealer. Then he looked at Inez, who
was moving about, and said that he would like to buy her to be a wife for his
Chief, and offered some fabulous sum in ivory and in gold, which he said should
be paid before she was taken away. I snatched his big spear from his hand,
broke it over his head and gave him the best hiding with its shaft that he had
ever heard of. Then I kicked him off the place. He limped away but when he was
out of reach, turned and called out that one day he would come again with
others and take her, meaning Inez, without leaving the price in ivory and gold.
I ran for my gun, but when I got back he had gone and I never thought of the
matter again from that day to this.”

“Well, he kept his promise,” I said, but Robertson made no answer,
for by this time that thundering dose of bromide and laudanum had taken effect
on him and he had fallen asleep, of which I was glad, for I thought that this
sleep would save his sanity, as I believe it did for a while.

We reached Strathmuir towards sunset, too late to think of attempting the
pursuit that day. Indeed, during our trek, I had thought the matter out
carefully and come to the conclusion that to try to do so would be useless. We
must rest and make preparations; also there was no hope of our overtaking these
brutes who already had a clear twelve hours’ start, by a sudden spurt.
They must be run down patiently by following their spoor, if indeed they could
be run down at all before they vanished into the vast recesses of unknown
Africa. The most we could do this night was to get ready.

Captain Robertson was still sleeping when we passed the village and of this I
was heartily glad, since the remains of a cannibal feast are not pleasant to
behold, especially when they are——! Indeed, of these I determined
to be rid at once, so slipping off the waggon with Hans and some of the farm
boys, for none of the Zulus would defile themselves by touching such human
remnants—I made up two of the smouldering fires, the light of which the
voorlooper had seen upon the sky, and on to them cast, or caused to be
cast, those poor fragments. Also I told the farm natives to dig a big grave and
in it to place the other bodies and generally to remove the traces of murder.

Then I went on to the house, and not too soon. Seeing the waggons arrive and
having made sure that the Amahagger were gone, Thomaso and the other cowards
emerged from their hiding-places and returned. Unfortunately for the former the
first person he met was Umslopogaas, who began to revile the fat half-breed in
no measured terms, calling him dog, coward, and other opprobrious names, such
as deserter of women and children, and so forth—all of which someone
translated.

Thomaso, an insolent person, tried to swagger the matter out, saying that he
had gone to get assistance. Infuriated at this lie, Umslopogaas leapt upon him
with a roar and though he was a strong man, dealt with him as a lion does with
a buck. Lifting him from his feet, he hurled him to the ground, then as he
strove to rise and run, caught him again and as it seemed to me, was about to
break his back across his knee. Just at this juncture I arrived.

“Let the man go,” I shouted to him. “Is there not enough
death here already?”

“Yes,” answered Umslopogaas, “I think there is. Best that
this jackal should live to eat his own shame,” and he cast Thomaso to the
ground, where he lay groaning.

Robertson, who was still asleep in the waggon, woke up at the noise, and
descended from it, looking dazed. I got him to the house and in doing so made
my way past, or rather between the bodies of the two Zulus and of the six men
whom they had killed, also of him whom Inez had shot. Those Zulus had made a
splendid fight for they were covered with wounds, all of them in front, as I
found upon examination.

Having made Robertson lie down upon his bed, I took a good look at the slain
Amahagger. They were magnificent men, all of them; tall, spare and shapely with
very clear-cut features and rather frizzled hair. From these characteristics,
as well as the lightness of their colour, I concluded that they were of a
Semitic or Arab type, and that the admixture of their blood with that of the
Bantus was but slight, if indeed there were any at all. Their spears, of which
one had been cut through by a blow of a Zulu’s axe, were long and broad,
not unlike to those used by the Masai, but of finer workmanship.

By this time the sun was setting and thoroughly tired by all that I had gone
through, I went into the house to get something to eat, having told Hans to
find food and prepare a meal. As I sat down Robertson joined me and I made him
also eat. His first impulse was to go to the cupboard and fetch the spirit
bottle; indeed, he rose to do so.

“Hans is making coffee,” I said warningly.

“Thank you,” he answered, “I forgot. Force of habit, you
know.”

Here I may state that never from that moment did I see him touch another drop
of liquor, not even when I drank my modest tot in front of him. His triumph
over temptation was splendid and complete, especially as the absence of his
accustomed potations made him ill for some time and of course depressed his
spirits, with painful results that were apparent in due course.

In fact, the man became totally changed. He grew gloomy but resourceful, also
full of patience. Only one idea obsessed him—to rescue his daughter and
avenge the murder of his people; indeed, except his sins, he thought of and
found interest in nothing else. Moreover, his iron constitution cast off all
the effects of his past debauchery and he grew so strong that although I was
pretty tough in those days, he could out-tire me.

To return; I engaged him in conversation and with his help made a list of what
we should require on our vendetta journey, all of which served to occupy his
mind. Then I sent him to bed, saying that I would call him before dawn, having
first put a little more bromide into his third cup of coffee. After this I
turned in and notwithstanding the sight of those remains of the cannibal feast
and the knowledge of the dead men who lay outside my window, I slept like a
top.

Indeed, it was the Captain who awakened me, not I the Captain, saying that
daylight was on the break and we had better be stirring. So we went down to the
Store, where I was thankful to find that everything had been tidied up in
accordance with my directions.

On our way Robertson asked me what had become of the remains, whereon I pointed
to the smouldering ashes of one of the great fires. He went to it and kneeling
down, said a prayer in broad Scotch, doubtless one that he had learned at his
mother’s knee. Then he took some of the ashes from the edge of the
pyre—for such it was—and threw them into the glowing embers where,
as he knew, lay all that was left of those who had sprung from him. Also he
tossed others of them into the air, though what he meant by this I did not
understand and never asked. Probably it was some rite indicative of expiation
or of revenge, or both, which he had learned from the savages among whom he had
lived so long.

After this we went into the Store and with the help of some of the natives, or
half-breeds, who had accompanied us on the sea-cow expedition, selected all the
goods we wanted, which we sent to the house.

As we returned thither I saw Umslopogaas and his men engaged, with the usual
Zulu ceremonies, in burying their two companions in a hole they had made in the
hillside. I noted, however, that they did not inter their war-axes or their
throwing-spears with them as usual, probably because they thought that these
might be needed. In place of them they put with the dead little models roughly
shaped of bits of wood, which models they “killed” by first
breaking them across.

I lingered to watch the funeral and heard Goroko, the witch-doctor, make a
little speech.

“O Father and Chief of the Axe,” he said, addressing Umslopogaas,
who stood silent leaning on his weapon and watching all, a portentous figure in
the morning mist, “O Father, O Son of the Heavens” (this was an
allusion to the royal blood of Umslopogaas of which the secret was well known,
although it would never have been spoken aloud in Zululand), “O
Slaughterer (Bulalio), O Woodpecker who picks at the hearts of men; O
King-Slayer; O Conqueror of the Halakazi; O Victor in a hundred fights; O
Gatherer of the Lily-bloom that faded in the hand; O Wolf-man, Captain of the
Wolves that ravened; O Slayer of Faku; O Great One whom it pleases to seem
small, because he must follow his blood to the end
appointed——”

This was the opening of the speech, the “bonga-ing” or
giving of Titles of Praise to the person addressed, of which I have quoted but
a sample, for there were many more of them that I have forgotten. Then the
speaker went on,

“It was told to me, though of it I remember nothing, that when my Spirit
was in me a while ago I prophesied that this place would flow with blood, and
lo! the blood has flowed, and with it that of these our brothers,” and he
gave the names of the two dead Zulus, also those of their forefathers for
several generations.

“It seems, Father, that they died well, as you would have wished them to
die, and as doubtless they desired to die themselves, leaving a tale behind
them, though it is true that they might have died better, killing more of the
men-eaters, as it is certain they would have done, had they not been sick
inside. They are finished; they have gone beyond to await us in the Under-world
among the ghosts. Their story is told and soon to their children they will be
but names whispered in honour after the sun has set. Enough of them who have
showed us how to die as our fathers did before them.”

Goroko paused a while, then added with a waving of his hands,

“My Spirit comes to me again and I know that these our brothers shall not
pass unavenged. Chief of the Axe, great glory awaits the Axe, for it shall feed
full. I have spoken.”

“Good words!” grunted Umslopogaas. Then he saluted the dead by
raising Inkosikaas and came to me to consult about our journey.

CHAPTER VIII.

PURSUIT

After all we did not get away much before noon, because first there was a great
deal to be done. To begin with the loads had to be arranged. These consisted
largely of ammunition, everything else being cut down to an irreducible
minimum. To carry them we took two donkeys there were on the place, also half a
dozen pack oxen, all of which animals were supposed to be
“salted”—that is, to have suffered and recovered from every
kind of sickness, including the bite of the deadly tsetse fly. I suspected, it
is true, that they would not be proof against further attacks, still, I hoped
that they would last for some time, as indeed proved to be the case.

In the event of the beasts failing us, we took also ten of the best of those
Strathmuir men who had accompanied us on the sea-cow trip, to serve as bearers
when it became necessary. It cannot be said that these snuff-and-butter
fellows—for most, if not all of them had some dash of white blood in
their veins—were exactly willing volunteers. Indeed, if a choice had been
left to them, they would, I think, have declined this adventure.

But there was no choice. Their master, Robertson, ordered them to come and
after a glance at the Zulus they concluded that the command was one which would
be enforced and that if they stopped behind, it would not be as living men.
Also some of them had lost wives or children in the slaughter, which, if they
were not very brave, filled them with a desire for revenge. Lastly, they could
all shoot after a fashion and had good rifles; moreover if I may say so, I
think that they put confidence in my leadership. So they made the best of a bad
business and got themselves ready.

Then arrangements must be made about the carrying on of the farm and store
during our absence. These, together with my waggon and oxen, were put in the
charge of Thomaso, since there was no one else who could be trusted at
all—a very battered and crestfallen Thomaso, by the way. When he heard of
it he was much relieved, since I think he feared lest he also should be
expected to take part in the hunt of the Amahagger man-eaters. Also it may have
occurred to him that in all probability none of us would ever come back at all,
in which case by a process of natural devolution, he might find himself the
owner of the business and much valuable property. However, he swore by sundry
saints—for Thomaso was nominally a Catholic—that he would look
after everything as though it were his own, as no doubt he hoped it might
become.

“Hearken, fat pig,” said Umslopogaas, Hans obligingly translating
so that there might be no mistake, “if I come back, and come back I shall
who travel with the Great Medicine—and find even one of the cattle of the
white lord, Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, missing, or one article stolen from
his waggon, or the fields of your master not cultivated or his goods wasted, I
swear by the Axe that I will hew you into pieces with the axe; yes, if to do it
I have to hunt you from where the sun rises to where it sets and down the
length of the night between. Do you understand, fat pig, deserter of women and
children, who to save yourself could run faster than a buck?”

Thomaso replied that he understood very clearly indeed, and that, Heaven
helping him, all should be kept safe and sound. Still, I was sure that in his
manly heart he was promising great gifts to the saints if they would so arrange
matters that Umslopogaas and his axe were never seen at Strathmuir again, and
reflecting that after all the Amahagger had their uses. However, as I did not
trust him in the least, much against their will, I left my driver and
voorlooper to guard my belongings.

At last we did get off, pursued by the fervent blessings of Thomaso and the
prayers of the others that we would avenge their murdered relatives. We were a
curious and motley procession. First went Hans, because at following a spoor he
was, I believe, almost unequalled in Africa, and with him, Umslopogaas, and
three of his Zulus to guard against surprise. These were followed by Captain
Robertson, who seemed to prefer to walk alone and whom I thought it best to
leave undisturbed. Then I came and after me straggled the Strathmuir boys with
the pack animals, the cavalcade being closed by the remaining Zulus under the
command of Goroko. These walked last in case any of the mixed-bloods should
attempt to desert, as we thought it quite probable that they would.

Less than an hour’s tramp brought us to the bush-veld where I feared that
our troubles might begin, since if the Amahagger were cunning, they would take
advantage of it to confuse or hide their spoor. As it chanced, however, they
had done nothing of the sort and a child could have followed their march. Just
before nightfall we came to their first halting-place where they had made a
fire and eaten one of the herd of farm goats which they had driven away with
them, although they left the cattle, I suppose, because goats are docile and
travel well.

Hans showed us everything that had happened; where the chair in which Inez was
carried was set down, where she and Janee had been allowed to walk that she
might stretch her stiff limbs, the dregs of some coffee that evidently Janee
had made in a saucepan, and so forth.

He even told us the exact number of the Amahagger, which he said totalled
forty-one, including the man whom Inez had wounded. His spoor he distinguished
from that of the others both by an occasional drop of blood and because he
walked lightly on his right foot, doubtless for the reason that he wished to
avoid jarring his wound, which was on that side.

At this spot we were obliged to stay till daybreak, since it was impossible to
follow the spoor by night, a circumstance that gave the cannibals a great
advantage over us.

The next two days were repetitions of the first, but on the fourth we passed
out of the bush-veld into the swamp country that bordered the great river. Here
our task was still easy since the Amahagger had followed one of the paths made
by the river-dwellers who had their habitations on mounds, though whether these
were natural or artificial I am not sure, and sometimes on floating islands.

On our second day in the reeds we came upon a sad sight. To our left stood one
of these mound villages, if a village it could be called, since it consisted
only of four or five huts inhabited perhaps by twenty people. We went up to it
to obtain information and stumbled across the body of an old man lying in the
pathway. A few yards further on we found the ashes of a big fire and by it such
remains as we had seen at Strathmuir. Here there had been another cannibal
feast. The miserable huts were empty, but as at Strathmuir, had not been burnt.

We were going away when the acute ears of Hans caught the sound of groans. We
searched about and in a clump of reeds near the foot of the mound, found an old
woman with a great spear wound just above her skinny thigh piercing deep into
the vitals, but of a nature which is not immediately mortal. One of
Robertson’s people who understood the language of these swamp-dwellers
well, spoke to her. She told him that she wanted water. It was brought and she
drank copiously. Then in answer to his questions she began to talk.

She said that the Amahagger had attacked the village and killed all who could
not escape. They had eaten a young woman and three children. She had been
wounded by a spear and fled away into the place where we found her, where none
of them took the trouble to follow her as she “was not worth
eating.”

By my direction the man asked her whether she knew anything of these Amahagger.
She replied that her grandfathers had, though she had heard nothing of them
since she was a child, which must have been seventy years before. They were a
fierce people who lived far up north across the Great River, the remnants of a
race that had once “ruled the world.”

Her grandfathers used to say that they were not always cannibals, but had
become so long before because of a lack of food and now had acquired the taste.
It was for this purpose that they still raided to get other people to eat,
since their ruler would not allow them to eat one another. The flesh of cattle
they did not care for, although they had plenty of them, but sometimes they ate
goats and pigs because they said they tasted like man. According to her
grandfathers they were a very evil people and full of magic.

All of this the old woman told us quite briskly after she had drunk the water,
I think because her wound had mortified and she felt no pain. Her information,
however, as is common with the aged, dealt entirely with the far past; of the
history of the Amahagger since the days of her forebears she knew nothing, nor
had she seen anything of Inez. All she could tell us was that some of them had
attacked her village at dawn and that when she ran out of the hut she was
speared.

While Robertson and I were wondering what we should do with the poor old
creature whom it seemed cruel to leave here to perish, she cleared up the
question by suddenly expiring before our eyes. Uttering the name of someone
with whom, doubtless, she had been familiar in her youth, three or four times
over, she just sank down and seemed to go to sleep and on examination we found
that she was dead. So we left her and went on.

Next day we came to the edge of the Great River, here a sheet of placid running
water about a mile across, for at this time of the year it was low. Perceiving
quite a big village on our left, we went to it and made enquiries, to find that
it had not been attacked by the cannibals, probably because it was too
powerful, but that three nights before some of their canoes had been stolen, in
which no doubt these had crossed the river.

As the people of this village had traded with Robertson at Strathmuir, we had
no difficulty in obtaining other canoes from them in which to cross the Zambesi
in return for one of our oxen that I could see was already sickening from
tsetse bite. These canoes were large enough to take the donkeys that were
patient creatures and stood still, but the cattle we could not get into them
for fear of an upset. So we killed the two driven beasts that were left to us
and took them with us as dead meat for food, while the three remaining pack
oxen we tried to swim across, dragging them after the canoes with hide
reims round their horns. As a result two were drowned, but one, a
bold-hearted and enterprising animal, gained the other bank.

Here again we struck a sea of reeds in which, after casting about, Hans once
more found the spoor of the Amahagger. That it was theirs beyond doubt was
proved by the circumstance that on a thorny kind of weed we found a fragment of
a cotton dress which, because of the pattern stamped on it, we all recognised
as one that Inez had been wearing. At first I thought that this had been torn
off by the thorns, but on examination we became certain that it had been placed
there purposely, probably by Janee, to give us a clue. This conclusion was
confirmed when at subsequent periods of the hunt we found other fragments of
the same garment.

Now it would be useless for me to set out the details of this prolonged and
arduous chase which in all endured for something over three weeks. Again and
again we lost the trail and were only able to recover it by long and elaborate
search, which occupied much time. Then, after we escaped from the reeds and
swamps, we found ourselves upon stony uplands where the spoor was almost
impossible to follow, indeed, we only rediscovered it by stumbling across the
dead body of that cannibal whom Inez had wounded. Evidently he had perished
from his hurt, which I could see had mortified. From the state of his remains
we gathered that the raiders must be about two days’ march ahead of us.

Striking their spoor again on softer ground where the impress of their feet
remained—at any rate to the cunning sight of Hans—we followed them
down across great valleys wherein trees grew sparsely, which valleys were
separated from each other by ridges of high and barren land. On these belts of
rocky soil our difficulties were great, but here twice we were put on the right
track by more fragments torn from the dress of Inez.

At length we lost the spoor altogether; not a sign of it was to be found. We
had no idea which way to go. All about us appeared these valleys covered with
scattered bush running this way and that, so that we could not tell which of
them to follow or to cross. The thing seemed hopeless, for how could we expect
to find a little body of men in that immensity? Hans shook his head and even
the fierce and steadfast Robertson was discouraged.

“I fear my poor lassie is gone,” he said, and relapsed into
brooding as had become his wont.

“Never say die! It’s dogged as does it!” I replied cheerfully
in the words of Nelson, who also had learned what it meant to hunt an enemy
over trackless wastes, although his were of water.

I walked to the top of the rise where we were encamped, and sat down alone to
think matters over. Our condition was somewhat parlous; all our beasts were now
dead, even the second donkey, which was the last of them, having perished that
morning, and been eaten, for food was scanty since of late we had met with
little game. The Strathmuir men, who now must carry the loads, were almost worn
out and doubtless would have deserted, except for the fact that there was no
place to which they could go. Even the Zulus were discouraged, and said they
had come away from home across the Great River to fight, not to run about in
wildernesses and starve, though Umslopogaas made no complaint, being buoyed up
by the promise of his soothsayer, Goroko, that battle was ahead of him in which
he would win great glory.

Hans, however, remained cheerful, for the reason, as he remarked vacuously,
that the Great Medicine was with us and that therefore, however bad things
seemed to be, all in fact was well; an argument that carried no conviction to
my soul.

It was on a certain evening towards sunset that I went away thus alone. I
looked about me, east and west and north. Everywhere appeared the same
bush-clad valleys and barren rises, miles upon miles of them. I bethought me of
the map that old Zikali had drawn in the ashes, and remembered that it showed
these valleys and rises and that beyond them there should be a great swamp, and
beyond the swamp a mountain. So it seemed that we were on the right road to the
home of his white Queen, if such a person existed, or at any rate we were
passing over country similar to that which he had pictured or imagined.

But at this time I was not troubling my head about white queens. I was thinking
of poor Inez. That she was alive a few days before we knew from the fragments
of her dress. But where was she now? The spoor was utterly lost on that stony
ground, or if any traces of it remained a heavy deluge of rain had washed them
away. Even Hans had confessed himself beaten.

I stared about me helplessly, and as I did so a flying ray of light from the
setting sun reflected downwards from a storm-cloud, fell upon a white patch on
the crest of one of the distant land-waves. It struck me that probably
limestone outcropped at this spot, as indeed proved to be the case; also that
such a patch of white would be a convenient guide for any who were travelling
across that sea of bush. Further, some instinct within seemed to impel me to
steer for it, although I had all but made up my mind to go in a totally
different direction many more points to the east. It was almost as though a
voice were calling to me to take this path and no other. Doubtless this was an
effect produced by weariness and mental overstrain. Still, there it was, very
real and tangible, one that I did not attempt to combat.

So next morning at the dawn I headed north by west, laying my course for that
white patch and for the first time breaking the straight line of our advance.
Captain Robertson, whose temper had not been bettered by prolonged and
frightful anxiety, or I may add, by his unaccustomed abstinence, asked me
rather roughly why I was altering the course.

“Look here, Captain,” I answered, “if we were at sea and you
did something of the sort, I should not put such a question to you, and if by
any chance I did, I should not expect you to answer. Well, by your own wish I
am in command here and I think that the same argument holds.”

“Yes,” he replied. “I suppose you have studied your chart, if
there is any of this God-forsaken country, and at any rate discipline is
discipline. So steam ahead and don’t mind me.”

The others accepted my decision without comment; most of them were so miserable
that they did not care which way we went, also they were good enough to repose
confidence in my judgment.

“Doubtless the Baas has reasons,” said Hans dubiously,
“although the spoor, when last we saw it, headed towards the rising sun
and as the country is all the same, I do not see why those man-eaters should
have returned.”

“Yes,” I said, “I have reasons,” although in fact I had
none at all.

Hans surveyed me with a watery eye as though waiting for me to explain them,
but I looked haughty and declined to oblige.

“The Baas has reasons,” continued Hans, “for taking us on
what I think to be the wrong side of that great ridge, there to hunt for the
spoor of the men-eaters, and they are so deep down in his mind that he cannot
dig them up for poor old Hans to look at. Well, the Baas wears the Great
Medicine and perhaps it is there that the reasons sit. Those Strathmuir fellows
say that they can go no further and wish to die. Umslopogaas has just gone to
them with his axe to tell them that he is ready to help them to their wish.
Look, he has got there, for they are coming quickly, who after all prefer to
live.”

Well, we started for my white patch of stones which no one else had noticed and
of which I said nothing to anyone, and reached it by the following evening, to
find, as I expected, that it was a lime outcrop.

By now we were in a poor way, for we had practically nothing left to eat, which
did not tend to raise the spirits of the party. Also that lime outcrop proved
to be an uninteresting spot overlooking a wide valley which seemed to suggest
that there were other valleys of a similar sort beyond it, and nothing more.

Captain Robertson sat stern-faced and despondent at a distance muttering into
his beard, as had become a habit with him. Umslopogaas leaned upon his axe and
contemplated the heavens, also occasionally the Strathmuir men who cowered
beneath his eye. The Zulus squatted about sharing such snuff as remained to
them in economic pinches. Goroko, the witch-doctor, engaged himself in
consulting his “Spirit,” by means of bone-throwing, upon the humble
subject of whether or no we should succeed in killing any game for food
to-morrow, a point on which I gathered that his “Spirit” was quite
uncertain. In short, the gloom was deep and universal and the sky looked as
though it were going to rain.

Hans became sarcastic. Sneaking up to me in his most aggravating way, like a
dog that means to steal something and cover up the theft with simulated
affection, he pointed out one by one all the disadvantages of our present
position. He indicated per contra, that if his advice had been
followed, his conviction was that even if we had not found the man-eaters and
rescued the lady called Sad-Eyes, our state would have been quite different. He
was sure, he added, that the valley which he had suggested we should follow,
was one full of game, inasmuch as he had seen their spoor at its entrance.

“Then why did you not say so?” I asked.

Hans sucked at his empty corn-cob pipe, which was his way of indicating that he
would like me to give him some tobacco, much as a dog groans heavily under the
table when he wants a bit to eat, and answered that it was not for him to point
out things to one who knew everything, like the great Macumazahn,
Watcher-by-Night, his honoured master. Still, the luck did seem to have gone a
bit wrong. The privations could have been put up with (here he sucked very
loudly at the empty pipe and looked at mine, which was alight), everything
could have been put up with, if only there had been a chance of coming even
with those men-eaters and rescuing the Lady Sad-Eyes, whose face haunted his
sleep. As it was, however, he was convinced that by following the course I had
mapped out we had lost their spoor finally and that probably they were now
three days’ march away in another direction. Still, the Baas had said
that he had his reasons, and that of course was enough for him, Hans, only if
the Baas would condescend to tell him, he would as a matter of curiosity like
to know what the reasons were.

At that moment I confess that, much as I was attached to him, I should have
liked to murder Hans, who, I felt, believing that he had me “on
toast,” to use a vulgar phrase, was taking advantage of my position to
make a mock of me in his sly, Hottentot way.

I tried to continue to look grand, but felt that the attitude did not impress.
Then I stared about me as though taking counsel with the Heavens, devoutly
hoping that the Heavens would respond to my mute appeal. As a matter of fact
they did.

“There is my reason, Hans,” I said in my most icy voice, and I
pointed to a faint line of smoke rising against the twilight sky on the further
side of the intervening valley.

“You will perceive, Hans,” I added, “that those Amahagger
cannibals have forgotten their caution and lit a fire yonder, which they have
not done for a long time. Perhaps you would like to know why this has happened.
If so I will tell you. It is because for some days past I have purposely lost
their spoor, which they knew we were following, and lit fires to puzzle them.
Now, thinking that they have done with us, they have become incautious and
shown us where they are. That is my reason, Hans.”

He heard and, although of course he did not believe that I had lost the spoor
on purpose, stared at me till I thought his little eyes were going to drop out
of his head. But even in his admiration he contrived to convey an insult as
only a native can.

“How wonderful is the Great Medicine of the Opener-of-Roads, that it
should have been able thus to instruct the Baas,” he said. “Without
doubt the Great Medicine is right and yonder those men-eaters are encamped, who
might just as well as have been anywhere else within a hundred miles.”

“Drat the Great Medicine,” I replied, but beneath my breath, then
added aloud,

“Be so good, Hans, as to go to Umslopogaas and to tell him that
Macumazahn, or the Great Medicine, proposes to march at once to attack the camp
of the Amahagger, and—here is some tobacco.”

“Yes, Baas,” answered Hans humbly, as he snatched the tobacco and
wriggled away like a worm.

Then I went to talk with Robertson.

The end of it was that within an hour we were creeping across that valley
towards the spot where I had seen the line of smoke rising against the twilight
sky.

Somewhere about midnight we reached the neighbourhood of this place. How near
or how far we were from it, we could not tell since the moon was invisible, as
of course the smoke was in the dark. Now the question was, what should we do?

Obviously there would be enormous advantages in a night attack, or at least in
locating the enemy, so that it might be carried out at dawn before he marched.
Especially was this so, since we were scarcely in a condition even if we could
come face to face with them, to fight these savages when they were prepared and
in the light of day. Only we two white men, with Hans, Umslopogaas and his
Zulus, could be relied upon in such a case, since the Strathmuir mixed-bloods
had become entirely demoralised and were not to be trusted at a pinch. Indeed,
tired and half starving as we were, none of us was at his best. Therefore a
surprise seemed our only chance. But first we must find those whom we wished to
surprise.

Ultimately, after a hurried consultation, it was agreed that Hans and I should
go forward and see if we could locate the Amahagger. Robertson wished to come
too, but I pointed out that he must remain to look after his people, who, if he
left them, might take the opportunity to melt away in the darkness, especially
as they knew that heavy fighting was at hand. Also if anything happened to me
it was desirable that one white man should remain to lead the party.
Umslopogaas, too, volunteered, but knowing his character, I declined his help.
To tell the truth, I was almost certain that if we came upon the men-eaters, he
would charge the whole lot of them and accomplish a fine but futile end after
hacking down a number of cannibal barbarians, whose extinction or escape
remained absolutely immaterial to our purpose, namely, the rescue of Inez.

So it came about that Hans and I started alone, I not at all enjoying the job.
I suppose that there lurks in my nature some of that primeval terror of the
dark, which must continually have haunted our remote forefathers of a hundred
or a thousand generations gone and still lingers in the blood of most of us. At
any rate even if I am named the Watcher-by-Night, greatly do I prefer to fight
or to face peril in the sunlight, though it is true that I would rather avoid
both at any time.

In fact, I wished heartily that the Amahagger were at the other side of Africa,
or in heaven, and that I, completely ignorant of the person called Inez
Robertson, were seated smoking the pipe of peace on my own stoep in Durban. I
think that Hans guessed my state of mind, since he suggested that he should go
alone, adding with his usual unveiled rudeness, that he was quite certain that
he would do much better without me, since white men always made a noise.

“Yes,” I replied, determined to give him a Roland for his Oliver,
“I have no doubt you would—under the first bush you came across,
where you would sleep till dawn, and then return and say that you could not
find the Amahagger.”

Hans chuckled, quite appreciating the joke, and having thus mutually affronted
each other, we started on our quest.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SWAMP

Neither Hans nor I carried rifles that we knew would be in the way on our
business, which was just to scout. Moreover, one is always tempted to shoot if
a gun is at hand, and this I did not want to do at present. So, although I had
my revolver in case of urgent necessity, my only other weapon was a Zulu axe,
that formerly had belonged to one of those two men who died defending Inez on
the veranda at Strathmuir, while Hans had nothing but his long knife. Thus
armed, or unarmed, we crept forward towards that spot whence, as we
conjectured, we had seen the line of smoke rising some hours before.

For about a quarter of a mile we went on thus without seeing or hearing
anything, and a difficult job it was in that gloom among the scattered trees
with no light save such as the stars gave us. Indeed, I was about to suggest
that we had better abandon the enterprise until daybreak when Hans nudged me,
whispering,

“Look to the right between those twin thorns.”

I obeyed and following the line of sight which he had indicated, perceived, at
a distance of about two hundred yards a faint glow, so faint indeed that I
think only Hans would have noticed it. Really it might have been nothing more
than the phosphorescence rising from a heap of fungus, or even from a decaying
animal.

“The fire of which we saw the smoke that has burnt to ashes,”
whispered Hans again. “I think that they have gone, but let us
look.”

So we crawled forward very cautiously to avoid making the slightest noise; so
cautiously, indeed, that it must have taken us nearly half an hour to cover
those two hundred yards.

At length we were within about forty yards of that dying fire and, afraid to go
further, came to a stand—or rather, a lie-still—behind some bushes
until we knew more. Hans lifted his head and sniffed with his broad nostrils;
then he whispered into my ear, but so low that I could scarcely hear him.

“Amahagger there all right, Baas, I smell them.”

This of course was possible, since what wind there was blew from the direction
of the fire, although I whose nose is fairly keen could smell nothing at all.
So I determined to wait and watch a while, and indicated my decision to Hans,
who, considering our purpose accomplished, showed signs of wishing to retreat.

Some minutes we lay thus, till of a sudden this happened. A branch of resinous
wood of which the stem had been eaten through by the flames, fell upon the
ashes of the fire and burnt up with a brilliant light. In it we saw that the
Amahagger were sleeping in a circle round the fire wrapped in their blankets.

Also we saw another thing, namely that nearer to us, not more than a dozen
yards away, indeed, was a kind of little tent, also made of fur rugs or
blankets, which doubtless sheltered Inez. Indeed, this was evident from the
fact that at the mouth of it, wrapped up in something, lay none other than her
maid, Janee, for her face being towards us, was recognised by us both in the
flare of the flaming branch. One more thing we noted, namely, that two of the
cannibals, evidently a guard, were sleeping between us and the little tent. Of
course they ought to have been awake, but fatigue had overcome them and there
they slumbered, seated on the ground, their heads hanging forward almost upon
their knees.

An idea came to me. If we could kill those men without waking the others in
that gloom, it might be possible to rescue Inez at once. Rapidly I weighed the
pros and cons of such an attempt. Its advantages, if successful,
were that the object of our pursuit would be carried through without further
trouble and that it was most doubtful whether we should ever get such a chance
again. If we returned to fetch the others and attacked in force, the
probability was that those Amahagger, or one of them, would hear some sound
made by the advance of a number of men, and fly into the darkness; or, rather
than lose Inez, they might kill her. Or if they stood and fought, she might be
slain in the scrimmage. Or, as after all we had only about a dozen effectives,
for the Strathmuir bearers could not be relied upon, they might defeat and kill
us whom they outnumbered by two or three to one.

These were the arguments for the attempt. Those for not making it were equally
obvious. To begin with it was one of extraordinary risk; the two guards or
someone else behind them might wake up—for such people, like dogs, mostly
sleep with one eye open, especially when they know that they are being pursued.
Or if they did not we might bungle the business so that they raised an outcry
before they grew silent for ever, in which case both of us and perhaps Inez
also would probably pay the penalty before we could get away.

Such was the horned dilemma upon one point or other of which we ran the risk of
being impaled. For a full minute or more I considered the matter with an
earnestness almost amounting to mental agony, and at last all but came to the
conclusion that the danger was too enormous. It would be better,
notwithstanding the many disadvantages of that plan, to go back and fetch the
others.

But then it was that I made one of my many mistakes in life. Most of us do more
foolish things than wise ones and sometimes I think that in spite of a certain
reputation for caution and far-sightedness, I am exceptionally cursed in this
respect. Indeed, when I look back upon my past, I can scarcely see the scanty
flowers of wisdom that decorate its path because of the fat, ugly trees of
error by which it is overshadowed.

On that occasion, forgetting past experiences where Hans was concerned, my
natural tendency to blunder took the form of relying upon another’s
judgment instead of on my own. Although I had formed a certain view as to what
should be done, the pros and cons seemed so evenly balanced that
I determined to consult the little Hottentot and accept his verdict. This,
after all, was but a form of gambling like pitch and toss, since, although it
is true Hans was a clever, or at any rate a cunning man according to his
lights, and experienced, it meant that I was placing my own judgment in
abeyance, which no one considering a life-and-death enterprise should do,
taking the chance of that of another, whatever it might be. However, not for
the first time, I did so—to my grief.

In the tiniest of whispers with my lips right against his smelly head, I
submitted the problem to Hans, asking him what we should do, go on or go back.
He considered a while, then answered in a voice which he contrived to make like
the drone of a night beetle.

“Those men are fast asleep, I know it by their breathing. Also the Baas
has the Great Medicine. Therefore I say go on, kill them and rescue
Sad-Eyes.”

Now I saw that the Fates to which I had appealed had decided against me and
that I must accept their decree. With a sick and sinking heart—for I did
not at all like the business—I wondered for a moment what had led Hans to
take this view, which was directly opposite to any I had expected from him. Of
course his superstition about the Great Medicine had something to do with it,
but I felt convinced that this was not all.

Even then I guessed that two arguments appealed to him, of which the first was
that he desired, if possible, to put an end to this intolerable and unceasing
hunt which had worn us all out, no matter what that end might be. The second
and more powerful, however, was, I believed, and rightly, that the idea of this
stealthy, midnight blow appealed irresistibly to the craft of his half-wild
nature in which the strains of the leopard and the snake seemed to mingle with
that of the human being. For be it remembered that notwithstanding his veneer
of civilisation, Hans was a savage whose forefathers for countless ages had
preserved themselves alive by means of such attacks and stratagems.

The die having been cast, in the same infinitesimal whispers we made our
arrangements, which were few and simple. They amounted to this—that we
were to creep on to the men and each of us to kill that one who was opposite to
him, I with the axe and Hans with his knife, remembering that it must be done
with a single stroke—that is, if they did not wake up and kill
us—after which we were to get Inez out of her shelter, dressed or
undressed, and make off with her into the darkness where we were pretty sure of
being able to baffle pursuit until we reached our own camp.

Provided that we could kill the two guards in the proper fashion—rather a
large proviso, I admit—the thing was simple as shelling peas which,
notwithstanding the proverb, in my experience is not simple at all, since
generally the shells crack the wrong way and at least one of the peas remained
in the pod. So it happened in this case, for Janee, whom we had both forgotten,
remained in the pod.

I am sure I don’t know why we overlooked her; indeed, the error was
inexcusable, especially as Hans had already experienced her foolishness and she
was lying there before our eyes. I suppose that our minds were so concentrated
upon the guard-killing and the tragic and impressive Inez that there was no
room in them for the stolid and matter-of-fact Janee. At any rate she proved to
be the pea that would not come out of the pod.

Often in my life I have felt terrified, not being by nature one of those who
rejoices in dangers and wild adventures for their own sake, which only the
stupid do, but who has, on the contrary, been forced to undertake them by the
pressure of circumstances, a kind of hydraulic force that no one can resist,
and who, having undertaken, has been carried through them, triumphing over the
shrinkings of his flesh by some secret reserve of nerve power. Almost am I
tempted to call it spirit-power, something that lives beyond and yet inspires
our frail and fallible bodies.

Well, rarely have I been more frightened than I was at this moment. Actually I
hung back until I saw that Hans slithering through the grass like a thick
yellow snake with the great knife in his right hand, was quite a foot ahead of
me. Then my pride came to the rescue and I spurted, if one can spurt upon
one’s stomach, and drew level with him. After this we went at a pace so
slow that any able-bodied snail would have left us standing still. Inch by inch
we crept forward, lying motionless a while after each convulsive movement, once
for quite a long time, since the left-hand cannibal seemed about to wake up,
for he opened his mouth and yawned. If so, he changed his mind and rolling from
a sitting posture on to his side, went to sleep much more soundly than before.

A minute or so later the right-hand ruffian, my man, also stirred, so sharply
that I thought he had heard something. Apparently, however, he was only haunted
by dreams resulting from an evil life, or perhaps by the prescience of its end,
for after waving his arm and muttering something in a frightened voice, he too,
wearied out, poor devil, sank back into sleep.

At last we were on them, but paused because we could not see exactly where to
strike and knew, each of us, that our first blow must be the last and fatal. A
cloud had come up and dimmed what light there was, and we must wait for it to
pass. It was a long wait, or so it seemed.

At length that cloud did pass and in faint outline I saw the classical head of
my Amahagger bowed in deep sleep. With a heart beating as it does only in the
fierce extremities of love or war, I hissed like a snake, which was our agreed
signal. Then rising to my knees, I lifted the Zulu axe and struck with all my
strength.

The blow was straight and true; Umslopogaas himself could not have dealt a
better. The victim in front of me uttered no sound and made no movement; only
sank gently on to his side, and there lay as dead as though he had never been
born.

It appeared that Hans had done equally well, since the other man kicked out his
long legs, which struck me on the knees. Then he also became strangely still.
In short, both of them were stone dead and would tell no stories this side of
Judgment Day.

Recovering my axe, which had been wrenched from my hand, I crept forward and
opened the curtain-like rugs or blankets, I do not know which they were, that
covered Inez. I heard her stir at once. The movement had wakened her, since
captives sleep lightly.

“Make no noise, Inez,” I whispered. “It is I, Allan
Quatermain, come to rescue you. Slip out and follow me; do you
understand?”

“Yes, quite,” she whispered back and began to rise.

At this moment a blood-curdling yell seemed to fill earth and heaven, a yell at
the memory of which even now I feel faint, although I am writing years after
its echoes died away.

I may as well say at once that it came from Janee who, awaking suddenly, had
perceived against the background of the sky, Hans standing over her, looking
like a yellow devil with a long knife in his hand, which she thought was about
to be used to murder her.

So, lacking self-restraint, she screamed in the most lusty fashion, for her
lungs were excellent, and—the game was up.

Instantly every man sleeping round the fire leapt to his feet and rushed in the
direction of the echoes of Janee’s yell. It was impossible to get Inez
free of her tent arrangement or to do anything, except whisper to her,

“Feign sleep and know nothing. We will follow you. Your father is with
us.”

Then I bolted back into the bushes, which Hans had reached already.

A minute or two later when we were clear of the hubbub and nearing our own
camp, Hans remarked to me sententiously,

“The Great Medicine worked well, Baas, but not quite well enough, for
what medicine can avail against a woman’s folly?”

“It was our own folly we should blame,” I answered. “We ought
to have known that fool-girl would shriek, and taken precautions.”

“Yes, Baas, we ought to have killed her too, for nothing else would have
kept her quiet,” replied Hans in cheerful assent. “Now we shall
have to pay for our mistake, for the hunt must go on.”

At this moment we stumbled across Robertson and Umslopogaas who, with the
others, and every living thing within a mile or two had also heard
Janee’s yell, and briefly told our story. When he learned how near we had
been to rescuing his daughter, Robertson groaned, but Umslopogaas only said,

“Well, there are two less of the men-eaters left to deal with. Still, for
once your wisdom failed you, Macumazahn. When you had found the camp you should
have returned, so that we might all attack it together. Had we done so, before
the dawn there would not have been one of them left.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I think that my wisdom did fail me, if I
have any to fail. But come; perhaps we may catch them yet.”

So we advanced, Hans and I showing the road. But when we reached the place it
was too late, for all that remained of the Amahagger, or of Inez and Janee,
were the two dead men whom we had killed, and in that darkness pursuit was
impossible. So we went back to our own camp to rest and await the dawn before
taking up the trail, only to find ourselves confronted with a new trouble. All
the Strathmuir half-breeds whom we had left behind as useless, had taken
advantage of our absence and that of the Zulus, to desert. They had just bolted
back upon our tracks and vanished into the sea of bush. What became of them I
do not know, as we never saw them again, but my belief is that these cowardly
fellows all perished, for certainly not one of them reached Strathmuir.

Fortunately for us, however, they departed in such a hurry that they left all
their loads behind them, and even some of the guns they carried. Evidently
Janee’s yell was the last straw which broke the back of such nerve as
remained to them. Doubtless they believed it to be the signal of attack by
hordes of cannibals.

As there was nothing to be said or done, since any pursuit of these curs was
out of the question, we made the best of things as they were. It proved a
simple business. From the loads we selected such articles as were essential,
ammunition for the most part, to carry ourselves—and the rest we
abandoned, hiding it under a pile of stones in case we should ever come that
way again.

The guns they had thrown aside we distributed among the Zulus who had none,
though the thought that they possessed them, so far as I was concerned, added
another terror to life. The prospect of going into battle with those wild
axemen letting off bullets in every direction was not pleasant, but fortunately
when that crisis came, they cast them away and reverted to the weapons to which
they were accustomed.

Now all this sounds much like a tale of disaster, or at any rate of failure. It
is, however, wonderful by what strange ways good results are brought about, so
much so that at times I think that these seeming accidents must be arranged by
an Intelligence superior to our own, to fulfil through us purposes of which we
know nothing, and frequently, be it admitted, of a nature sufficiently obscure.
Of course this is a fatalistic doctrine, but then, as I have said before,
within certain limits I am a fatalist.

To take the present case, for instance, the whole Inez episode at first sight
might appear to be an excrescence on my narrative, of which the object is to
describe how I met a certain very wonderful woman and what I heard and
experienced in her company. Yet it is not really so, since had it not been for
the Inez adventure, it is quite clear that I should never have reached the home
of this woman, if woman she were, or have seen her at all. Before long this
became very obvious to me, as shall be told.

From the night upon which Hans and I failed to rescue Inez we had no more
difficulty in following the trail of the cannibals, who thenceforward were
never more than a few hours ahead of us and had no time to be careful or to
attempt to hide their spoor. Yet so fast did they travel that do what we would,
burdened and wearied as we were, it proved impossible to overtake them.

For the first three days the track ran on through scattered, rolling bush-veld
of the character that I have described, but tending continually down hill. When
we broke camp on the morning of the fourth day, eating a hasty meal at dawn
(for now game had become astonishingly plentiful, so that we did not lack food)
the rising sun showed beneath us an endless sea of billowy mist stretching in
every direction far as the sight could carry.

To the north, however, it did come to an end, for there, as I judged fifty or
sixty miles away, rose the grim outline of what looked like a huge fortress,
which I knew must be one of those extraordinary mountain formations, probably
owing their origin to volcanic action, that are to be met with here and there
in the vast expanses of Central and Eastern Africa. Being so distant it was
impossible to estimate its size, which I guessed must be enormous, but in
looking at it I bethought me of that great mountain in which Zikali said the
marvellous white Queen lived, and wondered whether it could be the same, as
from my memory of his map upon the ashes, it well might be, that is, if such a
place existed at all. If so the map had shown it as surrounded by swamps
and—well, surely that mist hid the face of a mighty swamp?

It did indeed, since before nightfall, following the spoor of those Amahagger,
we had plunged into a morass so vast that in all my experience I have never
seen or heard of its like. It was a veritable ocean of papyrus and other reeds,
some of them a dozen or more feet high, so that it was impossible to see a yard
in any direction.

Here it was that the Amahagger ahead of us proved our salvation, since without
them to guide us we must soon have perished. For through that gigantic swamp
there ran a road, as I think an ancient road, since in one or two places I saw
stone work which must have been laid by man. Yet it was not a road which it
would have been possible to follow without a guide, seeing that it also was
overgrown with reeds. Indeed, the only difference between it and the
surrounding swamp was that on the road the soil was comparatively firm, that is
to say, one seldom sank into it above the knee, whereas on either side of it
quagmires were often apparently bottomless, and what is more, partook of the
nature of quicksand.

This we found out soon after we entered the swamp, since Robertson, pushing
forward with the fierce eagerness which seemed to consume him, neglected to
keep his eye upon the spoor and stepped off the edge on to land that appeared
to be exactly similar to its surface. Instantly he began to sink in greasy and
tenacious mud. Umslopogaas and I were only twenty yards behind, yet by the time
we reached him in answer to his shouts, already he was engulfed up to his
middle and going down so rapidly that in another minute he would have vanished
altogether. Well, we got him out but not with ease, for that mud clung to him
like the tentacles of an octopus. After this we were more careful.

Nor did this road run straight; on the contrary, it curved about and sometimes
turned at right angles, doubtless to avoid a piece of swamp over which it had
proved impossible for the ancients to construct a causeway, or to follow some
out-crop of harder soil beneath.

The difficulties of that horrible place are beyond description, and indeed can
scarcely be imagined. First there was that of a kind of grass which grew among
the roots of the reeds and had edges like to those of knives. As Robertson and
I wore gaiters we did not suffer so much from it, but the poor Zulus with their
bare legs were terribly cut about and in some cases lame.

Then there were the mosquitoes which lived here by the million and all seemed
anxious for a bite; also snakes of a peculiarly deadly kind were numerous. A
Zulu was bitten by one of them of so poisonous a nature that he died within
three minutes, for the venom seemed to go straight to his heart. We threw his
body into the swamp, where it vanished at once.

Lastly there was the all-pervading stench and the intolerable heat of the
place, since no breath of air could penetrate that forest of reeds, while a
minor trouble was that of the multitude of leeches which fastened on to our
bodies. By looking one could see the creatures sitting on the under side of
leaves with their heads stretched out waiting to attack anything that went by.
As wayfarers there could not have been numerous, I wondered what they had lived
on for the last few thousand years. By the way, I found that paraffin, of which
we had a small supply for our hand-lamps, rubbed over all exposed surfaces, was
to some extent a protection against these blood-sucking worms and the gnats,
although it did make one go about smelling like a dirty oil tin.

During the day, except for the occasional rush of some great iguana or other
reptile, and the sound of the wings of the flocks of wildfowl passing over us
from time to time, the march was deathly silent. But at night it was different,
for then the bull-frogs boomed incessantly, as did the bitterns, while great
swamp owls and other night-flying birds uttered their weird cries. Also there
were mysterious sucking noises caused, no doubt, by the sinking of areas of
swamp, with those of bursting bubbles of foul, up-rushing gas.

Strange lights, too, played about, will-o’-the-wisps or St. Elmo fires,
as I believe they are called, that frightened the Zulus very much, since they
believed them to be spirits of the dead. Perhaps this superstition had
something to do with their native legend that mankind was “torn out of
the reeds.” If so, they may have imagined that the ghosts of men went
back to the reeds, of which there were enough here to accommodate those of the
entire Zulu nation. Any way they were much scared; even the bold witch-doctor,
Goroko, was scared and went through incantations with the little bag of
medicines he carried to secure protection for himself and his companions.
Indeed, I think even the iron Umslopogaas himself was not as comfortable as he
might have been, although he did inform me that he had come out to fight and
did not care whether it were with man, or wizard, or spirit.

In short, of all the journeys that I have made, with the exception of the
passage of the desert on our way to King Solomon’s Mines, I think that
through this enormous swamp was the most miserable. Heartily did I curse myself
for ever having undertaken such a quest in a wild attempt to allay that
sickness, or rather to quench that thirst of the soul which, I imagine, at
times assails most of those who have hearts and think or dream.

For this was at the bottom of the business: this it was which had delivered me
into the hands of Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, who, as now I am sure, was merely
making use of me for his private occult purposes. He desired to consult the
distant Oracle, if such a person existed, as to great schemes of his own, and
therefore, to attain his end, made use of my secret longings which I had been
so foolish as to reveal to him, quite careless of what happened to me in the
process. [A bit narrow and uncharitable, this view. It seems to me that Zikali
is taking a big risk in giving him the Great Medicine.—JB]

Well, I was in for the business and must follow it to the finish whatever that
might be. After all it was very interesting and if there were anything in what
Zikali said (if there were not I could not conceive what object he had in
sending me on such a wild-goose chase through this home of geese and ducks), it
might become more interesting still. For being pretty well fever-proof I did
not think I should die in that morass, as of course nine white men out of ten
would have done, and, beyond it lay the huge mountain which day by day grew
larger and clearer.

Nor did Hans, who, with a childlike trust, pinned his faith to the Great
Medicine. This, he remarked, was the worst veld through which he had ever
travelled, but as the Great Medicine would never consent to be buried in that
stinking mud, he had no doubt that we should come safely through it some time.
I replied that this wonderful medicine of his had not saved one of our
companions who had now made a grave in the same mud.

“No, Baas,” he said, “but those Zulus have nothing to do with
the Medicine which was given to you, and to me who accompanied you when we saw
the Opener-of-Roads. Therefore perhaps they will all die, except Umslopogaas,
whom you were told to take with you. If so, what does it matter, since there
are plenty of Zulus, although there be but one Macumazahn or one Hans? Also the
Baas may remember that he began by offending a snake and therefore it is quite
natural that this snake’s brother should have bitten the Zulu.”

“If you are right, he should have bitten me, Hans.”

“Yes, Baas, and so no doubt he would have done had you not been protected
by the Great Medicine, and me too had not my grandfather been a snake-charmer,
to say nothing of the smell of the Medicine being on me as well. The snakes
know those that they should bite, Baas.”

“So do the mosquitoes,” I answered, grabbing a handful of them.
“The Great Medicine has no effect upon them.”

“Oh! yes, Baas, it has, since though it pleases them to bite, the bites
do us no harm, or at least not much, and all are made happy. Still, I wish we
could get out of these reeds of which I never want to see another, and Baas,
please keep your rifle ready for I think I hear a crocodile stirring
there.”

“No need, Hans,” I remarked sarcastically. “Go and tell him
that I have the Great Medicine.”

“Yes, Baas, I will; also that if he is very hungry, there are some Zulus
camped a few yards further down the road,” and he went solemnly to the
reeds a little way off and began to talk to them.

“You infernal donkey!” I murmured, and drew my blanket over my head
in a vain attempt to keep out the mosquitoes and smoking furiously with the
same object, tried to get to sleep.

At last the swamp bottom began to slope upwards a little, with the result that
as the land dried through natural drainage, the reeds grew thinner by degrees,
until finally they ceased and we found ourselves on firmer ground; indeed, upon
the lowest slopes of the great mountain that I have mentioned, that now towered
above us, forbidden and majestic.

I had made a little map in my pocket-book of the various twists and turns of
the road through that vast Slough of Despond, marking them from hour to hour as
we followed its devious wanderings. On studying this at the end of that part of
our journey I realised afresh how utterly impossible it would have been for us
to thread that misty maze where a few false steps would always have meant death
by suffocation, had it not been for the spoor of those Amahagger travelling
immediately ahead of us who were acquainted with its secrets. Had they been
friendly guides they could not have done us a better turn.

What I wondered was why they had not tried to ambush us in the reeds, since our
fires must have shown them that we were close upon their heels. That they did
try to burn us out was clear from certain evidences that I found, but
fortunately at this season of the year in the absence of a strong wind the rank
reeds were too green to catch fire. For the rest I was soon to learn the reason
of their neglect to attack us in that dense cover.

They were waiting for a better opportunity!

CHAPTER X.

THE ATTACK

We won out of the reeds at last, for which I fervently thanked God, since to
have crossed that endless marsh unguided, with the loss of only one man, seemed
little less than miraculous. We emerged from them late in the afternoon and
being wearied out, stopped for a while to rest and eat of the flesh of a buck
that I had been fortunate enough to shoot upon their fringe. Then we pushed
forward up the slope, proposing to camp for the night on the crest of it a mile
or so away where I thought we should escape from the deadly mist in which we
had been enveloped for so long, and obtain a clear view of the country ahead.

Following the bank of a stream which here ran down into the marsh, we came at
length to this crest just as the sun was sinking. Below us lay a deep valley, a
fold, as it were, in the skin of the mountain, well but not densely bushed. The
woods of this valley climbed up the mountain flank for some distance above it
and then gave way to grassy slopes that ended in steep sides of rock, which
were crowned by a black and frowning precipice of unknown height.

There was, I remember, something very impressive about this towering natural
wall, which seemed to shut off whatever lay beyond the gaze of man, as though
it veiled an ancient mystery. Indeed, the aspect of it thrilled me, I knew not
why. I observed, however, that at one point in the mighty cliff there seemed to
be a narrow cleft down which, no doubt, lava had flowed in a remote age, and it
occurred to me that up this cleft ran a roadway, probably a continuation of
that by which we had threaded the swamp. The fact that through my glasses I
could see herds of cattle grazing on the slopes of the mountain went to confirm
this view, since cattle imply owners and herdsmen, and search as I would, I
could find no native villages on the slopes. The inference seemed to be that
those owners dwelt beyond or within the mountain.

All of these things I saw and pointed out to Robertson in the light of the
setting sun.

Meanwhile Umslopogaas had been engaged in selecting the spot where we were to
camp for the night. Some soldierlike instinct, or perchance some prescience of
danger, caused him to choose a place particularly suitable to defence. It was
on a steep-sided mound that more or less resembled a gigantic ant-heap. Upon
one side this mound was protected by the stream which because of a pool was
here rather deep, while at the back of it stood a collection of those curious
and piled-up water-worn rocks that are often to be found in Africa. These
rocks, lying one upon another like the stones of a Cyclopean wall, curved round
the western side of the mound, so that practically it was only open for a
narrow space, say thirty or forty feet, upon that face of it which looked on to
the mountain.

“Umslopogaas expects battle,” remarked Hans to me with a grin,
“otherwise with all this nice plain round us he would not have chosen to
camp in a place which a few men could hold against many. Yes, Baas, he thinks
that those cannibals are going to attack us.”

“Stranger things have happened,” I answered indifferently, and
having seen to the rifles, went to lie down, observing as I did so that the
tired Zulus seemed already to be asleep. Only Umslopogaas did not sleep. On the
contrary, he stood leaning on his axe staring at the dim outlines of the
opposing precipice.

“A strange mountain, Macumazahn,” he said, “compared to it
that of the Witch, beneath which my kraal lies, is but a little baby. I wonder
what we shall find within it. I have always loved mountains, Macumazahn, ever
since a dead brother of mine and I lived with the wolves in the Witch’s
lap, for on them I have had the best of my fighting.”

“Perhaps it is not done with yet,” I answered wearily.

“I hope not, Macumazahn, since some is due for us, after all these days
of mud and stench. Sleep a while now, Macumazahn, for that head of yours which
you use so much, must need rest. Fear not, I and the little yellow man who do
not think as much as you do, will keep watch and wake you if there is need, as
mayhap there will be before the dawn. Here none can come at us except in front,
and the place is narrow.”

So I lay down and slept as soundly as ever I had done in my life, for a space
of four or five hours I suppose. Then, by some instinct perhaps, I awoke
suddenly, feeling much refreshed in that sweet mountain air, a new man indeed,
and in the moonlight saw Umslopogaas striding towards me.

“Arise, Macumazahn,” he said, “I hear men stirring below
us.”

At this moment Hans slipped past him, whispering,

“The cannibals are coming, Baas, a good number of them. I think they mean
to attack before dawn.”

Then he passed behind me to warn the Zulus. As he went by, I said to him,

“If so, Hans, now is the time for your Great Medicine to show what it can
do.”

“The Great Medicine will look after you and me all right, Baas,” he
replied, pausing and speaking in Dutch, which Umslopogaas did not understand,
“but I expect there will be fewer of those Zulus to cook for before the
sun grows hot. Their spirits will be turned into snakes and go back into the
reeds from which they say they were ‘torn out,’” he added
over his shoulder.

I should explain that Hans acted as cook to our party and it was a grievance
with him that the Zulus ate so much of the meat which he was called upon to
prepare. Indeed, there is never much sympathy between Hottentots and Zulus.

“What is the little yellow man saying about us?” asked Umslopogaas
suspiciously.

“He is saying that if it comes to battle, you and your men will make a
great fight,” I replied diplomatically.

“Yes, we will do that, Macumazahn, but I thought he said that we should
be killed and that this pleased him.”

“Oh dear no!” I answered hastily. “How could he be pleased if
that happened, since then he would be left defenceless, if he were not killed
too. Now, Umslopogaas, let us make a plan for this fight.”

So, together with Robertson, rapidly we discussed the thing. As a result, with
the help of the Zulus, we dragged together some loose stones and the tops of
three small thorn trees which we had cut down, and with them made a low
breastwork, sufficient to give us some protection if we lay down to shoot. It
was the work of a few minutes since we had prepared the material when we camped
in case an emergency should arise.

Behind this breastwork we gathered and waited, Robertson and I being careful to
get a little to the rear of the Zulus, who it will be remembered had the rifles
which the Strathmuir bastards had left behind them when they bolted, in
addition to their axes and throwing assegais. The question was how these
cannibals would fight. I knew that they were armed with long spears and knives
but I did not know if they used those spears for thrusting or for throwing. In
the former case it would be difficult to get at them with the axes because they
must have the longer reach. Fortunately as it turned out, they did both.

At length all was ready and there came that long and trying wait, the most
disagreeable part of a fight in which one grows nervous and begins to reflect
earnestly upon one’s sins. Clearly the Amahagger, if they really intended
business, did not mean to attack till just before dawn, after the common native
fashion, thinking to rush us in the low and puzzling light. What perplexed me
was that they should wish to attack us at all after having let so many
opportunities of doing so go by. Apparently these men were now in sight of
their own home, where no doubt they had many friends, and by pushing on could
reach its shelter before us, especially as they knew the roads and we did not.

They had come out for a secret purpose that seemed to have to do with the
abduction of a certain young white woman for reasons connected with their
tribal statecraft or ritual, which is the kind of thing that happens not
infrequently among obscure and ancient African tribes. Well, they had abducted
their young woman and were in sight of safety and success in their objects,
whatever these might be. For what possible reason, then, could they desire to
risk a fight with the outraged friends and relatives of that young woman?

It was true that they outnumbered us and therefore had a good chance of
victory, but on the other hand, they must know that it would be very dearly
won, and if it were not won, that we should retake their captive, so that all
their trouble would have been for nothing. Further they must be as exhausted
and travel-worn as we were ourselves and in no condition to face a desperate
battle.

The problem was beyond me and I gave it up with the reflection that either this
threatened attack was a mere feint to delay us, or that behind it was something
mysterious, such as a determination to prevent us at all hazards from
discovering the secrets of that mountain stronghold.

When I put the riddle to Hans, who was lying next to me, he was ready with
another solution.

“They are men-eaters, Baas,” he said, “and being hungry, wish
to eat us before they get to their own land where doubtless they are not
allowed to eat each other.”

“Do you think so,” I answered, “when we are so thin?”
and I surveyed Hans’ scraggy form in the moonlight.

“Oh! yes, Baas, we should be quite good boiled—like old hens, Baas.
Also it is the nature of cannibals to prefer thin man to fat beef. The devil
that is in them gives them that taste, Baas, just as he makes me like gin, or
you turn your head to look at pretty women, as those Zulus say you always did
in their country, especially at a certain witch who was named Mameena and whom
you kissed before everybody——”

Here I turned my head to look at Hans, proposing to smite him with words, or
physically, since to have this Mameena myth, of which I have detailed the
origin in the book called Child of Storm, re-arise out of his hideous
little mouth was too much. But before I could get out a syllable he held up his
finger and whispered,

“Hush! the dawn breaks and they come. I hear them.”

I listened intently but could distinguish nothing. Only straining my eyes,
presently I thought that about a hundred yards down the slope beneath us in the
dim light I caught sight of ghostlike figures flitting from tree to tree; also
that these figures were drawing nearer.

“Look out!” I said to Robertson on my right, “I believe they
are coming.”

“Man,” he answered sternly, “I hope so, for whom else have I
wanted to meet all these days?”

Now the figures vanished into a little fold of the ground. A minute or so later
they re-appeared upon its hither side where such light as there was from the
fading stars and the gathering dawn fell full upon them, for here were no
trees. I looked and a thrill of horror went through me, for with one glance I
recognised that these were not the men whom we had been following. To
begin with, there were many more of them, quite a hundred, I should think, also
they had painted shields, wore feathers in their hair, and generally so far as
I could judge, seemed to be fat and fresh.

“We have been led into an ambush,” I said first in Zulu to
Umslopogaas immediately in front, and then in English to Robertson.

“If so, man, we must just do the best we can,” answered the latter,
“but God help my poor daughter, for those other devils will have taken
her away, leaving their brethren to make an end of us.”

“It is so, Macumazahn,” broke in Umslopogaas. “Well, whatever
the end of it, we shall have a better fight. Now do you give the word and we
will obey.”

The savages, for so I call them, although I admit that cannibals or not, they
looked more like high-class Arabs than savages, came on in perfect silence,
hoping, I suppose, to catch us asleep. When they were about fifty yards away,
running in a treble line with spears advanced, I called out “Fire!”
in Zulu, and set the example by loosing off both barrels of my express rifle at
men whom I had picked out as leaders, with results that must have been more
satisfactory to me than to the two Amahagger whose troubles in this world came
to an end.

There followed a tremendous fusillade, the Zulus banging off their guns wildly,
but even at that distance managing for the most part to shoot over the
enemy’s heads. Captain Robertson and Hans, however, did better and the
general result was that the Amahagger, who appeared to be unaccustomed to
firearms, retreated in a hurry to a fold of the ground whence they had emerged.
Before the last of them got there I loaded again, so that two more stopped
behind. Altogether we had put nine or ten of them out of action.

Now I hoped that they would give the business up. But this was not so, for
being brave fellows, after a pause of perhaps five minutes, once more they
charged in a body, hoping to overwhelm us. Again we greeted them with bullets
and knocked out several, whereon the rest threw a volley of their long spears
at us. I was glad to see them do this although one of the Zulus got his death
from it, while two more were wounded. I myself had a very narrow escape, for a
spear passed between my neck and shoulder. Each of them carried but one of
these weapons and I knew that if they used them up in throwing, only their big
knives would remain to them with which to attack us.

After this discharge of spears which was kept up for some time, they rushed at
us and there followed a great fight. The Zulus, throwing down their guns, rose
to their feet and holding their little fighting shields which had been carried
in their mats, in the left hand, wielded their axes with the right.
Umslopogaas, who stood in the centre of them, however, had no shield and swung
his great axe with both arms. This was the first time that I had seen him fight
and the spectacle was in a way magnificent. Again and again the axe crashed
down and every time it fell it left one dead beneath the stroke, till at length
those Amahagger shrank back out of his reach.

Meanwhile Robertson, Hans and I, standing on some stones at the back, kept up a
continual fire upon them, shooting over the heads of the Zulus, who were
playing their part like men. Yes, they shrank back, leaving many dead behind
them. Then a captain tried to gather them for another rush, and once more they
moved forward. I killed that captain with a revolver shot, for my rifle had
become too hot to hold, and at the sight of his fall, they broke and ran back
into the little hollow where our bullets could not reach them.

So far we had held our own, but at a price, for three of the Zulus were now
dead and three more wounded, one of them severely, the other two but enough to
cripple them. In fact, now there were left of them but three untouched men, and
Umslopogaas, so that in all for fighting purposes we were but seven. What
availed it that we had killed a great number of these Amahagger, when we were
but seven? How could seven men withstand such another onslaught?

There in the pale light of the dawn we looked at each other dismayed.

“Now,” said Umslopogaas, leaning on his red axe, “there
remains but one thing to do, make a good end, though I would that it were in a
greater cause. At least we must either fight or fly,” and he looked down
at the wounded.

“Think not of us, Father,” murmured one of them, the man who had a
mortal hurt. “If it is best, kill us and begone that you may live to bear
the Axe in years to come.”

“Well spoken!” said Umslopogaas, and again stood still a while,
then added, “The word is with you, Macumazahn, who are our
captain.”

I set out the situation to Robertson and Hans as briefly as I could, showing
that there was a chance of life if we ran, but so far as I could see, none if
we stayed.

“Go if you like, Quatermain,” answered the Captain, “but I
shall stop and die here, for since my girl is gone I think I’m better
dead.”

I motioned to Hans to speak.

“Baas,” he answered, “the Great Medicine is here with us upon
the earth and your reverend father, the Predikant, is with us in the sky, so I
think we had better stop here and do what we can, especially as I do not want
to see those reeds any more at present.”

“So do I,” I said briefly, giving no reasons.

So we made ready for the next attack which we knew would be the last,
strengthening our little wall and dragging the dead Amahagger up against it as
an added protection. As we were thus engaged the sun rose and in its first
beams, some miles away on the opposing slopes of the mountain looking tiny
against the black background of the precipice, we saw a party of men creeping
forward. Lifting my glasses I studied it and perceived that in its midst was a
litter.

“There goes your daughter,” I said, and handed the glasses to
Robertson.

“Oh! my God,” he answered, “those villains have outwitted us
after all.”

Another minute and the litter, or rather the chair with its escort, had
vanished into the shadow of the great cliffs, probably up some pass which we
could not see.

Next moment our thoughts were otherwise engaged, since from various symptoms we
gathered that the attack was about to be renewed. Spears upon which shone the
light of the rising sun, appeared above the edge of the ground-fold that I have
mentioned, which to the east increased to a deep, bush-clad ravine. Also there
were voices as of leaders encouraging their men to a desperate effort.

“They are coming,” I said to Robertson.

“Yes,” he answered, “they are coming and we are going.
It’s a queer end to the thing we call life, isn’t it, Quatermain,
and hang it all! I wonder what’s beyond? Not much for me, I expect, but
whatever it is could scarcely be worse than what I’ve gone through here
below in one way and another.”

“There’s hope for all of us,” I replied as cheerfully as I
could, for the man’s deep depression disturbed me.

“Mayhap, Quatermain, for who knows the infinite mercy of whatever made us
as we are? My old mother used to preach of it and I remember her words now. But
in my case I expect it will stop at hope, or sleep, and if it wasn’t for
Inez, I’d not mind so much, for I tell you I’ve had enough of the
world and life. Look, there’s one of them. Take that, you black
devil!” and lifting his rifle he aimed and fired at an Amahagger who
appeared upon the edge of the fold of ground. What is more he hit him, for I
saw the man double up and fall backwards.

Then the game began afresh, for the cannibals (I suppose they were cannibals
like their brethren) crept out of shelter, advancing on their stomachs or their
hands and knees, so as to offer a smaller mark, and dragging between them a
long and slender tree-trunk with which clearly they intended to batter down our
wall.

Of course I blazed away at them, pretty carefully too, for I was determined
that what I believed to be the last exercise of the gift of shooting that has
been given to me, should prove a record. Therefore I selected my men and even
where I would hit them, and as subsequent examination showed, I made no
mistakes in the seven or eight shots that I fired. But all the while, like poor
Captain Robertson, I was thinking of other things; namely, where I was bound
for presently and if I should meet certain folk there and what was the meaning
of this show called Life, which unless it leads somewhere, according to my
judgment has none at all. Until these questions were solved, however, my duty
was to kill as many of those ruffians as I could, and this I did with finish
and despatch.

Robertson and Hans were firing also, with more or less success, but there were
too many to be stopped by our three rifles. Still they came on till at length
their fierce faces were within a few yards of our little parapet and
Umslopogaas had lifted his great axe to give them greeting. They paused a
moment before making their final rush, and so did we to slip in fresh
cartridges.

“Die well, Hans,” I said, “and if you get there first, wait
for me on the other side.”

“Yes, Baas, I always meant to do that, though not yet. We are not going
to die this time, Baas. Those who have the Great Medicine don’t die; it
is the others who die, like that fellow,” and he pointed to an Amahagger
who went reeling round and round with a bullet from his Winchester through the
middle, for he had fired in the midst of his remarks.

“Curse—I mean bless—the Great Medicine,” I said as I
lifted my rifle to my shoulder.

At that moment all those Amahagger—there were about sixty of them
left—became seized with a certain perturbation. They stood still, they
stared towards the fold of ground out of which they had emerged; they called to
each other words which I did not catch, and then—they turned to run.

Umslopogaas saw, and with a leader’s instinct, acted. Springing over the
parapet, followed by his remaining Zulus of the Axe, he leapt upon them with a
roar. Down they went before Inkosikaas, like corn before a sickle. The
thing was marvellous to see, it was like the charge of a leopard, so swift was
the rush and so lightning-like were the strokes or rather the pecks of that
flashing axe, for now he was tapping at their heads or spines with the
gouge-like point upon its back. Nor were these the only victims, for those
brave followers of his also did their part. In a minute all who remained upon
their feet of the Amahagger were in full flight, vanishing this way and that
among the trees. Hans fired a parting shot after the last of them, then sat
down upon a stone and finding his corn-cob pipe, proceeded to fill it.

“The Great Medicine, Baas,” he began sententiously, “or
perhaps your reverend father, the Predikant——” Here he paused
and pointed doubtfully with the bowl of the pipe towards the fold in the
ground, adding, “Here it is, but I think it must be your reverend father,
not the Great Medicine, yes, the Predikant himself, returned from Heaven, the
Place of Fires!”

Looking vaguely in the direction indicated, for I could not conceive what he
meant and thought that the excitement must have made him mad, I perceived a
venerable old man with a long white beard and clothed in a flowing garment,
also white, who reminded me of Father Christmas at a child’s party,
walking towards us and radiating benignancy. Also behind him I perceived a
whole forest of spear points emerging from the gully. He seemed to take it for
granted that we should not shoot at him, for he came on quite unconcerned,
carefully picking his way among the corpses. When he was near enough he stopped
and said in a kind of Arabic which I could understand,

“I greet you, Strangers, in the name of her I serve. I see that I am just
in time, but this does not surprise me, since she said that it would be so. You
seem to have done very well with these dogs,” and he prodded a dead
Amahagger with his sandalled foot. “Yes, very well indeed. You must be
great warriors.”

Then he paused and we stared at each other.

CHAPTER XI.

THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN WALL

“These do not seem to be friends of yours,” I said, pointing to the
fallen. “And yet,” I added, nodding towards the spearmen who were
now emerging from the gully, “they are very like your friends.”

“Puppies from the same litter are often alike, yet when they grow up
sometimes they fight each other,” replied Father Christmas blandly.
“At least these come to save and not to kill you. Look! they kill the
others!” and he pointed to them making an end of some of the wounded men.
“But who are these?” and he glanced with evident astonishment,
first at the fearsome-looking Umslopogaas and then at the grotesque Hans.
“Nay, answer not, you must be weary and need rest. Afterwards we can
talk.”

“Well, as a matter of fact we have not yet breakfasted,” I replied.
“Also I have business to attend to here,” and I glanced at our
wounded.

The old fellow nodded and went to speak to the captains of his force, doubtless
as to the pursuit of the enemy, for presently I saw a company spring forward on
their tracks. Then, assisted by Hans and the remaining Zulus, of whom one was
Goroko, I turned to attend to our own people. The task proved lighter than I
expected, since the badly injured man was dead or dying and the hurts of the
two others were in their legs and comparatively slight, such as Goroko could
doctor in his own native fashion.

After this, taking Hans to guard my back, I went down to the stream and washed
myself. Then I returned and ate, wondering the while that I could do so with
appetite after the terrible dangers which we had passed. Still, we had passed
them, and Robertson, Umslopogaas with three of his men, I and Hans were quite
unharmed, a fact for which I returned thanks in silence but sincerely enough to
Providence.

Hans also returned thanks in his own fashion, after he had filled himself, not
before, and lit his corn-cob pipe. But Robertson made no remark; indeed, when
he had satisfied his natural cravings, he rose and walking a few paces forward,
stood staring at the cleft in the mountain cliff into which he had seen the
litter vanish that bore his daughter to some fate unknown.

Even the great fight that we had fought and the victory we had won against
overpowering odds did not appear to impress him. He only glared at the mountain
into the heart of which Inez had been raped away, and shook his fist. Since she
was gone all else went for nothing, so much so that he did not offer to assist
with the wounded Zulus or show curiosity about the strange old man by whom we
had been rescued.

“The Great Medicine, Baas,” said Hans in a bewildered way,
“is even more powerful than I thought. Not only has it brought us safely
through the fighting and without a scratch, for those Zulus there do not matter
and there will be less cooking for me to do now that they are gone; it has also
brought down your reverend father the Predikant from the Place of Fires in
Heaven, somewhat changed from what I remember him, it is true, but still
without doubt the same. When I make my report to him presently, if he can
understand my talk, I shall——”

“Stop your infernal nonsense, you son of a donkey,” I broke in, for
at this moment old Father Christmas, smiling more benignly than before,
re-appeared from the kloof into which he had vanished and advanced towards us
bowing with much politeness.

Having seated himself upon the little wall that we had built up, he
contemplated us, stroking his beautiful white beard, then said, addressing me,

“Of a certainty you should be proud who with a few have defeated so many.
Still, had I not been ordered to come at speed, I think that by now you would
have been as those are,” and he looked towards the dead Zulus who were
laid out at a distance like men asleep, while their companions sought for a
place to bury them.

“Ordered by whom?” I asked.

“There is only one who can order,” he answered with mild
astonishment. “‘She-who-commands,
She-who-is-everlasting’!”

It occurred to me that this must be some Arabic idiom for the Eternal Feminine,
but I only looked vague and said,

“It would appear that there are some whom this exalted everlasting She
cannot command; those who attacked us; also those who have fled away
yonder,” and I waved my hand towards the mountain.

“No command is absolute; in every country there are rebels, even, as I
have heard, in Heaven above us. But, Wanderer, what is your name?”

“Watcher-by-Night,” I answered.

“Ah! a good name for one who must have watched well by night, and by day
too, to reach this country living where She-who-commands says that no man of
your colour has set foot for many generations. Indeed, I think she told me once
that two thousand years had gone by since she spoke to a white man in the City
of Kôr.”

“Did she indeed?” I exclaimed, stifling a cough.

“You do not believe me,” he went on, smiling. “Well,
She-who-commands can explain matters for herself better than I who was not
alive two thousand years ago, so far as I remember. But what must I call him
with the Axe?”

“Warrior is his name.”

“Again a good name, as to judge by the wounds on them, certain of those
rebels I think are now telling each other in Hell. And this man, if indeed he
be a man——” he added, looking doubtfully at Hans.

“Light-in-Darkness is his name.”

“I see, doubtless because his colour is that of the winter sun in thick
fog, or a bad egg broken into milk. And the other white man who mutters and
whose brow is like a storm?”

“He is called Avenger; you will learn why later on,” I answered
impatiently, for I grew tired of this catechism, adding, “And what are
you called and, if you are pleased to tell it to us, upon what errand do you
visit us in so fortunate an hour?”

“I am named Billali,” he answered, “the servant and messenger
of She-who-commands, and I was sent to save you and to bring you safely to
her.”

“How can this be, Billali, seeing that none knew of our coming?”

“Yet She-who-commands knew,” he said with his benignant smile.
“Indeed, I think that she learned of it some moons ago through a message
that was sent to her and so arranged all things that you should be guided
safely to her secret home; since otherwise how would you have passed a great
pathless swamp with the loss, I think she said, of but one man whom a snake
bit?”

Now I stared at the old fellow, for how could he know of the death of this man,
but thought it useless to pursue the conversation further.

“When you are rested and ready,” he went on, “we will start.
Meanwhile I leave you that I may prepare litters to carry those wounded men,
and you also, Watcher-by-Night, if you wish.” Then with a dignified bow,
for everything about this old fellow was stately, he turned and vanished into
the kloof.

The next hour or so was occupied in the burial of the dead Zulus, a ceremony in
which I took no part beyond standing up and raising my hat as they were borne
away, for as I have said somewhere, it is best to leave natives alone on these
occasions. Indeed, I lay down, reflecting that strangely enough there seemed to
be something in old Zikali’s tale of a wonderful white Queen who lived in
a mountain fastness, since there was the mountain as he had drawn it on the
ashes, and the servants of that Queen who, apparently, had knowledge of our
coming, appeared in the nick of time to rescue us from one of the tightest
fixes in which ever I found myself.

Moreover, the antique and courteous individual called Billali, spoke of her as
“She-who-is-everlasting.” What the deuce could he mean by that, I
wondered? Probably that she was very old and therefore disagreeable to look on,
which I confessed to myself would be a disappointment.

And how did she know that we were coming? I could not guess and when I asked
Robertson, he merely shrugged his shoulders and intimated that he took no
interest in the matter. The truth is that nothing moved the man, whose whole
soul was wrapped in one desire, namely to rescue, or avenge, the daughter
against whom he knew he had so sorely sinned.

In fact, this loose-living but reformed seaman was becoming a monomaniac, and
what is more, one of the religious type. He had a Bible with him that had been
given to him by his mother when he was a boy, and in this he read constantly;
also he was always on his knees and at night I could hear him groaning and
praying aloud. Doubtless now that the chains of drink had fallen off him, the
instincts and the blood of the dour old Covenanters from whom he was descended,
were asserting themselves. In a way this was a good thing though for some time
past I had feared lest it should end in his going mad, and certainly as a
companion he was more cheerful in his unregenerate days.

Abandoning speculation as useless and taking my chance of being murdered where
I lay, for after all Billali’s followers were singularly like the men
with whom we had been fighting and for aught I knew might be animated by
identical objects—I just went to sleep, as I can do at any time, to wake
up an hour or so later feeling wonderfully refreshed. Hans, who when I closed
my eyes was already asleep slumbering at my feet curled up like a dog on a spot
where the sun struck hotly, roused me by saying:

“Awake, Baas, they are here!”

I sprang up, snatching at my rifle, for I thought that he meant that we were
being attacked again, to see Billali advancing at the head of a train of four
litters made of bamboo with grass mats for curtains and coverings, each of
which was carried by stalwart Amahagger, as I supposed that they must be. Two
of these, the finest, Billali indicated were for Robertson and myself, and the
two others for the wounded. Umslopogaas and the remaining Zulus evidently were
expected to walk, as was Hans.

“How did you make these so quickly,” I asked, surveying their
elegant and indeed artistic workmanship.

“We did not make them, Watcher-by-Night, we brought them with us folded
up. She-who-commands looked in her glass and said that four would be needed,
besides my own which is yonder, two for white lords and two for wounded black
men, which you see is the number required.”

“Yes,” I answered vaguely, marvelling what kind of a glass it was
that gave the lady this information.

Before I could inquire upon the point Billali added,

“You will be glad to learn that my men caught some of those rebels who
dared to attack you, eight or ten of them who had been hurt by your missiles or
axe-cuts, and put them to death in the proper fashion—yes, quite the
proper fashion,” and he smiled a little. “The rest had gone too far
where it would have been dangerous to follow them among the rocks. Enter now,
my lord Watcher-by-Night, for the road is steep and we must travel fast if we
would reach the place where She-who-commands is camped in the ancient holy
city, before the moon sinks behind the cliffs to-night.”

So having explained matters to Robertson and Umslopogaas, who announced that
nothing would induce him to be carried like an old woman, or a corpse
upon a shield, and seen that the hurt Zulus were comfortably accommodated,
Robertson and I got into our litters, which proved to be delightfully easy and
restful.

Then when our gear was collected by the hook-nosed bearers to whom we were
obliged to trust, though we kept with us our rifles and a certain amount of
ammunition, we started. First went a number of Billali’s spearmen, then
came the litters with the wounded alongside of which Umslopogaas and his three
uninjured Zulus stalked or trotted, then another litter containing Billali,
then my own by which ran Hans, and Robertson’s, and lastly the rest of
the Amahagger and the relief bearers.

“I see now, Baas,” said Hans, thrusting his head between my
curtains, “that yonder Whitebeard cannot be your reverend father, the
Predikant, after all.”

“Why not?” I asked, though the fact was fairly obvious.

“Because, Baas, if he were, he would not have left Hans, of whom he
always thought so well, to run in the sun like a dog, while he and others
travel in carriages like great white ladies.”

“You had better save your breath instead of talking nonsense,
Hans,” I said, “since I believe that you have a long way to
go.”

In fact, it proved to be a very long way indeed, especially as after we began
to breast the mountain, we must travel slowly. We started about ten
o’clock in the morning, for the fight which after all did not take
long—had, it will be remembered, begun shortly after dawn, and it was
three in the afternoon before we reached the base of the towering cliff which I
have mentioned.

Here, at the foot of a remarkable, isolated column of rock, on which I was
destined to see a strange sight in the after days, we halted and ate of the
remaining food which we had brought with us, while the Amahagger consumed their
own, that seemed to consist largely of curdled milk, such as the Zulus call
maas, and lumps of a kind of bread.

I noted that they were a very curious people who fed in silence and on whose
handsome, solemn faces one never saw a smile. Somehow it gave me the creeps to
look at them. Robertson was affected in the same way, for in one of the rare
intervals of his abstraction he remarked that they were “no canny.”
Then he added,

“Ask yon old wizard who might be one of the Bible prophets come to
life—what those man-eating devils have done with my daughter.”

I did so, and Billali answered,

“Say that they have taken her away to make a queen of her, since having
rebelled against their own queen, they must have another who is white. Say too
that She-who-commands will wage war on them and perhaps win her back, unless
they kill her first.”

“Ah!” Robertson repeated when I had translated, “unless they
kill her first—or worse.” Then he relapsed into his usual silence.

Presently we started on again, heading straight for what looked like a sheer
wall of black rock a thousand feet or more in height, up a path so steep that
Robertson and I got out and walked, or rather scrambled, in order to ease the
bearers. Billali, I noticed, remained in his litter. The convenience of the
bearers did not trouble him; he only ordered an extra gang to the poles. I
could not imagine how we were to negotiate this precipice. Nor could
Umslopogaas, who looked at it and said,

“If we are to climb that, Macumazahn, I think that the only one who will
live to get to the top will be that little yellow monkey of yours,” and
he pointed with his axe at Hans.

“If I do,” replied that worthy, much nettled, for he hated to be
called a “yellow monkey” by the Zulus, “be sure that I will
roll down stones upon any black butcher whom I see sprawling upon the cliff
below.”

Umslopogaas smiled grimly, for he had a sense of humour and could appreciate a
repartee even when it hit him hard. Then we stopped talking for the climb took
all our breath.

At length we came to the cliff face where, to all appearance, our journey must
end. Suddenly, however, out of the blind black wall in front of us started the
apparition of a tall man armed with a great spear and wearing a white robe, who
challenged us hoarsely.

Suddenly he stood before us, as a ghost might do, though whence he came we
could not see. Presently the mystery was explained. Here in the cliff face
there was a cleft, though one invisible even from a few paces away, since its
outer edge projected over the inner wall of rock. Moreover, this opening was
not above four feet in width, a mere split in the huge mountain mass caused by
some titanic convulsion in past ages. For it was a definite split since, once
entered, far, far above could be traced a faint line of light coming from the
sky, although the gloom of the passage was such that torches, which were stored
at hand, must be used by those who threaded it. One man could have held the
place against a hundred—until he was killed. Still, it was guarded, not
only at the mouth where the warrior had appeared, but further along at every
turn in the jagged chasm, and these were many.

Into this grim place we went. The Zulus did not like it at all, for they are a
light-loving people and I noted that even Umslopogaas seemed scared and hung
back a little. Nor did Hans, who with his usual suspicion, feared some trap;
nor, for the matter of that, did I, though I thought it well to appear much
interested. Only Robertson seemed quite indifferent and trudged along stolidly
after a man carrying a torch.

Old Billali put his head out of the litter and shouted back to me to fear
nothing, since there were no pitfalls in the path, his voice echoing strangely
between those narrow walls of measureless height.

For half an hour or more we pursued this dreary, winding path round the corners
of which the draught tore in gusts so fierce that more than once the litters
with the wounded men and those who bore them were nearly blown over. It was
safe enough, however, since on either side of us, smooth and without break,
rose the sheer walls of rock over which lay the tiny ribbon of blue sky. At
length the cleft widened somewhat and the light grew stronger, making the
torches unnecessary.

Then of a sudden we came to its end and found ourselves upon a little plateau
in the mountainside. Behind us for a thousand feet or so rose the sheer rock
wall as it did upon the outer face, while in front and beneath, far beneath,
was a beautiful plain circular in shape and of great extent, which plain was
everywhere surrounded, so far as I could see, by the same wall of rock. In
short, notwithstanding its enormous size, without doubt it was neither more nor
less than the crater of a vast extinct volcano. Lastly, not far from the centre
of this plain was what appeared to be a city, since through my glasses I could
see great walls built of stone, and what I thought were houses, all of them of
a character more substantial than any that I had discovered in the wilds of
Africa.

I went to Billali’s litter and asked him who lived in the city.

“No one,” he answered, “it has been dead for thousands of
years, but She-who-commands is camped there at present with an army, and
thither we go at once. Forward, bearers.”

So, Robertson and I having re-entered our litters, we started on down hill at a
rapid pace, for the road, though steep, was safe and kept in good order. All
the rest of that afternoon we travelled and by sunset reached the edge of the
plain, where we halted a while to rest and eat, till the light of the growing
moon grew strong enough to enable us to proceed. Umslopogaas came up and spoke
to me.

“Here is a fortress indeed, Macumazahn,” he said, “since none
can climb that fence of rock in which the holes seem to be few and
small.”

“Yes,” I answered, “but it is one out of which those who are
in, would find it difficult to get out. We are buffaloes in a pit,
Umslopogaas.”

“That is so,” he answered, “I have thought it already. But if
any would meddle with us we still have our horns and can toss for a
while.”

Then he went back to his men.

The sunset in that great solemn place was a wonderful thing to see. First of
all the measureless crater was filled with light like a bowl with fire. Then as
the great orb sank behind the western cliff, half of the plain became quite
dark while shadows seemed to rush forward over the eastern part of its surface,
till that too was swallowed up in gloom and for a little while there remained
only a glow reflected from the cliff face and from the sky above, while on the
crest of the parapet of rock played strange and glorious fires. Presently these
too vanished and the world was dark.

Then the half moon broke from behind a bank of clouds and by its silver,
uncertain light we struggled forward across the flat plain, rather slowly now,
for even the iron muscles of those bearers grew tired. I could not see much of
it, but I gathered that we were passing through crops, very fine crops to judge
by their height, as doubtless they would be upon this lava soil; also once or
twice we splashed through streams.

At length, being tired and lulled by the swaying of the litter and by the sound
of a weird, low chant that the bearers had set up now that they neared home and
were afraid of no attack, I sank into a doze. When I awoke again it was to find
that the litter had halted and to hear the voice of Billali say,

“Descend, White Lords, and come with your companions, the black Warrior
and the yellow man who is named Light-in-Darkness. She-who-commands desires to
see you at once before you eat and sleep, and must not be kept waiting. Fear
not for the others, they will be cared for till you return.”

CHAPTER XII.

THE WHITE WITCH

I descended from the litter and told the others what the old fellow had said.
Robertson did not want to come, and indeed refused to do so until I suggested
to him that such conduct might prejudice a powerful person against us.
Umslopogaas was indifferent, putting, as he remarked, no faith in a ruler who
was a woman.

Only Hans, although he was so tired, acquiesced with some eagerness, the fact
being that his brain was more alert and that he had all the curiosity of the
monkey tribe which he so much resembled in appearance, and wanted to see this
queen whom Zikali revered.

In the end we started, conducted by Billali and by men who carried torches
whereof the light showed me that we were passing between houses, or at any rate
walls that had been those of houses, and along what seemed to be a paved
street.

Walking under what I took to be a great arch or portico, we came into a court
that was full of towering pillars but unroofed, for I could see the stars
above. At its end we entered a building of which the doorway was hung with
mats, to find that it was lighted with lamps and that all down its length on
either side guards with long spears stood at intervals.

“Oh, Baas,” said Hans hesitatingly, “this is the mouth of a
trap,” while Umslopogaas glared about him suspiciously, fingering the
handle of his great axe.

“Be silent,” I answered. “All this mountain is a trap,
therefore another does not matter, and we have our pistols.”

Walking forward between the double line of guards who stood immovable as
statues, we came to some curtains hung at the end of a long, narrow hall which,
although I know little of such things, were, I noted, made of rich stuff
embroidered in colours and with golden threads. Before these curtains Billali
motioned us to halt.

After a whispered colloquy with someone beyond carried on through the join of
the curtains, he vanished between them, leaving us alone for five minutes or
more. At length they opened and a tall and elegant woman with an Arab cast of
countenance and clad in white robes, appeared and beckoned to us to enter. She
did not speak or answer when I spoke to her, which was not wonderful as
afterwards I discovered that she was a mute. We went in, I wondering very much
what we were going to see.

On the further side of the curtains was a room of no great size illumined with
lamps of which the light fell upon sculptured walls. It looked to me as though
it might once have been the inmost court or a sanctuary of some temple, for at
its head was a dais upon which once perhaps had stood the shrine or statue of a
god. On this dais there was now a couch and on the couch—a goddess!

There she sat, straight and still, clothed in shining white and veiled, but
with her draperies so arranged that they emphasised rather than concealed the
wonderful elegance of her tall form. From beneath the veil, which was such as a
bride wears, appeared two plaits of glossy, raven hair of great length, to the
end of each of which was suspended a single large pearl. On either side of her
stood a tall woman like to her who had led us through the curtains, and on his
knees in front, but to the right, knelt Billali.

About this seated personage there was an air of singular majesty, such as might
pervade a queen as fancy paints her, though she had a nobler figure than any
queen I ever saw depicted. Mystery seemed to flow from her; it clothed her like
the veil she wore, which of course heightened the effect. Beauty flowed from
her also; although it was shrouded I knew that it was there, no veil or
coverings could obscure it—at least, to my imagination. Moreover she
breathed out power also; one felt it in the air as one feels a thunderstorm
before it breaks, and it seemed to me that this power was not quite human, that
it drew its strength from afar and dwelt a stranger to the earth.

To tell the truth, although my curiosity, always strong, was enormously excited
and though now I felt glad that I had attempted this journey with all its
perils, I was horribly afraid, so much afraid that I should have liked to turn
and run away. From the beginning I knew myself to be in the presence of an
unearthly being clothed in soft and perfect woman’s flesh, something
alien, too, and different from our human race.

What a picture it all made! There she sat, quiet and stately as a perfect
marble statue; only her breast, rising and falling beneath the white robe,
showed that she was alive and breathed as others do. Another thing showed it
also—her eyes. At first I could not see them through the veil, but
presently either because I grew accustomed to the light, or because they
brightened as those of certain animals have power to do when they watch
intently, it ceased to be a covering to them. Distinctly I saw them now, large
and dark and splendid with a tinge of deep blue in the iris; alluring and yet
awful in their majestic aloofness which seemed to look through and beyond, to
embrace all without seeking and without effort. Those eyes were like windows
through which light flows from within, a light of the spirit.

I glanced round to see the effect of this vision upon my companions. It was
most peculiar. Hans had sunk to his knees; his hands were joined in the
attitude of prayer and his ugly little face reminded me of that of a big fish
out of water and dying from excess of air. Robertson, startled out of his
abstraction, stared at the royal-looking woman on the couch with his mouth
open.

“Man,” he whispered, “I’ve got them back although I
have touched nothing for weeks, only this time they are lovely. For yon’s
no human lady, I feel it in my bones.”

Umslopogaas stood great and grim, his hands resting on the handle of his tall
axe; and he stared also, the blood pulsing against the skin that covered the
hole in his head.

“Watcher-by-Night,” he said to me in his deep voice, but also
speaking in a whisper, “this chieftainess is not one woman, but all
women. Beneath those robes of hers I seem to see the beauty of one who has
‘gone Beyond,’ of the Lily who is lost to me. Do you not feel it
thus, Macumazahn?”

Now that he mentioned it, certainly I did; indeed, I had felt it all along
although amid the rush of sensations this one had scarcely disentangled itself
in my mind. I looked at the draped shape and saw—well, never mind whom I
saw; it was not one only but several in sequence; also a woman who at that time
I did not know although I came to know her afterwards, too well, perhaps, or at
any rate quite enough to puzzle me. The odd thing was that in this
hallucination the personalities of these individuals seemed to overlap and
merge, till at last I began to wonder whether they were not parts of the same
entity or being, manifesting itself in sundry shapes, yet springing from one
centre, as different coloured rays flow from the same crystal, while the beams
from their source of light shift and change. But the fancy is too metaphysical
for my poor powers to express as clearly as I would. Also no doubt it was but a
hallucination that had its origin, perhaps, in the mischievous brain of her who
sat before us.

At length she spoke and her voice sounded like silver bells heard over water in
a great calm. It was low and sweet, oh! so sweet that at its first notes for a
moment my senses seemed to swoon and my pulse to stop. It was to me that she
addressed herself.

“My servant here,” and ever so slightly she turned her head towards
the kneeling Billali, “tells me that you who are named
Watcher-in-the-Night, understand the tongue in which I speak to you. Is it
so?”

“I understand Arabic of a kind well enough, having learned it on the East
Coast and from Arabs in past years, but not such Arabic as you use,
O——” and I paused.

“Call me Hiya,” she broke in, “which is my title here,
meaning, as you know, She, or Woman. Or if that does not please you, call me
Ayesha. It would rejoice me after so long to hear the name I bore spoken by the
lips of one of my colour and of gentle blood.”

I blushed at the compliment so artfully conveyed, and repeated stupidly enough,

“—Not such Arabic as you use, O—Ayesha.”

“I thought that you would like the sound of the word better than that of
Hiya, though afterwards I will teach you to pronounce it as you should,
O—have you any other name save Watcher-by-Night, which seems also to be a
title?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Allan.”

“—O—Allan. Tell me of these,” she went on quickly,
indicating my companions with a sweep of her slender hand, “for they do
not speak Arabic, I think. Or stay, I will tell you of them and you shall say
if I do so rightly. This one,” and she nodded towards Robertson,
“is a man bemused. There comes from him a colour which I see if you
cannot, and that colour betokens a desire for revenge, though I think that in
his time he has desired other things also, as I remember men always did from
the beginning, to their ruin. Human nature does not change, Allan, and wine and
women are ancient snares. Enough of him for this time. The little yellow one
there is afraid of me, as are all of you. That is woman’s greatest power,
although she is so weak and gentle, men are still afraid of her just because
they are so foolish that they cannot understand her. To them after a million
years she still remains the Unknown and to us all the Unknown is also the
awful. Do you remember the proverb of the Romans that says it well and
briefly?”

I nodded, for it was one of the Latin tags that my father had taught me.

“Good. Well, he is a little wild man, is he not, nearer to the apes from
whose race our bodies come? But do you know that, Allan?”

I nodded again, and said,

“There are disputes upon the point, Ayesha.”

“Yes, they had begun in my day and we will discuss them later. Still, I
say—nearer to the ape than you or I, and therefore of interest, as the
germ of things is always. Yet he has qualities, I think; cunning, and fidelity
and love which in its round is all in all. Do you understand, Allan, that love
is all in all?”

I answered warily that it depended upon what she meant by love, to which she
replied that she would explain afterwards when we had leisure to talk, adding,

“What this little yellow monkey understands by it at least has served you
well, or so I believe. You shall tell me the tale of it some day. Now of the
last, this Black One. Here I think is a man indeed, a warrior of warriors such
as there used to be in the early world, if a savage. Well, believe me, Allan,
savages are often the best. Moreover, all are still savage at heart, even you
and I. For what is termed culture is but coat upon coat of paint laid on to
hide our native colour, and often there is poison in the paint. That axe of his
has drunk deep, I think, though always in fair fight, and I say that it shall
drink deeper yet. Have I read these men aright, Allan?”

“Not so ill,” I answered.

“I thought it,” she said with a musical laugh, “although at
this place I rust and grow dull like an unused sword. Now you would rest.
Go—all of you. To-morrow you and I will talk alone. Fear nothing for your
safety; you are watched by my slaves and I watch my slaves. Until to-morrow,
then, farewell. Go now, eat and sleep, as alas we all must do who linger on
this ball of earth and cling to a life we should do well to lose. Billali, lead
them hence,” and she waved her hand to signify that the audience was
ended.

At this sign Hans, who apparently was still much afraid, rose from his knees
and literally bolted through the curtains. Robertson followed him. Umslopogaas
stood a moment, drew himself up and lifting the great axe, cried Bayéte,
after which he too turned and went.

“What does that word mean, Allan?” she asked.

I explained that it was the salutation which the Zulu people only give to
kings.

“Did I not say that savages are often the best?” she exclaimed in a
gratified voice. “The white man, your companion, gave me no salute, but
the Black One knows when he stands before a woman who is royal.”

“He too is of royal blood in his own land,” I said.

“If so, we are akin, Allan.”

Then I bowed deeply to her in my best manner and rising from her couch for the
first time she stood up, looking very tall and commanding, and bowed back.

After this I went to find the others on the further side of the curtains,
except Hans, who had run down the long narrow hall and through the mats at its
end. We followed, marching with dignity behind Billali and between the double
line of guards, who raised their spears as we passed them, and on the further
side of the mats discovered Hans, still looking terrified.

“Baas,” he said to me as we threaded our way through the court of
columns, “in my life I have seen all kinds of dreadful things and faced
them, but never have I been so much afraid as I am of that white witch. Baas, I
think that she is the devil of whom your reverend father, the Predikant, used
to talk so much, or perhaps his wife.”

“If so, Hans,” I answered, “the devil is not so black as he
is painted. But I advise you to be careful of what you say as she may have long
ears.”

“It doesn’t matter at all what one says, Baas, because she reads
thoughts before they pass the lips. I felt her doing it there in that room. And
do you be careful, Baas, or she will eat up your spirit and make you fall in
love with her, who, I expect, is very ugly indeed, since otherwise she would
not wear a veil. Whoever saw a pretty woman tie up her head in a sack,
Baas?”

“Perhaps she does this because she is so beautiful, Hans, that she fears
the hearts of men who look upon her would melt.”

“Oh, no, Baas, all women want to melt men’s hearts; the more the
better. They seem to have other things in their minds, but really they think of
nothing else until they are too old and ugly, and it takes them a long while to
be sure of that.”

So Hans went on talking his shrewd nonsense till, following so far as I could
see, the same road as that by which we had come, we reached our quarters, where
we found food prepared for us, broiled goat’s flesh with corncakes and
milk, I think it was; also beds for us two white men covered with skin rugs and
blankets woven of wool.

These quarters, I should explain, consisted of rooms in a house built of stone
of which the walls had once been painted. The roof of the house was gone now,
for we could see the stars shining above us, but as the air was very soft in
this sheltered plain, this was an advantage rather than otherwise. The largest
room was reserved for Robertson and myself, while another at the back was given
to Umslopogaas and his Zulus, and a third to the two wounded men.

Billali showed us these arrangements by the light of lamps and apologised that
they were not better because, as he explained, the place was a ruin and there
had been no time to build us a house. He added that we might sleep without fear
as we were guarded and none would dare to harm the guests of She-who-commands,
on whom he was sure we, or at any rate I and the black Warrior, had produced an
excellent impression. Then he bowed himself out, saying that he would return in
the morning, and left us to our own devices.

Robertson and I sat down on stools that had been set for us, and ate, but he
seemed so overcome by his experiences, or by his sombre thoughts, that I could
not draw him into conversation. All he remarked was that we had fallen into
queer company and that those who supped with Satan needed a long spoon. Having
delivered himself of this sentiment he threw himself upon the bed, prayed aloud
for a while as had become his fashion, to be “protected from warlocks and
witches,” amongst other things, and went to sleep.

Before I turned in I visited Umslopogaas’s room to see that all was well
with him and his people, and found him standing in the doorway staring at the
star-spangled sky.

“Greeting, Macumazahn,” he said, “you who are white and wise
and I who am black and a fighter have seen many strange things beneath the sun,
but never such a one as we have looked upon to-night. Who and what is that
chieftainess, Macumazahn?”

“I do not know,” I said, “but it is worth while to have lived
to see her, even though she be veiled.”

“Nor do I, Macumazahn. Nay, I do know, for my heart tells me that she is
the greatest of all witches and that you will do well to guard your spirit lest
she should steal it away. If she were not a witch, should I have seemed to
behold the shape of Nada the Lily who was the wife of my youth, beneath those
white robes of hers, and though the tongue in which she spoke was strange to
me, to hear the murmur of Nada’s voice between her lips, of Nada who has
gone further from me than those stars. It is good that you wear the Great
Medicine of Zikali upon your breast, Macumazahn, for perhaps it will shield you
from harm at those hands that are shaped of ivory.”

“Zikali is another of the tribe,” I answered, laughing,
“although less beautiful to see. Also I am not afraid of any of them, and
from this one, if she be more than some white woman whom it pleases to veil
herself, I shall hope to gather wisdom.”

“Yes, Macumazahn, such wisdom as Spirits and the dead have to
give.”

“Mayhap, Umslopogaas, but we came here to seek Spirits and the dead, did
we not?”

“Aye,” answered Umslopogaas, “these and war, and I think that
we shall find enough of all three. Only I hope that war will come the first,
lest the Spirits and the dead should bewitch me and take away my skill and
courage.”

Then we parted, and too tired even to wonder any more, I threw myself down on
my bed and slept.

I was awakened when the sun was already high, by the sound of Robertson, who
was on his knees, praying aloud as usual, a habit of his which I confess got on
my nerves. Prayer, in my opinion, is a private matter between man and his
Creator, that is, except in church; further, I did not in the least wish to
hear all about Robertson’s sins, which seemed to have been many and
peculiar. It is bad enough to have to bear the burden of one’s own
transgressions without learning of those of other people, that is, unless one
is a priest and must do so professionally. So I jumped up to escape and make
arrangements for a wash, only to butt into old Billali, who was standing in the
doorway contemplating Robertson with much interest and stroking his white
beard.

He greeted me with his courteous bow and said,

“Tell your companion, O Watcher, that it is not necessary for him to go
upon his knees to She-who-commands—and must be obeyed,” he added
with emphasis, “when he is not in her presence, and that even then he
would do well to keep silent, since so much talking in a strange tongue might
trouble her.”

I burst out laughing and answered,

“He does not go upon his knees and pray to She-who-commands, but to the
Great One who is in the sky.”

“Indeed, Watcher. Well, here we only know a Great One who is upon the
earth, though it is true that perhaps she visits the skies sometimes.”

“Is it so, Billali?” I answered incredulously. “And now, I
would ask you to take me to some place where I can bathe.”