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She and Allan

by H. Rider Haggard · English · Gutenberg #5745 · 663,940 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: She and Allan

Author: H. Rider Haggard


        
Release date: April 22, 2006 [eBook #5745]
                Most recently updated: January 23, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5745

Credits: John Bickers; Dagny; David Widger


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[Illustration]




She and Allan

by H. Rider Haggard

First Published 1921.


Contents

 NOTE BY THE LATE MR. ALLAN QUATERMAIN
 SHE AND ALLAN

 CHAPTER I. THE TALISMAN
 CHAPTER II. THE MESSENGERS
 CHAPTER III. UMSLOPOGAAS OF THE AXE
 CHAPTER IV. THE LION AND THE AXE
 CHAPTER V. INEZ
 CHAPTER VI. THE SEA-COW HUNT
 CHAPTER VII. THE OATH
 CHAPTER VIII. PURSUIT
 CHAPTER IX. THE SWAMP
 CHAPTER X. THE ATTACK
 CHAPTER XI. THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN WALL
 CHAPTER XII. THE WHITE WITCH
 CHAPTER XIII. ALLAN HEARS A STRANGE TALE
 CHAPTER XIV. ALLAN MISSES OPPORTUNITY
 CHAPTER XV. ROBERTSON IS LOST
 CHAPTER XVI. ALLAN’S VISION
 CHAPTER XVII. THE MIDNIGHT BATTLE
 CHAPTER XVIII. THE SLAYING OF REZU
 CHAPTER XIX. THE SPELL
 CHAPTER XX. THE GATE OF DEATH
 CHAPTER XXI. THE LESSON
 CHAPTER XXII. AYESHA’S FAREWELL
 CHAPTER XXIII. WHAT UMSLOPOGAAS SAW
 CHAPTER XXIV. UMSLOPOGAAS WEARS THE GREAT MEDICINE
 CHAPTER XXV. ALLAN DELIVERS THE MESSAGE




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 power

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