ALLAN AND THE HOLY FLOWER

By H. Rider Haggard

First Published 1915.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER I

BROTHER JOHN

I do not suppose that anyone who knows the name of Allan Quatermain would
be likely to associate it with flowers, and especially with orchids. Yet
as it happens it was once my lot to take part in an orchid hunt of so
remarkable a character that I think its details should not be lost. At
least I will set them down, and if in the after days anyone cares to
publish them, well—he is at liberty to do so.

It was in the year—oh! never mind the year, it was a long while ago
when I was much younger, that I went on a hunting expedition to the north
of the Limpopo River which borders the Transvaal. My companion was a
gentleman of the name of Scroope, Charles Scroope. He had come out to
Durban from England in search of sport. At least, that was one of his
reasons. The other was a lady whom I will call Miss Margaret Manners,
though that was not her name.

It seems that these two were engaged to be married, and really attached to
each other. Unfortunately, however, they quarrelled violently about
another gentleman with whom Miss Manners danced four consecutive dances,
including two that were promised to her fiancé at a Hunt ball in Essex,
where they all lived. Explanations, or rather argument, followed. Mr.
Scroope said that he would not tolerate such conduct. Miss Manners replied
that she would not be dictated to; she was her own mistress and meant to
remain so. Mr. Scroope exclaimed that she might so far as he was
concerned. She answered that she never wished to see his face again. He
declared with emphasis that she never should and that he was going to
Africa to shoot elephants.

What is more, he went, starting from his Essex home the next day without
leaving any address. As it transpired afterwards, long afterwards, had he
waited till the post came in he would have received a letter that might
have changed his plans. But they were high-spirited young people, both of
them, and played the fool after the fashion of those in love.

Well, Charles Scroope turned up in Durban, which was but a poor place
then, and there we met in the bar of the Royal Hotel.

“If you want to kill big game,” I heard some one say, who it was I really
forget, “there’s the man to show you how to do it—Hunter Quatermain;
the best shot in Africa and one of the finest fellows, too.”

I sat still, smoking my pipe and pretending to hear nothing. It is awkward
to listen to oneself being praised, and I was always a shy man.

Then after a whispered colloquy Mr. Scroope was brought forward and
introduced to me. I bowed as nicely as I could and ran my eye over him. He
was a tall young man with dark eyes and a rather romantic aspect (that was
due to his love affair), but I came to the conclusion that I liked the cut
of his jib. When he spoke, that conclusion was affirmed. I always think
there is a great deal in a voice; personally, I judge by it almost as much
as by the face. This voice was particularly pleasant and sympathetic,
though there was nothing very original or striking in the words by which
it was, so to speak, introduced to me. These were:

“How do you do, sir. Will you have a split?”

I answered that I never drank spirits in the daytime, or at least not
often, but that I should be pleased to take a small bottle of beer.

When the beer was consumed we walked up together to my little house on
what is now called the Berea, the same in which, amongst others, I
received my friends, Curtis and Good, in after days, and there we dined.
Indeed, Charlie Scroope never left that house until we started on our
shooting expedition.

Now I must cut all this story short, since it is only incidentally that it
has to do with the tale I am going to tell. Mr. Scroope was a rich man and
as he offered to pay all the expenses of the expedition while I was to
take all the profit in the shape of ivory or anything else that might
accrue, of course I did not decline his proposal.

Everything went well with us on that trip until its unfortunate end. We
only killed two elephants, but of other game we found plenty. It was when
we were near Delagoa Bay on our return that the accident happened.

We were out one evening trying to shoot something for our dinner, when
between the trees I caught sight of a small buck. It vanished round a
little promontory of rock which projected from the side of the kloof,
walking quietly, not running in alarm. We followed after it. I was the
first, and had just wriggled round these rocks and perceived the buck
standing about ten paces away (it was a bush-bok), when I heard a rustle
among the bushes on the top of the rock not a dozen feet above my head,
and Charlie Scroope’s voice calling:

“Look out, Quatermain! He’s coming.”

“Who’s coming?” I answered in an irritated tone, for the noise had made
the buck run away.

Then it occurred to me, all in an instant of course, that a man would not
begin to shout like that for nothing; at any rate when his supper was
concerned. So I glanced up above and behind me. To this moment I can
remember exactly what I saw. There was the granite water-worn boulder, or
rather several boulders, with ferns growing in their cracks of the
maiden-hair tribe, most of them, but some had a silver sheen on the under
side of their leaves. On one of these leaves, bending it down, sat a large
beetle with red wings and a black body engaged in rubbing its antennæ with
its front paws. And above, just appearing over the top of the rock, was
the head of an extremely fine leopard. As I write, I seem to perceive its
square jowl outlined against the arc of the quiet evening sky with the
saliva dropping from its lips.

This was the last thing which I did perceive for a little while, since at
that moment the leopard—we call them tigers in South Africa—dropped
upon my back and knocked me flat as a pancake. I presume that it also had
been stalking the buck and was angry at my appearance on the scene. Down I
went, luckily for me, into a patch of mossy soil.

“All up!” I said to myself, for I felt the brute’s weight upon my back
pressing me down among the moss, and what was worse, its hot breath upon
my neck as it dropped its jaws to bite me in the head. Then I heard the
report of Scroope’s rifle, followed by furious snarling from the leopard,
which evidently had been hit. Also it seemed to think that I had caused
its injuries, for it seized me by the shoulder. I felt its teeth slip
along my skin, but happily they only fastened in the shooting coat of
tough corduroy that I was wearing. It began to shake me, then let go to
get a better grip. Now, remembering that Scroope only carried a light,
single-barrelled rifle, and therefore could not fire again, I knew, or
thought I knew, that my time had come. I was not exactly afraid, but the
sense of some great, impending change became very vivid. I remembered—not
my whole life, but one or two odd little things connected with my infancy.
For instance, I seemed to see myself seated on my mother’s knee, playing
with a little jointed gold-fish which she wore upon her watch-chain.

After this I muttered a word or two of supplication, and, I think, lost
consciousness. If so, it can only have been for a few seconds. Then my
mind returned to me and I saw a strange sight. The leopard and Scroope
were fighting each other. The leopard, standing on one hind leg, for the
other was broken, seemed to be boxing Scroope, whilst Scroope was driving
his big hunting knife into the brute’s carcase. They went down, Scroope
undermost, the leopard tearing at him. I gave a wriggle and came out of
that mossy bed—I recall the sucking sound my body made as it left
the ooze.

Close by was my rifle, uninjured and at full cock as it had fallen from my
hand. I seized it, and in another second had shot the leopard through the
head just as it was about to seize Scroope’s throat.

It fell stone dead on the top of him. One quiver, one contraction of the
claws (in poor Scroope’s leg) and all was over. There it lay as though it
were asleep, and underneath was Scroope.

The difficulty was to get it off him, for the beast was very heavy, but I
managed this at last with the help of a thorn bough I found which some
elephant had torn from a tree. This I used as a lever. There beneath lay
Scroope, literally covered with blood, though whether his own or the
leopard’s I could not tell. At first I thought that he was dead, but after
I had poured some water over him from the little stream that trickled down
the rock, he sat up and asked inconsequently:

“What am I now?”

“A hero,” I answered. (I have always been proud of that repartee.)

Then, discouraging further conversation, I set to work to get him back to
the camp, which fortunately was close at hand.

When we had proceeded a couple of hundred yards, he still making
inconsequent remarks, his right arm round my neck and my left arm round
his middle, suddenly he collapsed in a dead faint, and as his weight was
more than I could carry, I had to leave him and fetch help.

In the end I got him to the tents by aid of the Kaffirs and a blanket, and
there made an examination. He was scratched all over, but the only serious
wounds were a bite through the muscles of the left upper arm and three
deep cuts in the right thigh just where it joins the body, caused by a
stroke of the leopard’s claws. I gave him a dose of laudanum to send him
to sleep and dressed these hurts as best I could. For three days he went
on quite well. Indeed, the wounds had begun to heal healthily when
suddenly some kind of fever took him, caused, I suppose, by the poison of
the leopard’s fangs or claws.

Oh! what a terrible week was that which followed! He became delirious,
raving continually of all sorts of things, and especially of Miss Margaret
Manners. I kept up his strength as well as was possible with soup made
from the flesh of game, mixed with a little brandy which I had. But he
grew weaker and weaker. Also the wounds in the thigh began to suppurate.

The Kaffirs whom we had with us were of little use in such a case, so that
all the nursing fell on me. Luckily, beyond a shaking, the leopard had
done me no hurt, and I was very strong in those days. Still the lack of
rest told on me, since I dared not sleep for more than half an hour or so
at a time. At length came a morning when I was quite worn out. There lay
poor Scroope turning and muttering in the little tent, and there I sat by
his side, wondering whether he would live to see another dawn, or if he
did, for how long I should be able to tend him. I called to a Kaffir to
bring me my coffee, and just as I was lifting the pannikin to my lips
with a shaking hand, help came.

It arrived in a very strange shape. In front of our camp were two thorn
trees, and from between these trees, the rays from the rising sun falling
full on him, I saw a curious figure walking towards me in a slow,
purposeful fashion. It was that of a man of uncertain age, for though the
beard and long hair were white, the face was comparatively youthful, save
for the wrinkles round the mouth, and the dark eyes were full of life and
vigour. Tattered garments, surmounted by a torn kaross or skin rug, hung
awkwardly upon his tall, thin frame. On his feet were veld-schoen of
untanned hide, on his back a battered tin case was strapped, and in his
bony, nervous hand he clasped a long staff made of the black and white
wood the natives call unzimbiti, on the top of which was fixed a
butterfly net. Behind him were some Kaffirs who carried cases on their
heads.

I knew him at once, since we had met before, especially on a certain
occasion in Zululand, when he calmly appeared out of the ranks of a
hostile native impi. He was one of the strangest characters in all
South Africa. Evidently a gentleman in the true sense of the word, none
knew his history (although I know it now, and a strange story it is),
except that he was an American by birth, for in this matter at times his
speech betrayed him. Also he was a doctor by profession, and to judge from
his extraordinary skill, one who must have seen much practice both in
medicine and in surgery. For the rest he had means, though where they came
from was a mystery, and for many years past had wandered about South and
Eastern Africa, collecting butterflies and flowers.

By the natives, and I might add by white people also, he was universally
supposed to be mad. This reputation, coupled with his medical skill,
enabled him to travel wherever he would without the slightest fear of
molestation, since the Kaffirs look upon the mad as inspired by God. Their
name for him was “Dogeetah,” a ludicrous corruption of the English word
“doctor,” whereas white folk called him indifferently “Brother John,”
“Uncle Jonathan,” or “Saint John.” The second appellation he got from his
extraordinary likeness (when cleaned up and nicely dressed) to the figure
by which the great American nation is typified in comic papers, as England
is typified by John Bull. The first and third arose in the well-known
goodness of his character and a taste he was supposed to possess for
living on locusts and wild honey, or their local equivalents. Personally,
however, he preferred to be addressed as “Brother John.”

Oh! who can tell the relief with which I saw him; an angel from heaven
could scarcely have been more welcome. As he came I poured out a second
jorum of coffee, and remembering that he liked it sweet, put in plenty of
sugar.

“How do you do, Brother John?” I said, proffering him the coffee.

“Greeting, Brother Allan,” he answered—in those days he affected a
kind of old Roman way of speaking, as I imagine it. Then he took the
coffee, put his long finger into it to test the temperature and stir up
the sugar, drank it off as though it were a dose of medicine, and handed
back the tin to be refilled.

“Bug-hunting?” I queried.

He nodded. “That and flowers and observing human nature and the wonderful
works of God. Wandering around generally.”

“Where from last?” I asked.

“Those hills nearly twenty miles away. Left them at eight in the evening;
walked all night.”

“Why?” I said, looking at him.

“Because it seemed as though someone were calling me. To be plain, you,
Allan.”

“Oh! you heard about my being here and the trouble?”

“No, heard nothing. Meant to strike out for the coast this morning. Just
as I was turning in, at 8.5 exactly, got your message and started. That’s
all.”

“My message——” I began, then stopped, and asking to see his
watch, compared it with mine. Oddly enough, they showed the same time to
within two minutes.

“It is a strange thing,” I said slowly, “but at 8.5 last night I did try
to send a message for some help because I thought my mate was dying,” and
I jerked my thumb towards the tent. “Only it wasn’t to you or any other
man, Brother John. Understand?”

“Quite. Message was expressed on, that’s all. Expressed and I guess
registered as well.”

I looked at Brother John and Brother John looked at me, but at the time we
made no further remark. The thing was too curious, that is, unless he
lied. But nobody had ever known him to lie. He was a truthful person,
painfully truthful at times. And yet there are people who do not believe
in prayer.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Mauled by leopard. Wounds won’t heal, and fever. I don’t think he can
last long.”

“What do you know about it? Let me see him.”

Well, he saw him and did wonderful things. That tin box of his was full of
medicines and surgical instruments, which latter he boiled before he used
them. Also he washed his hands till I thought the skin would come off
them, using up more soap than I could spare. First he gave poor Charlie a
dose of something that seemed to kill him; he said he had that drug from
the Kaffirs. Then he opened up those wounds upon his thigh and cleaned
them out and bandaged them with boiled herbs. Afterwards, when Scroope
came to again, he gave him a drink that threw him into a sweat and took
away the fever. The end of it was that in two days’ time his patient sat
up and asked for a square meal, and in a week we were able to begin to
carry him to the coast.

“Guess that message of yours saved Brother Scroope’s life,” said old John,
as he watched him start.

I made no answer. Here I may state, however, that through my own men I
inquired a little as to Brother John’s movements at the time of what he
called the message. It seemed that he had arranged to march towards
the coast on the next morning, but that about two hours after sunset
suddenly he ordered them to pack up everything and follow him. This they
did and to their intense disgust those Kaffirs were forced to trudge all
night at the heels of Dogeetah, as they called him. Indeed, so weary did
they become, that had they not been afraid of being left alone in an
unknown country in the darkness, they said they would have thrown down
their loads and refused to go any further.

That is as far as I was able to take the matter, which may be explained by
telepathy, inspiration, instinct, or coincidence. It is one as to which
the reader must form his own opinion.

During our week together in camp and our subsequent journey to Delagoa Bay
and thence by ship to Durban, Brother John and I grew very intimate, with
limitations. Of his past, as I have said, he never talked, or of the real
object of his wanderings which I learned afterwards, but of his natural
history and ethnological (I believe that is the word) studies he spoke a
good deal. As, in my humble way, I also am an observer of such matters and
know something about African natives and their habits from practical
experience, these subjects interested me.

Amongst other things, he showed me many of the specimens that he had
collected during his recent journey; insects and beautiful butterflies
neatly pinned into boxes, also a quantity of dried flowers pressed between
sheets of blotting paper, amongst them some which he told me were orchids.
Observing that these attracted me, he asked me if I would like to see the
most wonderful orchid in the whole world. Of course I said yes, whereon he
produced out of one of his cases a flat package about two feet six square.
He undid the grass mats in which it was wrapped, striped, delicately woven
mats such as they make in the neighbourhood of Zanzibar. Within these was
the lid of a packing-case. Then came more mats and some copies of The
Cape Journal spread out flat. Then sheets of blotting paper, and last
of all between two pieces of cardboard, a flower and one leaf of the plant
on which it grew.

Even in its dried state it was a wondrous thing, measuring twenty-four
inches from the tip of one wing or petal to the tip of the other, by
twenty inches from the top of the back sheath to the bottom of the pouch.
The measurement of the back sheath itself I forget, but it must have been
quite a foot across. In colour it was, or had been, bright golden, but the
back sheath was white, barred with lines of black, and in the exact centre
of the pouch was a single black spot shaped like the head of a great ape.
There were the overhanging brows, the deep recessed eyes, the surly mouth,
the massive jaws—everything.

Although at that time I had never seen a gorilla in the flesh, I had seen
a coloured picture of the brute, and if that picture had been photographed
on the flower the likeness could not have been more perfect.

“What is it?” I asked, amazed.

“Sir,” said Brother John, sometimes he used this formal term when excited,
“it is the most marvellous Cypripedium in the whole earth, and, sir, I
have discovered it. A healthy root of that plant will be worth £20,000.”

“That’s better than gold mining,” I said. “Well, have you got the root?”

Brother John shook his head sadly as he answered:

“No such luck.”

“How’s that as you have the flower?”

“I’ll tell you, Allan. For a year past and more I have been collecting in
the district back of Kilwa and found some wonderful things, yes,
wonderful. At last, about three hundred miles inland, I came to a tribe,
or rather, a people, that no white man had ever visited. They are called
the Mazitu, a numerous and warlike people of bastard Zulu blood.”

“I have heard of them,” I interrupted. “They broke north before the days
of Senzangakona, two hundred years or more ago.”

“Well, I could make myself understood among them because they still talk a
corrupt Zulu, as do all the tribes in those parts. At first they wanted to
kill me, but let me go because they thought that I was mad. Everyone
thinks that I am mad, Allan; it is a kind of public delusion, whereas I
think that I am sane and that most other people are mad.”

“A private delusion,” I suggested hurriedly, as I did not wish to discuss
Brother John’s sanity. “Well, go on about the Mazitu.”

“Later they discovered that I had skill in medicine, and their king,
Bausi, came to me to be treated for a great external tumour. I risked an
operation and cured him. It was anxious work, for if he had died I should
have died too, though that would not have troubled me very much,” and he
sighed. “Of course, from that moment I was supposed to be a great
magician. Also Bausi made a blood brotherhood with me, transfusing some of
his blood into my veins and some of mine into his. I only hope he has not
inoculated me with his tumours, which are congenital. So I became Bausi
and Bausi became me. In other words, I was as much chief of the Mazitu as
he was, and shall remain so all my life.”

“That might be useful,” I said, reflectively, “but go on.”

“I learned that on the western boundary of the Mazitu territory were great
swamps; that beyond these swamps was a lake called Kirua, and beyond that
a large and fertile land supposed to be an island, with a mountain in its
centre. This land is known as Pongo, and so are the people who live
there.”

“That is a native name for the gorilla, isn’t it?” I asked. “At least so a
fellow who had been on the West Coast told me.”

“Indeed, then that’s strange, as you will see. Now these Pongo are
supposed to be great magicians, and the god they worship is said to be a
gorilla, which, if you are right, accounts for their name. Or rather,” he
went on, “they have two gods. The other is that flower you see there.
Whether the flower with the monkey’s head on it was the first god and
suggested the worship of the beast itself, or vice versa, I don’t
know. Indeed I know very little, just what I was told by the Mazitu and a
man who called himself a Pongo chief, no more.”

“What did they say?”

“The Mazitu said that the Pongo people are devils who came by the secret
channels through the reeds in canoes and stole their children and women,
whom they sacrificed to their gods. Sometimes, too, they made raids upon
them at night, ‘howling like hyenas.’ The men they killed and the women
and children they took away. The Mazitu want to attack them but cannot do
so, because they are not water people and have no canoes, and therefore
are unable to reach the island, if it is an island. Also they told me
about the wonderful flower which grows in the place where the ape-god
lives, and is worshipped like the god. They had the story of it from some
of their people who had been enslaved and escaped.”

“Did you try to get to the island?” I asked.

“Yes, Allan. That is, I went to the edge of the reeds which lie at the end
of a long slope of plain, where the lake begins. Here I stopped for some
time catching butterflies and collecting plants. One night when I was
camped there by myself, for none of my men would remain so near the Pongo
country after sunset, I woke up with a sense that I was no longer alone. I
crept out of my tent and by the light of the moon, which was setting, for
dawn drew near, I saw a man who leant upon the handle of a very
wide-bladed spear which was taller than himself, a big man over six feet
two high, I should say, and broad in proportion. He wore a long, white
cloak reaching from his shoulders almost to the ground. On his head was a
tight-fitting cap with lappets, also white. In his ears were rings of
copper or gold, and on his wrists bracelets of the same metal. His skin
was intensely black, but the features were not at all negroid. They were
prominent and finely-cut, the nose being sharp and the lips quite thin;
indeed of an Arab type. His left hand was bandaged, and on his face was an
expression of great anxiety. Lastly, he appeared to be about fifty years
of age. So still did he stand that I began to wonder whether he were one
of those ghosts which the Mazitu swore the Pongo wizards send out to haunt
their country.

“For a long while we stared at each other, for I was determined that I
would not speak first or show any concern. At last he spoke in a low, deep
voice and in Mazitu, or a language so similar that I found it easy to
understand.

“‘Is not your name Dogeetah, O White Lord, and are you not a master of
medicine?’

“‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘but who are you who dare to wake me from my sleep?’

“‘Lord, I am the Kalubi, the Chief of the Pongo, a great man in my own
land yonder.’

“‘Then why do you come here alone at night, Kalubi, Chief of the Pongo?’

“‘Why do you come here alone, White Lord?’ he answered evasively.

“‘What do you want, anyway?’ I asked.

“‘O! Dogeetah, I have been hurt, I want you to cure me,’ and he looked at
his bandaged hand.

“‘Lay down that spear and open your robe that I may see you have no
knife.’

“He obeyed, throwing the spear to some distance.

“‘Now unwrap the hand.’

“He did so. I lit a match, the sight of which seemed to frighten him
greatly, although he asked no questions about it, and by its light
examined the hand. The first joint of the second finger was gone. From the
appearance of the stump which had been cauterized and was tied tightly
with a piece of flexible grass, I judged that it had been bitten off.

“‘What did this?’ I asked.

“‘Monkey,’ he answered, ‘poisonous monkey. Cut off the finger, O Dogeetah,
or tomorrow I die.’

“‘Why do you not tell your own doctors to cut off the finger, you who are
Kalubi, Chief of the Pongo?’

“‘No, no,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘They cannot do it. It is not
lawful. And I, I cannot do it, for if the flesh is black the hand must
come off too, and if the flesh is black at the wrist, then the arm must be
cut off.’

“I sat down on my camp stool and reflected. Really I was waiting for the
sun to rise, since it was useless to attempt an operation in that light.
The man, Kalubi, thought that I had refused his petition and became
terribly agitated.

“‘Be merciful, White Lord,’ he prayed, ‘do not let me die. I am afraid to
die. Life is bad, but death is worse. O! If you refuse me, I will kill
myself here before you and then my ghost will haunt you till you die also
of fear and come to join me. What fee do you ask? Gold or ivory or slaves?
Say and I will give it.’

“‘Be silent,’ I said, for I saw that if he went on thus he would throw
himself into a fever, which might cause the operation to prove fatal. For
the same reason I did not question him about many things I should have
liked to learn. I lit my fire and boiled the instruments—he thought
I was making magic. By the time that everything was ready the sun was up.

“‘Now,’ I said, ‘let me see how brave you are.’

“Well, Allan, I performed that operation, removing the finger at the base
where it joins the hand, as I thought there might be something in his
story of the poison. Indeed, as I found afterwards on dissection, and can
show you, for I have the thing in spirits, there was, for the blackness of
which he spoke—a kind of mortification, I presume—had crept almost to
the joint, though the flesh beyond was healthy enough. Certainly that
Kalubi was a plucky fellow. He sat like a rock and never even winced.
Indeed, when he saw that the flesh was sound he uttered a great sigh of
relief. After it was all over he turned a little faint, so I gave him some
spirits of wine mixed with water which revived him.

“‘O Lord Dogeetah,’ he said, as I was bandaging his hand, ‘while I live I
am your slave. Yet, do me one more service. In my land there is a terrible
wild beast, that which bit off my finger. It is a devil; it kills us and
we fear it. I have heard that you white men have magic weapons which slay
with a noise. Come to my land and kill me that wild beast with your magic
weapon. I say, Come, Come, for I am terribly afraid,’ and indeed he looked
it.

“‘No,’ I answered, ‘I shed no blood; I kill nothing except butterflies,
and of these only a few. But if you fear this brute why do you not poison
it? You black people have many drugs.’

“‘No use, no use,’ he replied in a kind of wail. ‘The beast knows poisons,
some it swallows and they do not harm it. Others it will not touch.
Moreover, no black man can do it hurt. It is white, and it has been known
from of old that if it dies at all, it must be by the hand of one who is
white.’

“‘A very strange animal,’ I began, suspiciously, for I felt sure that he
was lying to me. But just at that moment I heard the sound of my men’s
voices. They were advancing towards me through the giant grass, singing as
they came, but as yet a long way off. The Kalubi heard it also and sprang
up.

“‘I must be gone,’ he said. ‘None must see me here. What fee, O Lord of
medicine, what fee?’

“‘I take no payment for my medicine,’ I said. ‘Yet—stay. A wonderful
flower grows in your country, does it not? A flower with wings and a cup
beneath. I would have that flower.’

“‘Who told you of the Flower?’ he asked. ‘The Flower is holy. Still, O
White Lord, still for you it shall be risked. Oh, return and bring with
you one who can kill the beast and I will make you rich. Return and call
to the reeds for the Kalubi, and the Kalubi will hear and come to you.’

“Then he ran to his spear, snatched it from the ground and vanished among
the reeds. That was the last I saw, or am ever likely to see, of him.”

“But, Brother John, you got the flower somehow.”

“Yes, Allan. About a week later when I came out of my tent one morning,
there it was standing in a narrow-mouthed, earthenware pot filled with
water. Of course I meant that he was to send me the plant, roots and all,
but I suppose he understood that I wanted a bloom. Or perhaps he dared not
send the plant. Anyhow, it is better than nothing.”

“Why did you not go into the country and get it for yourself?”

“For several reasons, Allan, of which the best is that it was impossible.
The Mazitu swear that if anyone sees that flower he is put to death.
Indeed, when they found that I had a bloom of it, they forced me to move
to the other side of the country seventy miles away. So I thought that I
would wait till I met with some companions who would accompany me. Indeed,
to be frank, Allan, it occurred to me that you were the sort of man who
would like to interview this wonderful beast that bites off people’s
fingers and frightens them to death,” and Brother John stroked his long,
white beard and smiled, adding, “Odd that we should have met so soon
afterwards, isn’t it?”

“Did you?” I replied, “now did you indeed? Brother John, people say all
sorts of things about you, but I have come to the conclusion that there’s
nothing the matter with your wits.”

Again he smiled and stroked his long, white beard.

CHAPTER II

THE AUCTION ROOM

I do not think that this conversation about the Pongo savages who were said
to worship a Gorilla and a Golden Flower was renewed until we reached my
house at Durban. Thither of course I took Mr. Charles Scroope, and thither
also came Brother John who, as bedroom accommodation was lacking, pitched
his tent in the garden.

One night we sat on the step smoking; Brother John’s only concession to
human weakness was that he smoked. He drank no wine or spirits; he never
ate meat unless he was obliged, but I rejoice to say that he smoked
cigars, like most Americans, when he could get them.

“John,” said I, “I have been thinking over that yarn of yours and have
come to one or two conclusions.”

“What may they be, Allan?”

“The first is that you were a great donkey not to get more out of the
Kalubi when you had the chance.”

“Agreed, Allan, but, amongst other things, I am a doctor and the operation
was uppermost in my mind.”

“The second is that I believe this Kalubi had charge of the gorilla-god,
as no doubt you’ve guessed; also that it was the gorilla which bit off his
finger.”

“Why so?”

“Because I have heard of great monkeys called sokos that live in
Central East Africa which are said to bite off men’s toes and fingers. I
have heard too that they are very like gorillas.”

“Now you mention it, so have I, Allan. Indeed, once I saw a soko,
though some way off, a huge, brown ape which stood on its hind legs and
drummed upon its chest with its fists. I didn’t see it for long because I
ran away.”

“The third is that this yellow orchid would be worth a great deal of money
if one could dig it up and take it to England.”

“I think I told you, Allan, that I valued it at £20,000, so that
conclusion of yours is not original.”

“The fourth is that I should like to dig up that orchid and get a share of
the £20,000.”

Brother John became intensely interested.

“Ah!” he said, “now we are getting to the point. I have been wondering how
long it would take you to see it, Allan, but if you are slow, you are
sure.”

“The fifth is,” I went on, “that such an expedition to succeed would need
a great deal of money, more than you or I could find. Partners would be
wanted, active or sleeping, but partners with cash.”

Brother John looked towards the window of the room in which Charlie
Scroope was in bed, for being still weak he went to rest early.

“No,” I said, “he’s had enough of Africa, and you told me yourself that it
will be two years before he is really strong again. Also there’s a lady in
this case. Now listen. I have taken it on myself to write to that lady,
whose address I found out while he didn’t know what he was saying. I have
said that he was dying, but that I hoped he might live. Meanwhile, I
added, I thought she would like to know that he did nothing but rave of
her; also that he was a hero, with a big H twice underlined. My word! I
did lay it on about the hero business with a spoon, a real hotel gravy
spoon. If Charlie Scroope knows himself again when he sees my description
of him, well, I’m a Dutchman, that’s all. The letter caught the last mail
and will, I hope, reach the lady in due course. Now listen again. Scroope
wants me to go to England with him to look after him on the voyage—that’s
what he says. What he means is that he hopes I might put in a word for him
with the lady, if I should chance to be introduced to her. He offers to
pay all my expenses and to give me something for my loss of time. So, as I
haven’t seen England since I was three years old, I think I’ll take the
chance.”

Brother John’s face fell. “Then how about the expedition, Allan?” he
asked.

“This is the first of November,” I answered, “and the wet season in those
parts begins about now and lasts till April. So it would be no use trying
to visit your Pongo friends till then, which gives me plenty of time to go
to England and come out again. If you’ll trust that flower to me I’ll take
it with me. Perhaps I might be able to find someone who would be willing
to put down money on the chance of getting the plant on which it grew.
Meanwhile, you are welcome to this house if you care to stay here.”

“Thank you, Allan, but I can’t sit still for so many months. I’ll go
somewhere and come back.” He paused and a dreamy look came into his dark
eyes, then went on, “You see, Brother, it is laid on me to wander and
wander through all this great land until—I know.”

“Until you know what?” I asked, sharply.

He pulled himself together with a jerk, as it were, and answered with a
kind of forced carelessness.

“Until I know every inch of it, of course. There are lots of tribes I have
not yet visited.”

“Including the Pongo,” I said. “By the way, if I can get the money
together for a trip up there, I suppose you mean to come too, don’t you?
If not, the thing’s off so far as I am concerned. You see, I am reckoning
on you to get us through the Mazitu and into Pongo-land by the help of
your friends.”

“Certainly I mean to come. In fact, if you don’t go, I shall start alone.
I intend to explore Pongo-land even if I never come out of it again.”

Once more I looked at him as I answered:

“You are ready to risk a great deal for a flower, John. Or are you looking
for more than a flower? If so, I hope you will tell me the truth.”

This I said as I was aware that Brother John had a foolish objection to
uttering, or even acting lies.

“Well, Allan, as you put it like that, the truth is that I heard something
more about the Pongo than I told you up country. It was after I had
operated on that Kalubi, or I would have tried to get in alone. But this I
could not do then as I have said.”

“And what did you hear?”

“I heard that they had a white goddess as well as a white god.”

“Well, what of it? A female gorilla, I suppose.”

“Nothing, except that goddesses have always interested me. Good night.”

“You are an odd old fish,” I remarked after him, “and what is more you
have got something up your sleeve. Well, I’ll have it down one day.
Meanwhile, I wonder whether the whole thing is a lie, no; not a lie, an
hallucination. It can’t be—because of that orchid. No one can
explain away the orchid. A queer people, these Pongo, with their white god
and goddess and their Holy Flower. But after all Africa is a land of queer
people, and of queer gods too.”

And now the story shifts away to England. (Don’t be afraid, my adventurous
reader, if ever I have one, it is coming back to Africa again in a very
few pages.)

Mr. Charles Scroope and I left Durban a day or two after my last
conversation with Brother John. At Cape Town we caught the mail, a
wretched little boat you would think it now, which after a long and
wearisome journey at length landed us safe at Plymouth. Our companions on
that voyage were very dull. I have forgotten most of them, but one lady I
do remember. I imagine that she must have commenced life as a barmaid, for
she had the orthodox tow hair and blowsy appearance. At any rate, she was
the wife of a wine-merchant who had made a fortune at the Cape. Unhappily,
however, she had contracted too great a liking for her husband’s wares,
and after dinner was apt to become talkative. For some reason or other she
took a particular aversion to me. Oh! I can see her now, seated in that
saloon with the oil lamp swinging over her head (she always chose the
position under the oil lamp because it showed off her diamonds). And I can
hear her too. “Don’t bring any of your elephant-hunting manners here, Mr.
Allan” (with an emphasis on the Allan) “Quatermain, they are not fit for
polite society. You should go and brush your hair, Mr. Quatermain.” (I may
explain that my hair sticks up naturally.)

Then would come her little husband’s horrified “Hush! hush! you are quite
insulting, my dear.”

Oh! why do I remember it all after so many years when I have even
forgotten the people’s names? One of those little things that stick in the
mind, I suppose. The Island of Ascension, where we called, sticks also
with its long swinging rollers breaking in white foam, its bare mountain
peak capped with green, and the turtles in the ponds. Those poor turtles.
We brought two of them home, and I used to look at them lying on their
backs in the forecastle flapping their fins feebly. One of them died, and
I got the butcher to save me the shell. Afterwards I gave it as a wedding
present to Mr. and Mrs. Scroope, nicely polished and lined. I meant it for
a work-basket, and was overwhelmed with confusion when some silly lady
said at the marriage, and in the hearing of the bride and bridegroom, that
it was the most beautiful cradle she had ever seen. Of course, like a
fool, I tried to explain, whereon everybody tittered.

But why do I write of such trifles that have nothing to do with my story?

I mentioned that I had ventured to send a letter to Miss Margaret Manners
about Mr. Charles Scroope, in which I said incidentally that if the hero
should happen to live I should probably bring him home by the next mail.
Well, we got into Plymouth about eight o’clock in the morning, on a mild,
November day, and shortly afterwards a tug arrived to take off the
passengers and mails; also some cargo. I, being an early riser, watched it
come and saw upon the deck a stout lady wrapped in furs, and by her side a
very pretty, fair-haired young woman clad in a neat serge dress and a
pork-pie hat. Presently a steward told me that someone wished to speak to
me in the saloon. I went and found these two standing side by side.

“I believe you are Mr. Allan Quatermain,” said the stout lady. “Where is
Mr. Scroope whom I understand you have brought home? Tell me at once.”

Something about her appearance and fierce manner of address alarmed me so
much that I could only answer feebly:

“Below, madam, below.”

“There, my dear,” said the stout lady to her companion, “I warned you to
be prepared for the worst. Bear up; do not make a scene before all these
people. The ways of Providence are just and inscrutable. It is your own
temper that was to blame. You should never have sent the poor man off to
these heathen countries.”

Then, turning to me, she added sharply: “I suppose he is embalmed; we
should like to bury him in Essex.”

“Embalmed!” I gasped. “Embalmed! Why, the man is in his bath, or was a few
minutes ago.”

In another second that pretty young lady who had been addressed was
weeping with her head upon my shoulder.

“Margaret!” exclaimed her companion (she was a kind of heavy aunt), “I
told you not to make a scene in public. Mr. Quatermain, as Mr. Scroope is
alive, would you ask him to be so good as to come here.”

Well, I fetched him, half-shaved, and the rest of the business may be
imagined. It is a very fine thing to be a hero with a big H. Henceforth
(thanks to me) that was Charlie Scroope’s lot in life. He has
grandchildren now, and they all think him a hero. What is more, he does
not contradict them. I went down to the lady’s place in Essex, a fine
property with a beautiful old house. On the night I arrived there was a
dinner-party of twenty-four people. I had to make a speech about Charlie
Scroope and the leopard. I think it was a good speech. At any rate
everybody cheered, including the servants, who had gathered at the back of
the big hall.

I remember that to complete the story I introduced several other leopards,
a mother and two three-part-grown cubs, also a wounded buffalo, and told
how Mr. Scroope finished them off one after the other with a hunting
knife. The thing was to watch his face as the history proceeded. Luckily
he was sitting next to me and I could kick him under the table. It was all
very amusing, and very happy also, for these two really loved each other.
Thank God that I, or rather Brother John, was able to bring them together
again.

It was during that stay of mine in Essex, by the way, that I first met
Lord Ragnall and the beautiful Miss Holmes with whom I was destined to
experience some very strange adventures in the after years.

After this interlude I got to work. Someone told me that there was a firm
in the City that made a business of selling orchids by auction, flowers
which at this time were beginning to be very fashionable among rich
horticulturists. This, thought I, would be the place for me to show my
treasure. Doubtless Messrs. May and Primrose—that was their
world-famed style—would be able to put me in touch with opulent
orchidists who would not mind venturing a couple of thousands on the
chance of receiving a share in a flower that, according to Brother John,
should be worth untold gold. At any rate, I would try.

So on a certain Friday, about half-past twelve, I sought out the place of
business of Messrs. May and Primrose, bearing with me the golden
Cypripedium, which was now enclosed in a flat tin case.

As it happened I chose an unlucky day and hour, for on arriving at the
office and asking for Mr. May, I was informed that he was away in the
country valuing.

“Then I would like to see Mr. Primrose,” I said.

“Mr. Primrose is round at the Rooms selling,” replied the clerk, who
appeared to be very busy.

“Where are the Rooms?” I asked.

“Out of the door, turn to the left, turn to the left again and under the
clock,” said the clerk, and closed the shutter.

So disgusted was I with his rudeness that I nearly gave up the enterprise.
Thinking better of it, however, I followed the directions given, and in a
minute or two found myself in a narrow passage that led to a large room.
To one who had never seen anything of the sort before, this room offered a
curious sight. The first thing I observed was a notice on the wall to the
effect that customers were not allowed to smoke pipes. I thought to myself
that orchids must be curious flowers if they could distinguish between the
smoke of a cigar and a pipe, and stepped into the room. To my left was a
long table covered with pots of the most beautiful flowers that I had ever
seen; all of them orchids. Along the wall and opposite were other tables
closely packed with withered roots which I concluded were also those of
orchids. To my inexperienced eye the whole lot did not look worth five
shillings, for they seemed to be dead.

At the head of the room stood the rostrum, where sat a gentleman with an
extremely charming face. He was engaged in selling by auction so rapidly
that the clerk at his side must have had difficulty in keeping a record of
the lots and their purchasers. In front of him was a horseshoe table,
round which sat buyers. The end of this table was left unoccupied so that
the porters might exhibit each lot before it was put up for sale. Standing
under the rostrum was yet another table, a small one, upon which were
about twenty pots of flowers, even more wonderful than those on the large
table. A notice stated that these would be sold at one-thirty precisely.
All about the room stood knots of men (such ladies as were present sat at
the table), many of whom had lovely orchids in their buttonholes. These, I
found out afterwards, were dealers and amateurs. They were a kindly-faced
set of people, and I took a liking to them.

The whole place was quaint and pleasant, especially by contrast with the
horrible London fog outside. Squeezing my small person into a corner where
I was in nobody’s way, I watched the proceedings for a while. Suddenly an
agreeable voice at my side asked me if I would like a look at the
catalogue. I glanced at the speaker, and in a sense fell in love with him
at once—as I have explained before, I am one of those to whom a
first impression means a great deal. He was not very tall, though
strong-looking and well-made enough. He was not very handsome, though none
so ill-favoured. He was just an ordinary fair young Englishman, four or
five-and-twenty years of age, with merry blue eyes and one of the
pleasantest expressions that I ever saw. At once I felt that he was a
sympathetic soul and full of the milk of human kindness. He was dressed in
a rough tweed suit rather worn, with the orchid that seemed to be the
badge of all this tribe in his buttonhole. Somehow the costume suited his
rather pink and white complexion and rumpled fair hair, which I could see
as he was sitting on his cloth hat.

“Thank you, no,” I answered, “I did not come here to buy. I know nothing
about orchids,” I added by way of explanation, “except a few I have seen
growing in Africa, and this one,” and I tapped the tin case which I held
under my arm.

“Indeed,” he said. “I should like to hear about the African orchids. What
is it you have in the case, a plant or flowers?”

“One flower only. It is not mine. A friend in Africa asked me to—well,
that is a long story which might not interest you.”

“I’m not sure. I suppose it must be a Cymbidium scape from the size.”

I shook my head. “That’s not the name my friend mentioned. He called it a
Cypripedium.”

The young man began to grow curious. “One Cypripedium in all that large
case? It must be a big flower.”

“Yes, my friend said it is the biggest ever found. It measures twenty-four
inches across the wings, petals I think he called them, and about a foot
across the back part.”

“Twenty-four inches across the petals and a foot across the dorsal sepal!”
said the young man in a kind of gasp, “and a Cypripedium! Sir, surely you
are joking?”

“Sir,” I answered indignantly, “I am doing nothing of the sort. Your
remark is tantamount to telling me that I am speaking a falsehood. But, of
course, for all I know, the thing may be some other kind of flower.”

“Let me see it. In the name of the goddess Flora let me see it!”

I began to undo the case. Indeed it was already half-open when two other
gentlemen, who had either overheard some of our conversation or noted my
companion’s excited look, edged up to us. I observed that they also wore
orchids in their buttonholes.

“Hullo! Somers,” said one of them in a tone of false geniality, “what have
you got there?”

“What has your friend got there?” asked the other.

“Nothing,” replied the young man who had been addressed as Somers,
“nothing at all; that is—only a case of tropical butterflies.”

“Oh! butterflies,” said No. 1 and sauntered away. But No. 2, a
keen-looking person with the eye of a hawk, was not so easily satisfied.

“Let us see these butterflies,” he said to me.

“You can’t,” ejaculated the young man. “My friend is afraid lest the damp
should injure their colours. Ain’t you, Brown?”

“Yes, I am, Somers,” I replied, taking his cue and shutting the tin case
with a snap.

Then the hawk-eyed person departed, also grumbling, for that story about
the damp stuck in his throat.

“Orchidist!” whispered the young man. “Dreadful people, orchidists, so
jealous. Very rich, too, both of them. Mr. Brown—I hope that is your
name, though I admit the chances are against it.”

“They are,” I replied, “my name is Allan Quatermain.”

“Ah! much better than Brown. Well, Mr. Allan Quatermain, there’s a private
room in this place to which I have admittance. Would you mind coming with
that——” here the hawk-eyed gentleman strolled past again,
“that case of butterflies?”

“With pleasure,” I answered, and followed him out of the auction chamber
down some steps through the door to the left, and ultimately into a little
cupboard-like room lined with shelves full of books and ledgers.

He closed the door and locked it.

“Now,” he said in a tone of the villain in a novel who at last has come
face to face with the virtuous heroine, “now we are alone. Mr. Quatermain,
let me see—those butterflies.”

I placed the case on a deal table which stood under a skylight in the
room. I opened it; I removed the cover of wadding, and there, pressed
between two sheets of glass and quite uninjured after all its journeyings,
appeared the golden flower, glorious even in death, and by its side the
broad green leaf.

The young gentleman called Somers looked at it till I thought his eyes
would really start out of his head. He turned away muttering something and
looked again.

“Oh! Heavens,” he said at last, “oh! Heavens, is it possible that such a
thing can exist in this imperfect world? You haven’t faked it, Mr. Half—I
mean Quatermain, have you?”

“Sir,” I said, “for the second time you are making insinuations. Good
morning,” and I began to shut up the case.

“Don’t be offhanded,” he exclaimed. “Pity the weaknesses of a poor sinner.
You don’t understand. If only you understood, you would understand.”

“No,” I said, “I am bothered if I do.”

“Well, you will when you begin to collect orchids. I’m not mad, really,
except perhaps on this point, Mr. Quatermain,”—this in a low and
thrilling voice—“that marvellous Cypripedium—your friend is
right, it is a Cypripedium—is worth a gold mine.”

“From my experience of gold mines I can well believe that,” I said tartly,
and, I may add, prophetically.

“Oh! I mean a gold mine in the figurative and colloquial sense, not as the
investor knows it,” he answered. “That is, the plant on which it grew is
priceless. Where is the plant, Mr. Quatermain?”

“In a rather indefinite locality in Africa east by south,” I replied. “I
can’t place it to within three hundred miles.”

“That’s vague, Mr. Quatermain. I have no right to ask it, seeing that you
know nothing of me, but I assure you I am respectable, and in short, would
you mind telling me the story of this flower?”

“I don’t think I should,” I replied, a little doubtfully. Then, after
another good look at him, suppressing all names and exact localities, I
gave him the outline of the tale, explaining that I wanted to find someone
who would finance an expedition to the remote and romantic spot where this
particular Cypripedium was believed to grow.

Just as I finished my narrative, and before he had time to comment on it,
there came a violent knocking at the door.

“Mr. Stephen,” said a voice, “are you there, Mr. Stephen?”

“By Jove! that’s Briggs,” exclaimed the young man. “Briggs is my father’s
manager. Shut up the case, Mr. Quatermain. Come in, Briggs,” he went on,
unlocking the door slowly. “What is it?”

“It is a good deal,” replied a thin and agitated person who thrust himself
through the opening door. “Your father, I mean Sir Alexander, has come to
the office unexpectedly and is in a nice taking because he didn’t find you
there, sir. When he discovered that you had gone to the orchid sale he
grew furious, sir, furious, and sent me to fetch you.”

“Did he?” replied Mr. Somers in an easy and unruffled tone. “Well, tell
Sir Alexander I am coming at once. Now please go, Briggs, and tell him I
am coming at once.”

Briggs departed not too willingly.

“I must leave you, Mr. Quatermain,” said Mr. Somers as he shut the door
behind him. “But will you promise me not to show that flower to anyone
until I return? I’ll be back within half an hour.”

“Yes, Mr. Somers. I’ll wait half an hour for you in the sale room, and I
promise that no one shall see that flower till you return.”

“Thank you. You are a good fellow, and I promise you shall lose nothing by
your kindness if I can help it.”

We went together into the sale room, where some thought suddenly struck
Mr. Somers.

“By Jove!” he said, “I nearly forgot about that Odontoglossum. Where’s
Woodden? Oh! come here, Woodden, I want to speak to you.”

The person called Woodden obeyed. He was a man of about fifty, indefinite
in colouring, for his eyes were very light-blue or grey and his hair was
sandy, tough-looking and strongly made, with big hands that showed signs
of work, for the palms were horny and the nails worn down. He was clad in
a suit of shiny black, such as folk of the labouring class wear at a
funeral. I made up my mind at once that he was a gardener.

“Woodden,” said Mr. Somers, “this gentleman here has got the most
wonderful orchid in the whole world. Keep your eye on him and see that he
isn’t robbed. There are people in this room, Mr. Quatermain, who would
murder you and throw your body into the Thames for that flower,” he added,
darkly.

On receipt of this information Woodden rocked a little on his feet as
though he felt the premonitory movements of an earthquake. It was a habit
of his whenever anything astonished him. Then, fixing his pale eye upon me
in a way which showed that my appearance surprised him, he pulled a lock
of his sandy hair with his thumb and finger and said:

“‘Servant, sir, and where might this horchid be?”

I pointed to the tin case.

“Yes, it’s there,” went on Mr. Somers, “and that’s what you’ve got to
watch. Mr. Quatermain, if anyone attempts to rob you, call for Woodden and
he will knock them down. He’s my gardener, you know, and entirely to be
trusted, especially if it is a matter of knocking anyone down.”

“Aye, I’ll knock him down surely,” said Woodden, doubling his great fist
and looking round him with a suspicious eye.

“Now listen, Woodden. Have you looked at that Odontoglossum Pavo, and if
so, what do you think of it?” and he nodded towards a plant which stood in
the centre of the little group that was placed on the small table beneath
the auctioneer’s desk. It bore a spray of the most lovely white flowers.
On the top petal (if it is a petal), and also on the lip of each of these
rounded flowers was a blotch or spot of which the general effect was
similar to the iridescent eye on the tail feathers of a peacock, whence, I
suppose, the flower was named “Pavo,” or Peacock.

“Yes, master, and I think it the beautifullest thing that ever I saw.
There isn’t a ‘glossum in England like that there ‘glossum Paving,” he
added with conviction, and rocked again as he said the word. “But there’s
plenty after it. I say they’re a-smelling round that blossom like, like—dawgs
round a rat hole. And” (this triumphantly) “they don’t do that for
nothing.”

“Quite so, Woodden, you have got a logical mind. But, look here, we must
have that ‘Pavo’ whatever it costs. Now the Governor has sent for me. I’ll
be back presently, but I might be detained. If so, you’ve got to bid on my
behalf, for I daren’t trust any of these agents. Here’s your authority,”
and he scribbled on a card, “Woodden, my gardener, has directions to bid
for me.—S.S.” “Now, Woodden,” he went on, when he had given the card
to an attendant who passed it up to the auctioneer, “don’t you make a fool
of yourself and let that ‘Pavo’ slip through your fingers.”

In another instant he was gone.

“What did the master say, sir?” asked Woodden of me. “That I was to get
that there ‘Paving’ whatever it cost?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s what he said. I suppose it will fetch a good deal—several
pounds.”

“Maybe, sir, can’t tell. All I know is that I’ve got to buy it as you can
bear me witness. Master, he ain’t one to be crossed for money. What he
wants, he’ll have, that is if it be in the orchid line.”

“I suppose you are fond of orchids, too, Mr. Woodden?”

“Fond of them, sir? Why, I loves ‘em!” (Here he rocked.) “Don’t feel for
nothing else in the same way; not even for my old woman” (then with a
burst of enthusiasm) “no, not even for the master himself, and I’m fond
enough of him, God knows! But, begging your pardon, sir” (with a pull at
his forelock), “would you mind holding that tin of yours a little tighter?
I’ve got to keep an eye on that as well as on ‘O. Paving,’ and I just
see’d that chap with the tall hat alooking at it suspicious.”

After this we separated. I retired into my corner, while Woodden took his
stand by the table, with one eye fixed on what he called the “O. Paving”
and the other on me and my tin case.

An odd fish truly, I thought to myself. Positive, the old woman;
Comparative, his master; Superlative, the orchid tribe. Those were his
degrees of affection. Honest and brave and a good fellow though, I bet.

The sale languished. There were so many lots of one particular sort of
dried orchid that buyers could not be found for them at a reasonable
price, and many had to be bought in. At length the genial Mr. Primrose in
the rostrum addressed the audience.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I quite understand that you didn’t come here to-day
to buy a rather poor lot of Cattleya Mossiæ. You came to buy, or to bid
for, or to see sold the most wonderful Odontoglossum that has ever been
flowered in this country, the property of a famous firm of importers whom
I congratulate upon their good fortune in having obtained such a gem.
Gentlemen, this miraculous flower ought to adorn a royal greenhouse. But
there it is, to be taken away by whoever will pay the most for it, for I
am directed to see that it will be sold without reserve. Now, I think,” he
added, running his eye over the company, “that most of our great
collectors are represented in this room to-day. It is true that I do not
see that spirited and liberal young orchidist, Mr. Somers, but he has left
his worthy head-gardener, Mr. Woodden, than whom there is no finer judge
of an orchid in England” (here Woodden rocked violently) “to bid for him,
as I hope, for the glorious flower of which I have been speaking. Now, as
it is exactly half-past one, we will proceed to business. Smith, hand the
‘Odontoglossum Pavo’ round, that everyone may inspect its beauties, and be
careful you don’t let it fall. Gentlemen, I must ask you not to touch it
or to defile its purity with tobacco smoke. Eight perfect flowers in
bloom, gentlemen, and four—no, five more to open. A strong plant in
perfect health, six pseudo-bulbs with leaves, and three without. Two black
leads which I am advised can be separated off at the proper time. Now,
what bids for the ‘Odontoglossum Pavo.’ Ah! I wonder who will have the
honour of becoming the owner of this perfect, this unmatched production of
Nature. Thank you, sir—three hundred. Four. Five. Six. Seven in
three places. Eight. Nine. Ten. Oh! gentlemen, let us get on a little
faster. Thank you, sir—fifteen. Sixteen. It is against you, Mr
Woodden. Ah! thank you, seventeen.”

There came a pause in the fierce race for “O. Pavo,” which I occupied in
reducing seventeen hundred shillings to pounds sterling.

My word! I thought to myself, £85 is a goodish price to pay for one plant,
however rare. Woodden is acting up to his instructions with a vengeance.

The pleading voice of Mr. Primrose broke in upon my meditations.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” he said, “surely you are not going to allow the
most wondrous production of the floral world, on which I repeat there is
no reserve, to be knocked down at this miserable figure. Come, come. Well,
if I must, I must, though after such a disgrace I shall get no sleep
to-night. One,” and his hammer fell for the first time. “Think, gentlemen,
upon my position, think what the eminent owners, who with their usual
delicacy have stayed away, will say to me when I am obliged to tell them
the disgraceful truth. Two,” and his hammer fell a second time. “Smith,
hold up that flower. Let the company see it. Let them know what they are
losing.”

Smith held up the flower at which everybody glared. The little ivory
hammer circled round Mr. Primrose’s head. It was about to fall, when a
quiet man with a long beard who hitherto had not joined in the bidding,
lifted his head and said softly:

“Eighteen hundred.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Primrose, “I thought so. I thought that the owner of
the greatest collection in England would not see this treasure slip from
his grasp without a struggle. Against you, Mr. Woodden.”

“Nineteen, sir,” said Woodden in a stony voice.

“Two thousand,” echoed the gentleman with the long beard.

“Twenty-one hundred,” said Woodden.

“That’s right, Mr. Woodden,” cried Mr. Primrose, “you are indeed
representing your principal worthily. I feel sure that you do not mean to
stop for a few miserable pounds.”

“Not if I knows it,” ejaculated Woodden. “I has my orders and I acts up to
them.”

“Twenty-two hundred,” said Long-beard.

“Twenty-three,” echoed Woodden.

“Oh, damn!” shouted Long-beard and rushed from the room.

“‘Odontoglossum Pavo’ is going for twenty-three hundred, only twenty-tree
hundred,” cried the auctioneer. “Any advance on twenty-three hundred?
What? None? Then I must do my duty. One. Two. For the last time—no
advance? Three. Gone to Mr. Woodden, bidding for his principal, Mr.
Somers.”

The hammer fell with a sharp tap, and at this moment my young friend
sauntered into the room.

“Well, Woodden,” he said, “have they put the ‘Pavo’ up yet?”

“It’s up and it’s down, sir. I’ve bought him right enough.”

“The deuce you have! What did it fetch?”

Woodden scratched his head.

“I don’t rightly know, sir, never was good at figures, not having much
book learning, but it’s twenty-three something.”

“£23? No, it would have brought more than that. By Jingo! it must be £230.
That’s pretty stiff, but still, it may be worth it.”

At this moment Mr. Primrose, who, leaning over his desk, was engaged in
animated conversation with an excited knot of orchid fanciers, looked up:

“Oh! there you are, Mr. Somers,” he said. “In the name of all this company
let me congratulate you on having become the owner of the matchless
‘Odontoglossum Pavo’ for what, under all the circumstances, I consider the
quite moderate price of £2,300.”

Really that young man took it very well. He shivered slightly and turned a
little pale, that is all. Woodden rocked to and fro like a tree about to
fall. I and my tin box collapsed together in the corner. Yes, I was so
surprised that my legs seemed to give way under me. People began to talk,
but above the hum of the conversation I heard young Somers say in a low
voice:

“Woodden, you’re a born fool.” Also the answer: “That’s what my mother
always told me, master, and she ought to know if anyone did. But what’s
wrong now? I obeyed orders and bought ‘O. Paving.’”

“Yes. Don’t bother, my good fellow, it’s my fault, not yours. I’m the born
fool. But heavens above! how am I to face this?” Then, recovering himself,
he strolled up to the rostrum and said a few words to the auctioneer. Mr.
Primrose nodded, and I heard him answer:

“Oh, that will be all right, sir, don’t bother. We can’t expect an account
like this to be settled in a minute. A month hence will do.”

Then he went on with the sale.

CHAPTER III

SIR ALEXANDER AND STEPHEN

It was just at this moment that I saw standing by me a fine-looking, stout
man with a square, grey beard and a handsome, but not very good-tempered
face. He was looking about him as one does who finds himself in a place to
which he is not accustomed.

“Perhaps you could tell me, sir,” he said to me, “whether a gentleman
called Mr. Somers is in this room. I am rather short-sighted and there are
a great many people.”

“Yes,” I answered, “he has just bought the wonderful orchid called
‘Odontoglossum Pavo.’ That is what they are all talking about.”

“Oh, has he? Has he indeed? And pray what did he pay for the article?”

“A huge sum,” I answered. “I thought it was two thousand three hundred
shillings, but it appears it was £2,300.”

The handsome, elderly gentleman grew very red in the face, so red that I
thought he was going to have a fit. For a few moments he breathed heavily.

“A rival collector,” I thought to myself, and went on with the story
which, it occurred to me, might interest him.

“You see, the young gentleman was called away to an interview with his
father. I heard him instruct his gardener, a man named Woodden, to buy the
plant at any price.”

“At any price! Indeed. Very interesting; continue, sir.”

“Well, the gardener bought it, that’s all, after tremendous competition.
Look, there he is packing it up. Whether his master meant him to go as far
as he did I rather doubt. But here he comes. If you know him——”

The youthful Mr. Somers, looking a little pale and distrait,
strolled up apparently to speak to me; his hands were in his pockets and
an unlighted cigar was in his mouth. His eyes fell upon the elderly
gentleman, a sight that caused him to shape his lips as though to whistle
and drop the cigar.

“Hullo, father,” he said in his pleasant voice. “I got your message and
have been looking for you, but never thought that I should find you here.
Orchids aren’t much in your line, are they?”

“Didn’t you, indeed!” replied his parent in a choked voice. “No, I haven’t
much use for—this stinking rubbish,” and he waved his umbrella at
the beautiful flowers. “But it seems that you have, Stephen. This little
gentlemen here tells me you have just bought a very fine specimen.”

“I must apologize,” I broke in, addressing Mr. Somers. “I had not the
slightest idea that this—big gentleman,” here the son smiled
faintly, “was your intimate relation.”

“Oh! pray don’t, Mr. Quatermain. Why should you not speak of what will be
in all the papers. Yes, father, I have bought a very fine specimen, the
finest known, or at least Woodden has on my behalf, while I was hunting
for you, which comes to the same thing.”

“Indeed, Stephen, and what did you pay for this flower? I have heard a
figure, but think that there must be some mistake.”

“I don’t know what you heard, father, but it seems to have been knocked
down to me at £2,300. It’s a lot more than I can find, indeed, and I was
going to ask you to lend me the money for the sake of the family credit,
if not for my own. But we can talk about that afterwards.”

“Yes, Stephen, we can talk of that afterwards. In fact, as there is no
time like the present, we will talk of it now. Come to my office. And,
sir” (this was to me) “as you seem to know something of the circumstances,
I will ask you to come also; and you too, Blockhead” (this was to Woodden,
who just then approached with the plant).

Now, of course, I might have refused an invitation conveyed in such a
manner. But, as a matter of fact, I didn’t. I wanted to see the thing out;
also to put in a word for young Somers, if I got the chance. So we all
departed from that room, followed by a titter of amusement from those of
the company who had overheard the conversation. In the street stood a
splendid carriage and pair; a powdered footman opened its door. With a
ferocious bow Sir Alexander motioned to me to enter, which I did, taking
one of the back seats as it gave more room for my tin case. Then came Mr.
Stephen, then Woodden bundled in holding the precious plant in front of
him like a wand of office, and last of all, Sir Alexander, having seen us
safe, entered also.

“Where to, sir?” asked the footman.

“Office,” he snapped, and we started.

Four disappointed relatives in a funeral coach could not have been more
silent. Our feelings seemed to be too deep for words. Sir Alexander,
however, did make one remark and to me. It was:

“If you will remove the corner of that infernal tin box of yours from my
ribs I shall be obliged to you, sir.”

“Your pardon,” I exclaimed, and in my efforts to be accommodating, dropped
it on his toe. I will not repeat the remark he made, but I may explain
that he was gouty. His son suddenly became afflicted with a sense of the
absurdity of the situation. He kicked me on the shin, he even dared to
wink, and then began to swell visibly with suppressed laughter. I was in
agony, for if he had exploded I do not know what would have happened.
Fortunately, at this moment the carriage stopped at the door of a fine
office. Without waiting for the footman Mr. Stephen bundled out and
vanished into the building—I suppose to laugh in safety. Then I
descended with the tin case; then, by command, followed Woodden with the
flower, and lastly came Sir Alexander.

“Stop here,” he said to the coachman; “I shan’t be long. Be so good as to
follow me, Mr. What’s-your-name, and you, too, Gardener.”

We followed, and found ourselves in a big room luxuriously furnished in a
heavy kind of way. Sir Alexander Somers, I should explain, was an
enormously opulent bullion-broker, whatever a bullion-broker may be. In
this room Mr. Stephen was already established; indeed, he was seated on
the window-sill swinging his leg.

“Now we are alone and comfortable,” growled Sir Alexander with sarcastic
ferocity.

“As the boa-constrictor said to the rabbit in the cage,” I remarked.

I did not mean to say it, but I had grown nervous, and the thought leapt
from my lips in words. Again Mr. Stephen began to swell. He turned his
face to the window as though to contemplate the wall beyond, but I could
see his shoulders shaking. A dim light of intelligence shone in Woodden’s
pale eyes. About three minutes later the joke got home. He gurgled
something about boa-constrictors and rabbits and gave a short, loud laugh.
As for Sir Alexander, he merely said:

“I did not catch your remark, sir, would you be so good as to repeat it?”

As I appeared unwilling to accept the invitation, he went on:

“Perhaps, then, you would repeat what you told me in that sale-room?”

“Why should I?” I asked. “I spoke quite clearly and you seemed to
understand.”

“You are right,” replied Sir Alexander; “to waste time is useless.” He
wheeled round on Woodden, who was standing near the door still holding the
paper-wrapped plant in front of him. “Now, Blockhead,” he shouted, “tell
me why you brought that thing.”

Woodden made no answer, only rocked a little. Sir Alexander reiterated his
command. This time Woodden set the plant upon a table and replied:

“If you’re aspeaking to me, sir, that baint my name, and what’s more, if
you calls me so again, I’ll punch your head, whoever you be,” and very
deliberately he rolled up the sleeves on his brawny arms, a sight at which
I too began to swell with inward merriment.

“Look here, father,” said Mr. Stephen, stepping forward. “What’s the use
of all this? The thing’s perfectly plain. I did tell Woodden to buy the
plant at any price. What is more I gave him a written authority which was
passed up to the auctioneer. There’s no getting out of it. It is true it
never occurred to me that it would go for anything like £2,300—the
odd £300 was more my idea, but Woodden only obeyed his orders, and ought
not to be abused for doing so.”

“There’s what I call a master worth serving,” remarked Woodden.

“Very well, young man,” said Sir Alexander, “you have purchased this
article. Will you be so good as to tell me how you propose it should be
paid for.”

“I propose, father, that you should pay for it,” replied Mr. Stephen
sweetly. “Two thousand three hundred pounds, or ten times that amount,
would not make you appreciably poorer. But if, as is probable, you take a
different view, then I propose to pay for it myself. As you know a certain
sum of money came to me under my mother’s will in which you have only a
life interest. I shall raise the amount upon that security—or
otherwise.”

If Sir Alexander had been angry before, now he became like a mad bull in a
china shop. He pranced round the room; he used language that should not
pass the lips of any respectable merchant of bullion; in short, he did
everything that a person in his position ought not to do. When he was
tired he rushed to a desk, tore a cheque from a book and filled it in for
a sum of £2,300 to bearer, which cheque he blotted, crumpled up and
literally threw at the head of his son.

“You worthless, idle young scoundrel,” he bellowed. “I put you in this
office here that you may learn respectable and orderly habits and in due
course succeed to a very comfortable business. What happens? You don’t
take a ha’porth of interest in bullion-broking, a subject of which I
believe you to remain profoundly ignorant. You don’t even spend your
money, or rather my money, upon any gentleman-like vice, such as
horse-racing, or cards, or even—well, never mind. No, you take to
flowers, miserable, beastly flowers, things that a cow eats and clerks
grow in back gardens.”

“An ancient and Arcadian taste. Adam is supposed to have lived in a
garden,” I ventured to interpolate.

“Perhaps you would ask your friend with the stubbly hair to remain quiet,”
snorted Sir Alexander. “I was about to add, although for the sake of my
name I meet your debts, that I have had enough of this kind of thing. I
disinherit you, or will do if I live till 4 p.m. when the lawyer’s office
shuts, for thank God! there are no entailed estates, and I dismiss you
from the firm. You can go and earn your living in any way you please, by
orchid-hunting if you like.” He paused, gasping for breath.

“Is that all, father?” asked Mr. Stephen, producing a cigar from his
pocket.

“No, it isn’t, you cold-blooded young beggar. That house you occupy at
Twickenham is mine. You will be good enough to clear out of it; I wish to
take possession.”

“I suppose, father, I am entitled to a week’s notice like any other
tenant,” said Mr. Stephen, lighting the cigar. “In fact,” he added, “if
you answer no, I think I shall ask you to apply for an ejection order. You
will understand that I have arrangements to make before taking a fresh
start in life.”

“Oh! curse your cheek, you—you—cucumber!” raged the infuriated
merchant prince. Then an inspiration came to him. “You think more of an
ugly flower than of your father, do you? Well, at least I’ll put an end to
that,” and he made a dash at the plant on the table with the evident
intention of destroying the same.

But the watching Woodden saw. With a kind of lurch he interposed his big
frame between Sir Alexander and the object of his wrath.

“Touch ‘O. Paving’ and I knocks yer down,” he drawled out.

Sir Alexander looked at “O. Paving,” then he looked at Woodden’s
leg-of-mutton fist, and—changed his mind.

“Curse ‘O. Paving,’” he said, “and everyone who has to do with it,” and
swung out of the room, banging the door behind him.

“Well, that’s over,” said Mr. Stephen gently, as he fanned himself with a
pocket-handkerchief. “Quite exciting while it lasted, wasn’t it, Mr.
Quatermain—but I have been there before, so to speak. And now what
do you say to some luncheon? Pym’s is close by, and they have very good
oysters. Only I think we’ll drive round by the bank and hand in this
cheque. When he’s angry my parent is capable of anything. He might even
stop it. Woodden, get off down to Twickenham with ‘O. Pavo.’ Keep it warm,
for it feels rather like frost. Put it in the stove for to-night and give
it a little, just a little tepid water, but be careful not to touch the
flower. Take a four-wheeled cab, it’s slow but safe, and mind you keep the
windows up and don’t smoke. I shall be home for dinner.”

Woodden pulled his forelock, seized the pot in his left hand, and departed
with his right fist raised—I suppose in case Sir Alexander should be
waiting for him round the corner.

Then we departed also and, after stopping for a minute at the bank to pay
in the cheque, which I noted, notwithstanding its amount, was accepted
without comment, ate oysters in a place too crowded to allow of
conversation.

“Mr. Quatermain,” said my host, “it is obvious that we cannot talk here,
and much less look at that orchid of yours, which I want to study at
leisure. Now, for a week or so at any rate I have a roof over my head, and
in short, will you be my guest for a night or two? I know nothing about
you, and of me you only know that I am the disinherited son of a father,
to whom I have failed to give satisfaction. Still it is possible that we
might pass a few pleasant hours together talking of flowers and other
things; that is, if you have no previous engagement.”

“I have none,” I answered. “I am only a stranger from South Africa lodging
at an hotel. If you will give me time to call for my bag, I will pass the
night at your house with pleasure.”

By the aid of Mr. Somers’ smart dog-cart, which was waiting at a city
mews, we reached Twickenham while there was still half an hour of
daylight. The house, which was called Verbena Lodge, was small, a square,
red-brick building of the early Georgian period, but the gardens covered
quite an acre of ground and were very beautiful, or must have been so in
summer. Into the greenhouse we did not enter, because it was too late to
see the flowers. Also, just when we came to them, Woodden arrived in his
four-wheeled cab and departed with his master to see to the housing of “O.
Pavo.”

Then came dinner, a very pleasant meal. My host had that day been turned
out upon the world, but he did not allow this circumstance to interfere
with his spirits in the least. Also he was evidently determined to enjoy
its good things while they lasted, for his champagne and port were
excellent.

“You see, Mr. Quatermain,” he said, “it’s just as well we had the row
which has been boiling up for a long while. My respected father has made
so much money that he thinks I should go and do likewise. Now, I don’t see
it. I like flowers, especially orchids, and I hate bullion-broking. To me
the only decent places in London are that sale-room where we met and the
Horticultural Gardens.”

“Yes,” I answered rather doubtfully, “but the matter seems a little
serious. Your parent was very emphatic as to his intentions, and after
this kind of thing,” and I pointed to the beautiful silver and the port,
“how will you like roughing it in a hard world?”

“Don’t think I shall mind a bit; it would be rather a pleasant change.
Also, even if my father doesn’t alter his mind, as he may, for he likes me
at bottom because I resemble my dear mother, things ain’t so very bad. I
have got some money that she left me, £6,000 or £7,000, and I’ll sell that
‘Odontoglossum Pavo’ for what it will fetch to Sir Joshua Tredgold—he
was the man with the long beard who you tell me ran up Woodden to over
£2,000—or failing him to someone else. I’ll write about it to-night.
I don’t think I have any debts to speak of, for the Governor has been
allowing me £3,000 a year, at least that is my share of the profits paid
to me in return for my bullion-broking labours, and except flowers, I have
no expensive tastes. So the devil take the past, here’s to the future and
whatever it may bring,” and he polished off the glass of port he held and
laughed in his jolly fashion.

Really he was a most attractive young man, a little reckless, it is true,
but then recklessness and youth mix well, like brandy and soda.

I echoed the toast and drank off my port, for I like a good glass of wine
when I can get it, as would anyone who has had to live for months on
rotten water, although I admit that agrees with me better than the port.

“Now, Mr. Quatermain,” he went on, “if you have done, light your pipe and
let’s go into the other room and study that Cypripedium of yours. I shan’t
sleep to-night unless I see it again first. Stop a bit, though, we’ll get
hold of that old ass, Woodden, before he turns in.”

“Woodden,” said his master, when the gardener had arrived, “this
gentleman, Mr. Quatermain, is going to show you an orchid that is ten
times finer than ‘O. Pavo!’”

“Beg pardon, sir,” answered Woodden, “but if Mr. Quatermain says that, he
lies. It ain’t in Nature; it don’t bloom nowhere.”

I opened the case and revealed the golden Cypripedium. Woodden stared at
it and rocked. Then he stared again and felt his head as though to make
sure it was on his shoulders. Then he gasped.

“Well, if that there flower baint made up, it’s a MASTER ONE! If I could
see that there flower ablowing on the plant I’d die happy.”

“Woodden, stop talking, and sit down,” exclaimed his master. “Yes, there,
where you can look at the flower. Now, Mr. Quatermain, will you tell us
the story of that orchid from beginning to end. Of course omitting its
habitat if you like, for it isn’t fair to ask that secret. Woodden can be
trusted to hold his tongue, and so can I.”

I remarked that I was sure they could, and for the next half-hour talked
almost without interruption, keeping nothing back and explaining that I
was anxious to find someone who would finance an expedition to search for
this particular plant; as I believed, the only one of its sort that
existed in the world.

“How much will it cost?” asked Mr. Somers.

“I lay it at £2,000,” I answered. “You see, we must have plenty of men and
guns and stores, also trade goods and presents.”

“I call that cheap. But supposing, Mr. Quatermain, that the expedition
proves successful and the plant is secured, what then?”

“Then I propose that Brother John, who found it and of whom I have told
you, should take one-third of whatever it might sell for, that I as
captain of the expedition should take one-third, and that whoever finds
the necessary money should take the remaining third.”

“Good! That’s settled.”

“What’s settled?” I asked.

“Why, that we should divide in the proportions you named, only I bargain
to be allowed to take my whack in kind—I mean in plant, and to have
the first option of purchasing the rest of the plant at whatever value may
be agreed upon.”

“But, Mr. Somers, do you mean that you wish to find £2,000 and make this
expedition in person?”

“Of course I do. I thought you understood that. That is, if you will have
me. Your old friend, the lunatic, you and I will together seek for and
find this golden flower. I say that’s settled.”

On the morrow accordingly, it was settled with the help of a document,
signed in duplicate by both of us.

Before these arrangements were finally concluded, however, I insisted that
Mr. Somers should meet my late companion, Charlie Scroope, when I was not
present, in order that the latter might give him a full and particular
report concerning myself. Apparently the interview was satisfactory, at
least so I judged from the very cordial and even respectful manner in
which young Somers met me after it was over. Also I thought it my duty to
explain to him with much clearness in the presence of Scroope as a
witness, the great dangers of such an enterprise as that on which he
proposed to embark. I told him straight out that he must be prepared to
find his death in it from starvation, fever, wild beasts or at the hands
of savages, while success was quite problematical and very likely would
not be attained.

“You are taking these risks,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered, “but they are incident to the rough trade I follow,
which is that of a hunter and explorer. Moreover, my youth is past, and I
have gone through experiences and bereavements of which you know nothing,
that cause me to set a very slight value on life. I care little whether I
die or continue in the world for some few added years. Lastly, the
excitement of adventure has become a kind of necessity for me. I do not
think that I could live in England for very long. Also I’m a fatalist. I
believe that when my time comes I must go, that this hour is foreordained
and that nothing I can do will either hasten or postpone it by one moment.
Your circumstances are different. You are quite young. If you stay here
and approach your father in a proper spirit, I have no doubt but that he
will forget all the rough words he said to you the other day, for which
indeed you know you gave him some provocation. Is it worth while throwing
up such prospects and undertaking such dangers for the chance of finding a
rare flower? I say this to my own disadvantage, since I might find it hard
to discover anyone else who would risk £2,000 upon such a venture, but I
do urge you to weigh my words.”

Young Somers looked at me for a little while, then he broke into one of
his hearty laughs and exclaimed, “Whatever else you may be, Mr. Allan
Quatermain, you are a gentleman. No bullion-broker in the City could have
put the matter more fairly in the teeth of his own interests.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For the rest,” he went on, “I too am tired of England and want to see the
world. It isn’t the golden Cypripedium that I seek, although I should like
to win it well enough. That’s only a symbol. What I seek are adventure and
romance. Also, like you I am a fatalist. God chose His own time to send us
here, and I presume that He will choose His own time to take us away
again. So I leave the matter of risks to Him.”

“Yes, Mr. Somers,” I replied rather solemnly. “You may find adventure and
romance, there are plenty of both in Africa. Or you may find a nameless
grave in some fever-haunted swamp. Well, you have chosen, and I like your
spirit.”

Still I was so little satisfied about this business, that a week or so
before we sailed, after much consideration, I took it upon myself to write
a letter to Sir Alexander Somers, in which I set forth the whole matter as
clearly as I could, not blinking the dangerous nature of our undertaking.
In conclusion, I asked him whether he thought it wise to allow his only
son to accompany such an expedition, mainly because of a not very serious
quarrel with himself.

As no answer came to this letter I went on with our preparations. There
was money in plenty, since the re-sale of “O. Pavo” to Sir Joshua
Tredgold, at some loss, had been satisfactorily carried out, which enabled
me to invest in all things needful with a cheerful heart. Never before had
I been provided with such an outfit as that which preceded us to the ship.

At length the day of departure came. We stood on the platform at
Paddington waiting for the Dartmouth train to start, for in those days the
African mail sailed from that port. A minute or two before the train left,
as we were preparing to enter our carriage I caught sight of a face that I
seemed to recognise, the owner of which was evidently searching for
someone in the crowd. It was that of Briggs, Sir Alexander’s clerk, whom I
had met in the sale-room.

“Mr. Briggs,” I said as he passed me, “are you looking for Mr. Somers? If
so, he is in here.”

The clerk jumped into the compartment and handed a letter to Mr. Somers.
Then he emerged again and waited. Somers read the letter and tore off a
blank sheet from the end of it, on which he hastily wrote some words. He
passed it to me to give to Briggs, and I could not help seeing what was
written. It was: “Too late now. God bless you, my dear father. I hope we
may meet again. If not, try to think kindly of your troublesome and
foolish son, Stephen.”

In another minute the train had started.

“By the way,” he said, as we steamed out of the station, “I have heard
from my father, who enclosed this for you.”

I opened the envelope, which was addressed in a bold, round hand that
seemed to me typical of the writer, and read as follows:

 “My Dear Sir,—I appreciate the motives which caused you to write
  to me and I thank you very heartily for your letter, which shows
  me that you are a man of discretion and strict honour. As you
  surmise, the expedition on which my son has entered is not one
  that commends itself to me as prudent. Of the differences between
  him and myself you are aware, for they came to a climax in your
  presence. Indeed, I feel that I owe you an apology for having
  dragged you into an unpleasant family quarrel. Your letter only
  reached me to-day having been forwarded to my place in the country
  from my office. I should have at once come to town, but
  unfortunately I am laid up with an attack of gout which makes it
  impossible for me to stir. Therefore, the only thing I can do is
  to write to my son hoping that the letter which I send by a
  special messenger will reach him in time and avail to alter his
  determination to undertake this journey. Here I may add that
  although I have differed and do differ from him on various points,
  I still have a deep affection for my son and earnestly desire his
  welfare. The prospect of any harm coming to him is one upon which
  I cannot bear to dwell.

 “Now I am aware that any change of his plans at this eleventh hour
  would involve you in serious loss and inconvenience. I beg to
  inform you formally, therefore, that in this event I will make
  good everything and will in addition write off the £2,000 which I
  understand he has invested in your joint venture. It may be,
  however, that my son, who has in him a vein of my own obstinacy,
  will refuse to change his mind. In that event, under a Higher
  Power I can only commend him to your care and beg that you will
  look after him as though he were your own child. I can ask and you
  can do no more. Tell him to write me as opportunity offers, as
  perhaps you will too; also that, although I hate the sight of
  them, I will look after the flowers which he has left at the house
  at Twickenham.—

                        “Your obliged servant, ALEXANDER SOMERS.”
 

This letter touched me much, and indeed made me feel very uncomfortable.
Without a word I handed it to my companion, who read it through carefully.

“Nice of him about the orchids,” he said. “My dad has a good heart,
although he lets his temper get the better of him, having had his own way
all his life.”

“Well, what will you do?” I asked.

“Go on, of course. I’ve put my hand to the plough and I am not going to
turn back. I should be a cur if I did, and what’s more, whatever he might
say he’d think none the better of me. So please don’t try to persuade me,
it would be no good.”

For quite a while afterwards young Somers seemed to be comparatively
depressed, a state of mind that in his case was rare indeed. At last, he
studied the wintry landscape through the carriage window and said nothing.
By degrees, however, he recovered, and when we reached Dartmouth was as
cheerful as ever, a mood that I could not altogether share.

Before we sailed I wrote to Sir Alexander telling him exactly how things
stood, and so I think did his son, though he never showed me the letter.

At Durban, just as we were about to start up country, I received an answer
from him, sent by some boat that followed us very closely. In it he said
that he quite understood the position, and whatever happened would
attribute no blame to me, whom he should always regard with friendly
feelings. He told me that, in the event of any difficulty or want of
money, I was to draw on him for whatever might be required, and that he
had advised the African Bank to that effect. Further, he added, that at
least his son had shown grit in this matter, for which he respected him.

And now for a long while I must bid good-bye to Sir Alexander Somers and
all that has to do with England.

CHAPTER IV

MAVOVO AND HANS

We arrived safely at Durban at the beginning of March and took up our
quarters at my house on the Berea, where I expected that Brother John
would be awaiting us. But no Brother John was to be found. The old, lame
Griqua, Jack, who looked after the place for me and once had been one of
my hunters, said that shortly after I went away in the ship, Dogeetah, as
he called him, had taken his tin box and his net and walked off inland, he
knew not where, leaving, as he declared, no message or letter behind him.
The cases full of butterflies and dried plants were also gone, but these,
I found he had shipped to some port in America, by a sailing vessel bound
for the United States which chanced to put in at Durban for food and
water. As to what had become of the man himself I could get no clue. He
had been seen at Maritzburg and, according to some Kaffirs whom I knew,
afterwards on the borders of Zululand, where, so far as I could learn, he
vanished into space.

This, to say the least of it, was disconcerting, and a question arose as
to what was to be done. Brother John was to have been our guide. He alone
knew the Mazitu people; he alone had visited the borders of the mysterious
Pongo-land, I scarcely felt inclined to attempt to reach that country
without his aid.

When a fortnight had gone by and still there were no signs of him, Stephen
and I held a solemn conference. I pointed out the difficulties and dangers
of the situation to him and suggested that, under the circumstances, it
might be wise to give up this wild orchid-chase and go elephant-hunting
instead in a certain part of Zululand, where in those days these animals
were still abundant.

He was inclined to agree with me, since the prospect of killing elephants
had attractions for him.

“And yet,” I said, after reflection, “it’s curious, but I never remember
making a successful trip after altering plans at the last moment, that is,
unless one was driven to it.”

“I vote we toss up,” said Somers; “it gives Providence a chance. Now then,
heads for the Golden Cyp, and tails for the elephants.”

He spun a half-crown into the air. It fell and rolled under a great,
yellow-wood chest full of curiosities that I had collected, which it took
all our united strength to move. We dragged it aside and not without some
excitement, for really a good deal hung upon the chance, I lit a match and
peered into the shadow. There in the dust lay the coin.

“What is it?” I asked of Somers, who was stretched on his stomach on the
chest.

“Orchid—I mean head,” he answered. “Well, that’s settled, so we
needn’t bother any more.”

The next fortnight was a busy time for me. As it happened there was a
schooner in the bay of about one hundred tons burden which belonged to a
Portuguese trader named Delgado, who dealt in goods that he carried to the
various East African ports and Madagascar. He was a villainous-looking
person whom I suspected of having dealings with the slave traders, who
were very numerous and a great power in those days, if indeed he were not
one himself. But as he was going to Kilwa whence we proposed to start
inland, I arranged to make use of him to carry our party and the baggage.
The bargain was not altogether easy to strike for two reasons. First, he
did not appear to be anxious that we should hunt in the districts at the
back of Kilwa, where he assured me there was no game, and secondly, he
said that he wanted to sail at once. However, I overcame his objections
with an argument he could not resist—namely, money, and in the end
he agreed to postpone his departure for fourteen days.

Then I set about collecting our men, of whom I had made up my mind there
must not be less than twenty. Already I had sent messengers summoning to
Durban from Zululand and the upper districts of Natal various hunters who
had accompanied me on other expeditions. To the number of a dozen or so
they arrived in due course. I have always had the good fortune to be on
the best of terms with my Kaffirs, and where I went they were ready to go
without asking any questions. The man whom I had selected to be their
captain under me was a Zulu of the name of Mavovo. He was a short fellow,
past middle age, with an enormous chest. His strength was proverbial;
indeed, it was said that he could throw an ox by the horns, and myself I
have seen him hold down the head of a wounded buffalo that had fallen,
until I could come up and shoot it.

When I first knew Mavovo he was a petty chief and witch doctor in
Zululand. Like myself, he had fought for the Prince Umbelazi in the great
battle of the Tugela, a crime which Cetewayo never forgave him. About a
year afterwards he got warning that he had been smelt out as a wizard and
was going to be killed. He fled with two of his wives and a child. The
slayers overtook them before he could reach the Natal border, and stabbed
the elder wife and the child of the second wife. They were four men, but,
made mad by the sight, Mavovo turned on them and killed them all. Then,
with the remaining wife, cut to pieces as he was, he crept to the river
and through it to Natal. Not long after this wife died also; it was said
from grief at the loss of her child. Mavovo did not marry again, perhaps
because he was now a man without means, for Cetewayo had taken all his
cattle; also he was made ugly by an assegai wound which had cut off his
right nostril. Shortly after the death of his second wife he sought me out
and told me he was a chief without a kraal and wished to become my hunter.
So I took him on, a step which I never had any cause to regret, since
although morose and at times given to the practice of uncanny arts, he was
a most faithful servant and brave as a lion, or rather as a buffalo, for a
lion is not always brave.

Another man whom I did not send for, but who came, was an old Hottentot
named Hans, with whom I had been more or less mixed up all my life. When I
was a boy he was my father’s servant in the Cape Colony and my companion
in some of those early wars. Also he shared some very terrible adventures
with me which I have detailed in the history I have written of my first
wife, Marie Marais. For instance, he and I were the only persons who
escaped from the massacre of Retief and his companions by the Zulu king,
Dingaan. In the subsequent campaigns, including the Battle of the Blood
River, he fought at my side and ultimately received a good share of
captured cattle. After this he retired and set up a native store at a
place called Pinetown, about fifteen miles out of Durban. Here I am afraid
he got into bad ways and took to drink more or less; also to gambling. At
any rate, he lost most of his property, so much of it indeed that he
scarcely knew which way to turn. Thus it happened that one evening when I
went out of the house where I had been making up my accounts, I saw a
yellow-faced white-haired old fellow squatted on the verandah smoking a
pipe made out of a corn-cob.

“Good day, Baas,” he said, “here am I, Hans.”

“So I see,” I answered, rather coldly. “And what are you doing here, Hans?
How can you spare time from your drinking and gambling at Pinetown to
visit me here, Hans, after I have not seen you for three years?”

“Baas, the gambling is finished, because I have nothing more to stake, and
the drinking is done too, because but one bottle of Cape Smoke makes me
feel quite ill next morning. So now I only take water and as little of
that as I can, water and some tobacco to cover up its taste.”

“I am glad to hear it, Hans. If my father, the Predikant who baptised you,
were alive now, he would have much to say about your conduct as indeed I
have no doubt he will presently when you have gone into a hole (i.e., a
grave). For there in the hole he will be waiting for you, Hans.”

“I know, I know, Baas. I have been thinking of that and it troubles me.
Your reverend father, the Predikant, will be very cross indeed with me
when I join him in the Place of Fires where he sits awaiting me. So I wish
to make my peace with him by dying well, and in your service, Baas. I hear
that the Baas is going on an expedition. I have come to accompany the
Baas.”

“To accompany me! Why, you are old, you are not worth five shillings a
month and your scoff (food). You are a shrunken old brandy cask
that will not even hold water.”

Hans grinned right across his ugly face.

“Oh! Baas, I am old, but I am clever. All these years I have been
gathering wisdom. I am as full of it as a bee’s nest is with honey when
the summer is done. And, Baas, I can stop those leaks in the cask.”

“Hans, it is no good, I don’t want you. I am going into great danger. I
must have those about me whom I can trust.”

“Well, Baas, and who can be better trusted than Hans? Who warned you of
the attack of the Quabies on Maraisfontein, and so saved the life of——”

“Hush!” I said.

“I understand. I will not speak the name. It is holy, not to be mentioned.
It is the name of one who stands with the white angels before God; not to
be mentioned by poor drunken Hans. Still, who stood at your side in that
great fight? Ah! it makes me young again to think of it, when the roof
burned; when the door was broken down; when we met the Quabies on the
spears; when you held the pistol to the head of the Holy One whose name
must not be mentioned, the Great One who knew how to die. Oh! Baas, our
lives are twisted up together like the creeper and the tree, and where you
go, there I must go also. Do not turn me away. I ask no wages, only a bit
of food and a handful of tobacco, and the light of your face and a word
now and again of the memories that belong to both of us. I am still very
strong. I can shoot well—well, Baas, who was it that put it into
your mind to aim at the tails of the vultures on the Hill of Slaughter
yonder in Zululand, and so saved the lives of all the Boer people, and of
her whose holy name must not be mentioned? Baas, you will not turn me
away?”

“No,” I answered, “you can come. But you will swear by the spirit of my
father, the Predikant, to touch no liquor on this journey.”

“I swear by his spirit and by that of the Holy One,” and he flung himself
forward on to his knees, took my hand and kissed it. Then he rose and said
in a matter-of-fact tone, “If the Baas can give me two blankets, I shall
thank him, also five shillings to buy some tobacco and a new knife. Where
are the Baas’s guns? I must go to oil them. I beg that the Baas will take
with him that little rifle which is named Intombi (Maiden), the one
with which he shot the vultures on the Hill of Slaughter, the one that
killed the geese in the Goose Kloof when I loaded for him and he won the
great match against the Boer whom Dingaan called Two-faces.”

“Good,” I said. “Here are the five shillings. You shall have the blankets
and a new gun and all things needful. You will find the guns in the little
back room and with them those of the Baas, my companion, who also is your
master. Go see to them.”

At length all was ready, the cases of guns, ammunition, medicines,
presents and food were on board the Maria. So were four donkeys
that I had bought in the hope that they would prove useful, either to ride
or as pack beasts. The donkey, be it remembered, and man are the only
animals which are said to be immune from the poisonous effects of the bite
of tsetse fly, except, of course, the wild game. It was our last night at
Durban, a very beautiful night of full moon at the end of March, for the
Portugee Delgado had announced his intention of sailing on the following
afternoon. Stephen Somers and I were seated on the stoep smoking and
talking things over.

“It is a strange thing,” I said, “that Brother John should never have
turned up. I know that he was set upon making this expedition, not only
for the sake of the orchid, but also for some other reason of which he
would not speak. I think that the old fellow must be dead.”

“Very likely,” answered Stephen (we had become intimate and I called him
Stephen now), “a man alone among savages might easily come to grief and
never be heard of again. Hark! What’s that?” and he pointed to some
gardenia bushes in the shadow of the house near by, whence came a sound of
something that moved.

“A dog, I expect, or perhaps it is Hans. He curls up in all sorts of
places near to where I may be. Hans, are you there?”

A figure arose from the gardenia bushes.

“Ja, I am here, Baas.”

“What are you doing, Hans?”

“I am doing what the dog does, Baas—watching my master.”

“Good,” I answered. Then an idea struck me. “Hans, you have heard of the
white Baas with the long beard whom the Kaffirs call Dogeetah?”

“I have heard of him and once I saw him, a few moons ago passing through
Pinetown. A Kaffir with him told me that he was going over the Drakensberg
to hunt for things that crawl and fly, being quite mad, Baas.”

“Well, where is he now, Hans? He should have been here to travel with us.”

“Am I a spirit that I can tell the Baas whither a white man has wandered?
Yet, stay. Mavovo may be able to tell. He is a great doctor, he can see
through distance, and even now, this very night his Snake of divination
has entered into him and he is looking into the future, yonder, behind the
house. I saw him form the circle.”

I translated what Hans said to Stephen, for he had been talking in Dutch,
then asked him if he would like to see some Kaffir magic.

“Of course,” he answered, “but it’s all bosh, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, all bosh, or so most people say,” I answered evasively. “Still,
sometimes these Inyangas tell one strange things.”

Then, led by Hans, we crept round the house to where there was a five-foot
stone wall at the back of the stable. Beyond this wall, within the circle
of some huts where my Kaffirs lived, was an open space with an ant-heap
floor where they did their cooking. Here, facing us, sat Mavovo, while in
a ring around him were all the hunters who were to accompany us; also
Jack, the lame Griqua, and the two house-boys. In front of Mavovo burned a
number of little wood fires. I counted them and found that there were
fourteen, which, I reflected, was the exact number of our hunters, plus
ourselves. One of the hunters was engaged in feeding these fires with
little bits of stick and handfuls of dried grass so as to keep them
burning brightly. The others sat round perfectly silent and watched with
rapt attention. Mavovo himself looked like a man who is asleep. He was
crouched on his haunches with his big head resting almost upon his knees.
About his middle was a snake-skin, and round his neck an ornament that
appeared to be made of human teeth. On his right side lay a pile of
feathers from the wings of vultures, and on his left a little heap of
silver money—I suppose the fees paid by the hunters for whom he was
divining.

After we had watched him for some while from our shelter behind the wall
he appeared to wake out of his sleep. First he muttered; then he looked up
to the moon and seemed to say a prayer of which I could not catch the
words. Next he shuddered three times convulsively and exclaimed in a clear
voice:

“My Snake has come. It is within me. Now I can hear, now I can see.”

Three of the little fires, those immediately in front of him, were larger
than the others. He took up his bundle of vultures’ feathers, selected one
with care, held it towards the sky, then passed it through the flame of
the centre one of the three fires, uttering as he did so, my native name,
Macumazana. Withdrawing it from the flame he examined the charred edges of
the feather very carefully, a proceeding that caused a cold shiver to go
down my back, for I knew well that he was inquiring of his “Spirit” what
would be my fate upon this expedition. How it answered, I cannot tell, for
he laid the feather down and took another, with which he went through the
same process. This time, however, the name he called out was Mwamwazela,
which in its shortened form of Wazela, was the Kaffir appellation that the
natives had given to Stephen Somers. It means a Smile, and no doubt was
selected for him because of his pleasant, smiling countenance.

Having passed it through the right-hand fire of the three, he examined it
and laid it down.

So it went on. One after another he called out the names of the hunters,
beginning with his own as captain; passed the feather which represented
each of them through the particular fire of his destiny, examined and laid
it down. After this he seemed to go to sleep again for a few minutes, then
woke up as a man does from a natural slumber, yawned and stretched
himself.

“Speak,” said his audience, with great anxiety. “Have you seen? Have you
heard? What does your Snake tell you of me? Of me? Of me? Of me?”

“I have seen, I have heard,” he answered. “My Snake tells me that this
will be a very dangerous journey. Of those who go on it six will die by
the bullet, by the spear or by sickness, and others will be hurt.”

“Ow?” said one of them, “but which will die and which will come out
safe? Does not your Snake tell you that, O Doctor?”

“Yes, of course my Snake tells me that. But my Snake tells me also to hold
my tongue on the matter, lest some of us should be turned to cowards. It
tells me further that the first who should ask me more, will be one of
those who must die. Now do you ask? Or you? Or you? Or you? Ask if you
will.”

Strange to say no one accepted the invitation. Never have I seen a body of
men so indifferent to the future, at least to every appearance. One and
all they seemed to come to the conclusion that so far as they were
concerned it might be left to look after itself.

“My Snake told me something else,” went on Mavovo. “It is that if among
this company there is any jackal of a man who, thinking that he might be
one of the six to die, dreams to avoid his fate by deserting, it will be
of no use. For then my Snake will point him out and show me how to deal
with him.”

Now with one voice each man present there declared that desertion from the
lord Macumazana was the last thing that could possibly occur to him.
Indeed, I believe that those brave fellows spoke truth. No doubt they put
faith in Mavovo’s magic after the fashion of their race. Still the death
he promised was some way off, and each hoped he would be one of the six to
escape. Moreover, the Zulu of those days was too accustomed to death to
fear its terrors over much.

One of them did, however, venture to advance the argument, which Mavovo
treated with proper contempt, that the shillings paid for this divination
should be returned by him to the next heirs of such of them as happened to
decease. Why, he asked, should these pay a shilling in order to be told
that they must die? It seemed unreasonable.

Certainly the Zulu Kaffirs have a queer way of looking at things.

“Hans,” I whispered, “is your fire among those that burn yonder?”

“Not so, Baas,” he wheezed back into my ear. “Does the Baas think me a
fool? If I must die, I must die; if I am to live, I shall live. Why then
should I pay a shilling to learn what time will declare? Moreover, yonder
Mavovo takes the shillings and frightens everybody, but tells nobody
anything. I call it cheating. But, Baas, do you and the Baas Wazela
have no fear. You did not pay shillings, and therefore Mavovo, though
without doubt he is a great Inyanga, cannot really prophesy
concerning you, since his Snake will not work without a fee.”

The argument seems remarkably absurd. Yet it must be common, for now that
I come to think of it, no gipsy will tell a “true fortune” unless her hand
is crossed with silver.

“I say, Quatermain,” said Stephen idly, “since our friend Mavovo seems to
know so much, ask him what has become of Brother John, as Hans suggested.
Tell me what he says afterwards, for I want to see something.”

So I went through the little gate in the wall in a natural kind of way, as
though I had seen nothing, and appeared to be struck by the sight of the
little fires.

“Well, Mavovo,” I said, “are you doing doctor’s work? I thought that it
had brought you into enough trouble in Zululand.”

“That is so, Baba,” replied Mavovo, who had a habit of calling me
“father,” though he was older than I. “It cost me my chieftainship and my
cattle and my two wives and my son. It made of me a wanderer who is glad
to accompany a certain Macumazana to strange lands where many things may
befall me, yes,” he added with meaning, “even the last of all things. And
yet a gift is a gift and must be used. You, Baba, have a gift of
shooting and do you cease to shoot? You have a gift of wandering and can
you cease to wander?”

He picked up one of the burnt feathers from the little pile by his side
and looked at it attentively. “Perhaps, Baba, you have been told—my
ears are very sharp, and I thought I heard some such words floating
through the air just now—that we poor Kaffir Inyangas can
prophesy nothing true unless we are paid, and perhaps that is a fact so
far as something of the moment is concerned. And yet the Snake in the Inyanga,
jumping over the little rock which hides the present from it, may see the
path that winds far and far away through the valleys, across the streams,
up the mountains, till it is lost in the ‘heaven above.’ Thus on this
feather, burnt in my magic fire, I seem to see something of your future, O
my father Macumazana. Far and far your road runs,” and he drew his finger
along the feather. “Here is a journey,” and he flicked away a carbonised
flake, “here is another, and another, and another,” and he flicked off
flake after flake. “Here is one that is very successful, it leaves you
rich; and here is yet one more, a wonderful journey this in which you see
strange things and meet strange people. Then”—and he blew on the
feather in such a fashion that all the charred filaments (Brother John
says that laminae is the right word for them) fell away from it—“then,
there is nothing left save such a pole as some of my people stick upright
on a grave, the Shaft of Memory they call it. O, my father, you will die
in a distant land, but you will leave a great memory behind you that will
live for hundreds of years, for see how strong is this quill over which
the fire has had no power. With some of these others it is quite
different,” he added.

“I daresay,” I broke in, “but, Mavovo, be so good as to leave me out of
your magic, for I don’t at all want to know what is going to happen to me.
To-day is enough for me without studying next month and next year. There
is a saying in our holy book which runs: ‘Sufficient to the day is its
evil.’”

“Quite so, O Macumazana. Also that is a very good saying as some of those
hunters of yours are thinking now. Yet an hour ago they were forcing their
shillings on me that I might tell them of the future. And you, too,
want to know something. You did not come through that gate to quote to me
the wisdom of your holy book. What is it, Baba? Be quick, for my
Snake is getting very tired. He wishes to go back to his hole in the world
beneath.”

“Well, then,” I answered in rather a shamefaced fashion, for Mavovo had an
uncanny way of seeing into one’s secret motives, “I should like to know,
if you can tell me, which you can’t, what has become of the white man with
the long beard whom you black people call Dogeetah? He should have been
here to go on this journey with us; indeed, he was to be our guide and we
cannot find him. Where is he and why is he not here?”

“Have you anything about you that belonged to Dogeetah, Macumazana?”

“No,” I answered; “that is, yes,” and from my pocket I produced the stump
of pencil that Brother John had given me, which, being economical, I had
saved up ever since. Mavovo took it, and after considering it carefully as
he had done in the case of the feathers, swept up a pile of ashes with his
horny hand from the edge of the largest of the little fires, that indeed
which had represented myself. These ashes he patted flat. Then he drew on
them with the point of the pencil, tracing what seemed to me to be the
rough image of a man, such as children scratch upon whitewashed walls.
When he had finished he sat up and contemplated his handiwork with all the
satisfaction of an artist. A breeze had risen from the sea and was blowing
in little gusts, so that the fine ashes were disturbed, some of the lines
of the picture being filled in and others altered or enlarged.

For a while Mavovo sat with his eyes shut. Then he opened them, studied
the ashes and what remained of the picture, and taking a blanket that lay
near by, threw it over his own head and over the ashes. Withdrawing it
again presently he cast it aside and pointed to the picture which was now
quite changed. Indeed, in the moonlight, it looked more like a landscape
than anything else.

“All is clear, my father,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “The white
wanderer, Dogeetah, is not dead. He lives, but he is sick. Something is
the matter with one of his legs so that he cannot walk. Perhaps a bone is
broken or some beast has bitten him. He lies in a hut such as Kaffirs
make, only this hut has a verandah round it like your stoep, and there are
drawings on the wall. The hut is a long way off, I don’t know where.”

“Is that all?” I asked, for he paused.

“No, not all. Dogeetah is recovering. He will join us in that country
whither we journey, at a time of trouble. That is all, and the fee is
half-a-crown.”

“You mean one shilling,” I suggested.

“No, my father Macumazana. One shilling for simple magic such as
foretelling the fate of common black people. Half-a-crown for very
difficult magic that has to do with white people, magic of which only
great doctors, like me, Mavovo, are the masters.”

I gave him the half-crown and said:

“Look here, friend Mavovo, I believe in you as a fighter and a hunter, but
as a magician I think you are a humbug. Indeed, I am so sure of it that if
ever Dogeetah turns up at a time of trouble in that land whither we are
journeying, I will make you a present of that double-barrelled rifle of
mine which you admired so much.”

One of his rare smiles appeared upon Mavovo’s ugly face.

“Then give it to me now, Baba,” he said, “for it is already earned.
My Snake cannot lie—especially when the fee is half-a-crown.”

I shook my head and declined, politely but with firmness.

“Ah!” said Mavovo, “you white men are very clever and think that you know
everything. But it is not so, for in learning so much that is new, you
have forgotten more that is old. When the Snake that is in you,
Macumazana, dwelt in a black savage like me a thousand thousand years ago,
you could have done and did what I do. But now you can only mock and say,
‘Mavovo the brave in battle, the great hunter, the loyal man, becomes a
liar when he blows the burnt feather, or reads what the wind writes upon
the charmed ashes.’”

“I do not say that you are a liar, Mavovo, I say that you are deceived by
your own imaginings. It is not possible that man can know what is hidden
from man.”

“Is it indeed so, O Macumazana, Watcher by Night? Am I, Mavovo, the pupil
of Zikali, the Opener of Roads, the greatest of wizards, indeed deceived
by my own imaginings? And has man no other eyes but those in his head,
that he cannot see what is hidden from man? Well, you say so and all we
black people know that you are very clever, and why should I, a poor Zulu,
be able to see what you cannot see? Yet when to-morrow one sends you a
message from the ship in which we are to sail, begging you to come fast
because there is trouble on the ship, then bethink you of your words and
my words, and whether or no man can see what is hidden from man in the
blackness of the future. Oh! that rifle of yours is mine already, though
you will not give it to me now, you who think that I am a cheat. Well, my
father Macumazana, because you think I am a cheat, never again will I blow
the feather or read what the wind writes upon the ashes for you or any who
eat your food.”

Then he rose, saluted me with uplifted right hand, collected his little
pile of money and bag of medicines and marched off to the sleeping hut.

On our way round the house we met my old lame caretaker, Jack.

“Inkoosi,” he said, “the white chief Wazela bade me say that he and
the cook, Sam, have gone to sleep on board the ship to look after the
goods. Sam came up just now and fetched him away; he says he will show you
why to-morrow.”

I nodded and passed on, wondering to myself why Stephen had suddenly
determined to stay the night on the Maria.

CHAPTER V

HASSAN

I suppose it must have been two hours after dawn on the following morning
that I was awakened by knocks upon the door and the voice of Jack saying
that Sam, the cook, wanted to speak to me.

Wondering what he could be doing there, as I understood he was sleeping on
the ship, I called out that he was to come in. Now this Sam, I should say,
hailed from the Cape, and was a person of mixed blood. The original stock,
I imagine, was Malay which had been crossed with Indian coolie. Also,
somewhere or other, there was a dash of white and possibly, but of this I
am not sure, a little Hottentot. The result was a person of few vices and
many virtues. Sammy, I may say at once, was perhaps the biggest coward I
ever met. He could not help it, it was congenital, though, curiously
enough, this cowardice of his never prevented him from rushing into fresh
danger. Thus he knew that the expedition upon which I was engaged would be
most hazardous; remembering his weakness I explained this to him very
clearly. Yet that knowledge did not deter him from imploring that he might
be allowed to accompany me. Perhaps this was because there was some mutual
attachment between us, as in the case of Hans. Once, a good many years
before, I had rescued Sammy from a somewhat serious scrape by declining to
give evidence against him. I need not enter into the details, but a
certain sum of money over which he had control had disappeared. I will
merely say, therefore, that at the time he was engaged to a coloured lady
of very expensive tastes, whom in the end he never married.

After this, as it chanced, he nursed me through an illness. Hence the
attachment of which I have spoken.

Sammy was the son of a native Christian preacher, and brought up upon what
he called “The Word.” He had received an excellent education for a person
of his class, and in addition to many native dialects with which a varied
career had made him acquainted, spoke English perfectly, though in the
most bombastic style. Never would he use a short word if a long one came
to his hand, or rather to his tongue. For several years of his life he
was, I believe, a teacher in a school at Capetown where coloured persons
received their education; his “department,” as he called it, being
“English Language and Literature.”

Wearying of or being dismissed from his employment for some reason that he
never specified, he had drifted up the coast to Zanzibar, where he turned
his linguistic abilities to the study of Arabic and became the manager or
head cook of an hotel. After a few years he lost this billet, I know not
how or why, and appeared at Durban in what he called a “reversed
position.” Here it was that we met again, just before my expedition to
Pongo-land.

In manners he was most polite, in disposition most religious; I believe he
was a Baptist by faith, and in appearance a small, brown dandy of a man of
uncertain age, who wore his hair parted in the middle and, whatever the
circumstances, was always tidy in his garments.

I took him on because he was in great distress, an excellent cook, the
best of nurses, and above all for the reason that, as I have said, we were
in a way attached to each other. Also, he always amused me intensely,
which goes for something on a long journey of the sort that I
contemplated.

Such in brief was Sammy.

As he entered the room I saw that his clothes were very wet and asked him
at once if it were raining, or whether he had got drunk and been sleeping
in the damp grass.

“No, Mr. Quatermain,” he answered, “the morning is extremely fine, and
like the poor Hottentot, Hans, I have abjured the use of intoxicants.
Though we differ on much else, in this matter we agree.”

“Then what the deuce is up?” I interrupted, to cut short his flow of fine
language.

“Sir, there is trouble on the ship” (remembering Mavovo I started at these
words) “where I passed the night in the company of Mr. Somers at his
special request.” (It was the other way about really.) “This morning
before the dawn, when he thought that everybody was asleep, the Portuguese
captain and some of his Arabs began to weigh the anchor quite quietly;
also to hoist the sails. But Mr. Somers and I, being very much awake, came
out of the cabin and he sat upon the capstan with a revolver in his hand,
saying—well, sir, I will not repeat what he said.”

“No, don’t. What happened then?”

“Then, sir, there followed much noise and confusion. The Portugee and the
Arabs threatened Mr. Somers, but he, sir, continued to sit upon the
capstan with the stern courage of a rock in a rushing stream, and remarked
that he would see them all somewhere before they touched it. After this,
sir, I do not know what occurred, since while I watched from the bulwarks
someone knocked me head over heels into the sea and being fortunately, a
good swimmer, I gained the shore and hurried here to advise you.”

“And did you advise anyone else, you idiot?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. As I sped along I communicated to an officer of the port that
there was the devil of a mess upon the Maria which he would do well
to investigate.”

By this time I was in my shirt and trousers and shouting to Mavovo and the
others. Soon they arrived, for as the costume of Mavovo and his company
consisted only of a moocha and a blanket, it did not take them long to
dress.

“Mavovo,” I began, “there is trouble on the ship——”

“O Baba,” he interrupted with something resembling a grin, “it is
very strange, but last night I dreamed that I told you——”

“Curse your dreams,” I said. “Gather the men and go down—no, that
won’t work, there would be murder done. Either it is all over now or it is
all right. Get the hunters ready; I come with them. The luggage can be
fetched afterwards.”

Within less than an hour we were at that wharf off which the Maria
lay in what one day will be the splendid port of Durban, though in those
times its shipping arrangements were exceedingly primitive. A
strange-looking band we must have been. I, who was completely dressed, and
I trust tidy, marched ahead. Next came Hans in the filthy wide-awake hat
which he usually wore and greasy corduroys and after him the oleaginous
Sammy arrayed in European reach-me-downs, a billy-cock and a bright blue
tie striped with red, garments that would have looked very smart had it
not been for his recent immersion. After him followed the fierce-looking
Mavovo and his squad of hunters, all of whom wore the “ring” or isicoco,
as the Zulus call it; that is, a circle of polished black wax sewn into
their short hair. They were a grim set of fellows, but as, according to a
recent law it was not allowable for them to appear armed in the town,
their guns had already been shipped, while their broad stabbing spears
were rolled up in their sleeping mats, the blades wrapped round with dried
grass.

Each of them, however, bore in his hand a large knobkerry of red-wood, and
they marched four by four in martial fashion. It is true that when we
embarked on the big boat to go to the ship much of their warlike ardour
evaporated, since these men, who feared nothing on the land, were terribly
afraid of that unfamiliar element, the water.

We reached the Maria, an unimposing kind of tub, and climbed
aboard. On looking aft the first thing that I saw was Stephen seated on
the capstan with a pistol in his hand, as Sammy had said. Near by, leaning
on the bulwark was the villainous-looking Portugee, Delgado, apparently in
the worst of tempers and surrounded by a number of equally
villainous-looking Arab sailors clad in dirty white. In front was the
Captain of the port, a well-known and esteemed gentleman of the name of
Cato, like myself a small man who had gone through many adventures.
Accompanied by some attendants, he was seated on the after-skylight,
smoking, with his eyes fixed upon Stephen and the Portugee.

“Glad to see you, Quatermain,” he said. “There’s some row on here, but I
have only just arrived and don’t understand Portuguese, and the gentleman
on the capstan won’t leave it to explain.”

“What’s up, Stephen?” I asked, after shaking Mr. Cato by the hand.

“What’s up?” replied Somers. “This man,” and he pointed to Delgado,
“wanted to sneak out to sea with all our goods, that’s all, to say nothing
of me and Sammy, whom, no doubt, he’d have chucked overboard, as soon as
he was out of sight of land. However, Sammy, who knows Portuguese,
overheard his little plans and, as you see, I objected.”

Well, Delgado was asked for his version of the affair, and, as I expected,
explained that he only intended to get a little nearer to the bar and
there wait till we arrived. Of course he lied and knew that we were aware
of the fact and that his intention had been to slip out to sea with all
our valuable property, which he would sell after having murdered or
marooned Stephen and the poor cook. But as nothing could be proved, and we
were now in strong enough force to look after ourselves and our
belongings, I did not see the use of pursuing the argument. So I accepted
the explanation with a smile, and asked everybody to join in a morning
nip.

Afterwards Stephen told me that while I was engaged with Mavovo on the
previous night, a message had reached him from Sammy who was on board the
ship in charge of our belongings, saying that he would be glad of some
company. Knowing the cook’s nervous nature, fortunately enough he made up
his mind at once to go and sleep upon the Maria. In the morning
trouble arose as Sammy had told me. What he did not tell me was that he
was not knocked overboard, as he said, but took to the water of his own
accord, when complications with Delgado appeared imminent.

“I understand the position,” I said, “and all’s well that ends well. But
it’s lucky you thought of coming on board to sleep.”

After this everything went right. I sent some of the men back in the
charge of Stephen for our remaining effects, which they brought safely
aboard, and in the evening we sailed. Our voyage up to Kilwa was
beautiful, a gentle breeze driving us forward over a sea so calm that not
even Hans, who I think was one of the worst sailors in the world, or the
Zulu hunters were really sick, though as Sammy put it, they “declined
their food.”

I think it was on the fifth night of our voyage, or it may have been the
seventh, that we anchored one afternoon off the island of Kilwa, not very
far from the old Portuguese fort. Delgado, with whom we had little to do
during the passage, hoisted some queer sort of signal. In response a boat
came off containing what he called the Port officials, a band of
cut-throat, desperate-looking, black fellows in charge of a pock-marked,
elderly half-breed who was introduced to us as the Bey
Hassan-ben-Mohammed. That Mr. Hassan-ben-Mohammed entirely disapproved of
our presence on the ship, and especially of our proposed landing at Kilwa,
was evident to me from the moment that I set eyes upon his ill-favoured
countenance. After a hurried conference with Delgado, he came forward and
addressed me in Arabic, of which I could not understand a word. Luckily,
however, Sam the cook, who, as I think I said, was a great linguist, had a
fair acquaintance with this tongue, acquired, it appears, while at the
Zanzibar hotel; so, not trusting Delgado, I called on him to interpret.

“What is he saying, Sammy?” I asked.

He began to talk to Hassan and replied presently:

“Sir, he makes you many compliments. He says that he has heard what a
great man you are from his friend, Delgado, also that you and Mr. Somers
are English, a nation which he adores.”

“Does he?” I exclaimed. “I should never have thought it from his looks.
Thank him for his kind remarks and tell him that we are going to land here
and march up country to shoot.”

Sammy obeyed, and the conversation went on somewhat as follows:

“With all humility I (i.e. Hassan) request you not to land. This country
is not a fit place for such noble gentlemen. There is nothing to eat and
no head of game has been seen for years. The people in the interior are
savages of the worst sort, whom hunger has driven to take to cannibalism.
I would not have your blood upon my head. I beg of you, therefore, to go
on in this ship to Delagoa Bay, where you will find a good hotel, or to
any other place you may select.”

A.Q.: “Might I ask you, noble sir, what is your position at Kilwa, that
you consider yourself responsible for our safety?”

H.: “Honoured English lord, I am a trader here of Portuguese nationality,
but born of an Arab mother of high birth and brought up among that people.
I have gardens on the mainland, tended by my native servants who are as
children to me, where I grow palms and cassava and ground nuts and
plantains and many other kinds of produce. All the tribes in this district
look upon me as their chief and venerated father.”

A.Q.: “Then, noble Hassan, you will be able to pass us through them,
seeing that we are peaceful hunters who wish to harm no one.”

(A long consultation between Hassan and Delgado, during which I ordered
Mavovo to bring his Zulus on deck with their guns.)

H.: “Honoured English lord, I cannot allow you to land.”

A.Q.: “Noble son of the Prophet, I intend to land with my friend, my
followers, my donkeys and my goods early to-morrow morning. If I can do so
with your leave I shall be glad. If not——” and I glanced at
the fierce group of hunters behind me.

H.: “Honoured English lord, I shall be grieved to use force, but let me
tell you that in my peaceful village ashore I have at least a hundred men
armed with rifles, whereas here I see under twenty.”

A.Q., after reflection and a few words with Stephen Somers: “Can you tell
me, noble sir, if from your peaceful village you have yet sighted the
English man-of-war, Crocodile; I mean the steamer that is engaged
in watching for the dhows of wicked slavers? A letter from her captain
informed me that he would be in these waters by yesterday. Perhaps,
however, he has been delayed for a day or two.”

If I had exploded a bomb at the feet of the excellent Hassan its effect
could scarcely have been more remarkable than that of this question. He
turned—not pale, but a horrible yellow, and exclaimed:

“English man-of-war! Crocodile! I thought she had gone to Aden to
refit and would not be back at Zanzibar for four months.”

A.Q.: “You have been misinformed, noble Hassan. She will not refit till
October. Shall I read you the letter?” and I produced a piece of paper
from my pocket. “It may be interesting since my friend, the captain, whom
you remember is named Flowers, mentions you in it. He says——”

Hassan waved his hand. “It is enough. I see, honoured lord, that you are a
man of mettle not easily to be turned from your purpose. In the name of
God the Compassionate, land and go wheresoever you like.”

A.Q.: “I think that I had almost rather wait until the Crocodile
comes in.”

H.: “Land! Land! Captain Delgado, get up the cargo and man your boat. Mine
too is at the service of these lords. You, Captain, will like to get away
by this night’s tide. There is still light, Lord Quatermain, and such
hospitality as I can offer is at your service.”

A.Q.: “Ah! I knew Bey Hassan, that you were only joking with me when you
said that you wished us to go elsewhere. An excellent jest, truly, from
one whose hospitality is so famous. Well, to fall in with your wishes, we
will come ashore this evening, and if the Captain Delgado chances to sight
the Queen’s ship Crocodile before he sails, perhaps he will be so
good as to signal to us with a rocket.”

“Certainly, certainly,” interrupted Delgado, who up to this time had
pretended that he understood no English, the tongue in which I was
speaking to the interpreter, Sammy.

Then he turned and gave orders to his Arab crew to bring up our belongings
from the hold and to lower the Maria’s boat.

Never did I see goods transferred in quicker time. Within half an hour
every one of our packages was off that ship, for Stephen Somers kept a
count of them. Our personal baggage went into the Maria’s boat, and
the goods together with the four donkeys which were lowered on to the top
of them, were rumbled pell-mell into the barge-like punt belonging to
Hassan. Here also I was accommodated, with about half of our people, the
rest taking their seats in the smaller boat under the charge of Stephen.

At length all was ready and we cast off.

“Farewell, Captain,” I cried to Delgado. “If you should sight the Crocodile——”

At this point Delgado broke into such a torrent of bad language in
Portuguese, Arabic and English that I fear the rest of my remarks never
reached him.

As we rowed shorewards I observed that Hans, who was seated near to me
under the stomach of a jackass, was engaged in sniffing at the sides and
bottom of the barge, as a dog might do, and asked him what he was about.

“Very odd smell in this boat,” he whispered back in Dutch. “It stinks of
Kaffir man, just like the hold of the Maria. I think this boat is
used to carry slaves.”

“Be quiet,” I whispered back, “and stop nosing at those planks.” But to
myself I thought, Hans is right, we are in a nest of slave-traders, and
this Hassan is their leader.

We rowed past the island, on which I observed the ruins of an old
Portuguese fort and some long grass-roofed huts, where, I reflected, the
slaves were probably kept until they could be shipped away. Observing my
glance fixed upon these, Hassan hastened to explain, through Sammy, that
they were storehouses in which he dried fish and hides, and kept goods.

“How interesting!” I answered. “Further south we dry hides in the sun.”

Crossing a narrow channel we arrived at a rough jetty where we
disembarked, whence we were led by Hassan not to the village which I now
saw upon our left, but to a pleasant-looking, though dilapidated house
that stood a hundred yards from the shore. Something about the appearance
of this house impressed me with the idea that it was never built by
slavers; the whole look of the place with its verandah and garden
suggested taste and civilisation. Evidently educated people had designed
it and resided here. I glanced about me and saw, amidst a grove of
neglected orange trees that were surrounded with palms of some age, the
ruins of a church. About this there was no doubt, for there, surmounted by
a stone cross, was a little pent-house in which still hung the bell that
once summoned the worshippers to prayer.

“Tell the English lord,” said Hassan to Sammy, “that these buildings were
a mission station of the Christians, who abandoned them more than twenty
years ago. When I came here I found them empty.”

“Indeed,” I answered, “and what were the names of those who dwelt in
them?”

“I never heard,” said Hassan; “they had been gone a long while when I
came.”

Then we went up to the house, and for the next hour and more were engaged
with our baggage which was piled in a heap in what had been the garden and
in unpacking and pitching two tents for the hunters which I caused to be
placed immediately in front of the rooms that were assigned to us. Those
rooms were remarkable in their way. Mine had evidently been a sitting
chamber, as I judged from some much broken articles of furniture, that
appeared to be of American make. That which Stephen occupied had once
served as a sleeping-place, for the bedstead of iron still remained there.
Also there were a hanging bookcase, now fallen, and some tattered remnants
of books. One of these, that oddly enough was well-preserved, perhaps
because the white ants or other creatures did not like the taste of its
morocco binding, was a Keble’s Christian Year, on the title-page of
which was written, “To my dearest Elizabeth on her birthday, from her
husband.” I took the liberty to put it in my pocket. On the wall,
moreover, still hung the small watercolour picture of a very pretty young
woman with fair hair and blue eyes, in the corner of which picture was
written in the same handwriting as that in the book, “Elizabeth, aged
twenty.” This also I annexed, thinking that it might come in useful as a
piece of evidence.

“Looks as if the owners of this place had left it in a hurry, Quatermain,”
said Stephen.

“That’s it, my boy. Or perhaps they didn’t leave; perhaps they stopped
here.”

“Murdered?”

I nodded and said, “I dare say friend Hassan could tell us something about
the matter. Meanwhile as supper isn’t ready yet, let us have a look at
that church while it is light.”

We walked through the palm and orange grove to where the building stood
finely placed upon a mound. It was well-constructed of a kind of coral
rock, and a glance showed us that it had been gutted by fire; the
discoloured walls told their own tale. The interior was now full of shrubs
and creepers, and an ugly, yellowish snake glided from what had been the
stone altar. Without, the graveyard was enclosed by a broken wall, only we
could see no trace of graves. Near the gateway, however, was a rough
mound.

“If we could dig into that,” I said, “I expect we should find the bones of
the people who inhabited this place. Does that suggest anything to you,
Stephen?”

“Nothing, except that they were probably killed.”

“You should learn to draw inferences. It is a useful art, especially in
Africa. It suggests to me that, if you are right, the deed was not done by
natives, who would never take the trouble to bury the dead. Arabs, on the
contrary, might do so, especially if there were any bastard Portuguese
among them who called themselves Christians. But whatever happened must
have been a long while ago,” and I pointed to a self-sown hardwood tree
growing from the mound which could scarcely have been less than twenty
years old.

We returned to the house to find that our meal was ready. Hassan had asked
us to dine with him, but for obvious reasons I preferred that Sammy should
cook our food and that he should dine with us. He appeared full of
compliments, though I could see hate and suspicion in his eye, and we fell
to on the kid that we had bought from him, for I did not wish to accept
any gifts from this fellow. Our drink was square-face gin, mixed with
water that I sent Hans to fetch with his own hands from the stream that
ran by the house, lest otherwise it should be drugged.

At first Hassan, like a good Mohammedan, refused to touch any spirits, but
as the meal went on he politely relented upon this point, and I poured him
out a liberal tot. The appetite comes in eating, as the Frenchman said,
and the same thing applies to drinking. So at least it was in Hassan’s
case, who probably thought that the quantity swallowed made no difference
to his sin. After the third dose of square-face he grew quite amiable and
talkative. Thinking the opportunity a good one, I sent for Sammy, and
through him told our host that we were anxious to hire twenty porters to
carry our packages. He declared that there was not such a thing as a
porter within a hundred miles, whereon I gave him some more gin. The end
of it was that we struck a bargain, I forget for how much, he promising to
find us twenty good men who were to stay with us for as long as we wanted
them.

Then I asked him about the destruction of the mission station, but
although he was half-drunk, on this point he remained very close. All he
would say was that he had heard that twenty years ago the people called
the Mazitu, who were very fierce, had raided right down to the coast and
killed those who dwelt there, except a white man and his wife who had fled
inland and never been seen again.

“How many of them were buried in that mound by the church?” I asked
quickly.

“Who told you they were buried there?” he replied, with a start, but
seeing his mistake, went on, “I do not know what you mean. I never heard
of anyone being buried. Sleep well, honoured lords, I must go and see to
the loading of my goods upon the Maria.” Then rising, he salaamed
and walked, or rather rolled, away.

“So the Maria hasn’t sailed after all,” I said, and whistled in a
certain fashion. Instantly Hans crept into the room out of the darkness,
for this was my signal to him.

“Hans,” I said, “I hear sounds upon that island. Slip down to the shore
and spy out what is happening. No one will see you if you are careful.”

“No, Baas,” he answered with a grin, “I do not think that anyone will see
Hans if he is careful, especially at night,” and he slid away as quietly
as he had come.

Now I went out and spoke to Mavovo, telling him to keep a good watch and
to be sure that every man had his gun ready, as I thought that these
people were slave-traders and might attack us in the night.

In that event, I said, they were to fall back upon the stoep, but not to
fire until I gave the word.

“Good, my father,” he answered. “This is a lucky journey; I never thought
there would be hope of war so soon. My Snake forgot to mention it the
other night. Sleep safe, Macumazana. Nothing that walks shall reach you
while we live.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I answered, and we lay down in the bedroom with our
clothes on and our rifles by our sides.

The next thing I remember was someone shaking me by the shoulder. I
thought it was Stephen, who had agreed to keep awake for the first part of
the night and to call me at one in the morning. Indeed, he was awake, for
I could see the glow from the pipe he smoked.

“Baas,” whispered the voice of Hans, “I have found out everything. They
are loading the Maria with slaves, taking them in big boats from
the island.”

“So,” I answered. “But how did you get here? Are the hunters asleep
without?”

He chuckled. “No, they are not asleep; they look with all their eyes and
listen with all their ears, yet old Hans passed through them; even the
Baas Somers did not hear him.”

“That I didn’t,” said Stephen; “thought a rat was moving, no more.”

I stepped through the place where the door had been on to the stoep. By
the light of the fire which the hunters had lit without I could see Mavovo
sitting wide awake, his gun upon his knees, and beyond him two sentries. I
called him and pointed to Hans.

“See,” I said, “what good watchmen you are when one can step over your
heads and enter my room without your knowing it!”

Mavovo looked at the Hottentot and felt his clothes and boots to see
whether they were wet with the night dew.

“Ow!” he exclaimed in a surly voice, “I said that nothing which
walks could reach you, Macumazana, but this yellow snake has crawled
between us on his belly. Look at the new mud that stains his waistcoat.”

“Yet snakes can bite and kill,” answered Hans with a snigger. “Oh! you
Zulus think that you are very brave, and shout and flourish spears and
battleaxes. One poor Hottentot dog is worth a whole impi of you after all.
No, don’t try to strike me, Mavovo the warrior, since we both serve the
same master in our separate ways. When it comes to fighting I will leave
the matter to you, but when it is a case of watching or spying, do you
leave it to Hans. Look here, Mavovo,” and he opened his hand in which was
a horn snuff-box such as Zulus sometimes carry in their ears. “To whom
does this belong?”

“It is mine,” said Mavovo, “and you have stolen it.”

“Yes,” jeered Hans, “it is yours. Also I stole it from your ear as I
passed you in the dark. Don’t you remember that you thought a gnat had
tickled you and hit up at your face?”

“It is true,” growled Mavovo, “and you, snake of a Hottentot, are great in
your own low way. Yet next time anything tickles me, I shall strike, not
with my hand, but with a spear.”

Then I turned them both out, remarking to Stephen that this was a good
example of the eternal fight between courage and cunning. After this, as I
was sure that Hassan and his friends were too busy to interfere with us
that night, we went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

When I got up the next morning I found that Stephen Somers had already
risen and gone out, nor did he appear until I was half through my
breakfast.

“Where on earth have you been?” I asked, noting that his clothes were torn
and covered with wet moss.

“Up the tallest of those palm trees, Quatermain. Saw an Arab climbing one
of them with a rope and got another Arab to teach me the trick. It isn’t
really difficult, though it looks alarming.”

“What in the name of goodness——” I began.

“Oh!” he interrupted, “my ruling passion. Looking through the glasses I
thought I caught sight of an orchid growing near the crown, so went up. It
wasn’t an orchid after all, only a mass of yellow pollen. But I learned
something for my pains. Sitting in the top of that palm I saw the Maria
working out from under the lee of the island. Also, far away, I noted a
streak of smoke, and watching it through the glasses, made out what looked
to me uncommonly like a man-of-war steaming slowly along the coast. In
fact, I am sure it was, and English too. Then the mist came up and I lost
sight of them.”

“My word!” I said, “that will be the Crocodile. What I told our
host, Hassan, was not altogether bunkum. Mr. Cato, the port officer at
Durban, mentioned to me that the Crocodile was expected to call
there within the next fortnight to take in stores after a slave-hunting
cruise down the coast. Now it would be odd if she chanced to meet the Maria
and asked to have a look at her cargo, wouldn’t it?”

“Not at all, Quatermain, for unless one or the other of them changes her
course that is just what she must do within the next hour or so, and I
jolly well hope she will. I haven’t forgiven that beast, Delgado, the
trick he tried to play on us by slipping away with our goods, to say
nothing of those poor devils of slaves. Pass the coffee, will you?”

For the next ten minutes we ate in silence, for Stephen had an excellent
appetite and was hungry after his morning climb.

Just as we finished our meal Hassan appeared, looking even more villainous
than he had done the previous day. I saw also that he was in a truculent
mood, induced perhaps by the headache from which he was evidently
suffering as a result of his potations. Or perhaps the fact that the Maria
had got safe away with the slaves, as he imagined unobserved by us, was
the cause of the change of his demeanour. A third alternative may have
been that he intended to murder us during the previous night and found no
safe opportunity of carrying out his amiable scheme.

We saluted him courteously, but without salaaming in reply he asked me
bluntly through Sammy when we intended to be gone, as such “Christian dogs
defiled his house,” which he wanted for himself.

I answered, as soon as the twenty bearers whom he had promised us
appeared, but not before.

“You lie,” he said. “I never promised you bearers; I have none here.”

“Do you mean that you shipped them all away in the Maria with the
slaves last night?” I asked, sweetly.

My reader, have you ever taken note of the appearance and proceedings of a
tom-cat of established age and morose disposition when a little dog
suddenly disturbs it on the prowl? Have you observed how it contorts
itself into arched but unnatural shapes, how it swells visibly to almost
twice its normal size, how its hair stands up and its eyes flash, and the
stream of unmentionable language that proceeds from its open mouth? If so,
you will have a very good idea of the effect produced upon Hassan by this
remark of mine. The fellow looked as though he were going to burst with
rage. He rolled about, his bloodshot eyes seemed to protrude, he cursed us
horribly, he put his hand upon the hilt of the great knife he wore, and
finally he did what the tom-cat does, he spat.

Now, Stephen was standing with me, looking as cool as a cucumber and very
much amused, and being, as it chanced, a little nearer to Hassan than I
was, received the full benefit of this rude proceeding. My word! didn’t it
wake him up. He said something strong, and the next second flew at the
half-breed like a tiger, landing him a beauty straight upon the nose. Back
staggered Hassan, drawing his knife as he did so, but Stephen’s left in
the eye caused him to drop it, as he dropped himself. I pounced upon the
knife, and since it was too late to interfere, for the mischief had been
done, let things take their course and held back the Zulus who had rushed
up at the noise.

Hassan rose and, to do him credit, came on like a man, head down. His
great skull caught Stephen, who was the lighter of the two, in the chest
and knocked him over, but before the Arab could follow up the advantage,
he was on his feet again. Then ensued a really glorious mill. Hassan
fought with head and fists and feet, Stephen with fists alone. Dodging his
opponent’s rushes, he gave it to him as he passed, and soon his coolness
and silence began to tell. Once he was knocked over by a hooked one under
the jaw, but in the next round he sent the Arab literally flying head over
heels. Oh! how those Zulus cheered, and I, too, danced with delight. Up
Hassan came again, spitting out several teeth and, adopting new tactics,
grabbed Stephen round the middle. To and fro they swung, the Arab trying
to kick the Englishman with his knees and to bite him also, till the pain
reminded him of the absence of his front teeth. Once he nearly got him
down—nearly, but not quite, for the collar by which he had gripped
him (his object was to strangle) burst and, at that juncture, Hassan’s
turban fell over his face, blinding him for a moment.

Then Stephen gripped him round the middle with his left arm and with his
right pommelled him unmercifully till he sank in a sitting position to the
ground and held up his hand in token of surrender.

“The noble English lord has beaten me,” he gasped.

“Apologise!” yelled Stephen, picking up a handful of mud, “or I shove this
down your dirty throat.”

He seemed to understand. At any rate, he bowed till his forehead touched
the ground, and apologised very thoroughly.

“Now that is over,” I said cheerfully to him, “so how about those
bearers?”

“I have no bearers,” he answered.

“You dirty liar,” I exclaimed; “one of my people has been down to your
village there and says it is full of men.”

“Then go and take them for yourself,” he replied, viciously, for he knew
that the place was stockaded.

Now I was in a fix. It was all very well to give a slave-dealer the
thrashing he deserved, but if he chose to attack us with his Arabs we
should be in a poor way. Watching me with the eye that was not bunged up,
Hassan guessed my perplexity.

“I have been beaten like a dog,” he said, his rage returning to him with
his breath, “but God is compassionate and just, He will avenge in due
time.”

The words had not left his lips for one second when from somewhere out at
sea there floated the sullen boom of a great gun. At this moment, too, an
Arab rushed up from the shore, crying:

“Where is the Bey Hassan?”

“Here,” I said, pointing at him.

The Arab stared until I thought his eyes would drop out, for the Bey
Hassan was indeed a sight to see. Then he gabbled in a frightened voice:

“Captain, an English man-of-war is chasing the Maria.”

Boom went the great gun for the second time. Hassan said nothing, but his
jaw dropped, and I saw that he had lost exactly three teeth.

“That is the Crocodile,” I remarked slowly, causing Sammy to
translate, and as I spoke, produced from my inner pocket a Union Jack
which I had placed there after I heard that the ship was sighted.
“Stephen,” I went on as I shook it out, “if you have got your wind, would
you mind climbing up that palm tree again and signalling with this to the
Crocodile out at sea?”

“By George! that’s a good idea,” said Stephen, whose jovial face, although
swollen, was now again wreathed in smiles. “Hans, bring me a long stick
and a bit of string.”

But Hassan did not think it at all a good idea.

“English lord,” he gasped, “you shall have the bearers. I will go to fetch
them.”

“No, you won’t,” I said, “you will stop here as a hostage. Send that man.”

Hassan uttered some rapid orders and the messenger sped away, this time
towards the stockaded village on the right.

As he went another messenger arrived, who also stared amazedly at the
condition of his chief.

“Bey—if you are the Bey,” he said, in a doubtful voice, for by now
the amiable face of Hassan had begun to swell and colour, “with the
telescope we have seen that the English man-of-war has sent a boat and
boarded the Maria.”

“God is great!” muttered the discomfited Hassan, “and Delgado, who is a
thief and a traitor from his mother’s breast, will tell the truth. The
English sons of Satan will land here. All is finished; nothing is left but
flight. Bid the people fly into the bush and take the slaves—I mean
their servants. I will join them.”

“No, you won’t,” I interrupted, through Sammy; “at any rate, not at
present. You will come with us.”

The miserable Hassan reflected, then he asked:

“Lord Quatermain” (I remember the title, because it is the nearest I ever
got, or am likely to get, to the peerage), “if I furnish you with the
twenty bearers and accompany you for some days on your journey inland,
will you promise not to signal to your countrymen on the ship and bring
them ashore?”

“What do you think?” I asked of Stephen.

“Oh!” he answered, “I think I’d agree. This scoundrel has had a pretty
good dusting, and if once the Crocodile people land, there’ll be an
end of our expedition. As sure as eggs are eggs they will carry us off to
Zanzibar or somewhere to give evidence before a slave court. Also nothing
will be gained, for by the time the sailors get here, all these rascals
will have bolted, except our friend, Hassan. You see it isn’t as though we
were sure he would be hung. He’d probably escape after all. International
law, subject of a foreign Power, no direct proof—that kind of thing,
you know.”

“Give me a minute or two,” I said, and began to reflect very deeply.

Whilst I was thus engaged several things happened. I saw twenty natives
being escorted towards us, doubtless the bearers who had been promised;
also I saw many others, accompanied by other natives, flying from the
village into the bush. Lastly, a third messenger arrived, who announced
that the Maria was sailing away, apparently in charge of a
prize-crew, and that the man-of-war was putting about as though to
accompany her. Evidently she had no intention of effecting a landing upon
what was, nominally at any rate, Portuguese territory. Therefore, if
anything was to be done, we must act at once.

Well, the end of it was that, like a fool, I accepted Stephen’s advice and
did nothing, always the easiest course and generally that which leads to
most trouble. Ten minutes afterwards I changed my mind, but then it was
too late; the Crocodile was out of signalling distance. This was
subsequent to a conversation with Hans.

“Baas,” said that worthy, in his leery fashion, “I think you have made a
mistake. You forget that these yellow devils in white robes who have run
away will come back again, and that when you return from up country, they
may be waiting for you. Now if the English man-of-war had destroyed their
town, and their slave-sheds, they might have gone somewhere else.
However,” he added, as an afterthought, glancing at the disfigured Hassan,
“we have their captain, and of course you mean to hang him, Baas. Or if
you don’t like to, leave it to me. I can hang men very well. Once, when I
was young, I helped the executioner at Cape Town.”

“Get out,” I said, but, nevertheless, I knew that Hans was right.

CHAPTER VI

THE SLAVE ROAD

The twenty bearers having arrived, in charge of five or six Arabs armed
with guns, we went to inspect them, taking Hassan with us, also the
hunters. They were a likely lot of men, though rather thin and
scared-looking, and evidently, as I could see from their physical
appearance and varying methods of dressing the hair, members of different
tribes. Having delivered them, the Arabs, or rather one of them, entered
into excited conversation with Hassan. As Sammy was not at hand I do not
know what was said, although I gathered that they were contemplating his
rescue. If so, they gave up the idea and began to run away as their
companions had done. One of them, however, a bolder fellow than the rest,
turned and fired at me. He missed by some yards, as I could tell from the
sing of the bullet, for these Arabs are execrable shots. Still his attempt
at murder irritated me so much that I determined he should not go
scot-free. I was carrying the little rifle called “Intombi,” that with
which, as Hans had reminded me, I shot the vultures at Dingaan’s kraal
many years before. Of course, I could have killed the man, but this I did
not wish to do. Or I could have shot him through the leg, but then we
should have had to nurse him or leave him to die! So I selected his right
arm, which was outstretched as he fled, and at about fifty paces put a
bullet through it just above the elbow.

“There,” I said to the Zulus as I saw it double up, “that low fellow will
never shoot at anyone again.”

“Pretty, Macumazana, very pretty!” said Mavovo, “but as you can aim so
well, why not have chosen his head? That bullet is half-wasted.”

Next I set to work to get into communication with the bearers, who
thought, poor devils, that they had been but sold to a new master. Here I
may explain that they were slaves not meant for exportation, but men kept
to cultivate Hassan’s gardens. Fortunately I found that two of them
belonged to the Mazitu people, who it may be remembered are of the same
blood as the Zulus, although they separated from the parent stock
generations ago. These men talked a dialect that I could understand,
though at first not very easily. The foundation of it was Zulu, but it had
become much mixed with the languages of other tribes whose women the
Mazitu had taken to wife.

Also there was a man who could speak some bastard Arabic, sufficiently
well for Sammy to converse with him.

I asked the Mazitus if they knew the way back to their country. They
answered yes, but it was far off, a full month’s journey. I told them that
if they would guide us thither, they should receive their freedom and good
pay, adding that if the other men served us well, they also should be set
free when we had done with them. On receiving this information the poor
wretches smiled in a sickly fashion and looked at Hassan-ben-Mohammed, who
glowered at them and us from the box on which he was seated in charge of
Mavovo.

How can we be free while that man lives, their look seemed to say. As
though to confirm their doubts Hassan, who understood or guessed what was
passing, asked by what right we were promising freedom to his slaves.

“By right of that,” I answered, pointing to the Union Jack which Stephen
still had in his hand. “Also we will pay you for them when we return,
according as they have served us.”

“Yes,” he muttered, “you will pay me for them when you return, or perhaps
before that, Englishman.”

It was three o’clock in the afternoon before we were able to make a start.
There was so much to be arranged that it might have been wiser to wait
till the morrow, had we not determined that if we could help it nothing
would induce us to spend another night in that place. Blankets were served
out to each of the bearers who, poor naked creatures, seemed quite touched
at the gift of them; the loads were apportioned, having already been
packed at Durban in cases such as one man could carry. The pack saddles
were put upon the four donkeys which proved to be none the worse for their
journey, and burdens to a weight of about 100 lbs. each fixed on them in
waterproof hide bags, besides cooking calabashes and sleeping mats which
Hans produced from somewhere. Probably he stole them out of the deserted
village, but as they were necessary to us I confess I asked no questions.
Lastly, six or eight goats which were wandering about were captured to
take with us for food till we could find game. For these I offered to pay
Hassan, but when I handed him the money he threw it down in a rage, so I
picked it up and put it in my pocket again with a clear conscience.

At length everything was more or less ready, and the question arose as to
what was to be done with Hassan. The Zulus, like Hans, wished to kill him,
as Sammy explained to him in his best Arabic. Then this murderous fellow
showed what a coward he was at heart. He flung himself upon his knees, he
wept, he invoked us in the name of the Compassionate Allah who, he
explained, was after all the same God that we worshipped, till Mavovo,
growing impatient of the noise, threatened him with his kerry, whereon he
became silent. The easy-natured Stephen was for letting him go, a plan
that seemed to have advantages, for then at least we should be rid of his
abominable company. After reflection, however, I decided that we had
better take him along with us, at any rate for a day or so, to hold as a
hostage in case the Arabs should follow and attack us. At first he refused
to stir, but the assegai of one of the Zulu hunters pressed gently against
what remained of his robe, furnished an argument that he could not resist.

At length we were off. I with the two guides went ahead. Then came the
bearers, then half of the hunters, then the four donkeys in charge of Hans
and Sammy, then Hassan and the rest of the hunters, except Mavovo, who
brought up the rear with Stephen. Needless to say, all our rifles were
loaded, and generally we were prepared for any emergency. The only path,
that which the guides said we must follow, ran by the seashore for a few
hundred yards and then turned inland through Hassan’s village where he
lived, for it seemed that the old mission house was not used by him. As we
marched along a little rocky cliff—it was not more than ten feet
high—where a deep-water channel perhaps fifty yards in breadth
separated the mainland from the island whence the slaves had been loaded
on to the Maria, some difficulty arose about the donkeys. One of
these slipped its load and another began to buck and evinced an
inclination to leap into the sea with its precious burden. The rearguard
of hunters ran to get hold of it, when suddenly there was a splash.

The brute’s in! I thought to myself, till a shout told me that not the
ass, but Hassan had departed over the cliff’s edge. Watching his
opportunity and being, it was clear, a first-rate swimmer, he had flung
himself backwards in the midst of the confusion and falling into deep
water, promptly dived. About twenty yards from the shore he came up for a
moment, then dived again heading for the island. I dare say I could have
potted him through the head with a snap shot, but somehow I did not like
to kill a man swimming for his life as though he were a hippopotamus or a
crocodile. Moreover, the boldness of the manoeuvre appealed to me. So I
refrained from firing and called to the others to do likewise.

As our late host approached the shore of the island I saw Arabs running
down the rocks to help him out of the water. Either they had not left the
place, or had re-occupied it as soon as H.M.S. Crocodile had
vanished with her prize. As it was clear that to recapture Hassan would
involve an attack upon the garrison of the island which we were in no
position to carry out, I gave orders for the march to be resumed. These,
the difficulty with the donkey having been overcome, were obeyed at once.

It was fortunate that we did not delay, for scarcely had the caravan got
into motion when the Arabs on the island began to fire at us. Luckily no
one was hit, and we were soon round a point and under cover; also their
shooting was as bad as usual. One missile, however, it was a pot-leg,
struck a donkey-load and smashed a bottle of good brandy and a tin of
preserved butter. This made me angry, so motioning to the others to
proceed I took shelter behind a tree and waited till a torn and dirty
turban, which I recognised as that of Hassan, poked up above a rock. Well,
I put a bullet through that turban, for I saw the thing fly, but
unfortunately, not through the head beneath it. Having left this P.P.C.
card on our host, I bolted from the rock and caught up the others.

Presently we passed round the village; through it I would not go for fear
of an ambuscade. It was quite a big place, enclosed with a strong fence,
but hidden from the sea by a rise in the intervening land. In the centre
was a large eastern-looking house, where doubtless Hassan dwelt with his
harem. After we had gone a little way further, to my astonishment I saw
flames breaking out from the palm-leaf roof of this house. At the time I
could not imagine how this happened, but when, a day or two later, I
observed Hans wearing a pair of large and very handsome gold pendants in
his ears and a gold bracelet on his wrist, and found that he and one of
the hunters were extremely well set up in the matter of British sovereigns—well,
I had my doubts. In due course the truth came out. He and the hunter, an
adventurous spirit, slipped through a gate in the fence without being
observed, ran across the deserted village to the house, stole the
ornaments and money from the women’s apartments and as they departed,
fired the place “in exchange for the bottle of good brandy,” as Hans
explained.

I was inclined to be angry, but after all, as we had been fired on, Hans’s
exploit became an act of war rather than a theft. So I made him and his
companion divide the gold equally with the rest of the hunters, who no
doubt had kept their eyes conveniently shut, not forgetting Sammy, and
said no more. They netted £8 apiece, which pleased them very much. In
addition to this I gave £1 each, or rather goods to that value, to the
bearers as their share of the loot.

Hassan, I remarked, was evidently a great agriculturist, for the gardens
which he worked by slave labour were beautiful, and must have brought him
in a large revenue.

Passing through these gardens we came to sloping land covered with bush.
Here the track was not too good, for the creepers hampered our progress.
Indeed, I was very glad when towards sunset we reached the crest of a hill
and emerged upon a tableland which was almost clear of trees and rose
gradually till it met the horizon. In that bush we might easily have been
attacked, but in this open country I was not so much afraid, since the
loss to the Arabs would have been great before we were overpowered. As a
matter of fact, although spies dogged us for days no assault was ever
attempted.

Finding a convenient place by a stream we camped for the night, but as it
was so fine, did not pitch the tents. Afterwards I was sorry that we had
not gone further from the water, since the mosquitoes bred by millions in
the marshes bordering the stream gave us a dreadful time. On poor Stephen,
fresh from England, they fell with peculiar ferocity, with the result that
in the morning what between the bruises left by Hassan and their bites, he
was a spectacle for men and angels. Another thing that broke our rest was
the necessity of keeping a strict watch in case the slave-traders should
elect to attack us in the hours of darkness; also to guard against the
possibility of our bearers running away and perhaps stealing the goods. It
is true that before they went to sleep I explained to them very clearly
that any of them who attempted to give us the slip would certainly be seen
and shot, whereas if they remained with us they would be treated with
every kindness. They answered through the two Mazitu that they had nowhere
to go, and did not wish to fall again into the power of Hassan, of whom
they spoke literally with shudders, pointing the while to their scarred
backs and the marks of the slave yokes upon their necks. Their
protestations seemed and indeed proved to be sincere, but of this of
course we could not then be sure.

As I was engaged at sunrise in making certain that the donkeys had not
strayed and generally that all was well, I noted through the thin mist a
little white object, which at first I thought was a small bird sitting on
an upright stick about fifty yards from the camp. I went towards it and
discovered that it was not a bird but a folded piece of paper stuck in a
cleft wand, such as natives often use for the carrying of letters. I
opened the paper and with great difficulty, for the writing within was bad
Portuguese, read as follows:

 “English Devils.—Do not think that you have escaped me. I know
  where you are going, and if you live through the journey it will
  be but to die at my hands after all. I tell you that I have at my
  command three hundred brave men armed with guns who worship Allah
  and thirst for the blood of Christian dogs. With these I will
  follow, and if you fall into my hands alive, you shall learn what
  it is to die by fire or pinned over ant-heaps in the sun. Let us
  see if your English man-of-war will help you then, or your false
  God either. Misfortune go with you, white-skinned robbers of
  honest men!”
 

This pleasing epistle was unsigned, but its anonymous author was not hard
to identify. I showed it to Stephen who was so infuriated at its contents
that he managed to dab some ammonia with which he was treating his
mosquito bites into his eye. When at length the pain was soothed by
bathing, we concocted this answer:

 “Murderer, known among men as Hassan-ben-Mohammed—Truly we sinned
  in not hanging you when you were in our power. Oh! wolf who grows
  fat upon the blood of the innocent, this is a fault that we shall
  not commit again. Your death is near to you and we believe at our
  hands. Come with all your villains whenever you will. The more
  there are of them the better we shall be pleased, who would rather
  rid the world of many fiends than of a few,

                           “Till we meet again, Allan Quatermain,
                                                  Stephen Somers.”
 

“Neat, if not Christian,” I said when I had read the letter over.

“Yes,” replied Stephen, “but perhaps just a little bombastic in tone. If
that gentleman did arrive with three hundred armed men—eh?”

“Then, my boy,” I answered, “in this way or in that we shall thrash him. I
don’t often have an inspiration, but I’ve got one now, and it is to the
effect that Mr. Hassan has not very long to live and that we shall be
intimately connected with his end. Wait till you have seen a slave caravan
and you will understand my feelings. Also I know these gentry. That little
prophecy of ours will get upon his nerves and give him a foretaste of
things. Hans, go and set this letter in that cleft stick. The postman will
call for it before long.”

As it happened, within a few days we did see a slave caravan, some of the
merchandise of the estimable Hassan.

We had been making good progress through a beautiful and healthy country,
steering almost due west, or rather a little to the north of west. The
land was undulating and rich, well-watered and only bush-clad in the
neighbourhood of the streams, the higher ground being open, of a park-like
character, and dotted here and there with trees. It was evident that once,
and not very long ago, the population had been dense, for we came to the
remains of many villages, or rather towns with large market-places. Now,
however, these were burned with fire, or deserted, or occupied only by a
few old bodies who got a living from the overgrown gardens. These poor
people, who sat desolate and crooning in the sun, or perhaps worked feebly
at the once fertile fields, would fly screaming at our approach, for to
them men armed with guns must of necessity be slave-traders.

Still from time to time we contrived to catch some of them, and through
one member of our party or the other to get at their stories. Really it
was all one story. The slaving Arabs, on this pretext or on that, had set
tribe against tribe. Then they sided with the stronger and conquered the
weaker by aid of their terrible guns, killing out the old folk and taking
the young men, women and children (except the infants whom they butchered)
to be sold as slaves. It seemed that the business had begun about twenty
years before, when Hassan-ben-Mohammed and his companions arrived at Kilwa
and drove away the missionary who had built a station there.

At first this trade was extremely easy and profitable, since the raw
material lay near at hand in plenty. By degrees, however, the neighbouring
communities had been worked out. Countless numbers of them were killed,
while the pick of the population passed under the slave yoke, and those of
them who survived, vanished in ships to unknown lands. Thus it came about
that the slavers were obliged to go further afield and even to conduct
their raids upon the borders of the territory of the great Mazitu people,
the inland race of Zulu origin of whom I have spoken. According to our
informants, it was even rumoured that they proposed shortly to attack
these Mazitus in force, relying on their guns to give them the victory and
open to them a new and almost inexhaustible store of splendid human
merchandise. Meanwhile they were cleaning out certain small tribes which
hitherto had escaped them, owing to the fact that they had their residence
in bush or among difficult hills.

The track we followed was the recognised slave road. Of this we soon
became aware by the numbers of skeletons which we found lying in the tall
grass at its side, some of them with heavy slave-sticks still upon their
wrists. These, I suppose, had died from exhaustion, but others, as their
split skulls showed had been disposed of by their captors.

On the eighth day of our march we struck the track of a slave caravan. It
had been travelling towards the coast, but for some reason or other had
turned back. This may have been because its leaders had been warned of the
approach of our party. Or perhaps they had heard that another caravan,
which was at work in a different district, was drawing near, bringing its
slaves with it, and wished to wait for its arrival in order that they
might join forces.

The spoor of these people was easy to follow. First we found the body of a
boy of about ten. Then vultures revealed to us the remains of two young
men, one of whom had been shot and the other killed by a blow from an axe.
Their corpses were roughly hidden beneath some grass, I know not why. A
mile or two further on we heard a child wailing and found it by following
its cries. It was a little girl of about four who had been pretty, though
now she was but a living skeleton. When she saw us she scrambled away on
all fours like a monkey. Stephen followed her, while I, sick at heart,
went to get a tin of preserved milk from our stores. Presently I heard him
call to me in a horrified voice. Rather reluctantly, for I knew that he
must have found something dreadful, I pushed my way through the bush to
where he was. There, bound to the trunk of a tree, sat a young woman,
evidently the mother of the child, for it clung to her leg.

Thank God she was still living, though she must have died before another
day dawned. We cut her loose, and the Zulu hunters, who are kind folk
enough when they are not at war, carried her to camp. In the end with much
trouble we saved the lives of that mother and child. I sent for the two
Mazitus, with whom I could by now talk fairly well, and asked them why the
slavers did these things.

They shrugged their shoulders and one of them answered with a rather
dreadful laugh:

“Because, Chief, these Arabs, being black-hearted, kill those who can walk
no more, or tie them up to die. If they let them go they might recover and
escape, and it makes the Arabs sad that those who have been their slaves
should live to be free and happy.”

“Does it? Does it indeed?” exclaimed Stephen with a snort of rage that
reminded me of his father. “Well, if ever I get a chance I’ll make them
sad with a vengeance.”

Stephen was a tender-hearted young man, and for all his soft and indolent
ways, an awkward customer when roused.

Within forty-eight hours he got his chance, thus: That day we camped early
for two reasons. The first was that the woman and child we had rescued were
so weak they could not walk without rest, and we had no men to spare to
carry them; the second that we came to an ideal spot to pass the night. It
was, as usual, a deserted village through which ran a beautiful stream of
water. Here we took possession of some outlying huts with a fence round
them, and as Mavovo had managed to shoot a fat eland cow and her
half-grown calf, we prepared to have a regular feast. Whilst Sammy was
making some broth for the rescued woman, and Stephen and I smoked our
pipes and watched him, Hans slipped through the broken gate of the thorn
fence, or boma, and announced that Arabs were coming, two lots of
them with many slaves.

We ran out to look and saw that, as he had said, two caravans were
approaching, or rather had reached the village, but at some distance from
us, and were now camping on what had once been the market-place. One of
these was that whose track we had followed, although during the last few
hours of our march we had struck away from it, chiefly because we could
not bear such sights as I have described. It seemed to comprise about two
hundred and fifty slaves and over forty guards, all black men carrying
guns, and most of them by their dress Arabs, or bastard Arabs. In the
second caravan, which approached from another direction, were not more
than one hundred slaves and about twenty or thirty captors.

“Now,” I said, “let us eat our dinner and then, if you like, we will go to
call upon those gentlemen, just to show that we are not afraid of them.
Hans, get the flag and tie it to the top of that tree; it will show them
to what country we belong.”

Up went the Union Jack duly, and presently through our glasses we saw the
slavers running about in a state of excitement; also we saw the poor
slaves turn and stare at the bit of flapping bunting and then begin to
talk to each other. It struck me as possible that someone among their
number had seen a Union Jack in the hands of an English traveller, or had
heard of it as flying upon ships or at points on the coast, and what it
meant to slaves. Or they may have understood some of the remarks of the
Arabs, which no doubt were pointed and explanatory. At any rate, they
turned and stared till the Arabs ran among them with sjambocks, that is,
whips of hippopotamus hide, and suppressed their animated conversation
with many blows.

At first I thought that they would break camp and march away; indeed, they
began to make preparations to do this, then abandoned the idea, probably
because the slaves were exhausted and there was no other water they could
reach before nightfall. In the end they settled down and lit cooking
fires. Also, as I observed, they took precautions against attack by
stationing sentries and forcing the slaves to construct a boma of
thorns about their camp.

“Well,” said Stephen, when we had finished our dinner, “are you ready for
that call?”

“No!” I answered, “I do not think that I am. I have been considering
things, and concluded that we had better leave well alone. By this time
those Arabs will know all the story of our dealings with their worthy
master, Hassan, for no doubt he has sent messengers to them. Therefore, if
we go to their camp, they may shoot us at sight. Or, if they receive us
well, they may offer hospitality and poison us, or cut our throats
suddenly. Our position might be better, still it is one that I believe
they would find difficult to take. So, in my opinion, we had better stop
still and await developments.”

Stephen grumbled something about my being over-cautious, but I took no
heed of him. One thing I did do, however. Sending for Hans, I told him to
take one of the Mazitu—I dared not risk them both for they were our
guides—and another of the natives whom we had borrowed from Hassan,
a bold fellow who knew all the local languages, and creep down to the
slavers’ camp as soon as it was quite dark. There I ordered him to find
out what he could, and if possible to mix with the slaves and explain that
we were their friends. Hans nodded, for this was exactly the kind of task
that appealed to him, and went off to make his preparations.

Stephen and I also made some preparations in the way of strengthening our
defences, building large watch-fires and setting sentries.

The night fell, and Hans with his companions departed stealthily as
snakes. The silence was intense, save for the occasional wailings of the
slaves, which now and again broke out in bursts of melancholy sound, “La-lu-La-lua!”
and then died away, to be followed by horrid screams as the Arabs laid
their lashes upon some poor wretch. Once too, a shot was fired.

“They have seen Hans,” said Stephen.

“I think not,” I answered, “for if so there would have been more than one
shot. Either it was an accident or they were murdering a slave.”

After this nothing more happened for a long while, till at length Hans
seemed to rise out of the ground in front of me, and behind him I saw the
figures of the Mazitu and the other man.

“Tell your story,” I said.

“Baas, it is this. Between us we have learned everything. The Arabs know
all about you and what men you have. Hassan has sent them orders to kill
you. It is well that you did not go to visit them, for certainly you would
have been murdered. We crept near and overheard their talk. They purpose
to attack us at dawn to-morrow morning unless we leave this place before,
which they will know of as we are being watched.”

“And if so, what then?” I asked.

“Then, Baas, they will attack as we are making up the caravan, or
immediately afterwards as we begin to march.”

“Indeed. Anything more, Hans?”

“Yes, Baas. These two men crept among the slaves and spoke with them. They
are very sad, those slaves, and many of them have died of heart-pain
because they have been taken from their homes and do not know where they
are going. I saw one die just now; a young woman. She was talking to
another woman and seemed quite well, only tired, till suddenly she said in
a loud voice, ‘I am going to die, that I may come back as a spirit and
bewitch these devils till they are spirits too.’ Then she called upon the
fetish of her tribe, put her hands to her breast and fell down dead. At
least,” added Hans, spitting reflectively, “she did not fall quite down
because the slave-stick held her head off the ground. The Arabs were very
angry, both because she had cursed them and was dead. One of them came and
kicked her body and afterwards shot her little boy who was sick, because
the mother had cursed them. But fortunately he did not see us, because we
were in the dark far from the fire.”

“Anything more, Hans?”

“One thing, Baas. These two men lent the knives you gave them to two of
the boldest among the slaves that they might cut the cords of the
slave-sticks and the other cords with which they were tied, and then pass
them down the lines, that their brothers might do the same. But perhaps
the Arabs will find it out, and then the Mazitu and the other must lose
their knives. That is all. Has the Baas a little tobacco?”

“Now, Stephen,” I said when Hans had gone and I had explained everything,
“there are two courses open to us. Either we can try to give these
gentlemen the slip at once, in which case we must leave the woman and
child to their fate, or we can stop where we are and wait to be attacked.”

“I won’t run,” said Stephen sullenly; “it would be cowardly to desert that
poor creature. Also we should have a worse chance marching. Remember Hans
said that they are watching us.”

“Then you would wait to be attacked?”

“Isn’t there a third alternative, Quatermain? To attack them?”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “Let us send for Mavovo.”

Presently he came and sat down in front of us, while I set out the case to
him.

“It is the fashion of my people to attack rather than to be attacked, and
yet, my father, in this case my heart is against it. Hans” (he called him
Inblatu, a Zulu word which means Spotted Snake, that was the
Hottentot’s Kaffir name) “says that there are quite sixty of the yellow
dogs, all armed with guns, whereas we have not more than fifteen, for we
cannot trust the slave men. Also he says that they are within a strong
fence and awake, with spies out, so that it will be difficult to surprise
them. But here, father, we are in a strong fence and cannot be surprised.
Also men who torture and kill women and children, except in war must, I
think, be cowards, and will come on faintly against good shooting, if
indeed they come at all. Therefore, I say, ‘Wait till the buffalo shall
either charge or run.’ But the word is with you, Macumazana, wise
Watcher-by-Night, not with me, your hunter. Speak, you who are old in war,
and I will obey.”

“You argue well,” I answered; “also another reason comes to my mind. Those
Arab brutes may get behind the slaves, of whom we should butcher a lot
without hurting them. Stephen, I think we had better see the thing through
here.”

“All right, Quatermain. Only I hope that Mavovo is wrong in thinking that
those blackguards may change their minds and run away.”

“Really, young man, you are becoming very blood-thirsty—for an
orchid grower,” I remarked, looking at him. “Now, for my part, I devoutly
hope that Mavovo is right, for let me tell you, if he isn’t it may be a
nasty job.”

“I’ve always been peaceful enough up to the present,” replied Stephen.
“But the sight of those unhappy wretches of slaves with their heads cut
open, and of the woman tied to a tree to starve——”

“Make you wish to usurp the functions of God Almighty,” I said. “Well, it
is a natural impulse and perhaps, in the circumstances, one that will not
displease Him. And now, as we have made up our minds what we are going to
do, let’s get to business so that these Arab gentlemen may find their
breakfast ready when they come to call.”

CHAPTER VII

THE RUSH OF THE SLAVES

Well, we did all that we could in the way of making ready. After we had
strengthened the thorn fence of our boma as much as possible and
lit several large fires outside of it to give us light, I allotted his
place to each of the hunters and saw that their rifles were in order and
that they had plenty of ammunition. Then I made Stephen lie down to sleep,
telling him that I would wake him to watch later on. This, however, I had
no intention of doing as I wanted him to rise fresh and with a steady
nerve on the occasion of his first fight.

As soon as I saw that his eyes were shut I sat down on a box to think. To
tell the truth, I was not altogether happy in my mind. To begin with I did
not know how the twenty bearers would behave under fire. They might be
seized with panic and rush about, in which case I determined to let them
out of the boma to take their chance, for panic is a catching
thing.

A worse matter was our rather awkward position. There were a good many
trees round the camp among which an attacking force could take cover. But
what I feared much more than this, or even than the reedy banks of the
stream along which they could creep out of reach of our bullets, was a
sloping stretch of land behind us, covered with thick grass and scrub and
rising to a crest about two hundred yards away. Now if the Arabs got round
to this crest they would fire straight into our boma and make it
untenable. Also if the wind were in their favour, they might burn us out
or attack under the clouds of smoke. As a matter of fact, by the special
mercy of Providence, none of these things happened, for a reason which I
will explain presently.

In the case of a night, or rather a dawn attack, I have always found that
hour before the sky begins to lighten very trying indeed. As a rule
everything that can be done is done, so that one must sit idle. Also it is
then that both the physical and the moral qualities are at their lowest
ebb, as is the mercury in the thermometer. The night is dying, the day is
not yet born. All nature feels the influence of that hour. Then bad dreams
come, then infants wake and call, then memories of those who are lost to
us arise, then the hesitating soul often takes its plunge into the depths
of the Unknown. It is not wonderful, therefore, that on this occasion the
wheels of Time drave heavily for me. I knew that the morning was at hand
by many signs. The sleeping bearers turned and muttered in their sleep, a
distant lion ceased its roaring and departed to its own place, an
alert-minded cock crew somewhere, and our donkeys rose and began to pull
at their tether-ropes. As yet, however, it was quite dark. Hans crept up
to me; I saw his wrinkled, yellow face in the light of the watch-fire.

“I smell the dawn,” he said and vanished again.

Mavovo appeared, his massive frame silhouetted against the blackness.

“Watcher-by-Night, the night is done,” he said. “If they come at all, the
enemy should soon be here.”

Saluting, he too passed away into the dark, and presently I heard the
sounds of spear-blades striking together and of rifles being cocked.

I went to Stephen and woke him. He sat up yawning, muttered something
about greenhouses; then remembering, said:

“Are those Arabs coming? We are in for a fight at last. Jolly, old fellow,
isn’t it?”

“You are a jolly old fool!” I answered inconsequently; and marched off in
a rage.

My mind was uneasy about this inexperienced young man. If anything should
happen to him, what should I say to his father? Well, in that event, it
was probable that something would happen to me too. Very possibly we
should both be dead in an hour. Certainly I had no intention of allowing
myself to be taken alive by those slaving devils. Hassan’s remarks about
fires and ant-heaps and the sun were too vividly impressed upon my memory.

In another five minutes everybody was up, though it required kicks to
rouse most of the bearers from their slumbers. They, poor men, were
accustomed to the presence of Death and did not suffer him to disturb
their sleep. Still I noted that they muttered together and seemed alarmed.

“If they show signs of treachery, you must kill them,” I said to Mavovo,
who nodded in his grave, silent fashion.

Only we left the rescued slave-woman and her child plunged in the stupor
of exhaustion in a corner of the camp. What was the use of disturbing her?

Sammy, who seemed far from comfortable, brought two pannikins of coffee to
Stephen and myself.

“This is a momentous occasion, Messrs. Quatermain and Somers,” he said as
he gave us the coffee, and I noted that his hand shook and his teeth
chattered. “The cold is extreme,” he went on in his copybook English by
way of explaining these physical symptoms which he saw I had observed.
“Mr. Quatermain, it is all very well for you to paw the ground and smell
the battle from afar, as is written in the Book of Job. But I was not
brought up to the trade and take it otherwise. Indeed I wish I was back at
the Cape, yes, even within the whitewashed walls of the Place of
Detention.”

“So do I,” I muttered, keeping my right foot on the ground with
difficulty.

But Stephen laughed outright and asked:

“What will you do, Sammy, when the fighting begins?”

“Mr. Somers,” he answered, “I have employed some wakeful hours in making a
hole behind that tree-trunk, through which I hope bullets will not pass.
There, being a man of peace, I shall pray for our success.”

“And if the Arabs get in, Sammy?”

“Then, sir, under Heaven, I shall trust to the fleetness of my legs.”

I could stand it no longer, my right foot flew up and caught Sammy in the
place at which I had aimed. He vanished, casting a reproachful look behind
him.

Just then a terrible clamour arose in the slavers’ camp which hitherto had
been very silent, and just then also the first light of dawn glinted on
the barrels of our guns.

“Look out!” I cried, as I gulped down the last of my coffee, “there’s
something going on there.”

The clamour grew louder and louder till it seemed to fill the skies with a
concentrated noise of curses and shrieking. Distinct from it, as it were,
I heard shouts of alarm and rage, and then came the sounds of gunshots,
yells of agony and the thud of many running feet. By now the light was
growing fast, as it does when once it comes in these latitudes. Three more
minutes, and through the grey mist of the dawn we saw dozens of black
figures struggling up the slope towards us. Some seemed to have logs of
wood tied behind them, others crawled along on all fours, others dragged
children by the hand, and all yelled at the top of their voices.

“The slaves are attacking us,” said Stephen, lifting his rifle.

“Don’t shoot,” I cried. “I think they have broken loose and are taking
refuge with us.”

I was right. These unfortunates had used the two knives which our men
smuggled to them to good purpose. Having cut their bonds during the night
they were running to seek the protection of the Englishmen and their flag.
On they surged, a hideous mob, the slave-sticks still fast to the necks of
many of them, for they had not found time or opportunity to loose them
all, while behind came the Arabs firing. The position was clearly very
serious, for if they burst into our camp, we should be overwhelmed by
their rush and fall victims to the bullets of their captors.

“Hans,” I cried, “take the men who were with you last night and try to
lead those slaves round behind us. Quick! Quick now before we are stamped
flat.”

Hans darted away, and presently I saw him and the two other men running
towards the approaching crowd, Hans waving a shirt or some other white
object to attract their attention. At the time the foremost of them had
halted and were screaming, “Mercy, English! Save us, English!” having
caught sight of the muzzles of our guns.

This was a fortunate occurrence indeed, for otherwise Hans and his
companions could never have stopped them. The next thing I saw was the
white shirt bearing away to the left on a line which led past the fence of
our boma into the scrub and high grass behind the camp. After it
struggled and scrambled the crowd of slaves like a flock of sheep after
the bell-wether. To them Hans’s shirt was a kind of “white helmet of
Navarre.”

So that danger passed by. Some of the slaves had been struck by the Arab
bullets or trodden down in the rush or collapsed from weakness, and at
those of them who still lived the pursuers were firing. One woman, who had
fallen under the weight of the great slave-stick which was fastened about
her throat, was crawling forward on her hands and knees. An Arab fired at
her and the bullet struck the ground under her stomach but without hurting
her, for she wriggled forward more quickly. I was sure that he would shoot
again, and watched. Presently, for by now the light was good, I saw him, a
tall fellow in a white robe, step from behind the shelter of a banana-tree
about a hundred and fifty yards away, and take a careful aim at the woman.
But I too took aim and—well, I am not bad at this kind of
snap-shooting when I try. That Arab’s gun never went off. Only he went up
two feet or more into the air and fell backwards, shot through the head
which was the part of his person that I had covered.

The hunters uttered a low “Ow!” of approval, while Stephen, in a
sort of ecstasy, exclaimed:

“Oh! what a heavenly shot!”

“Not bad, but I shouldn’t have fired it,” I answered, “for they haven’t
attacked us yet. It is a kind of declaration of war, and,” I added, as
Stephen’s sun-helmet leapt from his head, “there’s the answer. Down, all
of you, and fire through the loopholes.”

Then the fight began. Except for its grand finale it wasn’t really much of
a fight when compared with one or two we had afterwards on this
expedition. But, on the other hand, its character was extremely awkward
for us. The Arabs made one rush at the beginning, shouting on Allah as
they came. But though they were plucky villains they did not repeat that
experiment. Either by good luck or good management Stephen knocked over
two of them with his double-barrelled rifle, and I also emptied my
large-bore breech-loader—the first I ever owned—among them,
not without results, while the hunters made a hit or two.

After this the Arabs took cover, getting behind trees and, as I had
feared, hiding in the reeds on the banks of the stream. Thence they
harassed us a great deal, for amongst them were some very decent shots.
Indeed, had we not taken the precaution of lining the thorn fence with a
thick bank of earth and sods, we should have fared badly. As it was, one
of the hunters was killed, the bullet passing through the loophole and
striking him in the throat as he was about to fire, while the unfortunate
bearers who were on rather higher ground, suffered a good deal, two of
them being dispatched outright and four wounded. After this I made the
rest of them lie flat on the ground close against the fence, in such a
fashion that we could fire over their bodies.

Soon it became evident that there were more of these Arabs than we had
thought, for quite fifty of them were firing from different places.
Moreover, by slow degrees they were advancing with the evident object of
outflanking us and gaining the high ground behind. Some of them, of
course, we stopped as they rushed from cover to cover, but this kind of
shooting was as difficult as that at bolting rabbits across a woodland
ride, and to be honest, I must say that I alone was much good at the game,
for here my quick eye and long practice told.

Within an hour the position had grown very serious indeed, so much so that
we found it necessary to consider what should be done. I pointed out that
with our small number a charge against the scattered riflemen, who were
gradually surrounding us, would be worse than useless, while it was almost
hopeless to expect to hold the boma till nightfall. Once the Arabs
got behind us, they could rake us from the higher ground. Indeed, for the
last half-hour we had directed all our efforts to preventing them from
passing this boma, which, fortunately, the stream on the one side
and a stretch of quite open land on the other made it very difficult for
them to do without more loss than they cared to face.

“I fear there is only one thing for it,” I said at length, during a pause
in the attack while the Arabs were either taking counsel or waiting for
more ammunition, “to abandon the camp and everything and bolt up the hill.
As those fellows must be tired and we are all good runners, we may save
our lives in that way.”

“How about the wounded,” asked Stephen, “and the slave-woman and child?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, looking down.

Of course I did know very well, but here, in an acute form, arose the
ancient question: Were we to perish for the sake of certain individuals in
whom we had no great interest and whom we could not save by remaining with
them? If we stayed where we were our end seemed fairly certain, whereas if
we ran for it, we had a good chance of escape. But this involved the
desertion of several injured bearers and a woman and child whom we had
picked up starving, all of whom would certainly be massacred, save perhaps
the woman and child.

As these reflections flitted through my brain I remembered that a drunken
Frenchman named Leblanc, whom I had known in my youth and who had been a
friend of Napoleon, or so he said, told me that the great emperor when he
was besieging Acre in the Holy Land, was forced to retreat. Being unable
to carry off his wounded men, he left them in a monastery on Mount Carmel,
each with a dose of poison by his side. Apparently they did not take the
poison, for according to Leblanc, who said he was present there (not as a
wounded man), the Turks came and butchered them. So Napoleon chose to save
his own life and that of his army at the expense of his wounded. But,
after all, I reflected, he was no shining example to Christian men and I
hadn’t time to find any poison. In a few words I explained the situation
to Mavovo, leaving out the story of Napoleon, and asked his advice.

“We must run,” he answered. “Although I do not like running, life is more
than stores, and he who lives may one day pay his debts.”

“But the wounded, Mavovo; we cannot carry them.”

“I will see to them, Macumazana; it is the fortune of war. Or if they
prefer it, we can leave them—to be nursed by the Arabs,” which of
course was just Napoleon and his poison over again.

I confess that I was about to assent, not wishing that I and Stephen,
especially Stephen, should be potted in an obscure engagement with some
miserable slave-traders, when something happened.

It will be remembered that shortly after dawn Hans, using a shirt for a
flag, had led the fugitive slaves past the camp up to the hill behind.
There he and they had vanished, and from that moment to this we had seen
nothing of him or them. Now of a sudden he reappeared still waving the
shirt. After him rushed a great mob of naked men, two hundred of them
perhaps, brandishing slave-sticks, stones and the boughs of trees. When
they had almost reached the boma whence we watched them amazed,
they split into two bodies, half of them passing to our left, apparently
under the command of the Mazitu who had accompanied Hans to the
slave-camp, and the other half to the right following the old Hottentot
himself. I stared at Mavovo, for I was too thunderstruck to speak.

“Ah!” said Mavovo, “that Spotted Snake of yours” (he referred to Hans),
“is great in his own way, for he has even been able to put courage into
the hearts of slaves. Do you not understand, my father, that they are
about to attack those Arabs, yes, and to pull them down, as wild dogs do a
buffalo calf?”

It was true: this was the Hottentot’s superb design. Moreover, it
succeeded. Up on the hillside he had watched the progress of the fight and
seen how it must end. Then, through the interpreter who was with him, he
harangued those slaves, pointing out to them that we, their white friends,
were about to be overwhelmed, and that they must either strike for
themselves, or return to the yoke. Among them were some who had been
warriors in their own tribes, and through these he stirred the others.
They seized the slave-sticks from which they had been freed, pieces of
rock, anything that came to their hands, and at a given signal charged,
leaving only the women and children behind them.

Seeing them come the scattered Arabs began to fire at them, killing some,
but thereby revealing their own hiding-places. At these the slaves rushed.
They hurled themselves upon the Arabs; they tore them, they dashed out
their brains in such fashion that within another five minutes quite
two-thirds of them were dead; and the rest, of whom we took some toll with
our rifles as they bolted from cover, were in full flight.

It was a terrible vengeance. Never did I witness a more savage scene than
that of these outraged men wreaking their wrongs upon their tormentors. I
remember that when most of the Arabs had been killed and a few were
escaped, the slaves found one, I think it was the captain of the gang, who
had hidden himself in a little patch of dead reeds washed up by the
stream. Somehow they managed to fire these; I expect that Hans, who had
remained discreetly in the background after the fighting began, emerged
when it was over and gave them a match. In due course out came the
wretched Arab. Then they flung themselves on him as marching ants do upon
a caterpillar, and despite his cries for mercy, tore him to fragments,
literally to fragments. Being what they were, it was hard to blame them.
If we had seen our parents shot, our infants pitilessly butchered, our
homes destroyed and our women and children marched off in the slave-sticks
to be sold into bondage, should we not have done the same? I think so,
although we are not ignorant savages.

Thus our lives were saved by those whom we had tried to save, and for once
justice was done even in those dark parts of Africa, for in that time they
were dark indeed. Had it not been for Hans and the courage which he
managed to inspire into the hearts of these crushed blacks, I have little
doubt but that before nightfall we should have been dead, for I do not
think that any attempt at retreat would have proved successful. And if it
had, what would have happened to us in that wild country surrounded by
enemies and with only the few rounds of ammunition that we could have
carried in our flight?

“Ah! Baas,” said the Hottentot a little while later, squinting at me with
his bead-like eyes, “after all you did well to listen to my prayer and
bring me with you. Old Hans is a drunkard, yes, or at least he used to be,
and old Hans gambles, yes, and perhaps old Hans will go to hell. But
meanwhile old Hans can think, as he thought one day before the attack on
Maraisfontein, as he thought one day on the Hill of Slaughter by Dingaan’s
kraal, and as he thought this morning up there among the bushes. Oh! he
knew how it must end. He saw that those dogs of Arabs were cutting down a
tree to make a bridge across that deep stream and get round to the high
ground at the back of you, whence they would have shot you all in five
minutes. And now, Baas, my stomach feels very queer. There was no
breakfast on the hillside and the sun was very hot. I think that just one
tot of brandy—oh! I know, I promised not to drink, but if you
give it me the sin is yours, not mine.”

Well, I gave him the tot, a stiff one, which he drank quite neat, although
it was against my principles, and locked up the bottle afterwards. Also I
shook the old fellow’s hand and thanked him, which seemed to please him
very much, for he muttered something to the effect that it was nothing,
since if I had died he would have died too, and therefore he was thinking
of himself, not of me. Also two big tears trickled down his snub nose, but
these may have been produced by the brandy.

Well, we were the victors and elated as may be imagined, for we knew that
the few slavers who had escaped would not attack us again. Our first
thought was for food, for it was now past midday and we were starving. But
dinner presupposed a cook, which reminded us of Sammy. Stephen, who was in
such a state of jubilation that he danced rather than walked, the helmet
with a bullet-hole through it stuck ludicrously upon the back of his head,
started to look for him, and presently called to me in an alarmed voice. I
went to the back of the camp and, staring into a hole like a small grave,
that had been hollowed behind a solitary thorn tree, at the bottom of
which lay a huddled heap, I found him. It was Sammy to all appearance. We
got hold of him, and up he came, limp, senseless, but still holding in his
hand a large, thick Bible, bound in boards. Moreover, in the exact centre
of this Bible was a bullet-hole, or rather a bullet which had passed
through the stout cover and buried itself in the paper behind. I remember
that the point of it reached to the First Book of Samuel.

As for Sammy himself, he seemed to be quite uninjured, and indeed after we
had poured some water on him—he was never fond of water—he
revived quickly enough. Then we found out what had happened.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I was seated in my place of refuge, being as I have
told you a man of peace, enjoying the consolation of religion”—he
was very pious in times of trouble. “At length the firing slackened, and I
ventured to peep out, thinking that perhaps the foe had fled, holding the
Book in front of my face in case of accidents. After that I remember no
more.”

“No,” said Stephen, “for the bullet hit the Bible and the Bible hit your
head and knocked you silly.”

“Ah!” said Sammy, “how true is what I was taught that the Book shall be a
shield of defence to the righteous. Now I understand why I was moved to
bring the thick old Bible that belonged to my mother in heaven, and not
the little thin one given to me by the Sunday school teacher, through
which the ball of the enemy would have passed.”

Then he went off to cook the dinner.

Certainly it was a wonderful escape, though whether this was a direct
reward of his piety, as he thought, is another matter.

As soon as we had eaten, we set to work to consider our position, of which
the crux was what to do with the slaves. There they sat in groups outside
the fence, many of them showing traces of the recent conflict, and stared
at us stupidly. Then of a sudden, as though with one voice, they began to
clamour for food.

“How are we to feed several hundred people?” asked Stephen.

“The slavers must have done it somehow,” I answered. “Let’s go and search
their camp.”

So we went, followed by our hungry clients, and, in addition to many more
things, to our delight found a great store of rice, mealies and other
grain, some of which was ground into meal. Of this we served out an ample
supply together with salt, and soon the cooking pots were full of
porridge. My word! how those poor creatures did eat, nor, although it was
necessary to be careful, could we find it in our hearts to stint them of
the first full meal that had passed their lips after weeks of starvation.
When at length they were satisfied we addressed them, thanking them for
their bravery, telling them that they were free and asking what they meant
to do.

Upon this point they seemed to have but one idea. They said that they
would come with us who were their protectors. Then followed a great indaba,
or consultation, which really I have not time to set out. The end of it
was that we agreed that so many of them as wished should accompany us till
they reached country that they knew, when they would be at liberty to
depart to their own homes. Meanwhile we divided up the blankets and other
stores of the Arabs, such as trade goods and beads, among them, and then
left them to their own devices, after placing a guard over the foodstuffs.
For my part I hoped devoutly that in the morning we should find them gone.

After this we returned to our boma just in time to assist at a sad
ceremony, that of the burial of my hunter who had been shot through the
head. His companions had dug a deep hole outside the fence and within a
few yards of where he fell. In this they placed him in a sitting position
with his face turned towards Zululand, setting by his side two gourds that
belonged to him, one filled with water and the other with grain. Also they
gave him a blanket and his two assegais, tearing the blanket and breaking
the handles of the spears, to “kill” them as they said. Then quietly
enough they threw in the earth about him and filled the top of the hole
with large stones to prevent the hyenas from digging him up. This done,
one by one, they walked past the grave, each man stopping to bid him
farewell by name. Mavovo, who came last, made a little speech, telling the
deceased to namba kachle, that is, go comfortably to the land of
ghosts, as, he added, no doubt he would do who had died as a man should.
He requested him, moreover, if he returned as a spirit, to bring good and
not ill-fortune on us, since otherwise when he, Mavovo, became a spirit in
his turn, he would have words to say to him on the matter. In conclusion,
he remarked that as his, Mavovo’s Snake, had foretold this event at
Durban, a fact with which the deceased would now be acquainted he, the
said deceased, could never complain of not having received value for the
shilling he had paid as a divining fee.

“Yes,” exclaimed one of the hunters with a note of anxiety in his voice,
“but your Snake mentioned six of us to you, O doctor!”

“It did,” replied Mavovo, drawing a pinch of snuff up his uninjured
nostril, “and our brother there was the first of the six. Be not afraid,
the other five will certainly join him in due course, for my Snake must
speak the truth. Still, if anyone is in a hurry,” and he glared round the
little circle, “let him stop and talk with me alone. Perhaps I could
arrange that his turn——” here he stopped, for they were all
gone.

“Glad I didn’t pay a shilling to have my fortune told by Mavovo,”
said Stephen, when we were back in the boma, “but why did they bury
his pots and spears with him?”

“To be used by the spirit on its journey,” I answered. “Although they do
not quite know it, these Zulus believe, like all the rest of the world,
that man lives on elsewhere.”

CHAPTER VIII

THE MAGIC MIRROR

I did not sleep very well that night, for now that the danger was over I
found that the long strain of it had told upon my nerves. Also there were
many noises. Thus, the bearers who were shot had been handed over to their
companions, who disposed of them in a simple fashion, namely by throwing
them into the bush where they attracted the notice of hyenas. Then the
four wounded men who lay near to me groaned a good deal, or when they were
not groaning uttered loud prayers to their local gods. We had done the
best we could for these unlucky fellows. Indeed, that kind-hearted little
coward, Sammy, who at some time in his career served as a dresser in a
hospital, had tended their wounds, none of which were mortal, very well
indeed, and from time to time rose to minister to them.

But what disturbed me most was the fearful hubbub which came from the camp
below. Many of the tropical African tribes are really semi-nocturnal in
their habits, I suppose because there the night is cooler than the day,
and on any great occasion this tendency asserts itself.

Thus every one of these freed slaves seemed to be howling his loudest to
an accompaniment of clashing iron pots or stones, which, lacking their
native drums, they beat with sticks.

Moreover, they had lit large fires, about which they flitted in an ominous
and unpleasant fashion, that reminded me of some mediaeval pictures of
hell, which I had seen in an old book.

At last I could stand it no longer, and kicking Hans who, curled up like a
dog, slept at my feet, asked him what was going on. His answer caused me
to regret the question.

“Plenty of those slaves cannibal men, Baas. Think they eat the Arabs and
like them very much,” he said with a yawn, then went to sleep again.

I did not continue the conversation.

When at length we made a start on the following morning the sun was high
over us. Indeed, there was a great deal to do. The guns and ammunition of
the dead Arabs had to be collected; the ivory, of which they carried a
good store, must be buried, for to take it with us was impossible, and the
loads apportioned.[*] Also it was necessary to make litters for the
wounded, and to stir up the slaves from their debauch, into the nature of
which I made no further inquiries, was no easy task. On mustering them I
found that a good number had vanished during the night, where to I do not
know. Still a mob of well over two hundred people, a considerable portion
of whom were women and children, remained, whose one idea seemed to be to
accompany us wherever we might wander. So with this miscellaneous
following at length we started.

[*] To my sorrow we never saw this ivory again.—A.Q.

To describe our adventures during the next month would be too long if not
impossible, for to tell the truth, after the lapse of so many years, these
have become somewhat entangled in my mind. Our great difficulty was to
feed such a multitude, for the store of rice and grain, upon which we were
quite unable to keep a strict supervision, they soon devoured. Fortunately
the country through which we passed, at this time of the year (the end of
the wet season) was full of game, of which, travelling as we did very
slowly, we were able to shoot a great deal. But this game killing,
delightful as it may be to the sportsman, soon palled on us as a business.
To say nothing of the expenditure of ammunition, it meant incessant work.

Against this the Zulu hunters soon began to murmur, for, as Stephen and I
could rarely leave the camp, the burden of it fell on them. Ultimately I
hit upon this scheme. Picking out thirty or forty of the likeliest men
among the slaves, I served out to each of them ammunition and one of the
Arab guns, in the use of which we drilled them as best we could. Then I
told them that they must provide themselves and their companions with
meat. Of course accidents happened. One man was accidentally shot and
three others were killed by a cow elephant and a wounded buffalo. But in
the end they learned to handle their rifles sufficiently well to supply
the camp. Moreover, day by day little parties of the slaves disappeared, I
presume to seek their own homes, so that when at last we entered the
borders of the Mazitu country there were not more than fifty of them left,
including seventeen of those whom we had taught to shoot.

Then it was that our real adventures began.

One evening, after three days’ march through some difficult bush in which
lions carried off a slave woman, killed one of the donkeys and mauled
another so badly that it had to be shot, we found ourselves upon the edge
of a great grassy plateau that, according to my aneroid, was 1,640 feet
above sea level.

“What place is this?” I asked of the two Mazitu guides, those same men
whom we had borrowed from Hassan.

“The land of our people, Chief,” they answered, “which is bordered on one
side by the bush and on the other by the great lake where live the Pongo
wizards.”

I looked about me at the bare uplands that already were beginning to turn
brown, on which nothing was visible save vast herds of buck such as were
common further south. A dreary prospect it was, for a slight rain was
falling, accompanied by mist and a cold wind.

“I do not see your people or their kraals,” I said; “I only see grass and
wild game.”

“Our people will come,” they replied, rather nervously. “No doubt even now
their spies watch us from among the tall grass or out of some hole.”

“The deuce they do,” I said, or something like it, and thought no more of
the matter. When one is in conditions in which anything may happen,
such as, so far as I am concerned, have prevailed through most of my life,
one grows a little careless as to what will happen. For my part I
have long been a fatalist, to a certain extent. I mean I believe that the
individual, or rather the identity which animates him, came out from the
Source of all life a long while, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions
of years ago, and when his career is finished, perhaps hundreds of
thousands or millions of years hence, or perhaps to-morrow, will return
perfected, but still as an individual, to dwell in or with that Source of
Life. I believe also that his various existences, here or elsewhere, are
fore-known and fore-ordained, although in a sense he may shape them by the
action of his free will, and that nothing which he can do will lengthen or
shorten one of them by a single hour. Therefore, so far as I am concerned,
I have always acted up to the great injunction of our Master and taken no
thought for the morrow.

However, in this instance, as in many others of my experience, the morrow
took plenty of thought for itself. Indeed, before the dawn, Hans, who
never seemed really to sleep any more than a dog does, woke me up with the
ominous information that he heard a sound which he thought was caused by
the tramp of hundreds of marching men.

“Where?” I asked, after listening without avail—to look was useless,
for the night was dark as pitch.

He put his ear to the ground and said:

“There.”

I put my ear to the ground, but although my senses are fairly
acute, could hear nothing.

Then I sent for the sentries, but these, too, could hear nothing. After
this I gave the business up and went to sleep again.

However, as it proved, Hans was quite right; in such matters he generally
was right, for his senses were as keen as those of any wild beast. At dawn
I was once more awakened, this time by Mavovo, who reported that we were
being surrounded by a regiment, or regiments. I rose and looked out
through the mist. There, sure enough, in dim and solemn outline, though
still far off, I perceived rank upon rank of men, armed men, for the light
glimmered faintly upon their spears.

“What is to be done, Macumazana?” asked Mavovo.

“Have breakfast, I think,” I answered. “If we are going to be killed it
may as well be after breakfast as before,” and calling the trembling
Sammy, I instructed him to make the coffee. Also I awoke Stephen and
explained the situation to him.

“Capital!” he answered. “No doubt these are the Mazitu, and we have found
them much more easily than we expected. People generally take such a lot
of hunting for in this confounded great country.”

“That’s not such a bad way of looking at things,” I answered, “but would
you be good enough to go round the camp and make it clear that not on any
account is anyone to fire without orders. Stay, collect all the guns from
those slaves, for heaven knows what they will do with them if they are
frightened!”

Stephen nodded and sauntered off with three or four of the hunters. While
he was gone, in consultation with Mavovo, I made certain little
arrangements of my own, which need not be detailed. They were designed to
enable us to sell our lives as dearly as possible, should things come to
the worst. One should always try to make an impression upon the enemy in
Africa, for the sake of future travellers if for no other reason.

In due course Stephen and the hunters returned with the guns, or most of
them, and reported that the slave people were in a great state of terror,
and showed a disposition to bolt.

“Let them bolt,” I answered. “They would be of no use to us in a row and
might even complicate matters. Call in the Zulus who are watching at
once.”

He nodded, and a few minutes later I heard—for the mist which hung
about the bush to the east of the camp was still too dense to allow of my
seeing anything—a clamour of voices, followed by the sound of
scuttling feet. The slave people, including our bearers, had gone, every
one of them. They even carried away the wounded. Just as the soldiers who
surrounded us were completing their circle they bolted between the two
ends of it and vanished into the bush out of which we had marched on the
previous evening. Often since then I have wondered what became of them.
Doubtless some perished, and the rest worked their way back to their homes
or found new ones among other tribes. The experiences of those who escaped
must be interesting to them if they still live. I can well imagine the
legends in which these will be embodied two or three generations hence.

Deducting the slave people and the bearers whom we had wrung out of
Hassan, we were now a party of seventeen, namely eleven Zulu hunters
including Mavovo, two white men, Hans and Sammy, and the two Mazitus who
had elected to remain with us, while round us was a great circle of
savages which closed in slowly.

As the light grew—it was long in coming on that dull morning—and
the mist lifted, I examined these people, without seeming to take any
particular notice of them. They were tall, much taller than the average
Zulu, and slighter in their build, also lighter in colour. Like the Zulus
they carried large hide shields and one very broad-bladed spear. Throwing
assegais seemed to be wanting, but in place of them I saw that they were
armed with short bows, which, together with a quiver of arrows, were slung
upon their backs. The officers wore a short skin cloak or kaross, and the
men also had cloaks, which I found out afterwards were made from the inner
bark of trees.

They advanced in the most perfect silence and very slowly. Nobody said
anything, and if orders were given this must have been done by signs. I
could not see that any of them had firearms.

“Now,” I said to Stephen, “perhaps if we shot and killed some of those
fellows, they might be frightened and run away. Or they might not; or if
they did they might return.”

“Whatever happened,” he remarked sagely, “we should scarcely be welcome in
their country afterwards, so I think we had better do nothing unless we
are obliged.”

I nodded, for it was obvious that we could not fight hundreds of men, and
told Sammy, who was perfectly livid with fear, to bring the breakfast. No
wonder he was afraid, poor fellow, for we were in great danger. These
Mazitu had a bad name, and if they chose to attack us we should all be
dead in a few minutes.

The coffee and some cold buck’s flesh were put upon our little camp-table
in front of the tent which we had pitched because of the rain, and we
began to eat. The Zulu hunters also ate from a bowl of mealie porridge
which they had cooked on the previous night, each of them with his loaded
rifle upon his knees. Our proceedings appeared to puzzle the Mazitu very
much indeed. They drew quite near to us, to within about forty yards, and
halted there in a dead circle, staring at us with their great round eyes.
It was like a scene in a dream; I shall never forget it.

Everything about us appeared to astonish them, our indifference, the
colour of Stephen and myself (as a matter of fact at that date Brother
John was the only white man they had ever seen), our tent and our two
remaining donkeys. Indeed, when one of these beasts broke into a bray,
they showed signs of fright, looking at each other and even retreating a
few paces.

At length the position got upon my nerves, especially as I saw that some
of them were beginning to fiddle with their bows, and that their General,
a tall, one-eyed old fellow, was making up his mind to do something. I
called to one of the two Mazitus, whom I forgot to say we had named Tom
and Jerry, and gave him a pannikin of coffee.

“Take that to the captain there with my good wishes, Jerry, and ask him if
he will drink with us,” I said.

Jerry, who was a plucky fellow, obeyed. Advancing with the steaming
coffee, he held it under the Captain’s nose. Evidently he knew the man’s
name, for I heard him say:

“O Babemba, the white lords, Macumazana and Wazela, ask if you will share
their holy drink with them?”

I could perfectly understand the words, for these people spoke a dialect
so akin to Zulu that by now it had no difficulty for me.

“Their holy drink!” exclaimed the old fellow, starting back. “Man, it is
hot red-water. Would these white wizards poison me with mwavi?”

Here I should explain that mwavi or mkasa, as it is
sometimes called, is the liquor distilled from the inner bark of a sort of
mimosa tree or sometimes from a root of the strychnos tribe, which is
administered by the witch-doctors to persons accused of crime. If it makes
them sick they are declared innocent. If they are thrown into convulsions
or stupor they are clearly guilty and die, either from the effects of the
poison or afterwards by other means.

“This is no mwavi, O Babemba,” said Jerry. “It is the divine liquor
that makes the white lords shoot straight with their wonderful guns which
kill at a thousand paces. See, I will swallow some of it,” and he did,
though it must have burnt his tongue.

Thus encouraged, old Babemba sniffed at the coffee and found it fragrant.
Then he called a man, who from his peculiar dress I took to be a doctor,
made him drink some, and watched the results, which were that the doctor
tried to finish the pannikin. Snatching it away indignantly Babemba drank
himself, and as I had half-filled the cup with sugar, found the mixture
good.

“It is indeed a holy drink,” he said, smacking his lips. “Have you any
more of it?”

“The white lords have more,” said Jerry. “They invite you to eat with
them.”

Babemba stuck his finger into the tin, and covering it with the sediment
of sugar, sucked and reflected.

“It’s all right,” I whispered to Stephen. “I don’t think he’ll kill us
after drinking our coffee, and what’s more, I believe he is coming to
breakfast.”

“This may be a snare,” said Babemba, who now began to lick the sugar out
of the pannikin.

“No,” answered Jerry with creditable resource; “though they could easily
kill you all, the white lords do not hurt those who have partaken of their
holy drink, that is unless anyone tries to harm them.”

“Cannot you bring some more of the holy drink here?” he asked, giving a
final polish to the pannikin with his tongue.

“No,” said Jerry, “if you want it you must go there. Fear nothing. Would
I, one of your own people, betray you?”

“True!” exclaimed Babemba. “By your talk and your face you are a Mazitu.
How came you—well, we will speak of that afterwards. I am very
thirsty. I will come. Soldiers, sit down and watch, and if any harm
happens to me, avenge it and report to the king.”

Now, while all this was going on, I had made Hans and Sammy open one of
the boxes and extract therefrom a good-sized mirror in a wooden frame with
a support at the back so that it could be stood anywhere. Fortunately it
was unbroken; indeed, our packing had been so careful that none of the
looking-glasses or other fragile things were injured. To this mirror I
gave a hasty polish, then set it upright upon the table.

Old Babemba came along rather suspiciously, his one eye rolling over us
and everything that belonged to us. When he was quite close it fell upon
the mirror. He stopped, he stared, he retreated, then drawn by his
overmastering curiosity, came on again and again stood still.

“What is the matter?” called his second in command from the ranks.

“The matter is,” he answered, “that here is great magic. Here I see myself
walking towards myself. There can be no mistake, for one eye is gone in my
other self.”

“Advance, O Babemba,” cried the doctor who had tried to drink all the
coffee, “and see what happens. Keep your spear ready, and if your
witch-self attempts to harm you, kill it.”

Thus encouraged, Babemba lifted his spear and dropped it again in a great
hurry.

“That won’t do, fool of a doctor,” he shouted back. “My other self lifts a
spear also, and what is more all of you who should be behind are in front
of me. The holy drink has made me drunk; I am bewitched. Save me!”

Now I saw that the joke had gone too far, for the soldiers were beginning
to string their bows in confusion. Luckily at this moment, the sun at
length came out almost opposite to us.

“O Babemba,” I said in a solemn voice, “it is true that this magic shield,
which we have brought as a gift to you, gives you another self. Henceforth
your labours will be halved, and your pleasures doubled, for when you look
into this shield you will be not one but two. Also it has other properties—see,”
and lifting the mirror I used it as a heliograph, flashing the reflected
sunlight into the eyes of the long half-circle of men in front of us. My
word! didn’t they run.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed old Babemba, “and can I learn to do that also,
white lord?”

“Certainly,” I answered, “come and try. Now, hold it so while I say the
spell,” and I muttered some hocus-pocus, then directed it towards certain
of the Mazitu who were gathering again. “There! Look! Look! You have hit
them in the eye. You are a master of magic. They run, they run!” and run
they did indeed. “Is there anyone yonder whom you dislike?”

“Yes, plenty,” answered Babemba with emphasis, “especially that
witch-doctor who drank nearly all the holy drink.”

“Very well; by-and-by I will show you how you can burn a hole in him with
this magic. No, not now, not now. For a while this mocker of the sun is
dead. Look,” and dipping the glass beneath the table I produced it back
first. “You cannot see anything, can you?”

“Nothing except wood,” replied Babemba, staring at the deal slip with
which it was lined.

Then I threw a dish-cloth over it and, to change the subject, offered him
another pannikin of the “holy drink” and a stool to sit on.

The old fellow perched himself very gingerly upon the stool, which was of
the folding variety, stuck the iron-tipped end of his great spear in the
ground between his knees and took hold of the pannikin. Or rather he took
hold of a pannikin and not the right one. So ridiculous was his appearance
that the light-minded Stephen, who, forgetting the perils of the
situation, had for the last minute or two been struggling with inward
laughter, clapped down his coffee on the table and retired into the tent,
where I heard him gurgling in unseemly merriment. It was this coffee that
in the confusion of the moment Sammy gave to old Babemba. Presently
Stephen reappeared, and to cover his confusion seized the pannikin meant
for Babemba and drank it, or most of it. Then Sammy, seeing his mistake,
said:

“Mr. Somers, I regret that there is an error. You are drinking from the
cup which that stinking savage has just licked clean.”

The effect was dreadful and instantaneous, for then and there Stephen was
violently sick.

“Why does the white lord do that?” asked Babemba. “Now I see that you are
truly deceiving me, and that what you are giving me to swallow is nothing
but hot mwavi, which in the innocent causes vomiting, but that in
those who mean evil, death.”

“Stop that foolery, you idiot,” I muttered to Stephen, kicking him on the
shins, “or you’ll get our throats cut.” Then, collecting myself with an
effort, I said:

“Oh! not at all, General. This white lord is the priest of the holy drink
and—what you see is a religious rite.”

“Is it so,” said Babemba. “Then I hope that the rite is not catching.”

“Never,” I replied, proffering him a biscuit. “And now, General Babemba,
tell me, why do you come against us with about five hundred armed men?”

“To kill you, white lords—oh! how hot is this holy drink, yet
pleasant. You said that it was not catching, did you not? For I feel——”

“Eat the cake,” I answered. “And why do you wish to kill us? Be so good as
to tell me the truth now, or I shall read it in the magic shield which
portrays the inside as well as the out,” and lifting the cloth I stared at
the glass.

“If you can read my thoughts, white lord, why trouble me to tell them?”
asked Babemba sensibly enough, his mouth full of biscuit. “Still, as that
bright thing may lie, I will set them out. Bausi, king of our people, has
sent me to kill you, because news has reached him that you are great slave
dealers who come hither with guns to capture the Mazitus and take them
away to the Black Water to be sold and sent across it in big canoes that
move of themselves. Of this he has been warned by messengers from the Arab
men. Moreover, we know that it is true, for last night you had with you
many slaves who, seeing our spears, ran away not an hour ago.”

Now I stared hard at the looking-glass and answered coolly:

“This magic shield tells a somewhat different story. It says that your
king, Bausi, for whom by the way we have many things as presents, told you
to lead us to him with honour, that we might talk over matters with him.”

The shot was a good one. Babemba grew confused.

“It is true,” he stammered, “that—I mean, the king left it to my
judgment. I will consult the witch-doctor.”

“If he left it to your judgment, the matter is settled,” I said, “since
certainly, being so great a noble, you would never try to murder those of
whose holy drink you have just partaken. Indeed, if you did so,” I added in
a cold voice, “you would not live long yourself. One secret word and that
drink will turn to mwavi of the worst sort inside of you.”

“Oh! yes, white lord, it is settled,” exclaimed Babemba, “it is settled.
Do not trouble the secret word. I will lead you to the king and you shall
talk with him. By my head and my father’s spirit you are safe from me.
Still, with your leave, I will call the great doctor, Imbozwi, and ratify
the agreement in his presence, and also show him the magic shield.”

So Imbozwi was sent for, Jerry taking the message. Presently he arrived.
He was a villainous-looking person of uncertain age, humpbacked like the
picture of Punch, wizened and squint-eyed. His costume was of the ordinary
witch-doctor type being set off with snake skins, fish bladders, baboon’s
teeth and little bags of medicine. To add to his charms a broad strip of
pigment, red ochre probably, ran down his forehead and the nose beneath,
across the lips and chin, ending in a red mark the size of a penny where
the throat joins the chest. His woolly hair also, in which was twisted a
small ring of black gum, was soaked with grease and powdered blue. It was
arranged in a kind of horn, coming to a sharp point about five inches
above the top of the skull. Altogether he looked extremely like the devil.
What was more, he was a devil in a bad temper, for the first words he said
embodied a reproach to us for not having asked him to partake of our “holy
drink” with Babemba.

We offered to make him some more, but he refused, saying that we should
poison him.

Then Babemba set the matter out, rather nervously I thought, for evidently
he was afraid of this old wizard, who listened in complete silence. When
Babemba explained that without the king’s direct order it would be foolish
and unjustifiable to put to death such magicians as we were, Imbozwi spoke
for the first time, asking why he called us magicians.

Babemba instanced the wonders of the shining shield that showed pictures.

“Pooh!” said Imbozwi, “does not calm water or polished iron show
pictures?”

“But this shield will make fire,” said Babemba. “The white lords say it
can burn a man up.”

“Then let it burn me up,” replied Imbozwi with ineffable contempt, “and I
will believe that these white men are magicians worthy to be kept alive,
and not common slave-traders such as we have often heard of.”

“Burn him, white lords, and show him that I am right,” exclaimed the
exasperated Babemba, after which they fell to wrangling. Evidently they
were rivals, and by this time both of them had lost their tempers.

The sun was now very hot, quite sufficiently so to enable us to give Mr.
Imbozwi a taste of our magic, which I determined he should have. Not being
certain whether an ordinary mirror would really reflect enough heat to
scorch, I drew from my pocket a very powerful burning-glass which I
sometimes used for the lighting of fires in order to save matches, and
holding the mirror in one hand and the burning-glass in the other, I
worked myself into a suitable position for the experiment. Babemba and the
witch-doctor were arguing so fiercely that neither of them seemed to
notice what I was doing. Getting the focus right, I directed the
concentrated spark straight on to Imbozwi’s greased top-knot, where I knew
he would feel nothing, my plan being to char a hole in it. But as it
happened this top-knot was built up round something of a highly
inflammable nature, reed or camphor-wood, I expect. At any rate, about
thirty seconds later the top-knot was burning like a beautiful torch.

“Ow!” said the Kaffirs who were watching. “My Aunt!” exclaimed
Stephen. “Look, look!” shouted Babemba in tones of delight. “Now will you
believe, O blown-out bladder of a man, that there are greater magicians
than yourself in the world?”

“What is the matter, son of a dog, that you make a mock of me?” screeched
the unfuriated Imbozwi, who alone was unaware of anything unusual.

As he spoke some suspicion rose in his mind which caused him to put his
hand to his top-knot, and withdraw it with a howl. Then he sprang up and
began to dance about, which of course only fanned the fire that had now
got hold of the grease and gum. The Zulus applauded; Babemba clapped his
hands; Stephen burst into one of his idiotic fits of laughter. For my part
I grew frightened. Near at hand stood a large wooden pot such as the
Kaffirs make, from which the coffee kettle had been filled, that
fortunately was still half-full of water. I seized it and ran to him.

“Save me, white lord!” he howled. “You are the greatest of magicians and I
am your slave.”

Here I cut him short by clapping the pot bottom upwards on his burning
head, into which it vanished as a candle does into an extinguisher. Smoke
and a bad smell issued from beneath the pot, the water from which ran all
over Imbozwi, who stood quite still. When I was sure the fire was out, I
lifted the pot and revealed the discomfited wizard, but without his
elaborate head-dress. Beyond a little scorching he was not in the least
hurt, for I had acted in time; only he was bald, for when touched the
charred hair fell off at the roots.

“It is gone,” he said in an amazed voice after feeling at his scalp.

“Yes,” I answered, “quite. The magic shield worked very well, did it not?”

“Can you put it back again, white lord?” he asked.

“That will depend upon how you behave,” I replied.

Then without another word he turned and walked back to the soldiers, who
received him with shouts of laughter. Evidently Imbozwi was not a popular
character, and his discomfiture delighted them.

Babemba also was delighted. Indeed, he could not praise our magic enough,
and at once began to make arrangements to escort us to the king at his
head town, which was called Beza, vowing that we need fear no harm at his
hands or those of his soldiers. In fact, the only person who did not
appreciate our black arts was Imbozwi himself. I caught a look in his eye
as he marched off which told me that he hated us bitterly, and reflected
to myself that perhaps I had been foolish to use that burning-glass,
although in truth I had not intended to set his head on fire.

“My father,” said Mavovo to me afterwards, “it would have been better to
let that snake burn to death, for then you would have killed his poison. I
am something of a doctor myself, and I tell you there is nothing our
brotherhood hates so much as being laughed at. You have made a fool of him
before all his people and he will not forget it, Macumazana.”

CHAPTER IX

BAUSI THE KING

About midday we made a start for Beza Town where King Bausi lived, which
we understood we ought to reach on the following evening. For some hours
the regiment marched in front, or rather round us, but as we complained to
Babemba of the noise and dust, with a confidence that was quite touching,
he sent it on ahead. First, however, he asked us to pass our word “by our
mothers,” which was the most sacred of oaths among many African peoples,
that we would not attempt to escape. I confess that I hesitated before
giving an answer, not being entirely enamoured of the Mazitu and of our
prospects among them, especially as I had discovered through Jerry that
the discomfited Imbozwi had departed from the soldiers on some business of
his own. Had the matter been left to me, indeed, I should have tried to
slip back into the bush over the border, and there put in a few months
shooting during the dry season, while working my way southwards. This,
too, was the wish of the Zulu hunters, of Hans, and I need not add of
Sammy. But when I mentioned the matter to Stephen, he implored me to
abandon the idea.

“Look here, Quatermain,” he said, “I have come to this God-forsaken
country to get that great Cypripedium, and get it I will or die in the
attempt. Still,” he added after surveying our rather blank faces, “I have
no right to play with your lives, so if you think the thing too dangerous
I will go on alone with this old boy, Babemba. Putting everything else
aside, I think that one of us ought to visit Bausi’s kraal in case the
gentleman you call Brother John should turn up there. In short, I have
made up my mind, so it is no use talking.”

I lit my pipe, and for quite a time contemplated this obstinate young man
while considering the matter from every point of view. Finally, I came to
the conclusion that he was right and I was wrong. It was true that by
bribing Babemba, or otherwise, there was still an excellent prospect of
effecting a masterly retreat and of avoiding many perils. On the other
hand, we had not come to this wild place in order to retreat. Further, at
whose expense had we come here? At that of Stephen Somers who wished to
proceed. Lastly, to say nothing of the chance of meeting Brother John, to
whom I felt no obligation since he had given us the slip at Durban, I did
not like the idea of being beaten. We had started out to visit some
mysterious savages who worshipped a monkey and a flower, and we might as
well go on till circumstances were too much for us. After all, dangers are
everywhere; those who turn back because of dangers will never succeed in
any life that we can imagine.

“Mavovo,” I said presently, pointing to Stephen with my pipe, “the inkoosi
Wazela does not wish to try to escape. He wishes to go on to the country
of the Pongo people if we can get there. And, Mavovo, remember that he has
paid for everything; we are his hired servants. Also that he says that if
we run back he will walk forward alone with these Mazitus. Still, if any
of you hunters desire to slip off, he will not look your way, nor shall I.
What say you?”

“I say, Macumazana, that, though young, Wazela is a chief with a great
heart, and that where you and he go, I shall go also, as I think will the
rest of us. I do not like these Mazitu, for if their fathers were Zulus
their mothers were low people. They are bastards, and of the Pongo I hear
nothing but what is evil. Still, no good ox ever turns in the yoke because
of a mud-hole. Let us go on, for if we sink in the swamp what does it
matter? Moreover, my Snake tells me that we shall not sink, at least not
all of us.”

So it was arranged that no effort should be made to return. Sammy, it is
true, wished to do so, but when it came to the point and he was offered
one of the remaining donkeys and as much food and ammunition as he could
carry, he changed his mind.

“I think it better, Mr. Quatermain,” he said, “to meet my end in the
company of high-born, lofty souls than to pursue a lonely career towards
the inevitable in unknown circumstances.”

“Very well put, Sammy,” I answered; “so while waiting for the inevitable,
please go and cook the dinner.”

Having laid aside our doubts, we proceeded on the journey comfortably
enough, being well provided with bearers to take the place of those who
had run away. Babemba, accompanied by a single orderly, travelled with us,
and from him we collected much information. It seemed that the Mazitu were
a large people who could muster from five to seven thousand spears. Their
tradition was that they came from the south and were of the same stock as
the Zulus, of whom they had heard vaguely. Indeed, many of their customs,
to say nothing of their language, resembled those of that country. Their
military organisation, however, was not so thorough, and in other ways
they struck me as a lower race. In one particular, it is true, that of
their houses, they were more advanced, for these, as we saw in the many
kraals that we passed, were better built, with doorways through which one
could walk upright, instead of the Kaffir bee-holes.

We slept in one of these houses on our march, and should have found it
very comfortable had it not been for the innumerable fleas which at length
drove us out into the courtyard. For the rest, these Mazitu much resembled
the Zulus. They had kraals and were breeders of cattle; they were ruled by
headmen under the command of a supreme chief or king; they believed in
witchcraft and offered sacrifice to the spirits of their ancestors, also
in some kind of a vague and mighty god who dominated the affairs of the
world and declared his will through the doctors. Lastly, they were, and I
dare say still are, a race of fighting men who loved war and raided the
neighbouring peoples upon any and every pretext, killing their men and
stealing their women and cattle. They had their virtues, too, being kindly
and hospitable by nature, though cruel enough to their enemies. Moreover,
they detested dealing in slaves and those who practised it, saying that it
was better to kill a man than to deprive him of his freedom. Also they had
a horror of the cannibalism which is so common in the dark regions of
Africa, and for this reason, more than any other, loathed the Pongo folk
who were supposed to be eaters of men.

On the evening of the second day of our march, during which we had passed
through a beautiful and fertile upland country, very well watered, and
except in the valleys, free from bush, we arrived at Beza. This town was
situated on a wide plain surrounded by low hills and encircled by a belt
of cultivated land made beautiful by the crops of maize and other cereals
which were then ripe to harvest. It was fortified in a way. That is, a
tall, unclimbable palisade of timber surrounded the entire town, which
fence was strengthened by prickly pears and cacti planted on its either
side.

Within this palisade the town was divided into quarters more or less
devoted to various trades. Thus one part of it was called the Ironsmiths’
Quarter; another the Soldiers’ Quarter; another the Quarter of the
Land-tillers; another that of the Skin-dressers, and so on. The king’s
dwelling and those of his women and dependents were near the North gate,
and in front of these, surrounded by semi-circles of huts, was a wide
space into which cattle could be driven if necessary. This, however, at
the time of our visit, was used as a market and a drilling ground.

We entered the town, that must in all have contained a great number of
inhabitants, by the South gate, a strong log structure facing a wooded
slope through which ran a road. Just as the sun was setting we marched to
the guest-huts up a central street lined with the population of the place
who had gathered to stare at us. These huts were situated in the Soldiers’
Quarter, not far from the king’s house and surrounded by an inner fence to
keep them private.

None of the people spoke as we passed them, for the Mazitu are polite by
nature; also it seemed to me that they regarded us with awe tempered by
curiosity. They only stared, and occasionally those of them who were
soldiers saluted us by lifting their spears. The huts into which we were
introduced by Babemba, with whom we had grown very friendly, were good and
clean.

Here all our belongings, including the guns which we had collected just
before the slaves ran away, were placed in one of the huts over which a
Mazitu mounted guard, the donkeys being tied to the fence at a little
distance. Outside this fence stood another armed Mazitu, also on guard.

“Are we prisoners here?” I asked of Babemba.

“The king watches over his guests,” he answered enigmatically. “Have the
white lords any message for the king whom I am summoned to see this
night?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Tell the king that we are the brethren of him who more
than a year ago cut a swelling from his body, whom we have arranged to
meet here. I mean the white lord with a long beard who among you black
people is called Dogeetah.”

Babemba started. “You are the brethren of Dogeetah! How comes it then that
you never mentioned his name before, and when is he going to meet you
here? Know that Dogeetah is a great man among us, for with him alone of
all men the king has made blood-brotherhood. As the king is, so is
Dogeetah among the Mazitu.”

“We never mentioned him because we do not talk about everything at once,
Babemba. As to when Dogeetah will meet us I am not sure; I am only sure
that he is coming.”

“Yes, lord Macumazana, but when, when? That is what the king will want to
know and that is what you must tell him. Lord,” he added, dropping his
voice, “you are in danger here where you have many enemies, since it is
not lawful for white men to enter this land. If you would save your lives,
be advised by me and be ready to tell the king to-morrow when Dogeetah,
whom he loves, will appear here to vouch for you, and see that he does
appear very soon and by the day you name. Since otherwise when he comes,
if come he does, he may not find you able to talk to him. Now I, your
friend, have spoken and the rest is with you.”

Then without another word he rose, slipped through the door of the hut and
out by the gateway of the fence from which the sentry moved aside to let
him pass. I, too, rose from the stool on which I sat and danced about the
hut in a perfect fury.

“Do you understand what that infernal (I am afraid I used a stronger word)
old fool told me?” I exclaimed to Stephen. “He says that we must be
prepared to state exactly when that other infernal old fool, Brother John,
will turn up at Beza Town, and that if we don’t we shall have our throats
cut as indeed has already been arranged.”

“Rather awkward,” replied Stephen. “There are no express trains to Beza,
and if there were we couldn’t be sure that Brother John would take one of
them. I suppose there is a Brother John?” he added reflectively.
“To me he seems to be—intimately connected with Mrs. Harris.”

“Oh! there is, or there was,” I explained. “Why couldn’t the confounded
ass wait quietly for us at Durban instead of fooling off butterfly hunting
to the north of Zululand and breaking his leg or his neck there if he has
done anything of the sort?”

“Don’t know, I am sure. It’s hard enough to understand one’s own motives,
let alone Brother John’s.”

Then we sat down on our stools again and stared at each other. At this
moment Hans crept into the hut and squatted down in front of us. He might
have walked in as there was a doorway, but he preferred to creep on his
hands and knees, I don’t know why.

“What is it, you ugly little toad?” I asked viciously, for that was just
what he looked like; even the skin under his jaw moved like a toad’s.

“The Baas is in trouble?” remarked Hans.

“I should think he was,” I answered, “and so will you be presently when
you are wriggling on the point of a Mazitu spear.”

“They are broad spears that would make a big hole,” remarked Hans again,
whereupon I rose to kick him out, for his ideas were, as usual,
unpleasant.

“Baas,” he went on, “I have been listening—there is a very good hole
in this hut for listening if one lies against the wall and pretends to be
asleep. I have heard all and understood most of your talk with that
one-eyed savage and the Baas Stephen.”

“Well, you little sneak, what of it?”

“Only, Baas, that if we do not want to be killed in this place from which
there is no escape, it is necessary that you should find out exactly on
what day and at what hour Dogeetah is going to arrive.”

“Look here, you yellow idiot,” I exclaimed, “if you are beginning that
game too, I’ll——” then I stopped, reflecting that my temper
was getting the better of me and that I had better hear what Hans had to
say before I vented it on him.

“Baas, Mavovo is a great doctor; it is said that his Snake is the
straightest and the strongest in all Zululand save that of his master,
Zikali, the old slave. He told you that Dogeetah was laid up somewhere
with a hurt leg and that he was coming to meet you here; no doubt
therefore he can tell you also when he is coming. I would ask him,
but he won’t set his Snake to work for me. So you must ask him, Baas, and
perhaps he will forget that you laughed at his magic and that he swore you
would never see it again.”

“Oh! blind one,” I answered, “how do I know that Mavovo’s story about
Dogeetah was not all nonsense?”

Hans stared at me amazed.

“Mavovo’s story nonsense! Mavovo’s Snake a liar! Oh! Baas, that is what
comes of being too much a Christian. Now, thanks to your father the
Predikant, I am a Christian too, but not so much that I have forgotten how
to know good magic from bad. Mavovo’s Snake a liar, and after he whom we
buried yonder was the first of the hunters whom the feathers named to him
at Durban!” and he began to chuckle in intense amusement, then added,
“Well, Baas, there it is. You must either ask Mavovo, and very nicely, or
we shall all be killed. I don’t mind much, for I should rather like
to begin again a little younger somewhere else, but just think what a
noise Sammy will make!” and turning he crept out as he had crept in.

“Here’s a nice position,” I groaned to Stephen when he had gone. “I, a
white man, who, in spite of some coincidences with which I am acquainted,
know that all this Kaffir magic is bosh am to beg a savage to tell me
something of which he must be ignorant. That is, unless we educated
people have got hold of the wrong end of the stick altogether. It is
humiliating; it isn’t Christian, and I’m hanged if I’ll do it!”

“I dare say you will be—hanged I mean—whether you do it or
whether you don’t,” replied Stephen with his sweet smile. “But I say, old
fellow, how do you know it is all bosh? We are told about lots of miracles
which weren’t bosh, and if miracles ever existed, why can’t they exist
now? But there, I know what you mean and it is no use arguing. Still, if
you’re proud, I ain’t. I’ll try to soften the stony heart of Mavovo—we
are rather pals, you know—and get him to unroll the book of his
occult wisdom,” and he went.

A few minutes later I was called out to receive a sheep which, with milk,
native beer, some corn, and other things, including green forage for the
donkeys, Bausi had sent for us to eat. Here I may remark that while we
were among the Mazitu we lived like fighting cocks. There was none of that
starvation which is, or was, so common in East Africa where the traveller
often cannot get food for love or money—generally because there is
none.

When this business was settled by my sending a message of thanks to the
king with an intimation that we hoped to wait upon him on the morrow with
a few presents, I went to seek Sammy in order to tell him to kill and cook
the sheep. After some search I found, or rather heard him beyond a reed
fence which divided two of the huts. He was acting as interpreter between
Stephen Somers and Mavovo.

“This Zulu man declares, Mr. Somers,” he said, “that he quite understands
everything you have been explaining, and that it is probable that we shall
all be butchered by this savage Bausi, if we cannot tell him when the
white man, Dogeetah, whom he loves, will arrive here. He says also that he
thinks that by his magic he could learn when this will happen—if it
is to happen at all—(which of course, Mr. Somers, for your private
information only, is a mighty lie of the ignorant heathen). He adds,
however, that he does not care one brass farthing—his actual
expression, Mr. Somers, is ‘one grain of corn on a mealie-cob’—about
his or anybody else’s life, which from all I have heard of his proceedings
I can well believe to be true. He says in his vulgar language that there
is no difference between the belly of a Mazitu-land hyena and that of any
other hyena, and that the earth of Mazitu-land is as welcome to his bones
as any other earth, since the earth is the wickedest of all hyenas, in
that he has observed that soon or late it devours everlastingly everything
which once it bore. You must forgive me for reproducing his empty and
childish talk, Mr. Somers, but you bade me to render the words of this
savage with exactitude. In fact, Mr. Somers, this reckless person
intimates, in short that some power with which he is not acquainted—he
calls it the ‘Strength that makes the Sun to shine and broiders the
blanket of the night with stars’ (forgive me for repeating his silly
words), caused him ‘to be born into this world, and, at an hour already
appointed, will draw him from this world back into its dark, eternal
bosom, there to be rocked in sleep, or nursed to life again, according to
its unknown will’—I translate exactly, Mr. Somers, although I do not
know what it all means—and that he does not care a curse when this
happens. Still, he says that whereas he is growing old and has known many
sorrows—he alludes here, I gather, to some nigger wives of his whom
another savage knocked on the head; also to a child to whom he appears to
have been attached—you are young with all your days and, he hopes,
joys, before you. Therefore he would gladly do anything in his power to
save your life, because although you are white and he is black he has
conceived an affection for you and looks on you as his child. Yes, Mr.
Somers, although I blush to repeat it, this black fellow says he looks
upon you as his child. He adds, indeed, that if the opportunity arises, he
will gladly give his life to save your life, and that it cuts his heart in
two to refuse you anything. Still he must refuse this request of yours,
that he will ask the creature he calls his Snake—what he means by
that, I don’t know, Mr. Somers—to declare when the white man, named
Dogeetah, will arrive in this place. For this reason, that he told Mr.
Quatermain when he laughed at him about his divinations that he would make
no more magic for him or any of you, and that he will die rather than
break his word. That’s all, Mr. Somers, and I dare say you will think—quite
enough, too.”

“I understand,” replied Stephen. “Tell the chief, Mavovo” (I observed he
laid an emphasis on the word, chief) “that I quite
understand, and that I thank him very much for explaining things to me so
fully. Then ask him whether, as the matter is so important, there is no
way out of this trouble?”

Sammy translated into Zulu, which he spoke perfectly, as I noted without
interpolations or additions.

“Only one way,” answered Mavovo in the intervals of taking snuff. “It is
that Macumazana himself shall ask me to do this thing, Macumazana is my
old chief and friend, and for his sake I will forget what in the case of
others I should always remember. If he will come and ask me, without
mockery, to exercise my skill on behalf of all of us, I will try to
exercise it, although I know very well that he believes it to be but as an
idle little whirlwind that stirs the dust, that raises the dust and lets
it fall again without purpose or meaning, forgetting, as the wise white
men forget, that even the wind which blows the dust is the same that
breathes in our nostrils, and that to it, we also are as is the dust.”

Now I, the listener, thought for a moment or two. The words of this
fighting savage, Mavovo, even those of them of which I had heard only the
translation, garbled and beslavered by the mean comments of the
unutterable Sammy, stirred my imagination. Who was I that I should dare to
judge of him and his wild, unknown gifts? Who was I that I should mock at
him and by my mockery intimate that I believed him to be a fraud?

Stepping through the gateway of the fence, I confronted him.

“Mavovo,” I said, “I have overheard your talk. I am sorry if I laughed at
you in Durban. I do not understand what you call your magic. It is beyond
me and may be true or may be false. Still, I shall be grateful to you if
you will use your power to discover, if you can, whether Dogeetah is
coming here, and if so, when. Now, do as it may please you; I have
spoken.”

“And I have heard, Macumazana, my father. To-night I will call upon my
Snake. Whether it will answer or what it will answer, I cannot say.”

Well, he did call upon his Snake with due and portentous ceremony and,
according to Stephen, who was present, which I declined to be, that mystic
reptile declared that Dogeetah, alias Brother John, would arrive in Beza
Town precisely at sunset on the third day from that night. Now as he had
divined on Friday, according to our almanac, this meant that we might hope
to see him—hope exactly described my state of mind on the matter—on
the Monday evening in time for supper.

“All right,” I said briefly. “Please do not talk to me any more about this
impious rubbish, for I want to go to sleep.”

Next morning early we unpacked our boxes and made a handsome selection of
gifts for the king, Bausi, hoping thus to soften his royal heart. It
included a bale of calico, several knives, a musical box, a cheap American
revolver, and a bundle of tooth-picks; also several pounds of the best and
most fashionable beads for his wives. This truly noble present we sent to
the king by our two Mazitu servants, Tom and Jerry, who were marched off
in the charge of several sentries, for I hoped that these men would talk
to their compatriots and tell them what good fellows we were. Indeed I
instructed them to do so.

Imagine our horror, therefore, when about an hour later, just as we were
tidying ourselves up after breakfast, there appeared through the gate, not
Tom and Jerry, for they had vanished, but a long line of Mazitu soldiers
each of whom carried one of the articles that we had sent. Indeed the last
of them held the bundle of toothpicks on his fuzzy head as though it were
a huge faggot of wood. One by one they set them down upon the lime
flooring of the verandah of the largest hut. Then their captain said
solemnly:

“Bausi, the Great Black One, has no need of the white men’s gifts.”

“Indeed,” I replied, for my dander was up. “Then he won’t get another
chance at them.”

The men turned away without more words, and presently Babemba turned up
with a company of about fifty soldiers.

“The king is waiting to see you, white lords,” he said in a voice of very
forced jollity, “and I have come to conduct you to him.”

“Why would he not accept our presents?” I asked, pointing to the row of
them.

“Oh! that is because of Imbozwi’s story of the magic shield. He said he
wanted no gifts to burn his hair off. But, come, come. He will explain for
himself. If the Elephant is kept waiting he grows angry and trumpets.”

“Does he?” I said. “And how many of us are to come?”

“All, all, white lord. He wishes to see every one of you.”

“Not me, I suppose?” said Sammy, who was standing close by. “I must stop
to make ready the food.”

“Yes, you too,” replied Babemba. “The king would look on the mixer of the
holy drink.”

Well, there was no way out of it, so off we marched, all well armed as I
need not say, and were instantly surrounded by the soldiers. To give an
unusual note to the proceedings I made Hans walk first, carrying on his
head the rejected musical box from which flowed the touching melody of
“Home, Sweet Home.” Then came Stephen bearing the Union Jack on a pole,
then I in the midst of the hunters and accompanied by Babemba, then the
reluctant Sammy, and last of all the two donkeys led by Mazitus, for it
seemed that the king had especially ordered that these should be brought
also.

It was a truly striking cavalcade, the sight of which under any other
circumstances would have made me laugh. Nor did it fail in its effect, for
even the silent Mazitu people through whom we wended our way, were moved
to something like enthusiasm. “Home, Sweet Home” they evidently thought
heavenly, though perhaps the two donkeys attracted them most, especially
when these brayed.

“Where are Tom and Jerry?” I asked of Babemba.

“I don’t know,” he answered; “I think they have been given leave to go to
see their friends.”

Imbozwi is suppressing evidence in our favour, I thought to myself, and
said no more.

Presently we reached the gate of the royal enclosure. Here to my dismay
the soldiers insisted on disarming us, taking away our rifles, our
revolvers, and even our sheath knives. In vain did I remonstrate, saying
that we were not accustomed to part with these weapons. The answer was
that it was not lawful for any man to appear before the king armed even
with so much as a dancing-stick. Mavovo and the Zulus showed signs of
resisting and for a minute I thought there was going to be a row, which of
course would have ended in our massacre, for although the Mazitus feared
guns very much, what could we have done against hundreds of them? I
ordered him to give way, but for once he was on the point of disobeying
me. Then by a happy thought I reminded him that, according to his Snake,
Dogeetah was coming, and that therefore all would be well. So he submitted
with an ill grace, and we saw our precious guns borne off we knew not
where.

Then the Mazitu soldiers piled their spears and bows at the gate of the
kraal and we proceeded with only the Union Jack and the musical box, which
was now discoursing “Britannia rules the waves.”

Across the open space we marched to where several broad-leaved trees grew
in front of a large native house. Not far from the door of this house a
fat, middle-aged and angry-looking man was seated on a stool, naked except
for a moocha of catskins about his loins and a string of large blue beads
round his neck.

“Bausi, the King,” whispered Babemba.

At his side squatted a little hunchbacked figure, in whom I had no
difficulty in recognising Imbozwi, although he had painted his scorched
scalp white with vermillion spots and adorned his snub nose with a purple
tip, his dress of ceremony I presume. Round and behind there were a number
of silent councillors. At some signal or on reaching a given spot, all the
soldiers, including old Babemba, fell upon their hands and knees and began
to crawl. They wanted us to do the same, but here I drew the line, feeling
that if once we crawled we must always crawl.

So at my word we advanced upright, but with slow steps, in the midst of
all this wriggling humanity and at length found ourselves in the august
presence of Bausi, “the Beautiful Black One,” King of the Mazitu.

CHAPTER X

THE SENTENCE

We stared at Bausi and Bausi stared at us.

“I am the Black Elephant Bausi,” he exclaimed at last, worn out by our
solid silence, “and I trumpet! I trumpet! I trumpet!” (It appeared that
this was the ancient and hallowed formula with which a Mazitu king was
wont to open a conversation with strangers.)

After a suitable pause I replied in a cold voice:

“We are the white lions, Macumazana and Wazela, and we roar! we roar! we
roar!”

“I can trample,” said Bausi.

“And we can bite,” I said haughtily, though how we were to bite or do
anything else effectual with nothing but a Union Jack, I did not in the
least know.

“What is that thing?” asked Bausi, pointing to the flag.

“That which shadows the whole earth,” I answered proudly, a remark that
seemed to impress him, although he did not at all understand it, for he
ordered a soldier to hold a palm leaf umbrella over him to prevent it from
shadowing him.

“And that,” he asked again, pointing to the music box, “which is not alive
and yet makes a noise?”

“That sings the war-song of our people,” I said. “We sent it to you as a
present and you returned it. Why do you return our presents, O Bausi?”

Then of a sudden this potentate grew furious.

“Why do you come here, white men,” he asked, “uninvited and against the
law of my land, where only one white man is welcome, my brother Dogeetah,
who cured me of sickness with a knife? I know who you are. You are dealers
in men. You come here to steal my people and sell them into slavery. You
had many slaves with you on the borders of my country, but you sent them
away. You shall die, you shall die, you who call yourselves lions, and the
painted rag which you say shadows the world, shall rot with your bones. As
for that box which sings a war-song, I will smash it; it shall not bewitch
me as your magic shield bewitched my great doctor, Imbozwi, burning off
his hair.”

Then springing up with wonderful agility for one so fat, he knocked the
musical box from Hans’s head, so that it fell to the ground and after a
little whirring grew silent.

“That is right,” squeaked Imbozwi. “Trample on their magic, O Elephant.
Kill them, O Black One; burn them as they burned my hair.”

Now things were, I felt, very serious, for already Bausi was looking about
him as though to order his soldiers to make an end of us. So I said in
desperation:

“O King, you mentioned a certain white man, Dogeetah, a doctor of doctors,
who cured you of sickness with a knife, and called him your brother. Well,
he is our brother also, and it was by his invitation that we have come to
visit you here, where he will meet us presently.”

“If Dogeetah is your friend, then you are my friends,” answered Bausi,
“for in this land he rules as I rule, he whose blood flows in my veins, as
my blood flows in his veins. But you lie. Dogeetah is no brother of
slave-dealers, his heart is good and yours are evil. You say that he will
meet you here. When will he meet you? Tell me, and if it is soon, I will
hold my hand and wait to hear his report of you before I put you to death,
for if he speaks well of you, you shall not die.”

Now I hesitated, as well I might, for I felt that looking at our case from
his point of view, Bausi, believing us to be slave-traders, was not angry
without cause. While I was racking my brains for a reply that might be
acceptable to him and would not commit us too deeply, to my astonishment
Mavovo stepped forward and confronted the king.

“Who are you, fellow?” shouted Bausi.

“I am a warrior, O King, as my scars show,” and he pointed to the assegai
wounds upon his breast and to his cut nostril. “I am a chief of a people
from whom your people sprang and my name is Mavovo, Mavovo who is ready to
fight you or any man whom you may name, and to kill him or you if you
will. Is there one here who wishes to be killed?”

No one answered, for the mighty-chested Zulu looked very formidable.

“I am a doctor also,” went on Mavovo, “one of the greatest of doctors who
can open the ‘Gates of Distance’ and read that which is hid in the womb of
the Future. Therefore I will answer your questions which you put to the
lord Macumazana, the great and wise white man whom I serve, because we
have fought together in many battles. Yes, I will be his Mouth, I will
answer. The white man Dogeetah, who is your blood-brother and whose word
is your word among the Mazitu, will arrive here at sunset on the second
day from now. I have spoken.”

Bausi looked at me in question.

“Yes,” I exclaimed, feeling that I must say something and that it did not
much matter what I said, “Dogeetah will arrive here on the second day from
now within half an hour after sunset.”

Something, I know not what, prompted me to allow that extra half-hour,
which in the event, saved all our lives. Now Bausi consulted a while with
the execrable Imbozwi and also with the old one-eyed General Babemba while
we watched, knowing that our fate hung upon the issue.

At length he spoke.

“White men,” he said, “Imbozwi, the head of the witch-finders here, whose
hair you burnt off by your evil magic, says that it would be better to
kill you at once as your hearts are bad and you are planning mischief
against my people. So I think also. But Babemba my General, with whom I am
angry because he did not obey my orders and put you to death on the
borders of my country when he met you there with your caravan of slaves,
thinks otherwise. He prays me to hold my hand, first because you have
bewitched him into liking you and secondly because if you should happen to
be speaking the truth—which we do not believe—and to have come
here at the invitation of my brother Dogeetah, he, Dogeetah, would be
pained if he arrived and found you dead, nor could even he bring you to
life again. This being so, since it matters little whether you die now or
later, my command is that you be kept prisoners till sunset of the second
day from this, and that then you will be led out and tied to stakes in the
market-place, there to wait till the approach of darkness, by when you say
Dogeetah will be here. If he arrives and owns you as his brethren, well
and good; if he does not arrive, or disowns you—better still, for
then you shall be shot to death with arrows as a warning to all other
stealers of men not to cross the borders of the Mazitu.”

I listened to this atrocious sentence with horror, then gasped out:

“We are not stealers of men, O King, we are freers of men, as Tom and
Jerry of your own people could tell you.”

“Who are Tom and Jerry?” he asked, indifferently. “Well, it does not
matter, for doubtless they are liars like the rest of you. I have spoken.
Take them away, feed them well and keep them safe till within an hour of
sunset on the second day from this.”

Then, without giving us any further opportunity of speaking, Bausi rose,
and followed by Imbozwi and his councillors, marched off into his big hut.
We too, were marched off, this time under a double guard commanded by
someone whom I had not seen before. At the gate of the kraal we halted and
asked for the arms that had been taken from us. No answer was given; only
the soldiers put their hands upon our shoulders and thrust us along.

“This is a nice business,” I whispered to Stephen.

“Oh! it doesn’t matter,” he answered. “There are lots more guns in the
huts. I am told that these Mazitus are dreadfully afraid of bullets. So
all we have to do is just to break out and shoot our way through them, for
of course they will run when we begin to fire.”

I looked at him but did not answer, for to tell the truth I felt in no
mood for argument.

Presently we arrived at our quarters, where the soldiers left us, to camp
outside. Full of his warlike plan, Stephen went at once to the hut in
which the slavers’ guns had been stored with our own spare rifles and all
the ammunition. I saw him emerge looking very blank indeed and asked him
what was the matter.

“Matter!” he answered in a voice that for once really was full of dismay.
“The matter is that those Mazitu have stolen all the guns and all the
ammunition. There’s not enough powder left to make a blue devil.”

“Well,” I replied, with the kind of joke one perpetrates under such
circumstances, “we shall have plenty of blue devils without making any
more.”

Truly ours was a dreadful situation. Let the reader imagine it. Within a
little more than forty-eight hours we were to be shot to death with arrows
if an erratic old gentleman who, for aught I knew might be dead, did not
turn up at what was then one of the remotest and most inaccessible spots
in Central Africa. Moreover, our only hope that such a thing would happen,
if hope it could be called, was the prophecy of a Kaffir witch-doctor.

To rely on this in any way was so absurd that I gave up thinking of it and
set my mind to considering if there were any possible means of escape.
After hours of reflection I could find none. Even Hans, with all his
experience and nearly superhuman cunning, could suggest none. We were
unarmed and surrounded by thousands of savages, all of whom save perhaps
Babemba, believed us to be slave-traders, a race that very properly they
held in abhorrence, who had visited the country with the object of
stealing their women and children. The king, Bausi, a very prejudiced
fellow, was dead against us. Also by a piece of foolishness which I now
bitterly regretted, as indeed I regretted the whole expedition, or at any
rate entering on it in the absence of Brother John, we had made an
implacable enemy of the head medicine-man, who to these folk was a sort of
Archbishop of Canterbury. Short of a miracle, there was no hope for us.
All that we could do was to say our prayers and prepare for the end.

Mavovo, it is true, remained cheerful. His faith in his “Snake” was really
touching. He offered to go through that divination process again in our
presence and demonstrate that there was no mistake. I declined because I
had no faith in divinations, and Stephen also declined, for another
reason, namely that the result might prove to be different, which, he
held, would be depressing. The other Zulus oscillated between belief and
scepticism, as do the unstable who set to work to study the evidences of
Christianity. But Sammy did not oscillate, he literally howled, and
prepared the food which poured in upon us so badly that I had to turn on
Hans to do the cooking, for however little appetite we might have, it was
necessary that we should keep up our strength by eating.

“What, Mr. Quatermain,” asked Sammy between his tears, “is the use of
dressing viands that our systems will never have time to thoroughly
assimilate?”

The first night passed somehow, and so did the next day and the next night
which heralded our last morning. I got up quite early and watched the
sunrise. Never, I think, had I realised before what a beautiful thing the
sunrise is, at least not to the extent I did now when I was saying
good-bye to it for ever. Unless indeed there should prove to be still
lovelier sunrises beyond the dark of death! Then I went into our hut, and
as Stephen, who had the nerves of a rhinoceros, was still sleeping like a
tortoise in winter, I said my prayers earnestly enough, mourned over my
sins which proved to be so many that at last I gave up the job in despair,
and then tried to occupy myself by reading the Old Testament, a book to
which I have always been extremely attached.

As a passage that I lit on described how the prophet Samuel for whom I
could not help reading “Imbozwi,” hewed Agag in pieces after Bausi—I
mean Saul—had relented and spared his life, I cannot say that it
consoled me very much. Doubtless, I reflected, these people believe that
I, like Agag, had “made women childless” by my sword, so there remained
nothing save to follow the example of that unhappy king and walk
“delicately” to doom.

Then, as Stephen was still sleeping—how could he do it, I
wondered—I set to work to make up the accounts of the expedition to
date. It had already cost £1,423. Just fancy expending £1,423 in order to
be tied to a post and shot to death with arrows. And all to get a rare
orchid! Oh! I reflected to myself, if by some marvel I should escape, or
if I should live again in any land where these particular flowers
flourish, I would never even look at them. And as a matter of fact I never
have.

At length Stephen did wake up and, as criminals are reported to do in the
papers before execution, made an excellent breakfast.

“What’s the good of worrying?” he said presently. “I shouldn’t if it
weren’t for my poor old father. It must have come to this one day, and the
sooner it is over the sooner to sleep, as the song says. When one comes to
think of it there are enormous advantages in sleep, for that’s the only
time one is quite happy. Still, I should have liked to see that
Cypripedium first.”

“Oh! drat the Cypripedium!” I exclaimed, and blundered from the hut to
tell Sammy that if he didn’t stop his groaning I would punch his head.

“Jumps! Regular jumps! Who’d have thought it of Quatermain?” I heard
Stephen mutter in the intervals of lighting his pipe.

The morning went “like lightning that is greased,” as Sammy remarked.
Three o’clock came and Mavovo and his following sacrificed a kid to the
spirits of their ancestors, which, as Sammy remarked again, was “a
horrible, heathen ceremony much calculated to prejudice our cause with
Powers Above.”

When it was over, to my delight, Babemba appeared. He looked so pleasant
that I jumped to the conclusion that he brought the best of news with him.
Perhaps that the king had pardoned us, or perhaps—blessed thought—that
Brother John had really arrived before his time.

But not a bit of it! All he had to say was that he had caused inquiries to
be made along the route that ran to the coast and that certainly for a
hundred miles there was at present no sign of Dogeetah. So as the Black
Elephant was growing more and more enraged under the stirrings up of
Imbozwi, it was obvious that that evening’s ceremony must be performed.
Indeed, as it was part of his duty to superintend the erection of the
posts to which we were to be tied and the digging of our graves at their
bases, he had just come to count us again to be sure that he had not made
any mistake as to the number. Also, if there were any articles that we
would like buried with us, would we be so kind as to point them out and he
would be sure to see to the matter. It would be soon over, and not
painful, he added, as he had selected the very best archers in Beza Town
who rarely missed and could, most of them, send an arrow up to the feather
into a buffalo.

Then he chatted a little about other matters, as to where he should find
the magic shield I had given him, which he would always value as a
souvenir, etc., took a pinch of snuff with Mavovo and departed, saying
that he would be sure to return again at the proper time.

It was now four o’clock, and as Sammy was quite beyond it, Stephen made
himself some tea. It was very good tea, especially as we had milk to put
in it, although I did not remember what it tasted like till afterwards.

Now, having abandoned hope, I went into a hut alone to compose myself to
meet my end like a gentleman, and seated there in silence and
semi-darkness my spirit grew much calmer. After all, I reflected, why
should I cling to life? In the country whither I travelled, as the reader
who has followed my adventures will know, were some whom I clearly longed
to see again, notably my father and my mother, and two noble women who
were even more to me. My boy, it is true, remained (he was alive then),
but I knew that he would find friends, and as I was not so badly off at
that time, I had been able to make a proper provision for him. Perhaps it
was better that I should go, seeing that if I lived on it would only mean
more troubles and more partings.

What was about to befall me of course I could not tell, but I knew then as
I know now, that it was not extinction or even that sleep of which Stephen
had spoken. Perhaps I was passing to some place where at length the clouds
would roll away and I should understand; whence, too, I should see all the
landscape of the past and future, as an eagle does watching from the
skies, and be no longer like one struggling through dense bush, wild-beast
and serpent haunted, beat upon by the storms of heaven and terrified with
its lightnings, nor knowing whither I hewed my path. Perhaps in that place
there would be no longer what St. Paul describes as another law in my
members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin. Perhaps there the past would be forgiven by the Power
which knows whereof we are made, and I should become what I have always
longed to be—good in every sense and even find open to me new and
better roads of service. I take these thoughts from a note that I made in
my pocket-book at the time.