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Title: Allan's Wife

Author: H. Rider Haggard

Release date: March 28, 2006 [eBook #2727]
                Most recently updated: April 20, 2021

Language: English

Credits: John Bickers, Dagny and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLAN'S WIFE ***




Allan’s Wife

by H. Rider Haggard


Contents

 CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS
 CHAPTER II. THE FIRE-FIGHT
 CHAPTER III. NORTHWARDS
 CHAPTER IV. THE ZULU IMPI
 CHAPTER V. THE END OF THE LAAGER
 CHAPTER VI. STELLA
 CHAPTER VII. THE BABOON-WOMAN
 CHAPTER VIII. THE MARBLE KRAALS
 CHAPTER IX. “LET US GO IN, ALLAN!”
 CHAPTER X. HENDRIKA PLOTS EVIL
 CHAPTER XI. GONE!
 CHAPTER XII. THE MAGIC OF INDABA-ZIMBI
 CHAPTER XIII. WHAT HAPPENED TO STELLA
 CHAPTER XIV. FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER




DEDICATION


    My Dear Macumazahn,
    It was your native name which I borrowed at the christening of that
    Allan who has become as well known to me as any other friend I
    have. It is therefore fitting that I should dedicate to you this,
    his last tale—the story of his wife, and the history of some
    further adventures which befell him. They will remind you of many
    an African yarn—that with the baboons may recall an experience of
    your own which I did not share. And perhaps they will do more than
    this. Perhaps they will bring back to you some of the long past
    romance of days that are lost to us. The country of which Allan
    Quatermain tells his tale is now, for the most part, as well known
    and explored as are the fields of Norfolk. Where we shot and
    trekked and galloped, scarcely seeing the face of civilized man,
    there the gold-seeker builds his cities. The shadow of the flag of
    Britain has, for a while, ceased to fall on the Transvaal plains;
    the game has gone; the misty charm of the morning has become the
    glare of day. All is changed. The blue gums that we planted in the
    garden of the “Palatial” must be large trees by now, and the
    “Palatial” itself has passed from us. Jess sat in it waiting for
    her love after we were gone. There she nursed him back to life. But
    Jess is dead, and strangers own it, or perhaps it is a ruin.
    For us too, Macumazahn, as for the land we loved, the mystery and
    promise of the morning are outworn; the mid-day sun burns overhead,
    and at times the way is weary. Few of those we knew are left. Some
    are victims to battle and murder, their bones strew the veldt;
    death has taken some in a more gentle fashion; others are hidden
    from us, we know not where. We might well fear to return to that
    land lest we also should see ghosts. But though we walk apart
    to-day, the past yet looks upon us with its unalterable eyes. Still
    we can remember many a boyish enterprise and adventure, lightly
    undertaken, which now would strike us as hazardous indeed. Still we
    can recall the long familiar line of the Pretoria Horse, the face
    of war and panic, the weariness of midnight patrols; aye, and hear
    the roar of guns echoed from the Shameful Hill.
    To you then, Macumazahn, in perpetual memory of those eventful
    years of youth which we passed together in the African towns and on
    the African veldt, I dedicate these pages, subscribing myself now
    as always,
    Your sincere friend,
    Indanda.
    To Arthur H. D. Cochrane, Esq.




ALLAN’S WIFE




CHAPTER I.
EARLY DAYS


It may be remembered that in the last pages of his diary, written just
before his death, Allan Quatermain makes allusion to his long dead
wife, stating that he has written of her fully elsewhere.

When his death was known, his papers were handed to myself as his
literary executor. Among them I found two manuscripts, of which the
following is one. The other is simply a record of events wherein Mr.
Quatermain was not personally concerned—a Zulu novel, the story of
which was told to him by the hero many years after the tragedy had
occurred. But with this we have nothing to do at present.

I have often thought (Mr. Quatermain’s manuscript begins) that I would
set down on paper the events connected with my marriage, and the loss
of my most dear wife. Many years have now passed since that event, and
to some extent time has softened the old grief, though Heaven knows it
is still keen enough. On two or three occasions I have even begun the
record. Once I gave it up because the writing of it depressed me beyond
bearing, once because I was suddenly called away upon a journey, and
the third time because a Kaffir boy found my manuscript convenient for
lighting the kitchen fire.

But now that I am at leisure here in England, I will make a fourth
attempt. If I succeed, the story may serve to interest some one in
after years when I am dead and gone; before that I should not wish it
to be published. It is a wild tale enough, and suggests some curious
reflections.

I am the son of a missionary. My father was originally curate in charge
of a small parish in Oxfordshire. He had already been some ten years
married to my dear mother when he went there, and he had four children,
of whom I was the youngest. I remember faintly the place where we
lived. It was an ancient long grey house, facing the road. There was a
very large tree of some sort in the garden. It was hollow, and we
children used to play about inside of it, and knock knots of wood from
the rough bark. We all slept in a kind of attic, and my mother always
came and kissed us when we were in bed. I used to wake up and see her
bending over me, a candle in her hand. There was a curious kind of pole
projecting from the wall over my bed. Once I was dreadfully frightened
because my eldest brother made me hang to it by my hands. That is all I
remember about our old home. It has been pulled down long ago, or I
would journey there to see it.

A little further down the road was a large house with big iron gates to
it, and on the top of the gate pillars sat two stone lions, which were
so hideous that I was afraid of them. Perhaps this sentiment was
prophetic. One could see the house by peeping through the bars of the
gates. It was a gloomy-looking place, with a tall yew hedge round it;
but in the summer-time some flowers grew about the sun-dial in the
grass plat. This house was called the Hall, and Squire Carson lived
there. One Christmas—it must have been the Christmas before my father
emigrated, or I should not remember it—we children went to a
Christmas-tree festivity at the Hall. There was a great party there,
and footmen wearing red waistcoats stood at the door. In the
dining-room, which was panelled with black oak, was the Christmas-tree.
Squire Carson stood in front of it. He was a tall, dark man, very quiet
in his manners, and he wore a bunch of seals on his waistcoat. We used
to think him old, but as a matter of fact he was then not more than
forty. He had been, as I afterwards learned, a great traveller in his
youth, and some six or seven years before this date he married a lady
who was half a Spaniard—a papist, my father called her. I can remember
her well. She was small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large
black eyes, and glittering teeth. She spoke English with a curious
accent. I suppose that I must have been a funny child to look at, and I
know that my hair stood up on my head then as it does now, for I still
have a sketch of myself that my mother made of me, in which this
peculiarity is strongly marked. On this occasion of the Christmas-tree
I remember that Mrs. Carson turned to a tall, foreign-looking gentleman
who stood beside her, and, tapping him affectionately on the shoulder
with her gold eye-glasses, said—

“Look, cousin—look at that droll little boy with the big brown eyes;
his hair is like a—what you call him?—scrubbing-brush. Oh, what a droll
little boy!”

The tall gentleman pulled at his moustache, and, taking Mrs. Carson’s
hand in his, began to smooth my hair down with it till I heard her
whisper—

“Leave go my hand, cousin. Thomas is looking like—like the
thunderstorm.”

Thomas was the name of Mr. Carson, her husband.

After that I hid myself as well as I could behind a chair, for I was
shy, and watched little Stella Carson, who was the squire’s only child,
giving the children presents off the tree. She was dressed as Father
Christmas, with some soft white stuff round her lovely little face, and
she had large dark eyes, which I thought more beautiful than anything I
had ever seen. At last it came to my turn to receive a present—oddly
enough, considered in the light of future events, it was a large
monkey. Stella reached it down from one of the lower boughs of the tree
and handed it to me, saying—

“Dat is my Christmas present to you, little Allan Quatermain.”

As she did so her sleeve, which was covered with cotton wool, spangled
over with something that shone, touched one of the tapers and caught
fire—how I do not know—and the flame ran up her arm towards her throat.
She stood quite still. I suppose that she was paralysed with fear; and
the ladies who were near screamed very loud, but did nothing. Then some
impulse seized me—perhaps instinct would be a better word to use,
considering my age. I threw myself upon the child, and, beating at the
fire with my hands, mercifully succeeded in extinguishing it before it
really got hold. My wrists were so badly scorched that they had to be
wrapped up in wool for a long time afterwards, but with the exception
of a single burn upon her throat, little Stella Carson was not much
hurt.

This is all that I remember about the Christmas-tree at the Hall. What
happened afterwards is lost to me, but to this day in my sleep I
sometimes see little Stella’s sweet face and the stare of terror in her
dark eyes as the fire ran up her arm. This, however, is not wonderful,
for I had, humanly speaking, saved the life of her who was destined to
be my wife.

The next event which I can recall clearly is that my mother and three
brothers all fell ill of fever, owing, as I afterwards learned, to the
poisoning of our well by some evil-minded person, who threw a dead
sheep into it.

It must have been while they were ill that Squire Carson came one day
to the vicarage. The weather was still cold, for there was a fire in
the study, and I sat before the fire writing letters on a piece of
paper with a pencil, while my father walked up and down the room
talking to himself. Afterwards I knew that he was praying for the lives
of his wife and children. Presently a servant came to the door and said
that some one wanted to see him.

“It is the squire, sir,” said the maid, “and he says he particularly
wishes to see you.”

“Very well,” answered my father, wearily, and presently Squire Carson
came in. His face was white and haggard, and his eyes shone so fiercely
that I was afraid of him.

“Forgive me for intruding on you at such a time, Quatermain,” he said,
in a hoarse voice, “but to-morrow I leave this place for ever, and I
wish to speak to you before I go—indeed, I must speak to you.”

“Shall I send Allan away?” said my father, pointing to me.

“No; let him bide. He will not understand.” Nor, indeed, did I at the
time, but I remembered every word, and in after years their meaning
grew on me.

“First tell me,” he went on, “how are they?” and he pointed upwards
with his thumb.

“My wife and two of the boys are beyond hope,” my father answered, with
a groan. “I do not know how it will go with the third. The Lord’s will
be done!”

“The Lord’s will be done,” the squire echoed, solemnly. “And now,
Quatermain, listen—my wife’s gone.”

“Gone!” my father answered. “Who with?”

“With that foreign cousin of hers. It seems from a letter she left me
that she always cared for him, not for me. She married me because she
thought me a rich English milord. Now she has run through my property,
or most of it, and gone. I don’t know where. Luckily, she did not care
to encumber her new career with the child; Stella is left to me.”

“That is what comes of marrying a papist, Carson,” said my father. That
was his fault; he was as good and charitable a man as ever lived, but
he was bigoted. “What are you going to do—follow her?”

He laughed bitterly in answer.

“Follow her!” he said; “why should I follow her? If I met her I might
kill her or him, or both of them, because of the disgrace they have
brought upon my child’s name. No, I never want to look upon her face
again. I trusted her, I tell you, and she has betrayed me. Let her go
and find her fate. But I am going too. I am weary of my life.”

“Surely, Carson, surely,” said my father, “you do not mean——”

“No, no; not that. Death comes soon enough. But I will leave this
civilized world which is a lie. We will go right away into the wilds, I
and my child, and hide our shame. Where? I don’t know where. Anywhere,
so long as there are no white faces, no smooth educated tongues——”

“You are mad, Carson,” my father answered. “How will you live? How can
you educate Stella? Be a man and wear it down.”

“I will be a man, and I will wear it down, but not here, Quatermain.
Education! Was not she—that woman who was my wife—was not she highly
educated?—the cleverest woman in the country forsooth. Too clever for
me, Quatermain—too clever by half! No, no, Stella shall be brought up
in a different school; if it be possible, she shall forget her very
name. Good-bye, old friend, good-bye for ever. Do not try to find me
out, henceforth I shall be like one dead to you, to you and all I
knew,” and he was gone.

“Mad,” said my father, with a heavy sigh. “His trouble has turned his
brain. But he will think better of it.”

At that moment the nurse came hurrying in and whispered something in
his ear. My father’s face turned deadly pale. He clutched at the table
to support himself, then staggered from the room. My mother was dying!

It was some days afterwards, I do not know exactly how long, that my
father took me by the hand and led me upstairs into the big room which
had been my mother’s bedroom. There she lay, dead in her coffin, with
flowers in her hand. Along the wall of the room were arranged three
little white beds, and on each of the beds lay one of my brothers. They
all looked as though they were asleep, and they all had flowers in
their hands. My father told me to kiss them, because I should not see
them any more, and I did so, though I was very frightened. I did not
know why. Then he took me in his arms and kissed me.

“The Lord hath given,” he said, “and the Lord hath taken away; blessed
be the name of the Lord.”

I cried very much, and he took me downstairs, and after that I have
only a confused memory of men dressed in black carrying heavy burdens
towards the grey churchyard!

Next comes a vision of a great ship and wide tossing waters. My father
could no longer bear to live in England after the loss that had fallen
on him, and made up his mind to emigrate to South Africa. We must have
been poor at the time—indeed, I believe that a large portion of our
income went from my father on my mother’s death. At any rate we
travelled with the steerage passengers, and the intense discomfort of
the journey with the rough ways of our fellow emigrants still remain
upon my mind. At last it came to an end, and we reached Africa, which I
was not to leave again for many, many years.

In those days civilization had not made any great progress in Southern
Africa. My father went up the country and became a missionary among the
Kaffirs, near to where the town of Cradock now stands, and here I grew
to manhood. There were a few Boer farmers in the neighbourhood, and
gradually a little settlement of whites gathered round our mission
station—a drunken Scotch blacksmith and wheelwright was about the most
interesting character, who, when he was sober, could quote the Scottish
poet Burns and the Ingoldsby Legends, then recently published,
literally by the page. It was from that I contracted a fondness for the
latter amusing writings, which has never left me. Burns I never cared
for so much, probably because of the Scottish dialect which repelled
me. What little education I got was from my father, but I never had
much leaning towards books, nor he much time to teach them to me. On
the other hand, I was always a keen observer of the ways of men and
nature. By the time that I was twenty I could speak Dutch and three or
four Kaffir dialects perfectly, and I doubt if there was anybody in
South Africa who understood native ways of thought and action more
completely than I did. Also I was really a very good shot and horseman,
and I think—as, indeed, my subsequent career proves to have been the
case—a great deal tougher than the majority of men. Though I was then,
as now, light and small, nothing seemed to tire me. I could bear any
amount of exposure and privation, and I never met the native who was my
master in feats of endurance. Of course, all that is different now, I
am speaking of my early manhood.

It may be wondered that I did not run absolutely wild in such
surroundings, but I was held back from this by my father’s society. He
was one of the gentlest and most refined men that I ever met; even the
most savage Kaffir loved him, and his influence was a very good one for
me. He used to call himself one of the world’s failures. Would that
there were more such failures. Every morning when his work was done he
would take his prayer-book and, sitting on the little stoep or verandah
of our station, would read the evening psalms to himself. Sometimes
there was not light enough for this, but it made no difference, he knew
them all by heart. When he had finished he would look out across the
cultivated lands where the mission Kaffirs had their huts.

But I knew it was not these he saw, but rather the grey English church,
and the graves ranged side by side before the yew near the wicket gate.

It was there on the stoep that he died. He had not been well, and one
evening I was talking to him, and his mind went back to Oxfordshire and
my mother. He spoke of her a good deal, saying that she had never been
out of his mind for a single day during all these years, and that he
rejoiced to think he was drawing near that land whither she had gone.
Then he asked me if I remembered the night when Squire Carson came into
the study at the vicarage, and told him that his wife had run away, and
that he was going to change his name and bury himself in some remote
land.

I answered that I remembered it perfectly.

“I wonder where he went to,” said my father, “and if he and his
daughter Stella are still alive. Well, well! I shall never meet them
again. But life is a strange thing, Allan, and you may. If you ever do,
give them my kind love.”

After that I left him. We had been suffering more than usual from the
depredations of the Kaffir thieves, who stole our sheep at night, and,
as I had done before, and not without success, I determined to watch
the kraal and see if I could catch them. Indeed, it was from this habit
of mine of watching at night that I first got my native name of
Macumazahn, which may be roughly translated as “he who sleeps with one
eye open.” So I took my rifle and rose to go. But he called me to him
and kissed me on the forehead, saying, “God bless you, Allan! I hope
that you will think of your old father sometimes, and that you will
lead a good and happy life.”

I remember that I did not much like his tone at the time, but set it
down to an attack of low spirits, to which he grew very subject as the
years went on. I went down to the kraal and watched till within an hour
of sunrise; then, as no thieves appeared, returned to the station. As I
came near I was astonished to see a figure sitting in my father’s
chair. At first I thought it must be a drunken Kaffir, then that my
father had fallen asleep there.

And so he had,—for he was dead!




CHAPTER II.
THE FIRE-FIGHT


When I had buried my father, and seen a successor installed in his
place—for the station was the property of the Society—I set to work to
carry out a plan which I had long cherished, but been unable to execute
because it would have involved separation from my father. Put shortly,
it was to undertake a trading journey of exploration right through the
countries now known as the Free State and the Transvaal, and as much
further North as I could go. It was an adventurous scheme, for though
the emigrant Boers had begun to occupy positions in these territories,
they were still to all practical purposes unexplored. But I was now
alone in the world, and it mattered little what became of me; so,
driven on by the overmastering love of adventure, which, old as I am,
will perhaps still be the cause of my death, I determined to undertake
the journey.

Accordingly I sold such stock and goods as we had upon the station,
reserving only the two best waggons and two spans of oxen. The proceeds
I invested in such goods as were then in fashion, for trading purposes,
and in guns and ammunition. The guns would have moved any modern
explorer to merriment; but such as they were I managed to do a good
deal of execution with them. One of them was a single-barrelled, smooth
bore, fitted for percussion caps—a roer we called it—which threw a
three-ounce ball, and was charged with a handful of coarse black
powder. Many is the elephant that I killed with that roer, although it
generally knocked me backwards when I fired it, which I only did under
compulsion. The best of the lot, perhaps, was a double-barrelled No. 12
shot-gun, but it had flint locks. Also there were some old tower
muskets, which might or might not throw straight at seventy yards. I
took six Kaffirs with me, and three good horses, which were supposed to
be salted—that is, proof against the sickness. Among the Kaffirs was an
old fellow named Indaba-zimbi, which, being translated, means “tongue
of iron.” I suppose he got this name from his strident voice and
exhaustless eloquence. This man was a great character in his way. He
had been a noted witch-doctor among a neighbouring tribe, and came to
the station under the following circumstances, which, as he plays a
considerable part in this history, are perhaps worth recording.

Two years before my father’s death I had occasion to search the country
round for some lost oxen. After a long and useless quest it occurred to
me that I had better go to the place where the oxen were bred by a
Kaffir chief, whose name I forget, but whose kraal was about fifty
miles from our station. There I journeyed, and found the oxen safe at
home. The chief entertained me handsomely, and on the following morning
I went to pay my respects to him before leaving, and was somewhat
surprised to find a collection of some hundreds of men and women
sitting round him anxiously watching the sky in which the
thunder-clouds were banking up in a very ominous way.

“You had better wait, white man,” said the chief, “and see the
rain-doctors fight the lightning.”

I inquired what he meant, and learned that this man, Indaba-zimbi, had
for some years occupied the position of wizard-in-chief to the tribe,
although he was not a member of it, having been born in the country now
known as Zululand. But a son of the chief’s, a man of about thirty, had
lately set up as a rival in supernatural powers. This irritated
Indaba-zimbi beyond measure, and a quarrel ensued between the two
witch-doctors that resulted in a challenge to trial by lightning being
given and accepted. These were the conditions. The rivals must await
the coming of a serious thunderstorm, no ordinary tempest would serve
their turn. Then, carrying assegais in their hands, they must take
their stand within fifty paces of each other upon a certain patch of
ground where the big thunderbolts were observed to strike continually,
and by the exercise of their occult powers and invocations to the
lightning, must strive to avert death from themselves and bring it on
their rival. The terms of this singular match had been arranged a month
previously, but no storm worthy of the occasion had arisen. Now the
local weather-prophets believed it to be brewing.

I inquired what would happen if neither of the men were struck, and was
told that they must then wait for another storm. If they escaped the
second time, however, they would be held to be equal in power, and be
jointly consulted by the tribe upon occasions of importance.

The prospect of being a spectator of so unusual a sight overcame my
desire to be gone, and I accepted the chief’s invitation to see it out.
Before mid-day I regretted it, for though the western heavens grew
darker and darker, and the still air heralded the coming of the storm,
yet it did not come. By four o’clock, however, it became obvious that
it must burst soon—at sunset, the old chief said, and in the company of
the whole assembly I moved down to the place of combat. The kraal was
built on the top of a hill, and below it the land sloped gently to the
banks of a river about half a mile away. On the hither side of the bank
was the piece of land that was, the natives said, “loved of the
lightning.” Here the magicians took up their stand, while the
spectators grouped themselves on the hillside about two hundred yards
away—which was, I thought, rather too near to be pleasant. When we had
sat there for a while my curiosity overcame me, and I asked leave of
the chief to go down and inspect the arena. He said I might do so at my
own risk. I told him that the fire from above would not hurt white men,
and went to find that the spot was a bed of iron ore, thinly covered
with grass, which of course accounted for its attracting the lightning
from the storms as they travelled along the line of the river. At each
end of this iron-stone area were placed the combatants, Indaba-zimbi
facing the east, and his rival the west, and before each there burned a
little fire made of some scented root. Moreover they were dressed in
all the paraphernalia of their craft, snakeskins, fish-bladders, and I
know not what beside, while round their necks hung circlets of baboons’
teeth and bones from human hands. First I went to the western end where
the chief’s son stood. He was pointing with his assegai towards the
advancing storm, and invoking it in a voice of great excitement.

“Come, fire, and lick up Indaba-zimbi!

“Hear me, Storm Devil, and lick Indaba-zimbi with your red tongue!

“Spit on him with your rain!

“Whirl him away in your breath!

“Make him as nothing—melt the marrow in his bones!

“Run into his heart and burn away the lies!

“Show all the people who is the true Witch Finder!

“Let me not be put to shame in the eyes of this white man!”

Thus he spoke, or rather chanted, and all the while rubbed his broad
chest—for he was a very fine man—with some filthy compound of medicine
or _mouti_.

After a while, getting tired of his song, I walked across the
iron-stone, to where Indaba-zimbi sat by his fire. He was not chanting
at all, but his performance was much more impressive. It consisted in
staring at the eastern sky, which was perfectly clear of cloud, and
every now and again beckoning at it with his finger, then turning round
to point with the assegai towards his rival. For a while I looked at
him in silence. He was a curious wizened man, apparently over fifty
years of age, with thin hands that looked as tough as wire. His nose
was much sharper than is usual among these races, and he had a queer
habit of holding his head sideways like a bird when he spoke, which, in
addition to the humour that lurked in his eye, gave him a most comical
appearance. Another strange thing about him was that he had a single
white lock of hair among his black wool. At last I spoke to him:

“Indaba-zimbi, my friend,” I said, “you may be a good witch-doctor, but
you are certainly a fool. It is no good beckoning at the blue sky while
your enemy is getting a start with the storm.”

“You may be clever, but don’t think you know everything, white man,”
the old fellow answered, in a high, cracked voice, and with something
like a grin.

“They call you Iron-tongue,” I went on; “you had better use it, or the
Storm Devil won’t hear you.”

“The fire from above runs down iron,” he answered, “so I keep my tongue
quiet. Oh, yes, let him curse away, I’ll put him out presently. Look
now, white man.”

I looked, and in the eastern sky there grew a cloud. At first it was
small, though very black, but it gathered with extraordinary rapidity.

This was odd enough, but as I had seen the same thing happen before it
did not particularly astonish me. It is by no means unusual in Africa
for two thunderstorms to come up at the same time from different points
of the compass.

“You had better get on, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “the big storm is coming
along fast, and will soon eat up that baby of yours,” and I pointed to
the west.

“Babies sometimes grow to giants, white man,” said Indaba-zimbi,
beckoning away vigorously. “Look now at my cloud-child.”

I looked; the eastern storm was spreading itself from earth to sky, and
in shape resembled an enormous man. There was its head, its shoulders,
and its legs; yes, it was like a huge giant travelling across the
heavens. The light of the setting sun escaping from beneath the lower
edge of the western storm shot across the intervening space in a sheet
of splendour, and, lighting upon the advancing figure of cloud, wrapped
its middle in hues of glory too wonderful to be described; but beneath
and above this glowing belt his feet and head were black as jet.
Presently, as I watched, an awful flash of light shot from the head of
the cloud, circled it about as though with a crown of living fire, and
vanished.

“Aha,” chuckled old Indaba-zimbi, “my little boy is putting on his
man’s ring,” and he tapped the gum ring on his own head, which natives
assume when they reach a certain age and dignity. “Now, white man,
unless you are a bigger wizard than either of us you had better clear
off, for the fire-fight is about to begin.”

I thought this sound advice.

“Good luck go with you, my black uncle,” I said. “I hope you don’t feel
the iniquities of a mis-spent life weighing on you at the last.”

“You look after yourself, and think of your own sins, young man,” he
answered, with a grim smile, and taking a pinch of snuff, while at that
very moment a flash of lightning, I don’t know from which storm, struck
the ground within thirty paces of me. That was enough for me, I took to
my heels, and as I went I heard old Indaba-zimbi’s dry chuckle of
amusement.

I climbed the hill till I came to where the chief was sitting with his
indunas, or headmen, and sat down near to him. I looked at the man’s
face and saw that he was intensely anxious for his son’s safety, and by
no means confident of the young man’s powers to resist the magic of
Indaba-zimbi. He was talking in a low voice to the induna next to him.
I affected to take no notice and to be concentrating my attention on
the novel scene before me; but in those days I had very quick ears, and
caught the drift of the conversation.

“Hearken!” the chief was saying, “if the magic of Indaba-zimbi prevails
against my son I will endure him no more. Of this I am sure, that when
he has slain my son he will slay me, me also, and make himself chief in
my place. I fear Indaba-zimbi. _Ou!_”

“Black One,” answered the induna, “wizards die as dogs die, and, once
dead, dogs bark no more.”

“And once dead,” said the chief, “wizards work no more spells,” and he
bent and whispered in the induna’s ear, looking at the assegai in his
hand as he whispered.

“Good, my father, good!” said the induna, presently. “It shall be done
to-night, if the lightning does not do it first.”

“A bad look-out for old Indaba-zimbi,” I said to myself. “They mean to
kill him.” Then I thought no more of the matter for a while, the scene
before me was too tremendous.

The two storms were rapidly rushing together. Between them was a gulf
of blue sky, and from time to time flashes of blinding light passed
across this gulf, leaping from cloud to cloud. I remember that they
reminded me of the story of the heathen god Jove and his thunderbolts.
The storm that was shaped like a giant and ringed with the glory of the
sinking sun made an excellent Jove, and I am sure that the bolts which
leapt from it could not have been surpassed even in mythological times.
Oddly enough, as yet the flashes were not followed by thunder. A deadly
stillness lay upon the place, the cattle stood silently on the
hillside, even the natives were awed to silence. Dark shadows crept
along the bosom of the hills, the river to the right and left was
hidden in wreaths of cloud, but before us and beyond the combatants it
shone like a line of silver beneath the narrowing space of open sky.
Now the western tempest was scrawled all over with lines of intolerable
light, while the inky head of the cloud-giant to the east was
continually suffused with a white and deadly glow that came and went in
pulses, as though a blood of flame was being pumped into it from the
heart of the storm.

The silence deepened and deepened, the shadows grew blacker and
blacker, then suddenly all nature began to moan beneath the breath of
an icy wind. On sped the wind; the smooth surface of the river was
ruffled by it into little waves, the tall grass bowed low before it,
and in its wake came the hissing sound of furious rain.

Ah! the storms had met. From each there burst an awful blaze of
dazzling flame, and now the hill on which we sat rocked at the noise of
the following thunder. The light went out of the sky, darkness fell
suddenly on the land, but not for long. Presently the whole landscape
grew vivid in the flashes, it appeared and disappeared, now everything
was visible for miles, now even the men at my side vanished in the
blackness. The thunder rolled and cracked and pealed like the trump of
doom, whirlwinds tore round, lifting dust and even stones high into the
air, and in a low, continuous undertone rose the hiss of the rushing
rain.

I put my hand before my eyes to shield them from the terrible glare,
and looked beneath it towards the lists of iron-stone. As flash
followed flash, from time to time I caught sight of the two wizards.
They were slowly advancing towards one another, each pointing at his
foe with the assegai in his hand. I could see their every movement, and
it seemed to me that the chain lightning was striking the iron-stone
all round them.

Suddenly the thunder and lightning ceased for a minute, everything grew
black, and, except for the rain, silent.

“It is over one way or the other, chief,” I called out into the
darkness.

“Wait, white man, wait!” answered the chief, in a voice thick with
anxiety and fear.

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when the heavens were lit up
again till they literally seemed to flame. There were the men, not ten
paces apart. A great flash fell between them, I saw them stagger
beneath the shock. Indaba-zimbi recovered himself first—at any rate
when the next flash came he was standing bolt upright, pointing with
his assegai towards his enemy. The chief’s son was still on his legs,
but he was staggering like a drunken man, and the assegai had fallen
from his hand.

Darkness! then again a flash, more fearful, if possible, than any that
had gone before. To me it seemed to come from the east, right over the
head of Indaba-zimbi. At that instant I saw the chief’s son wrapped, as
it were, in the heart of it. Then the thunder pealed, the rain burst
over us like a torrent, and I saw no more.

The worst of the storm was done, but for a while the darkness was so
dense that we could not move, nor, indeed, was I inclined to leave the
safety of the hillside where the lightning was never known to strike,
and venture down to the iron-stone. Occasionally there still came
flashes, but, search as we would, we could see no trace of either of
the wizards. For my part, I believed that they were both dead. Now the
clouds slowly rolled away down the course of the river, and with them
went the rain; and now the stars shone in their wake.

“Let us go and see,” said the old chief, rising and shaking the water
from his hair. “The fire-fight is ended, let us go and see who has
conquered.”

I rose and followed him, dripping as though I had swum a hundred yards
with my clothes on, and after me came all the people of the kraal.

We reached the spot; even in that light I could see where the
iron-stone had been split and fused by the thunderbolts. While I was
staring about me, I suddenly heard the chief, who was on my right, give
a low moan, and saw the people cluster round him. I went up and looked.
There, on the ground, lay the body of his son. It was a dreadful sight.
The hair was burnt off his head, the copper rings upon his arms were
fused, the assegai handle which lay near was literally shivered into
threads, and, when I took hold of his arm, it seemed to me that every
bone of it was broken.

The men with the chief stood gazing silently, while the women wailed.

“Great is the magic of Indaba-zimbi!” said a man, at length. The chief
turned and struck him a heavy blow with the kerrie in his hand.

“Great or not, thou dog, he shall die,” he cried, “and so shalt thou if
thou singest his praises so loudly.”

I said nothing, but thinking it probable that Indaba-zimbi had shared
the fate of his enemy, I went to look. But I could see nothing of him,
and at length, being thoroughly chilled with the wet, started back to
my waggon to change my clothes. On reaching it, I was rather surprised
to see a strange Kaffir seated on the driving-box wrapped up in a
blanket.

“Hullo! come out of that,” I said.

The figure on the box slowly unrolled the blanket, and with great
deliberation took a pinch of snuff.

“It was a good fire-fight, white man, was it not?” said Indaba-zimbi,
in his high, cracked voice. “But he never had a chance against me, poor
boy. He knew nothing about it. See, white man, what becomes of
presumption in the young. It is sad, very sad, but I made the flashes
fly, didn’t I?”

“You old humbug,” I said, “unless you are careful you will soon learn
what comes of presumption in the old, for your chief is after you with
an assegai, and it will take all your magic to dodge that.”

“Now you don’t say so,” said Indaba-zimbi, clambering off the waggon
with rapidity; “and all because of this wretched upstart. There’s
gratitude for you, white man. I expose him, and they want to kill me.
Well, thank you for the hint. We shall meet again before long,” and he
was gone like a shot, and not too soon, for just then some of the
chief’s men came up to the waggon.

On the following morning I started homewards. The first face I saw on
arriving at the station was that of Indaba-zimbi.

“How do you do, Macumazahn?” he said, holding his head on one side and
nodding his white lock. “I hear you are Christians here, and I want to
try a new religion. Mine must be a bad one seeing that my people wanted
to kill me for exposing an impostor.”




CHAPTER III.
NORTHWARDS


I make no apology to myself, or to anybody who may happen to read this
narrative in future, for having set out the manner of my meeting with
Indaba-zimbi: first, because it was curious, and secondly, because he
takes some hand in the subsequent events. If that old man was a humbug,
he was a very clever one. What amount of truth there was in his
pretensions to supernatural powers it is not for me to determine,
though I may have my own opinion on the subject. But there was no
mistake as to the extraordinary influence he exercised over his
fellow-natives. Also he quite got round my poor father. At first the
old gentleman declined to have him at the station, for he had a great
horror of these Kaffir wizards or witch-finders. But Indaba-zimbi
persuaded him that he was anxious to investigate the truths of
Christianity, and challenged him to a discussion. The argument lasted
two years—to the time of my father’s death, indeed. At the conclusion
of each stage Indaba-zimbi would remark, in the words of the Roman
Governor, “Almost, praying white man, thou persuadest me to become a
Christian,” but he never quite became one—indeed, I do not think he
ever meant to. It was to him that my father addressed his “Letters to a
Native Doubter.” This work, which, unfortunately, remains in
manuscript, is full of wise saws and learned instances. It ought to be
published together with a _précis_ of the doubter’s answers, which were
verbal.

So the talk went on. If my father had lived I believe it would be going
on now, for both the disputants were quite inexhaustible. Meanwhile
Indaba-zimbi was allowed to live on the station on condition that he
practised no witchcraft, which my father firmly believed to be a wile
of the devil. He said that he would not, but for all that there was
never an ox lost, or a sudden death, but he was consulted by those
interested.

When he had been with us a year, a deputation came to him from the
tribe he had left, asking him to return. Things had not gone well with
them since he went away, they said, and now the chief, his enemy, was
dead. Old Indaba-zimbi listened to them till they had done, and, as he
listened, raked sand into a little heap with his toes. Then he spoke,
pointing to the little heap, “There is your tribe to-day,” he said.
Then he lifted his heel and stamped the heap flat. “There is your tribe
before three moons are gone. Nothing is left of it. You drove me away:
I will have no more to do with you; but when you are being killed think
of my words.”

The messengers went. Three months afterwards I heard that the whole
community had been wiped out by an Impi of raiding Pondos.

When I was at length ready to start upon my expedition, I went to old
Indaba-zimbi to say good-bye to him, and was rather surprised to find
him engaged in rolling up medicine, assegais, and other sundries in his
blankets.

“Good-bye, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “I am going to trek north.”

“Yes, Macumazahn,” he answered, with his head on one side; “and so am
I—I want to see that country. We will go together.”

“Will we!” I said; “wait till you are asked, you old humbug.”

“You had better ask me, then, Macumazahn, for if you don’t you will
never come back alive. Now that the old chief (my father) is gone to
where the storms come from,” and he nodded to the sky, “I feel myself
getting into bad habits again. So last night I just threw up the bones
and worked out about your journey, and I can tell you this, that if you
don’t take me you will die, and, what is more, you will lose one who is
dearer to you than life in a strange fashion. So just because you gave
me that hint a couple of years ago, I made up my mind to come with
you.”

“Don’t talk stuff to me,” I said.

“Ah, very well, Macumazahn, very well; but what happened to my own
people six months ago, and what did I tell the messengers would happen?
They drove me away, and they are gone. If you drive me away you will
soon be gone too,” and he nodded his white lock at me and smiled. Now I
was not more superstitious than other people, but somehow old
Indaba-zimbi impressed me. Also I knew his extraordinary influence over
every class of native, and bethought me that he might be useful in that
way.

“All right,” I said: “I appoint you witch-finder to the expedition
without pay.”

“First serve, then ask for wages,” he answered. “I am glad to see that
you have enough imagination not to be altogether a fool, like most
white men, Macumazahn. Yes, yes, it is want of imagination that makes
people fools; they won’t believe what they can’t understand. You can’t
understand my prophecies any more than the fool at the kraal could
understand that I was his master with the lightning. Well, it is time
to trek, but if I were you, Macumazahn, I should take one waggon, not
two.”

“Why?” I said.

“Because you will lose your waggons, and it is better to lose one than
two.”

“Oh, nonsense!” I said.

“All right, Macumazahn, live and learn.” And without another word he
walked to the foremost waggon, put his bundle into it, and climbed on
to the front seat.

So having bid an affectionate adieu to my white friends, including the
old Scotchman who got drunk in honour of the event, and quoted Burns
till the tears ran down his face, at length I started, and travelled
slowly northwards. For the first three weeks nothing very particular
befell me. Such Kaffirs as we came in contact with were friendly, and
game literally swarmed. Nobody living in those parts of South Africa
nowadays can have the remotest idea of what the veldt was like even
thirty years ago.

Often and often I have crept shivering on to my waggon-box just as the
sun rose and looked out. At first one would see nothing but a vast
field of white mist suffused towards the east by a tremulous golden
glow, through which the tops of stony koppies stood up like gigantic
beacons. From the dense mist would come strange sounds—snorts,
gruntings, bellows, and the thunder of countless hoofs. Presently this
great curtain would grow thinner, then it would melt, as the smoke from
a pipe melts into the air, and for miles on miles the wide rolling
country interspersed with bush opened to the view. But it was not
tenantless as it is now, for as far as the eye could reach it would be
literally black with game. Here to the right might be a herd of
vilderbeeste that could not number less than two thousand. Some were
grazing, some gambolled, whisking their white tails into the air, while
all round the old bulls stood upon hillocks sniffing suspiciously at
the breeze. There, in front, a hundred yards away, though to the
unpractised eye they looked much closer, because of the dazzling
clearness of the atmosphere, was a great herd of springbok trekking
along in single file. Ah, they have come to the waggon-track and do not
like the look of it. What will they do?—go back? Not a bit of it. It is
nearly thirty feet wide, but that is nothing to a springbok. See, the
first of them bounds into the air like a ball. How beautifully the
sunshine gleams upon his golden hide! He has cleared it, and the others
come after him in numberless succession, all except the fawns, who
cannot jump so far, and have to scamper over the doubtful path with a
terrified _bah_. What is that yonder, moving above the tops of the
mimosa, in the little dell at the foot of the koppie? Giraffes, by
George! three of them; there will be marrow-bones for supper to-night.
Hark! the ground shakes behind us, and over the brow of the rise rush a
vast herd of blesbock. On they come at full gallop, their long heads
held low, they look like so many bearded goats. I thought so—behind
them is a pack of wild dogs, their fur draggled, their tongues lolling.
They are in full cry; the giraffes hear them and are away, rolling
round the koppie like a ship in a heavy sea. No marrow-bones after all.
See! the foremost dogs are close on a buck. He has galloped far and is
outworn. One springs at his flank and misses him. The buck gives a kind
of groan, looks wildly round and sees the waggon. He seems to hesitate
a moment, then in his despair rushes up to it, and falls exhausted
among the oxen. The dogs pull up some thirty paces away, panting and
snarling. Now, boy, the gun—no, not the rifle, the shot-gun loaded with
loopers.

Bang! bang! there, my friends, two of you will never hunt buck again.
No, don’t touch the buck, for he has come to us for shelter, and he
shall have it.

Ah, how beautiful is nature before man comes to spoil it!

Such a sight as this have I seen many a hundred times, and I hope to
see it again before I die.

The first real adventure that befell me on this particular journey was
with elephants, which I will relate because of its curious termination.
Just before we crossed the Orange River we came to a stretch of
forest-land some twenty miles broad. The night we entered this forest
we camped in a lovely open glade. A few yards ahead tambouki grass was
growing to the height of a man, or rather it had been; now, with the
exception of a few stalks here and there, it was crushed quite flat. It
was already dusk when we camped; but after the moon got up I walked
from the fire to see how this had happened. One glance was enough for
me; a great herd of elephants had evidently passed over the tall grass
not many hours before. The sight of their spoor rejoiced me
exceedingly, for though I had seen wild elephants, at that time I had
never shot one. Moreover, the sight of elephant spoor to the African
hunter is what “colour in the pan” is to the prospector of gold. It is
by the ivory that he lives, and to shoot it or trade it is his chief
aim in life. My resolution was soon taken. I would camp the waggons for
a while in the forest, and start on horseback after the elephants.

I communicated my decision to Indaba-zimbi and the other Kaffirs. The
latter were not loth, for your Kaffir loves hunting, which means plenty
of meat and congenial occupation, but Indaba-zimbi would express no
opinion. I saw him retire to a little fire that he had lit for himself,
and go through some mysterious performances with bones and clay mixed
with ashes, which were watched with the greatest interest by the other
Kaffirs. At length he rose, and, coming forward, informed me that it
was all right, and that I did well to go and hunt the elephants, as I
should get plenty of ivory; but he advised me to go on foot. I said I
should do nothing of the sort, but meant to ride. I am wiser now; this
was the first and last time that I ever attempted to hunt elephants on
horseback.

Accordingly we started at dawn, I, Indaba-zimbi, and three men; the
rest I left with the waggons. I was on horseback, and so was my driver,
a good rider and a skilful shot for a Kaffir, but Indaba-zimbi and the
others walked. From dawn till mid-day we followed the trail of the
herd, which was as plain as a high road. Then we off-saddled to let the
horses rest and feed, and about three o’clock started on again. Another
hour or so passed, and still there was no sign of elephants. Evidently
the herd had travelled fast and far, and I began to think that we
should have to give it up, when suddenly I caught sight of a brown mass
moving through the thorn-trees on the side of a slope about a quarter
of a mile away. My heart seemed to jump into my mouth. Where is the
hunter who has not felt like this at the sight of his first elephant?

I called a halt, and then the wind being right, we set to work to stalk
the bull. Very quietly I rode down the hither side of the slope till we
came to the bottom, which was densely covered with bush. Here I saw the
elephants had been feeding, for broken branches and upturned trees lay
all about. I did not take much notice, however, for all my thoughts
were fixed upon the bull I was stalking, when suddenly my horse gave a
violent start that nearly threw me from the saddle, and there came a
mighty rush and upheaval of something in front of me. I looked: there
was the hinder part of a second bull elephant not four yards off. I
could just catch sight of its outstretched ears projecting on either
side. I had disturbed it sleeping, and it was running away.

Obviously the best thing to do would have been to let it run, but I was
young in those days and foolish, and in the excitement of the moment I
lifted my “roer” or elephant gun and fired at the great brute over my
horse’s head. The recoil of the heavy gun nearly knocked me off the
horse. I recovered myself, however, and, as I did so, saw the bull
lurch forward, for the impact of a three-ounce bullet in the flank will
quicken the movement even of an elephant. By this time I had realized
the folly of the shot, and devoutly hoped that the bull would take no
further notice of it. But he took a different view of the matter.
Pulling himself up in a series of plunges, he spun round and came for
me with outstretched ears and uplifted trunk, screaming terribly. I was
quite defenceless, for my gun was empty, and my first thought was of
escape. I dug my heels into the sides of my horse, but he would not
move an inch. The poor animal was paralyzed with terror, and he simply
stood still, his fore-legs outstretched, and quivering all over like a
leaf.

On rushed the elephant, awful to see; I made one more vain effort to
stir the horse. Now the trunk of the great bull swung aloft above my
head. A thought flashed through my brain. Quick as light I rolled from
the saddle. By the side of the horse lay a fallen tree, as thick
through as a man’s body. The tree was lifted a little off the ground by
the broken boughs which took its weight, and with a single movement, so
active is one in such necessities, I flung myself beneath it. As I did
so, I heard the trunk of the elephant descend with a mighty thud on the
back of my poor horse, and the next instant I was almost in darkness,
for the horse, whose back was broken, fell over across the tree under
which I lay ensconced. But he did not stop there long. In ten seconds
more the bull had wound his trunk about my dead nag’s neck, and, with a
mighty effort, hurled him clear of the tree. I wriggled backwards as
far as I could towards the roots of the tree, for I knew what he was
after. Presently I saw the red tip of the bull’s trunk stretching
itself towards me. If he could manage to hook it round any part of me I
was lost. But in the position I occupied, that was just what he could
not do, although he knelt down to facilitate his operations. On came
the snapping tip like a great open-mouthed snake; it closed upon my
hat, which vanished. Again it was thrust down, and a scream of rage was
bellowed through it within four inches of my head. Now it seemed to
elongate itself. Oh, heavens! now it had me by the hair, which, luckily
for myself, was not very long. Then it was my turn to scream, for next
instant half a square inch of hair was dragged from my scalp by the
roots. I was being plucked alive, as I have seen cruel Kaffir kitchen
boys pluck a fowl.

The elephant, however, disappointed with these moderate results,
changed his tactics. He wound his trunk round the fallen tree and
lifted. The tree stirred, but fortunately the broken branches embedded
in the spongy soil, and some roots, which still held, prevented it from
being turned over, though he lifted it so much that, had it occurred to
him, he could now easily have drawn me out with his trunk. Again he
hoisted with all his mighty strength, and I saw that the tree was
coming, and roared aloud for help. Some shots were fired close by in
answer, but if they hit the bull, their only effect was to stir his
energies to more active life. In another few seconds my shelter would
be torn away, and I should be done for. A cold perspiration burst out
over me as I realized that I was lost. Then of a sudden I remembered
that I had a pistol in my belt, which I often used for despatching
wounded game. It was loaded and capped. By this time the tree was
lifted so much that I could easily get my hand down to my middle and
draw the pistol from its case. I drew and cocked it. Now the tree was
coming over, and there, within three feet of my head, was the great
brown trunk of the elephant. I placed the muzzle of the pistol within
an inch of it and fired. The result was instantaneous. Down sunk the
tree again, giving one of my legs a considerable squeeze, and next
instant I heard a crashing sound. The elephant had bolted.

By this time, what between fright and struggling, I was pretty well
tired. I cannot remember how I got from under the fallen tree, or
indeed anything, until I found myself sitting on the ground drinking
some peach brandy from a flask, and old Indaba-zimbi opposite to me
nodding his white lock sagely, while he fired off moral reflections on
the narrowness of my escape, and my unwisdom in not having taken his
advice to go on foot. That reminded me of my horse—I got up and went to
look at it. It was quite dead, the blow of the elephant’s trunk had
fallen on the saddle, breaking the framework, and rendering it useless.
I reflected that in another two seconds it would have fallen on _me_.
Then I called to Indaba-zimbi and asked which way the elephants had
gone.

“There!” he said, pointing down the gully, “and we had better go after
them, Macumazahn. We have had the bad luck, now for the good.”

There was philosophy in this, though, to tell the truth, I did not feel
particularly sharp set on elephants at the moment. I seemed to have had
enough of them. However, it would never do to show the white feather
before the boys, so I assented with much outward readiness, and we
started, I on the second horse, and the others on foot. When we had
travelled for the best part of an hour down the valley, all of a sudden
we came upon the whole herd, which numbered a little more than eighty.
Just in front of them the bush was so thick that they seemed to
hesitate about entering it, and the sides of the valley were so rocky
and steep at this point that they could not climb them.

They saw us at the same moment as we saw them, and inwardly I was
filled with fears lest they should take it into their heads to charge
back up the gully. But they did not; trumpeting aloud, they rushed at
the thick bush which went down before them like corn before a sickle. I
do not think that in all my experiences I ever heard anything to equal
the sound they made as they crashed through and over the shrubs and
trees. Before them was a dense forest belt from a hundred to a hundred
and fifty feet in width. As they rushed on, it fell, so that behind
them was nothing but a level roadway strewed with fallen trunks,
crushed branches, and here and there a tree, too strong even for them,
left stranded amid the wreck. On they went, and, notwithstanding the
nature of the ground over which they had to travel, they kept their
distance ahead of us. This sort of thing continued for a mile or more,
and then I saw that in front of the elephants the valley opened into a
space covered with reeds and grass—it might have been five or six acres
in extent—beyond which the valley ran on again.

The herd reached the edge of this expanse, and for a moment pulled up,
hesitating—evidently they mistrusted it. My men yelled aloud, as only
Kaffirs can, and that settled them. Headed by the wounded bull, whose
martial ardour, like my own, was somewhat cooled, they spread out and
dashed into the treacherous swamp—for such it was, though just then
there was no water to be seen. For a few yards all went well with them,
though they clearly found it heavy going; then suddenly the great bull
sank up to his belly in the stiff peaty soil, and remained fixed. The
others, mad with fear, took no heed of his struggles and trumpetings,
but plunged on to meet the same fate. In five minutes the whole herd of
them were hopelessly bogged, and the more they struggled to escape, the
deeper they sunk. There was one exception, indeed, a cow managed to win
back to firm shore, and, lifting her trunk, prepared to charge us as we
came up. But at that moment she heard the scream of her calf, and
rushed back to its assistance, only to be bogged with the others.

Such a scene I never saw before or since. The swamp was spotted all
over with the large forms of the elephants, and the air rang with their
screams of rage and terror as they waved their trunks wildly to and
fro. Now and then a monster would make a great effort and drag his mass
from its peaty bed, only to stick fast again at the next step. It was a
most pitiable sight, though one that gladdened the hearts of my men.
Even the best natives have little compassion for the sufferings of
animals.

Well, the rest was easy. The marsh that would not bear the elephants
carried our weight well enough. Before midnight all were dead, for we
shot them by moonlight. I would gladly have spared the young ones and
some of the cows, but to do so would only have meant leaving them to
perish of hunger; it was kinder to kill them at once. The wounded bull
I slew with my own hand, and I cannot say that I felt much compunction
in so doing. He knew me again, and made a desperate effort to get at
me, but I am glad to say that the peat held him fast.

The pan presented a curious sight when the sun rose next morning. Owing
to the support given by the soil, few of the dead elephants had fallen:
there they stood as though they were asleep.

I sent back for the waggons, and when they arrived on the morrow,
formed a camp, about a mile away from the pan. Then began the work of
cutting out the elephants’ tusks; it took over a week, and for obvious
reasons was a disgusting task. Indeed, had it not been for the help of
some wandering bushmen, who took their pay in elephant meat, I do not
think we could ever have managed it.

At last it was done. The ivory was far too cumbersome for us to carry,
so we buried it, having first got rid of our bushmen allies. My boys
wanted me to go back to the Cape with it and sell it, but I was too
much bent on my journey to do this. The tusks lay buried for five
years. Then I came and dug them up; they were but little harmed.
Ultimately I sold the ivory for something over twelve hundred
pounds—not bad pay for one day’s shooting.

This was how I began my career as an elephant hunter. I have shot many
hundreds of them since, but have never again attempted to do so on
horseback.




CHAPTER IV.
THE ZULU IMPI


After burying the elephant tusks, and having taken careful notes of the
bearings and peculiarities of the country so that I might be able to
find the spot again, we proceeded on our journey. For a month or more I
trekked along the line which now divides the Orange Free State from
Griqualand West, and the Transvaal from Bechuanaland. The only
difficulties met with were such as are still common to African
travellers—occasional want of water and troubles about crossing sluits
and rivers. I remember that I outspanned on the spot where Kimberley
now stands, and had to press on again in a hurry because there was no
water. I little dreamed then that I should live to see Kimberley a
great city producing millions of pounds worth of diamonds annually, and
old Indaba-zimbi’s magic cannot have been worth so much after all, or
he would have told me.

I found the country almost entirely depopulated. Not very long before
Mosilikatze the Lion, Chaka’s General had swept across it in his
progress towards what is now Matabeleland. His footsteps were evident
enough. Time upon time I trekked up to what had evidently been the
sites of Kaffir kraals. Now the kraals were ashes and piles of tumbled
stones, and strewn about among the rank grass were the bones of
hundreds of men, women, and children, all of whom had kissed the Zulu
assegai. I remember that in one of these desolate places I found the
skull of a child in which a ground-lark had built its nest. It was the
twittering of the young birds inside that first called my attention to
it. Shortly after this we met with our second great adventure, a much
more serious and tragic one than the first.

We were trekking parallel with the Kolong river when a herd of blesbock
crossed the track. I fired at one of them and hit it behind. It
galloped about a hundred yards with the rest of the herd, then lay
down. As we were in want of meat, not having met with any game for a
few days past, I jumped on to my horse, and, telling Indaba-zimbi that
I would overtake the waggons or meet them on the further side of a rise
about an hour’s trek away, I started after the wounded buck. As soon as
I came within a hundred yards of it, however, it jumped up and ran away
as fast as though it were untouched, only to lie down again at a
distance. I followed, thinking that strength would soon fail it. This
happened three times. On the third occasion it vanished behind a ridge,
and, though by now I was out of both temper and patience, I thought I
might as well ride to the crest and see if I could get a shot at it on
the further side.

I reached the ridge, which was strewn with stones, looked over it, and
saw—a Zulu Impi!

I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Yes, there was no doubt of it. They
were halted about a thousand yards away, by the water; some were lying
down, some were cooking at fires, others were stalking about with
spears and shields in their hands; there might have been two thousand
or more of them in all. While I was wondering—and that with no little
uneasiness—what on earth they could be doing there, suddenly I heard a
wild cry to the right and left of me. I glanced first one way, then the
other. From either side a great Zulu was bearing down on me, their
broad stabbing assegais aloft, and black shields in their left hands.
The man to the right was about fifteen yards away, he to the left was
not more than ten. On they came, their fierce eyes almost starting out
of their heads, and I felt, with a cold thrill of fear, that in another
three seconds those broad “bangwans” might be buried in my vitals. On
such occasions we act, I suppose, more from instinct than from anything
else—there is no time for thought. At any rate, I dropped the reins
and, raising my gun, fired point blank at the left-hand man. The bullet
struck him in the middle of his shield, pierced it, and passed through
him, and over he rolled upon the veldt. I swung round in the saddle;
most happily my horse was accustomed to standing still when I fired
from his back, also he was so surprised that he did not know which way
to shy. The other savage was almost on me; his outstretched shield
reached the muzzle of my gun as I pulled the trigger of the left
barrel. It exploded, the warrior sprung high into the air, and fell
against my horse dead, his spear passing just in front of my face.

Without waiting to reload, or even to look if the main body of the
Zulus had seen the death of their two scouts, I turned my horse and
drove my heels into his sides. As soon as I was down the slope of the
rise I pulled a little to the right in order to intercept the waggons
before the Zulus saw them. I had not gone three hundred yards in this
new direction when, to my utter astonishment, I struck a trail marked
with waggon-wheels and the hoofs of oxen. Of waggons there must have
been at least eight, and several hundred cattle. Moreover, they had
passed within twelve hours; I could tell that by the spoor. Then I
understood; the Impi was following the track of the waggons, which, in
all probability, belonged to a party of emigrant Boers.

The spoor of the waggons ran in the direction I wished to go, so I
followed it. About a mile further on I came to the crest of a rise, and
there, about five furlongs away, I saw the waggons drawn up in a rough
laager upon the banks of the river. There, too, were my own waggons
trekking down the slope towards them.

In another five minutes I was there. The Boers—for Boers they were—were
standing about outside the little laager watching the approach of my
two waggons. I called to them, and they turned and saw me. The very
first man my eyes fell on was a Boer named Hans Botha, whom I had known
well years ago in the Cape. He was not a bad specimen of his class, but
a very restless person, with a great objection to authority, or, as he
expressed it, “a love of freedom.” He had joined a party of the
emigrant Boers some years before, but, as I learned presently, had
quarrelled with its leader, and was now trekking away into the
wilderness to found a little colony of his own. Poor fellow! It was his
last trek.

“How do you do, Meinheer Botha?” I said to him in Dutch.

The man looked at me, looked again, then, startled out of his Dutch
stolidity, cried to his wife, who was seated on the box of the waggon—

“Come here, Frau, come. Here is Allan Quatermain, the Englishman, the
son of the ‘Predicant.’ How goes it, Heer Quatermain, and what is the
news down in the Cape yonder?”

“I don’t know what the news is in the Cape, Hans,” I answered,
solemnly; “but the news here is that there is a Zulu Impi upon your
spoor and within two miles of the waggons. That I know, for I have just
shot two of their sentries,” and I showed him my empty gun.

For a moment there was a silence of astonishment, and I saw the bronzed
faces of the men turn pale beneath their tan, while one or two of the
women gave a little scream, and the children crept to their sides.

“Almighty!” cried Hans, “that must be the Umtetwa Regiment that Dingaan
sent against the Basutus, but who could not come at them because of the
marshes, and so were afraid to return to Zululand, and struck north to
join Mosilikatze.”

“Laager up, Carles! Laager up for your lives, and one of you jump on a
horse and drive in the cattle.”

At this moment my own waggons came up. Indaba-zimbi was sitting on the
box of the first, wrapped in a blanket. I called him and told him the
news.

“Ill tidings, Macumazahn,” he said; “there will be dead Boers about
to-morrow morning, but they will not attack till dawn, then they will
wipe out the laager _so!_” and he passed his hand before his mouth.

“Stop that croaking, you white-headed crow,” I said, though I knew his
words were true. What chance had a laager of ten waggons all told
against at least two thousand of the bravest savages in the world?

“Macumazahn, will you take my advice this time?” Indaba-zimbi said,
presently.

“What is it?” I asked.

“This. Leave your waggons here, jump on that horse, and let us two run
for it as hard as we can go. The Zulus won’t follow us, they will be
looking after the Boers.”

“I won’t leave the other white men,” I said; “it would be the act of a
coward. If I die, I die.”

“Very well, Macumazahn, then stay and be killed,” he answered, taking a
pinch of snuff. “Come, let us see about the waggons,” and we walked
towards the laager.

Here everything was in confusion. However, I got hold of Hans Botha and
put it to him if it would not be best to desert the waggons and make a
run for it.

“How can we do it?” he answered; “two of the women are too fat to go a
mile, one is sick in childbed, and we have only six horses among us.
Besides, if we did we should starve in the desert. No, Heer Allan, we
must fight it out with the savages, and God help us!”

“God help us, indeed. Think of the children, Hans!”

“I can’t bear to think,” he answered, in a broken voice, looking at his
own little girl, a sweet, curly-haired, blue-eyed child of six, named
Tota, whom I had often nursed as a baby. “Oh, Heer Allan, your father,
the Predicant, always warned me against trekking north, and I never
would listen to him because I thought him a cursed Englishman; now I
see my folly. Heer Allan, if you can, try to save my child from those
black devils; if you live longer than I do, or if you can’t save her,
kill her,” and he clasped my hand.

“It hasn’t come to that yet, Hans,” I said.

Then we set to work on the laager. The waggons, of which, including my
two, there were ten, were drawn into the form of a square, and the
disselboom of each securely lashed with reims to the underworks of that
in front of it. The wheels also were locked, and the space between the
ground and the bed-planks of the waggons was stuffed with branches of
the “wait-a-bit” thorn that fortunately grew near in considerable
quantities. In this way a barrier was formed of no mean strength as
against a foe unprovided with firearms, places being left for the men
to fire from. In a little over an hour everything was done that could
be done, and a discussion arose as to the disposal of the cattle, which
had been driven up close to the camp. Some of the Boers were anxious to
get them into the laager, small as it was, or at least as many of them
as it would hold. I argued strongly against this, pointing out that the
brutes would probably be seized with panic as soon as the firing began,
and trample the defenders of the laager under foot. As an alternative
plan I suggested that some of the native servants should drive the herd
along the valley of the river till they reached a friendly tribe or
some other place of safety. Of course, if the Zulus saw them they would
be taken, but the nature of the ground was favourable, and it was
possible that they might escape if they started at once. The
proposition was promptly agreed to, and, what is more, it was settled
that one Dutchman and such of the women and children as could travel
should go with them. In half an hour’s time twelve of them started with
the natives, the Boer in charge, and the cattle. Three of my own men
went with the latter, the three others and Indaba-zimbi stopped with me
in the laager.

The parting was a heart-breaking scene, upon which I do not care to
dwell. The women wept, the men groaned, and the children looked on with
scared white faces. At length they were gone, and I for one was
thankful of it. There remained in the laager seventeen white men, four
natives, the two Boer fraus who were too stout to travel, the woman in
childbed and her baby, and Hans Botha’s little daughter Tota, whom he
could not make up his mind to part with. Happily her mother was already
dead. And here I may state that ten of the women and children, together
with about half of the cattle, escaped. The Zulu Impi never saw them,
and on the third day of travel they came to the fortified place of a
Griqua chief, who sheltered them on receiving half the cattle in
payment. Thence by slow degrees they journeyed down to the Cape Colony,
reaching a civilized region within a little more than a year from the
date of the attack on the laager.

The afternoon was now drawing towards evening, but still there were no
signs of the Impi. A wild hope struck us that they might have gone on
about their business. Ever since Indaba-zimbi had heard that the
regiment was supposed to belong to the Umtetwa tribe, he had, I
noticed, been plunged in deep thought. Presently he came to me and
volunteered to go out and spy upon their movements. At first Hans Botha
was against this idea, saying that he was a “verdomde swartzel”—an
accursed black creature—and would betray us. I pointed out that there
was nothing to betray. The Zulus must know where the waggons were, but
it was important for us to gain information of their movements. So it
was agreed that Indaba-zimbi should go. I told him this. He nodded his
white lock, said “All right, Macumazahn,” and started. I noticed with
some surprise, however, that before he did so he went to the waggon and
fetched his “mouti,” or medicine, which, together with his other
magical apparatus, he always carried in a skin bag. I asked him why he
did this. He answered that it was to make himself invulnerable against
the spears of the Zulus. I did not in the least believe his
explanation, for in my heart I was sure that he meant to take the
opportunity to make a bolt of it, leaving me to my fate. I did not,
however, interfere to prevent this, for I had an affection for the old
fellow, and sincerely hoped that he might escape the doom which
overshadowed us.

So Indaba-zimbi sauntered off, and as I looked at his retreating form I
thought I should never see it again. But I was mistaken, and little
knew that he was risking his life, not for the Boers whom he hated one
and all, but for me whom in his queer way he loved.

When he had gone we completed our preparations for defence,
strengthening the waggons and the thorns beneath with earth and stones.
Then at sunset we ate and drank as heartily as we could under the
circumstances, and when we had done, Hans Botha, as head of the party,
offered up prayer to God for our preservation. It was a touching sight
to see the burly Dutchman, his hat off, his broad face lit up by the
last rays of the setting sun, praying aloud in homely, simple language
to Him who alone could save us from the spears of a cruel foe. I
remember that the last sentence of his prayer was, “Almighty, if we
must be killed, save the women and children and my little girl Tota
from the accursed Zulus, and do not let us be tortured.”

I echoed the request very earnestly in my own heart, that I know, for
in common with the others I was dreadfully afraid, and it must be
admitted not without reason.

Then the darkness came on, and we took up our appointed places each
with a rifle in his hands and peered out into the gloom in silence.
Occasionally one of the Boers would light his pipe with a brand from
the smouldering fire, and the glow of it would shine for a few moments
on his pale, anxious face.

Behind me one of the stout “fraus” lay upon the ground. Even the terror
of our position could not keep her heavy eyes from their accustomed
sleep, and she snored loudly. On the further side of her, just by the
fire, lay little Tota, wrapped in a kaross. She was asleep also, her
thumb in her mouth, and from time to time her father would come to look
at her.

So the hours wore on while we waited for the Zulus. But from my
intimate knowledge of the habits of natives I had little fear that they
would attack us at night, though, had they done so, they could have
compassed our destruction with but small loss to themselves. It is not
the habit of this people, they like to fight in the light of day—at
dawn for preference.

About eleven o’clock, just as I was nodding a little at my post, I
heard a low whistle outside the laager. Instantly I was wide awake, and
all along the line I heard the clicking of locks as the Boers cocked
their guns.

“Macumazahn,” said a voice, the voice of Indaba-zimbi, “are you there?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Then hold a light so that I can see how to climb into the laager,” he
said.

“Yah! yah! hold a light,” put in one of the Boers. “I don’t trust that
black schepsel of yours, Heer Quatermain; he may have some of his
countrymen with him.” Accordingly a lantern was produced and held
towards the voice. There was Indaba-zimbi alone. We let him into the
laager and asked him the news.

“This is the news, white men,” he said. “I waited till dark, and
creeping up to the place where the Zulus are encamped, hid myself
behind a stone and listened. They are a great regiment of Umtetwas as
Baas Botha yonder thought. They struck the spoor of the waggons three
days ago and followed it. To-night they sleep upon their spears,
to-morrow at daybreak they will attack the laager and kill everybody.
They are very bitter against the Boers, because of the battle at Blood
River and the other fights, and that is why they followed the waggons
instead of going straight north after Mosilikatze.”

A kind of groan went up from the group of listening Dutchmen.

“I tell you what it is, Heeren,” I said, “instead of waiting to be
butchered here like buck in a pitfall, let us go out now and fall upon
the Impi while it sleeps.”

This proposition excited some discussion, but in the end only one man
could be found to vote for it. Boers as a rule lack that dash which
makes great soldiers; such forlorn hopes are not in their line, and
rather than embark upon them they prefer to take their chance in a
laager, however poor that chance may be. For my own part I firmly
believe that had my advice been taken we should have routed the Zulus.
Seventeen desperate white men, armed with guns, would have produced no
small effect upon a camp of sleeping savages. But it was not taken, so
it is no use talking about it.

After that we went back to our posts, and slowly the weary night wore
on towards the dawn. Only those who have watched under similar
circumstances while they waited the advent of almost certain and cruel
death, can know the torturing suspense of those heavy hours. But they
went somehow, and at last in the far east the sky began to lighten,
while the cold breath of dawn stirred the tilts of the waggons and
chilled me to the bone. The fat Dutchwoman behind me woke with a yawn,
then, remembering all, moaned aloud, while her teeth chattered with
cold and fear. Hans Botha went to his waggon and got a bottle of peach
brandy, from which he poured into a tin pannikin, giving us each a
stiff dram, and making attempts to be cheerful as he did so. But his
affected jocularity only seemed to depress his comrades the more.
Certainly it depressed me.

Now the light was growing, and we could see some way into the mist
which still hung densely over the river, and now—ah! there it was. From
the other side of the hill, a thousand yards or more from the laager,
came a faint humming sound. It grew and grew till it gathered to a
chant—the awful war chant of the Zulus. Soon I could catch the words.
They were simple enough:

“We shall slay, we shall slay! Is it not so, my brothers?
Our spears shall blush blood-red. Is it not so, my brothers?
For we are the sucklings of Chaka, blood is our milk, my brothers.
Awake, children of the Umtetwa, awake!
The vulture wheels, the jackal sniffs the air;
Awake, children of the Umtetwa—cry aloud, ye ringed men:
There is the foe, we shall slay them. Is it not so, my brothers?
_S’gee! S’gee! S’gee!_”


Such is a rough translation of that hateful chant which to this very
day I often seem to hear. It does not look particularly imposing on
paper, but if, while he waited to be killed, the reader could have
heard it as it rolled through the still air from the throats of nearly
three thousand warriors singing all to time, he would have found it
impressive enough.

Now the shields began to appear over the brow of the rise. They came by
companies, each company about ninety strong. Altogether there were
thirty-one companies. I counted them. When all were over they formed
themselves into a triple line, then trotted down the slope towards us.
At a distance of a hundred and fifty yards or just out of the shot of
such guns as we had in those days, they halted and began singing again—

“Yonder is the kraal of the white man—a little kraal, my brothers;
We shall eat it up, we shall trample it flat, my brothers.
But where are the white man’s cattle—where are his oxen, my brothers?”


This question seemed to puzzle them a good deal, for they sang the song
again and again. At last a herald came forward, a great man with ivory
rings about his arm, and, putting his hands to his mouth, called out to
us asking where our cattle were.

Hans Botha climbed on to the top of a waggon and roared out that they
might answer that question themselves.

Then the herald called again, saying that he saw the cattle had been
sent away.

“We shall go and find the cattle,” he said, “then we shall come and
kill you, because without cattle you must stop where you are, but if we
wait to kill you before we get the cattle, they may have trekked too
far for us to follow. And if you try to run away we shall easily catch
you white men!”

This struck me as a very odd speech, for the Zulus generally attack an
enemy first and take his cattle afterwards; still, there was a certain
amount of plausibility about it. While I was still wondering what it
all might mean, the Zulus began to run past us in companies towards the
river. Suddenly a shout announced that they had found the spoor of the
cattle, and the whole Impi of them started down it at a run till they
vanished over a rise about a quarter of a mile away.

We waited for half an hour or more, but nothing could we see of them.

“Now I wonder if the devils have really gone,” said Hans Botha to me.
“It is very strange.”

“I will go and see,” said Indaba-zimbi, “if you will come with me,
Macumazahn. We can creep to the top of the ridge and look over.”

At first I hesitated, but curiosity overcame me. I was young in those
days and weary with suspense.

“Very well,” I said, “we will go.”

So we started. I had my elephant gun and ammunition. Indaba-zimbi had
his medicine bag and an assegai. We crept to the top of the rise like
sportsmen stalking a buck. The slope on the other side was strewn with
rocks, among which grew bushes and tall grass.

“They must have gone down the Donga,” I said to Indaba-zimbi, “I can’t
see one of them.”

As I spoke there came a roar of men all round me. From every rock, from
every tuft of grass rose a Zulu warrior. Before I could turn, before I
could lift a gun, I was seized and thrown.

“Hold him! Hold the White Spirit fast!” cried a voice. “Hold him, or he
will slip away like a snake. Don’t hurt him, but hold him fast. Let
Indaba-zimbi walk by his side.”

I turned on Indaba-zimbi. “You black devil, you have betrayed me!” I
cried.

“Wait and see, Macumazahn,” he answered, coolly. “Now the fight is
going to begin.”




CHAPTER V.
THE END OF THE LAAGER


I gasped with wonder and rage. What did that scoundrel Indaba-zimbi
mean? Why had I been drawn out of the laager and seized, and why, being
seized, was I not instantly killed? They called me the “White Spirit.”
Could it be that they were keeping me to make me into medicine? I had
heard of such things being done by Zulus and kindred tribes, and my
blood ran cold at the thought. What an end! To be pounded up, made
medicine of, and eaten!

However, I had little time for further reflection, for now the whole
Impi was pouring back from the donga and river-banks where it had
hidden while their ruse was carried out, and once more formed up on the
side of the slope. I was taken to the crest of the slope and placed in
the centre of the reserve line in the especial charge of a huge Zulu
named Bombyane, the same man who had come forward as a herald. This
brute seemed to regard me with an affectionate curiosity. Now and again
he poked me in the ribs with the handle of his assegai, as though to
assure himself that I was solid, and several times he asked me to be so
good as to prophesy how many Zulus would be killed before the
“Amaboona,” as they called the Boers, were “eaten up.”

At first I took no notice of him beyond scowling, but presently, goaded
into anger, I prophesied that he would be dead in an hour!

He only laughed aloud. “Oh! White Spirit,” he said, “is it so? Well,
I’ve walked a long way from Zululand, and shall be glad of a rest.”

And he got it shortly, as will be seen.

Now the Zulus began to sing again—

“We have caught the White Spirit, my brother! my brother!
Iron-Tongue whispered of him, he smelt him out, my brother.
Now the Maboona are ours—they are already dead, my brother.”


So that treacherous villain Indaba-zimbi had betrayed me. Suddenly the
chief of the Impi, a grey-haired man named Sususa, held up his assegai,
and instantly there was silence. Then he spoke to some indunas who
stood near him. Instantly they ran to the right and left down the first
line, saying a word to the captain of each company as they passed him.
Presently they were at the respective ends of the line, and
simultaneously held up their spears. As they did so, with an awful roar
of “Bulala Amaboona”—“Slay the Boers,” the entire line, numbering
nearly a thousand men, bounded forward like a buck startled from its
form, and rushed down upon the little laager. It was a splendid sight
to see them, their assegais glittering in the sunlight as they rose and
fell above their black shields, their war-plumes bending back upon the
wind, and their fierce faces set intently on the foe, while the solid
earth shook beneath the thunder of their rushing feet. I thought of my
poor friends the Dutchmen, and trembled. What chance had they against
so many?

Now the Zulus, running in the shape of a bow so as to wrap the laager
round on three sides, were within seventy yards, and now from every
waggon broke tongues of fire. Over rolled a number of the Umtetwa, but
the rest cared little. Forward they sped straight to the laager,
striving to force a way in. But the Boers plied them with volley after
volley, and, packed as the Zulus were, the elephant guns loaded with
slugs and small shot did frightful execution. Only one man even got on
to a waggon, and as he did so I saw a Boer woman strike him on the head
with an axe. He fell down, and slowly, amid howls of derision from the
two lines on the hill-side, the Zulus drew back.

“Let us go, father!” shouted the soldiers on the slope, among whom I
was, to their chief, who had come up. “You have sent out the little
girls to fight, and they are frightened. Let us show them the way.”

“No, no!” the chief Sususa answered, laughing. “Wait a minute and the
little girls will grow to women, and women are good enough to fight
against Boers!”

The attacking Zulus heard the mockery of their fellows, and rushed
forward again with a roar. But the Boers in the laager had found time
to load, and they met with a warm reception. Reserving their fire till
the Zulus were packed like sheep in a kraal, they loosed into them with
the roers, and the warriors fell in little heaps. But I saw that the
blood of the Umtetwas was up; they did not mean to be beaten back this
time, and the end was near. See! six men had leapt on to a waggon,
slain the man behind it, and sprung into the laager. They were killed
there, but others followed, and then I turned my head. But I could not
shut my ears to the cries of rage and death, and the terrible _S’gee!
S’gee!_ of the savages as they did their work of murder. Once only I
looked up and saw poor Hans Botha standing on a waggon smiting down men
with the butt of his rifle. The assegais shot up towards him like
tongues of steel, and when I looked again he was gone.

I turned sick with fear and rage. But alas! what could I do? They were
all dead now, and probably my own turn was coming, only my death would
not be so swift.

The fight was ended, and the two lines on the slope broke their order,
and moved down to the laager. Presently we were there, and a dreadful
sight it was. Many of the attacking Zulus were dead—quite fifty I
should say, and at least a hundred and fifty were wounded, some of them
mortally. The chief Sususa gave an order, the dead men were picked up
and piled in a heap, while those who were slightly hurt walked off to
find some one to tie up their wounds. But the more serious cases met
with a different treatment. The chief or one of his indunas considered
each case, and if it was in any way bad, the man was taken up and
thrown into the river which ran near. None of them offered any
objection, though one poor fellow swam to shore again. He did not stop
there long, however, for they pushed him back and drowned him by force.

The strangest case of all was that of the chief’s own brother. He had
been captain of the line, and his ankle was smashed by a bullet. Sususa
came up to him, and, having examined the wound, rated him soundly for
failing in the first onslaught.

The poor fellow made the excuse that it was not his fault, as the Boers
had hit him in the first rush. His brother admitted the truth of this,
and talked to him amicably.

“Well,” he said at length, offering him a pinch of snuff, “you cannot
walk again.”

“No, chief,” said the wounded man, looking at his ankle.

“And to-morrow we must walk far,” went on Sususa.

“Yes, chief.”

“Say, then, will you sit here on the veldt, or——” and he nodded towards
the river.

The man dropped his head on his breast for a minute as though in
thought. Presently he lifted it and looked Sususa straight in the face.

“My ankle pains me, my brother,” he said; “I think I will go back to
Zululand, for there is the only kraal I wish to see again, even if I
creep about it like a snake.”[*]

[*] The Zulus believe that after death their spirits enter into the
bodies of large green snakes, which glide about the kraals. To kill
these snakes is sacrilege.


“It is well, my brother,” said the chief. “Rest softly,” and having
shaken hands with him, he gave an order to one of the indunas, and
turned away.

Then men came, and, supporting the wounded man, led him down to the
banks of the stream. Here, at his request, they tied a heavy stone
round his neck, and then threw him into a deep pool. I saw the whole
sad scene, and the victim never even winced. It was impossible not to
admire the extraordinary courage of the man, or to avoid being struck
with the cold-blooded cruelty of his brother the chief. And yet the act
was necessary from his point of view. The man must either die swiftly,
or be left to perish of starvation, for no Zulu force will encumber
itself with wounded men. Years of merciless warfare had so hardened
these people that they looked on death as nothing, and were, to do them
justice, as willing to meet it themselves as to inflict it on others.
When this very Impi had been sent out by the Zulu King Dingaan, it
consisted of some nine thousand men. Now it numbered less than three;
all the rest were dead. They, too, would probably soon be dead. What
did it matter? They lived by war to die in blood. It was their natural
end. “Kill till you are killed.” That is the motto of the Zulu soldier.
It has the merit of simplicity.

Meanwhile the warriors were looting the waggons, including my own,
having first thrown all the dead Boers into a heap. I looked at the
heap; all of them were there, including the two stout fraus, poor
things. But I missed one body, that of Hans Botha’s daughter, little
Tota. A wild hope came into my heart that she might have escaped; but
no, it was not possible. I could only pray that she was already at
rest.

Just then the great Zulu, Bombyane, who had left my side to indulge in
the congenial occupation of looting, came out of a waggon crying that
he had got the “little white one.” I looked; he was carrying the child
Tota, gripping her frock in one of his huge black hands. He stalked up
to where we were, and held the child before the chief. “Is it dead,
father?” he said, with a laugh.

Now, as I could well see, the child was not dead, but had been hidden
away, and fainted with fear.

The chief glanced at it carelessly, and said—

“Find out with your kerrie.”

Acting on this hint the black devil held up the child, and was about to
kill it with his knobstick. This was more than I could bear. I sprang
at him and struck him with all my force in the face, little caring if I
was speared or not. He dropped Tota on the ground.

“Ou!” he said, putting his hand to his nose, “the White Spirit has a
hard fist. Come, Spirit, I will fight you for the child.”

The soldiers cheered and laughed. “Yes! yes!” they said, “let Bombyane
fight the White Spirit for the child. Let them fight with assegais.”

For a moment I hesitated. What chance had I against this black giant?
But I had promised poor Hans to save the child if I could, and what did
it matter? As well die now as later. However, I had wit enough left to
make a favour of it, and intimated to the chief through Indaba-zimbi
that I was quite willing to condescend to kill Bombyane, on condition
that if I did so the child’s life should be given to me. Indaba-zimbi
interpreted my words, but I noticed that he would not look on me as he
spoke, but covered his face with his hands and spoke of me as “the
ghost” or the “son of the spirit.” For some reason that I have never
quite understood, the chief consented to the duel. I fancy it was
because he believed me to be more than mortal, and was anxious to see
the last of Bombyane.

“Let them fight,” he said. “Give them assegais and no shields; the
child shall be to him who conquers.”

“Yes! yes!” cried the soldiers. “Let them fight. Don’t be afraid,
Bombyane; if he is a spirit, he’s a very small one.”

“I never was frightened of man or beast, and I am not going to run away
from a White Ghost,” answered the redoubtable Bombyane, as he examined
the blade of his great bangwan or stabbing assegai.

Then they made a ring round us, gave me a similar assegai, and set us
some ten paces apart. I kept my face as calm as I could, and tried to
show no signs of fear, though in my heart I was terribly afraid.
Humanly speaking, my doom was on me. The giant warrior before me had
used the assegai from a child—I had no experience of the weapon.
Moreover, though I was quick and active, he must have been at least
twice as strong as I am. However, there was no help for it, so, setting
my teeth, I grasped the great spear, breathed a prayer, and waited.

The giant stood awhile looking at me, and, as he stood, Indaba-zimbi
walked across the ring behind me, muttering as he passed, “Keep cool,
Macumazahn, and wait for him. I will make it all right.”

As I had not the slightest intention of commencing the fray, I thought
this good advice, though how Indaba-zimbi could “make it all right” I
failed to see.

Heavens! how long that half-minute seemed! It happened many years ago,
but the whole scene rises up before my eyes as I write. There behind us
was the blood-stained laager, and near it lay the piles of dead; round
us was rank upon rank of plumed savages, standing in silence to wait
the issue of the duel, and in the centre stood the grey-haired chief
and general, Sususa, in all his war finery, a cloak of leopard skin
upon his shoulders. At his feet lay the senseless form of little Tota,
to my left squatted Indaba-zimbi, nodding his white lock and muttering
something—probably spells; while in front was my giant antagonist, his
spear aloft and his plumes wavering in the gentle wind. Then over all,
over grassy slope, river, and koppie, over the waggons of the laager,
the piles of dead, the dense masses of the living, the swooning child,
over all shone the bright impartial sun, looking down like the
indifferent eye of Heaven upon the loveliness of nature and the cruelty
of man. Down by the river grew thorn-trees, and from them floated the
sweet scent of the mimosa flower, and came the sound of cooing
turtle-doves. I never smell the one or hear the other without the scene
flashing into my mind again, complete in its every detail.

Suddenly, without a sound, Bombyane shook his assegai and rushed
straight at me. I saw his huge form come; like a man in a dream, I saw
the broad spear flash on high; now he was on me! Then, prompted to it
by some providential impulse—or had the spells of Indaba-zimbi anything
to do with the matter?—I dropped to my knee, and quick as light
stretched out my spear. He drove at me: the blade passed over my head.
I felt a weight on my assegai; it was wrenched from my hand; his great
limbs knocked against me. I glanced round. Bombyane was staggering
along with head thrown back and outstretched arms from which his spear
had fallen. His spear had fallen, but the blade of mine stood out
between his shoulders—I had transfixed him. He stopped, swung slowly
round as though to look at me: then with a sigh the giant sank
down—_dead_.

For a moment there was silence; then a great cry rose—a cry of
“Bombyane is dead. The White Spirit has slain Bombyane. Kill the
wizard, kill the ghost who has slain Bombyane by witchcraft.”

Instantly I was surrounded by fierce faces, and spears flashed before
my eyes. I folded my arms and stood calmly waiting the end. In a moment
it would have come, for the warriors were mad at seeing their champion
overthrown thus easily. But presently through the tumult I heard the
high, cracked voice of Indaba-zimbi.

“Stand back, you fools!” it cried; “can a spirit then be killed?”

“Spear him! spear him!” they roared in fury. “Let us see if he is a
spirit. How did a spirit slay Bombyane with an assegai? Spear him,
rain-maker, and we shall see.”

“Stand back,” cried Indaba-zimbi again, “and I will show you if he can
be killed. I will kill him myself, and call him back to life again
before your eyes.”

“Macumazahn, trust me,” he whispered in my ear in the Sisutu tongue,
which the Zulus did not understand. “Trust me; kneel on the grass
before me, and when I strike at you with the spear, roll over like one
dead; then, when you hear my voice again, get up. Trust me—it is your
only hope.”

Having no choice I nodded my head in assent, though I had not the
faintest idea of what he was about to do. The tumult lessened somewhat,
and once more the warriors drew back.

“Great White Spirit—Spirit of victory,” said Indaba-zimbi, addressing
me aloud, and covering his eyes with his hand, “hear me and forgive me.
These children are blind with folly, and think thee mortal because thou
hast dealt death upon a mortal who dared to stand against thee. Deign
to kneel down before me and let me pierce thy heart with this spear,
then when I call upon thee, arise unhurt.”

I knelt down, not because I wished to, but because I must. I had not
overmuch faith in Indaba-zimbi, and thought it probable that he was in
truth about to make an end of me. But really I was so worn out with
fears, and the horrors of the night and day had so shaken my nerves,
that I did not greatly care what befell me. When I had been kneeling
thus for about half a minute Indaba-zimbi spoke.

“People of the Umtetwa, children of T’Chaka,” he said, “draw back a
little way, lest an evil fall on you, for now the air is thick with
ghosts.”

They drew back a space, leaving us in a circle about twelve yards in
diameter.

“Look on him who kneels before you,” went on Indaba-zimbi, “and listen
to my words, to the words of the witch-finder, the words of the
rain-maker, Indaba-zimbi, whose fame is known to you. He seems to be a
young man, does he not? I tell you, children of the Umtetwa, he is no
man. He is the Spirit who gives victory to the white men, he it is who
gave them assegais that thunder and taught them how to slay. Why were
the Impis of Dingaan rolled back at the Blood River? Because _he_ was
there. Why did the Amaboona slay the people of Mosilikatze by the
thousand? Because _he_ was there. And so I say to you that, had I not
drawn him from the laager by my magic but three hours ago, you would
have been conquered—yes, you would have been blown away like the dust
before the wind; you would have been burnt up like the dry grass in the
winter when the fire is awake among it. Ay, because he had but been
there many of your bravest were slain in overcoming a few—a pinch of
men who could be counted on the fingers. But because I loved you,
because your chief Sususa is my half-brother—for had we not one
father?—I came to you, I warned you. Then you prayed me and I drew the
Spirit forth. But you were not satisfied when the victory was yours,
when the Spirit, of all you had taken asked but one little thing—a
white child to take away and sacrifice to himself, to make the medicine
of his magic of——”

Here I could hardly restrain myself from interrupting, but thought
better of it.

“You said him nay; you said, ‘Let him fight with our bravest man, let
him fight with Bombyane the giant for the child.’ And he deigned to
slay Bombyane as you have seen, and now you say, ‘Slay him; he is no
spirit.’ Now I will show you if he is a spirit, for I will slay him
before your eyes, and call him to life again. But you have brought this
upon yourselves. Had you believed, had you offered no insult to the
Spirit, he would have stayed with you, and you should have become
unconquerable. Now he will arise and leave you, and woe be on you if
you try to stay him.

“Now all men,” he went on, “look for a space upon this assegai that I
hold up,” and he lifted the bangwan of the deceased Bombyane high above
his head so that all the multitude could see it. Every eye was fixed
upon the broad bright spear. For a while he held it still, then he
moved it round and round in a circle, muttering as he did so, and still
their gaze followed it. For my part, I watched his movements with the
greatest anxiety. That assegai had already been nearer my person than I
found at all pleasant, and I had no desire to make a further
acquaintance with it. Nor, indeed, was I sure that Indaba-zimbi was not
really going to kill me. I could not understand his proceedings at all,
and at the best I did not relish playing the _corpus vile_ to his
magical experiments.

“_Look! look! look!_” he screamed.

Then suddenly the great spear flashed down towards my breast. I felt
nothing, but, to my sight, it seemed as though it had passed through
me.

“See!” roared the Zulus. “Indaba-zimbi has speared him; the red assegai
stands out behind his back.”

“Roll over, Macumazahn,” Indaba-zimbi hissed in my ear, “roll over and
pretend to die—quick! quick!”

I lost no time in following these strange instructions, but falling on
to my side, threw my arms wide, kicked my legs about, and died as
artistically as I could. Presently I gave a stage shiver and lay still.

“See!” said the Zulus, “he is dead, the Spirit is dead. Look at the
blood upon the assegai!”

“Stand back! stand back!” cried Indaba-zimbi, “or the ghost will haunt
you. Yes, he is dead, and now I will call him back to life again.
Look!” and putting down his hand, he plucked the spear from wherever it
was fixed, and held it aloft. “The spear is red, is it not? Watch, men,
watch! _it grows white!_”

“Yes, it grows white,” they said. “Ou! it grows white.”

“It grows white because the blood returns to whence it came,” said
Indaba-zimbi. “Now, great Spirit, hear me. Thou art dead, the breath
has gone out of thy mouth. Yet hear me and arise. Awake, White Spirit,
awake and show thy power. Awake! arise unhurt!”

I began to respond cheerfully to this imposing invocation.

“Not so fast, Macumazahn,” whispered Indaba-zimbi.

I took the hint, and first held up my arm, then lifted my head and let
it fall again.

“He lives! by the head of T’Chaka he lives!” roared the soldiers,
stricken with mortal fear.

Then slowly and with the greatest dignity I gradually arose, stretched
my arms, yawned like one awaking from heavy sleep, turned and looked
upon them unconcernedly. While I did so, I noticed that old
Indaba-zimbi was almost fainting from exhaustion. Beads of perspiration
stood upon his brow, his limbs trembled, and his breast heaved.

As for the Zulus, they waited for no more. With a howl of terror the
whole regiment turned and fled across the rise, so that presently we
were left alone with the dead, and the swooning child.

“How on earth did you do that, Indaba-zimbi?” I asked in amaze.

“Do not ask me, Macumazahn,” he gasped. “You white men are very clever,
but you don’t quite know everything. There are men in the world who can
make people believe they see things which they do not see. Let us be
going while we may, for when those Umtetwas have got over their fright,
they will come back to loot the waggons, and then perhaps _they_ will
begin asking questions that I can’t answer.”

And here I may as well state that I never got any further information
on this matter from old Indaba-zimbi. But I have my theory, and here it
is for whatever it may be worth. I believe that Indaba-zimbi
_mesmerized_ the whole crowd of onlookers, myself included, making them
believe that they saw the assegai in my heart, and the blood upon the
blade. The reader may smile and say, “Impossible;” but I would ask him
how the Indian jugglers do their tricks unless it is by mesmerism. The
spectators _seem_ to see the boy go under the basket and there pierced
with daggers, they _seem_ to see women in a trance supported in mid-air
upon the point of a single sword. In themselves these things are not
possible, they violate the laws of nature, as those laws are known to
us, and therefore must surely be illusion. And so through the glamour
thrown upon them by Indaba-zimbi’s will, that Zulu Impi seemed to see
me transfixed with an assegai which never touched me. At least, that is
my theory; if any one has a better, let him adopt it. The explanation
lies between illusion and magic of a most imposing character, and I
prefer to accept the first alternative.




CHAPTER VI.
STELLA


I was not slow to take Indaba-zimbi’s hint. About a hundred and fifty
yards to the left of the laager was a little dell where I had hidden my
horse, together with one belonging to the Boers, and my saddle and
bridle. Thither we went, I carrying the swooning Tota in my arms. To
our joy we found the horses safe, for the Zulus had not seen them. Now,
of course, they were our only means of locomotion, for the oxen had
been sent away, and even had they been there we could not have found
time to inspan them. I laid Tota down, caught my horse, undid his knee
halter, and saddled up. As I was doing so a thought struck me, and I
told Indaba-zimbi to run to the laager and see if he could find my
double-barrelled gun and some powder and shot, for I had only my
elephant “roer” and a few charges of powder and ball with me.

He went, and while he was away, poor little Tota came to herself and
began to cry, till she saw my face.

“Ah, I have had such a bad dream,” she said, in Dutch: “I dreamed that
the black Kaffirs were going to kill me. Where is my papa?”

I winced at the question. “Your papa has gone on a journey, dear,” I
said, “and left me to look after you. We shall find him one day. You
don’t mind going with Heer Allan, do you?”

“No,” she said, a little doubtfully, and began to cry again. Presently
she remembered that she was thirsty, and asked for water. I led her to
the river and she drank. “Why is my hand red, Heer Allan?” she asked,
pointing to the smear of Bombyane’s blood-stained fingers.

At this moment I felt very glad that I had killed Bombyane.

“It is only paint, dear,” I said; “see, we will wash it and your face.”

As I was doing this, Indaba-zimbi returned. The guns were all gone; he
said the Zulus had taken them and the powder. But he had found some
things and brought them in a sack. There was a thick blanket, about
twenty pounds weight of biltong or sun-dried meat, a few
double-handfuls of biscuits, two water-bottles, a tin pannikin, some
matches and sundries.

“And now, Macumazahn,” he said, “we had best be going, for those
Umtetwas are coming back. I saw one of them on the brow of the rise.”

That was enough for me. I lifted little Tota on to the bow of my
saddle, climbed into it, and rode off, holding her in front of me.
Indaba-zimbi slipped a reim into the mouth of the best of the Boer
horses, threw the sack of sundries on to its back and mounted also,
holding the elephant gun in his hand. We went eight or nine hundred
yards in silence till we were quite out of range of sight from the
waggons, which were in a hollow. Then I pulled up, with such a feeling
of thankfulness in my heart as cannot be told in words; for now I knew
that, mounted as we were, those black demons could never catch us. But
where were we to steer for? I put the question to Indaba-zimbi, asking
him if he thought that we had better try and follow the oxen which we
had sent away with the Kaffirs and women on the preceding night. He
shook his head.

“The Umtetwas will go after the oxen presently,” he answered, “and we
have seen enough of them.”

“Quite enough,” I answered, with enthusiasm; “I never want to see
another; but where are we to go? Here we are alone with one gun and a
little girl in the vast and lonely veldt. Which way shall we turn?”

“Our faces were towards the north before we met the Zulus,” answered
Indaba-zimbi; “let us still keep them to the north. Ride on,
Macumazahn; to-night when we off-saddle I will look into the matter.”

So all that long afternoon we rode on, following the course of the
river. From the nature of the ground we could only go slowly, but
before sunset I had the satisfaction of knowing that there must be at
least twenty-five miles between us and those accursed Zulus. Little
Tota slept most of the way, the motion of the horse was easy, and she
was worn out.

At last the sunset came, and we off-saddled in a dell by the river.
There was not much to eat, but I soaked some biscuit in water for Tota,
and Indaba-zimbi and I made a scanty meal of biltong. When we had done
I took off Tota’s frock, wrapped her up in a blanket near the fire we
had made, and lit a pipe. I sat there by the side of the sleeping
orphaned child, and from my heart thanked Providence for saving her
life and mine from the slaughter of that day. What a horrible
experience it had been! It seemed like a nightmare to look back upon.
And yet it was sober fact, one among those many tragedies which dotted
the paths of the emigrant Boers with the bones of men, women, and
children. These horrors are almost forgotten now; people living in
Natal now, for instance, can scarcely realize that some forty years ago
six hundred white people, many of them women and children, were thus
massacred by the Impis of Dingaan. But it was so, and the name of the
district, _Weenen_, or the Place of Weeping, will commemorate them for
ever.

Then I fell to reflecting on the extraordinary adroitness old
Indaba-zimbi had shown in saving my life. It appeared that he himself
had lived among the Umtetwa Zulus in his earlier manhood, and was a
noted rain-doctor and witch-finder. But when T’Chaka, Dingaan’s
brother, ordered a general massacre of the witch-finders, he alone had
saved his life by his skill in magic, and ultimately fled south for
reasons too long to set out here. When he heard, therefore, that the
regiment was an Umtetwa regiment, which, leaving their wives and
children, had broken away from Zululand to escape the cruelties of
Dingaan; under pretence of spying on them, he took the bold course of
going straight up to the chief, Sususa, and addressing him as his
brother, which he was. The chief knew him at once, and so did the
soldiers, for his fame was still great among them. Then he told them
his cock and bull story about my being a white spirit, whose presence
in the laager would render it invincible, and with the object of saving
my life in the slaughter which he knew must ensue, agreed to charm me
out of the laager and deliver me into their keeping. How the plan
worked has already been told; it was a risky one; still, but for it my
troubles would have been done with these many days.

So I lay and thought with a heart full of gratitude, and as I did so
saw old Indaba-zimbi sitting by the fire and going through some
mysterious performances with bones which he produced from his bag, and
ashes mixed with water. I spoke to him and asked what he was about. He
replied that he was tracing out the route that we should follow. I felt
inclined to answer “bosh!” but remembering the very remarkable
instances which he had given of his prowess in occult matters I held my
tongue, and taking little Tota into my arms, worn out with toil and
danger and emotion, I went to sleep.

I awoke just as the dawn was beginning to flame across the sky in
sheets of primrose and of gold, or rather it was little Tota who woke
me by kissing me as she lay between sleep and waking, and calling me
“papa.” It wrung my heart to hear her, poor orphaned child. I got up,
washed and dressed her as best I could, and we breakfasted as we had
supped, on biltong and biscuit. Tota asked for milk, but I had none to
give her. Then we caught the horses, and I saddled mine.

“Well, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “now what path do your bones point to?”

“Straight north,” he said. “The journey will be hard, but in about four
days we shall come to the kraal of a white man, an Englishman, not a
Boer. His kraal is in a beautiful place, and there is a great peak
behind it where there are many baboons.”

I looked at him. “This is all nonsense, Indaba-zimbi,” I said. “Whoever
heard of an Englishman building a house in these wilds, and how do you
know anything about it? I think that we had better strike east towards
Port Natal.”

“As you like, Macumazahn,” he answered, “but it will take us three
months’ journey to get to Port Natal, if we ever get there, and the
child will die on the road. Say, Macumazahn, have my words come true
heretofore, or have they not? Did I not tell you not to hunt the
elephants on horseback? Did I not tell you to take one waggon with you
instead of two, as it is better to lose one than two?”

“You told me all these things,” I answered.

“And so I tell you now to ride north, Macumazahn, for there you will
find great happiness—yes, and great sorrow. But no man should run away
from happiness because of the sorrow. As you will, as you will!”

Again I looked at him. In his divinations I did not believe, yet I came
to the conclusion that he was speaking what he knew to be the truth. It
struck me as possible that he might have heard of some white man living
like a hermit in the wilds, but preferring to keep up his prophetic
character would not say so.

“Very well, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “let us ride north.”

Shortly after we started, the river we had followed hitherto turned off
in a westerly direction, so we left it. All that day we rode across
rolling uplands, and about an hour before sunset halted at a little
stream which ran down from a range of hills in front of us. By this
time I was heartily tired of the biltong, so taking my elephant
rifle—for I had nothing else—I left Tota with Indaba-zimbi, and started
to try if I could shoot something. Oddly enough we had seen no game all
the day, nor did we see any on the subsequent days. For some mysterious
reason they had temporarily left the district. I crossed the little
streamlet in order to enter the belt of thorns which grew upon the
hill-side beyond, for there I hoped to find buck. As I did so I was
rather disturbed to see the spoor of two lions in the soft sandy edge
of a pool. Breathing a hope that they might not still be in the
neighbourhood, I went on into the belt of scattered thorns. For a long
while I hunted about without seeing anything, except one duiker buck,
which bounded off with a crash from the other side of a stone without
giving me a chance. At length, just as it grew dusk, I spied a Petie
buck, a graceful little creature, scarcely bigger than a large hare,
standing on a stone, about forty yards from me. Under ordinary
circumstances I should never have dreamed of firing at such a thing,
especially with an elephant gun, but we were hungry. So I sat down with
my back against a rock, and aimed steadily at its head. I did this
because if I struck it in the body the three-ounce ball would have
knocked it to bits. At last I pulled the trigger, the gun went off with
the report of a small cannon, and the buck disappeared. I ran to the
spot with more anxiety than I should have felt in an ordinary way over
a koodoo or an eland. To my delight there the little creature lay—the
huge bullet had decapitated it. Considering all the circumstances I do
not think I have often made a better shot than this, but if any one
doubts, let him try his hand at a rabbit’s head fifty yards away with
an elephant gun and a three-ounce ball.

I picked up the Petie in triumph, and returned to the camp. There we
skinned him and toasted his flesh over the fire. He just made a good
meal for us, though we kept the hind legs for breakfast.

There was no moon this night, and so it chanced that when I suddenly
remembered about the lion spoor, and suggested that we had better tie
up the horses quite close to us, we could not find them, though we knew
they were grazing within fifty yards. This being so we could only make
up the fire and take our chance. Shortly afterwards I went to sleep
with little Tota in my arms. Suddenly I was awakened by hearing that
peculiarly painful sound, the scream of a horse, quite close to the
fire, which was still burning brightly. Next second there came a noise
of galloping hoofs, and before I could even rise my poor horse appeared
in the ring of firelight. As in a flash of lightning I saw his staring
eyes and wide-stretched nostrils, and the broken reim with which he had
been knee-haltered, flying in the air. Also I saw something else, for
on his back was a great dark form with glowing eyes, and from the form
came a growling sound. It was a lion.

The horse dashed on. He galloped right through the fire, for which he
had run in his terror, fortunately, however, without treading on us,
and vanished into the night. We heard his hoofs for a hundred yards or
more, then there was silence, broken now and again by distant growls.
As may be imagined, we did not sleep any more that night, but waited
anxiously till the dawn broke, two hours later.

As soon as there was sufficient light we rose, and, leaving Tota still
asleep, crept cautiously in the direction in which the horse had
vanished. When we had gone fifty yards or so, we made out its remains
lying on the veldt, and caught sight of two great cat-like forms
slinking away in the grey light.

To go any further was useless; we knew all about it now, so we turned
to look for the other horse. But our cup of misfortune was not yet
full; the horse was nowhere to be found. Terrified by the sight and
smell of the lions, it had with a desperate effort also burst the reim
with which it had been knee-haltered, and galloped far away. I sat
down, feeling as though I could cry like a woman. For now we were left
alone in these vast solitudes without a horse to carry us, and with a
child who was not old enough to walk for more than a little way at a
time.

Well, it was no use giving in, so with a few words we went back to our
camp, where I found Tota crying because she had woke to find herself
alone. Then we ate a little food and prepared to start. First we
divided such articles as we must take with us into two equal parts,
rejecting everything that we could possibly do without. Then, by an
afterthought, we filled our water-bottles, though at the time I was
rather against doing so, because of the extra weight. But Indaba-zimbi
overruled me in the matter, fortunately for all three of us. I settled
to look after Tota for the first march, and to give the elephant gun to
Indaba-zimbi. At length all was ready, and we set out on foot. By the
help of occasional lifts over rough places, Tota managed to walk up the
slope of the hill-side where I had shot the Petie buck. At length we
reached it, and, looking at the country beyond, I gave an exclamation
of dismay. To say that it was desert would be saying too much; it was
more like the Karroo in the Cape—a vast sandy waste, studded here and
there with low shrubs and scattered rocks. But it was a great expanse
of desolate land, stretching further than the eye could reach, and
bordered far away by a line of purple hills, in the centre of which a
great solitary peak soared high into the air.

“Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “we can never cross this if we take six days.”

“As you will, Macumazahn,” he answered; “but I tell you that there”—and
he pointed to the peak—“there the white man lives. Turn which way you
like, but if you turn you will perish.”

I reflected for a moment, Our case was, humanly speaking, almost
hopeless. It mattered little which way we went. We were alone, almost
without food, with no means of transport, and a child to carry. As well
perish in the sandy waste as on the rolling veldt or among the trees of
the hill-side. Providence alone could save us, and we must trust to
Providence.

“Come on,” I said, lifting Tota on to my back, for she was already
tired. “All roads lead to rest.”

How am I to describe the misery of the next four days? How am I to tell
how we stumbled on through that awful desert, almost without food, and
quite without water, for there were no streams, and we saw no springs?
We soon found how the case was, and saved almost all the water in our
bottles for the child. To look back on it is like a nightmare. I can
scarcely bear to dwell on it. Day after day, by turns carrying the
child through the heavy sand; night after night lying down in the
scrub, chewing the leaves, and licking such dew as there was from the
scanty grass! Not a spring, not a pool, not a head of game! It was the
third night; we were nearly mad with thirst. Tota was in a comatose
condition. Indaba-zimbi still had a little water in his bottle—perhaps
a wine-glassful. With it we moistened our lips and blackened tongues.
Then we gave the rest to the child. It revived her. She awoke from her
swoon to sink into sleep.

See, the dawn was breaking. The hills were not more than eight miles or
so away now, and they were green. There must be water there.

“Come,” I said.

Indaba-zimbi lifted Tota into the kind of sling that we had made out of
the blanket in which to carry her on our backs, and we staggered on for
an hour through the sand. She awoke crying for water, and alas! we had
none to give her; our tongues were hanging from our lips, we could
scarcely speak.

We rested awhile, and Tota mercifully swooned away again. Then
Indaba-zimbi took her. Though he was so thin the old man’s strength was
wonderful.

Another hour; the slope of the great peak could not be more than two
miles away now. A couple of hundred yards off grew a large baobab tree.
Could we reach its shade? We had done half the distance when
Indaba-zimbi fell from exhaustion. We were now so weak that neither of
us could lift the child on to our backs. He rose again, and we each
took one of her hands and dragged her along the road. Fifty yards—they
seemed to be fifty miles. Ah, the tree was reached at last; compared
with the heat outside, the shade of its dense foliage seemed like the
dusk and cool of a vault. I remember thinking that it was a good place
to die in. Then I remember no more.

I woke with a feeling as though the blessed rain were falling on my
face and head. Slowly, and with great difficulty, I opened my eyes,
then shut them again, having seen a vision. For a space I lay thus,
while the rain continued to fall; I saw now that I must be asleep, or
off my head with thirst and fever. If I were not off my head how came I
to imagine that a lovely dark-eyed girl was bending over me sprinkling
water on my face? A white girl, too, not a Kaffir woman. However, the
dream went on.

“Hendrika,” said a voice in English, the sweetest voice that I had ever
heard; somehow it reminded me of wind whispering in the trees at night.
“Hendrika, I fear he dies; there is a flask of brandy in my saddle-bag;
get it.”

“Ah! ah!” grunted a harsh voice in answer; “let him die, Miss Stella.
He will bring you bad luck—let him die, I say.” I felt a movement of
air above me as though the woman of my vision turned swiftly, and once
again I opened my eyes. She had risen, this dream woman. Now I saw that
she was tall and graceful as a reed. She was angry, too; her dark eyes
flashed, and she pointed with her hand at a female who stood before
her, dressed in nondescript kind of clothes such as might be worn by
either a man or a woman. The woman was young, of white blood, very
short, with bowed legs and enormous shoulders. In face she was not
bad-looking, but the brow receded, the chin and ears were prominent—in
short, she reminded me of nothing so much as a very handsome monkey.
She might have been the missing link.

The lady was pointing at her with her hand. “How dare you?” she said.
“Are you going to disobey me again? Have you forgotten what I told you,
Babyan?”[*]

[*] Baboon.

“Ah! ah!” grunted the woman, who seemed literally to curl and shrivel
up beneath her anger. “Don’t be angry with me, Miss Stella, because I
can’t bear it. I only said it because it was true. I will fetch the
brandy.”

Then, dream or no dream, I determined to speak.

“Not brandy,” I gasped in English as well as my swollen tongue would
allow; “give me water.”

“Ah, he lives!” cried the beautiful girl, “and he talks English. See,
sir, here is water in your own bottle; you were quite close to a
spring, it is on the other side of the tree.”

I struggled to a sitting position, lifted the bottle to my lips, and
drank from it. Oh! that drink of cool, pure water! never had I tasted
anything so delicious. With the first gulp I felt life flow back into
me. But wisely enough she would not let me have much. “No more! no
more!” she said, and dragged the bottle from me almost by force.

“The child,” I said—“is the child dead?”

“I do not know yet,” she answered. “We have only just found you, and I
tried to revive you first.”

I turned and crept to where Tota lay by the side of Indaba-zimbi. It
was impossible to say if they were dead or swooning. The lady sprinkled
Tota’s face with the water, which I watched greedily, for my thirst was
still awful, while the woman Hendrika did the same office for
Indaba-zimbi. Presently, to my vast delight, Tota opened her eyes and
tried to cry, but could not, poor little thing, because her tongue and
lips were so swollen. But the lady got some water into her mouth, and,
as in my case, the effect was magical. We allowed her to drink about a
quarter of a pint, and no more, though she cried bitterly for it. Just
then old Indaba-zimbi came to with a groan. He opened his eyes, glanced
round, and took in the situation.

“What did I tell you, Macumazahn?” he gasped, and seizing the bottle,
he took a long pull at it.

Meanwhile I sat with my back against the trunk of the great tree and
tried to realize the situation. Looking to my left I saw too good
horses—one bare-backed, and one with a rudely made lady’s saddle on it.
By the side of the horses were two dogs, of a stout greyhound breed,
that sat watching us, and near the dogs lay a dead Oribé buck, which
they had evidently been coursing.

“Hendrika,” said the lady presently, “they must not eat meat just yet.
Go look up the tree and see if there is any ripe fruit on it.”

The woman ran swiftly into the plain and obeyed. Presently she
returned. “I see some ripe fruit,” she said, “but it is high, quite at
the top.”

“Fetch it,” said the lady.

“Easier said than done,” I thought to myself; but I was much mistaken.
Suddenly the woman bounded at least three feet into the air and caught
one of the spreading boughs in her large flat hands; then came a swing
that would have filled an acrobat with envy—and she was on it.

“Now there is an end,” I thought again, for the next bough was beyond
her reach. But again I was mistaken. She stood up on the bough,
gripping it with her bare feet, and once more sprang at the one above,
caught it and swung herself into it.

I suppose that the lady saw my expression of astonishment. “Do not
wonder, sir,” she said, “Hendrika is not like other people. She will
not fall.”

I made no answer, but watched the progress of this extraordinary person
with the most breathless interest. On she went, swinging herself from
bough to bough, and running along them like a monkey. At last she
reached the top, and began to swarm up a thin branch towards the ripe
fruit. When she was near enough she shook the branch violently. There
was a crack—a crash—it broke. I shut my eyes, expecting to see her
crushed on the ground before me.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the lady again, laughing gently. “Look, she is
quite safe.”

I looked, and so she was. She had caught a bough as she fell, clung to
it, and was now calmly dropping to another. Old Indaba-zimbi had also
watched this performance with interest, but it did not seem to astonish
him over-much. “Baboon-woman?” he said, as though such people were
common, and then turned his attention to soothing Tota, who was moaning
for more water. Meanwhile Hendrika came down the tree with
extraordinary rapidity, and swinging by one hand from a bough, dropped
about eight feet to the ground.

In another two minutes we were all three sucking the pulpy fruit. In an
ordinary way we should have found it tasteless enough: as it was I
thought it the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. After three days
spent without food or water, in the desert, one is not particular.
While we were still eating the fruit, the lady of my vision set her
companion to work to partially flay the oribé which her dogs had
killed, and busied herself in making a fire of fallen boughs. As soon
as it burned brightly she took strips of the oribé flesh, toasted them,
and gave them to us on leaves. We ate, and now were allowed a little
more water. After that she took Tota to the spring and washed her,
which she sadly needed, poor child! Next came our turn to wash, and oh,
the joy of it!

I came back to the tree, walking painfully, indeed, but a changed man.
There sat the beautiful girl with Tota on her knees. She was lulling
her to sleep, and held up her finger to me enjoining silence. At last
the child went off into a sound natural slumber—an example that I
should have been glad to follow had it not been for my burning
curiosity. Then I spoke.

“May I ask what your name is?” I said.

“Stella,” she answered.

“Stella what?” I said.

“Stella nothing,” she answered, in some pique; “Stella is my name; it
is short and easy to remember at any rate. My father’s name is Thomas,
and we live up there,” and she pointed round the base of the great
peak. I looked at her astonished. “Have you lived there long?” I asked.

“Ever since I was seven years old. We came there in a waggon. Before
that we came from England—from Oxfordshire; I can show you the place on
a big map. It is called Garsingham.”

Again I thought I must be dreaming. “Do you know, Miss Stella,” I said,
“it is very strange—so strange that it almost seems as though it could
not be true—but I also came from Garsingham in Oxfordshire many years
ago.”

She started up. “Are you an English gentleman?” she said. “Ah, I have
always longed to see an English gentleman. I have never seen but one
Englishman since we lived here, and he certainly was not a gentleman—no
white people at all, indeed, except a few wandering Boers. We live
among black people and baboons—only I have read about English
people—lots of books—poetry and novels. But tell me what is your name?
Macumazahn the black man called you, but you must have a white name,
too.”

“My name is Allan Quatermain,” I said.

Her face turned quite white, her rosy lips parted, and she looked at me
wildly with her beautiful dark eyes.

“It is wonderful,” she said, “but I have often heard that name. My
father has told me how a little boy called Allan Quatermain once saved
my life by putting out my dress when it was on fire—see!”—and she
pointed to a faint red mark upon her neck—“here is the scar of the
burn.”

“I remember it,” I said. “You were dressed up as Father Christmas. It
was I who put out the fire; my wrists were burnt in doing so.”

Then for a space we sat silent, looking at each other, while Stella
slowly fanned herself with her wide felt hat, in which some white
ostrich plumes were fixed.

“This is God’s doing,” she said at last. “You saved my life when I was
a child; now I have saved yours and the little girl’s. Is she your own
daughter?” she added, quickly.

“No,” I answered; “I will tell you the tale presently.”

“Yes,” she said, “you shall tell me as we go home. It is time to be
starting home, it will take us three hours to get there. Hendrika,
Hendrika, bring the horses here!”




CHAPTER VII.
THE BABOON-WOMAN


Hendrika obeyed, leading the horses to the side of the tree.

“Now, Mr. Allan,” said Stella, “you must ride on my horse, and the old
black man must ride on the other. I will walk, and Hendrika will carry
the child. Oh, do not be afraid, she is very strong, she could carry
you or me.”

Hendrika grunted assent. I am sorry that I cannot express her method of
speech by any more polite term. Sometimes she grunted like a monkey,
sometimes she clicked like a Bushman, and sometimes she did both
together, when she became quite unintelligible.

I expostulated against this proposed arrangement, saying that we could
walk, which was a fib, for I do not think that I could have done a
mile; but Stella would not listen, she would not even let me carry my
elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty,
and Hendrika took up the sleeping Tota in her long, sinewy arms.

“See that the ‘Baboon-woman’ does not run away into the mountains with
the little white one,” said Indaba-zimbi to me in Kaffir, as he climbed
slowly on to the horse.

Unfortunately Hendrika understood his speech. Her face twisted and grew
livid with fury. She put down Tota and literally sprang at Indaba-zimbi
as a monkey springs. But weary and worn as he was, the old gentleman
was too quick for her. With an exclamation of genuine fright he threw
himself from the horse on the further side, with the somewhat ludicrous
result that all in a moment Hendrika was occupying the seat which he
had vacated. Just then Stella realized the position.

“Come down, you savage, come down!” she said, stamping her foot.

The extraordinary creature flung herself from the horse and literally
grovelled on the ground before her mistress and burst into tears.

“Pardon, Miss Stella,” she clicked and grunted in villainous English,
“but he called me ‘Babyan-frau’ (Baboon-woman).”

“Tell your servant that he must not use such words to Hendrika, Mr.
Allan,” Stella said to me. “If he does,” she added, in a whisper,
“Hendrika will certainly kill him.”

I explained this to Indaba-zimbi, who, being considerably frightened,
deigned to apologize. But from that hour there was hate and war between
these two.

Harmony having been thus restored, we started, the dogs following us. A
small strip of desert intervened between us and the slope of the
peak—perhaps it was two miles wide. We crossed it and reached rich
grass lands, for here a considerable stream gathered from the hills;
but it did not flow across the barren lands, it passed to the east
along the foot of the hills. This stream we had to cross by a ford.
Hendrika walked boldly through it, holding Tota in her arms. Stella
leapt across from stone to stone like a roebuck; I thought to myself
that she was the most graceful creature that I had ever seen. After
this the track passed around a pleasantly-wooded shoulder of the peak,
which was, I found, known as Babyan Kap, or Baboon Head. Of course we
could only go at a foot pace, so our progress was slow. Stella walked
for some way in silence, then she spoke.

“Tell me, Mr. Allan,” she said, “how it was that I came to find you
dying in the desert?”

So I began and told her all. It took an hour or more to do so, and she
listened intently, now and again asking a question.

“It is all very wonderful,” she said when I had done, “very wonderful
indeed. Do you know I went out this morning with Hendrika and the dogs
for a ride, meaning to get back home by mid-day, for my father is ill,
and I do not like to leave him for long. But just as I was going to
turn, when we were about where we are now—yes, that was the very
bush—an oribé got up, and the dogs chased it. I followed them for the
gallop, and when we came to the river, instead of turning to the left
as bucks generally do, the oribé swam the stream and took to the Bad
Lands beyond. I followed it, and within a hundred yards of the big tree
the dogs killed it. Hendrika wanted to turn back at once, but I said
that we would rest under the shade of the tree, for I knew that there
was a spring of water near. Well, we went; and there I saw you all
lying like dead; but Hendrika, who is very clever in some ways, said
no—and you know the rest. Yes, it is very wonderful.”

“It is indeed,” I said. “Now tell me, Miss Stella, who is Hendrika?”

She looked round before answering to see that the woman was not near.

“Hers is a strange story, Mr. Allan. I will tell you. You must know
that all these mountains and the country beyond are full of baboons.
When I was a girl of about ten I used to wander a great deal alone in
the hills and valleys, and watch the baboons as they played among the
rocks. There was one family of baboons that I watched especially—they
used to live in a kloof about a mile from the house. The old man baboon
was very large, and one of the females had a grey face. But the reason
why I watched them so much was because I saw that they had with them a
creature that looked like a girl, for her skin was quite white, and,
what was more, that she was protected from the weather when it happened
to be cold by a fur belt of some sort, which was tied round her throat.
The old baboons seemed to be especially fond of her, and would sit with
their arms round her neck. For nearly a whole summer I watched this
particular white-skinned baboon till at last my curiosity quite
overmastered me. I noticed that, though she climbed about the cliffs
with the other monkeys, at a certain hour a little before sundown they
used to put her with one or two other much smaller ones into a little
cave, while the family went off somewhere to get food, to the mealie
fields, I suppose. Then I got an idea that I would catch this white
baboon and bring it home. But of course I could not do this by myself,
so I took a Hottentot—a very clever man when he was not drunk—who lived
on the stead, into my confidence. He was called Hendrik, and was very
fond of me; but for a long while he would not listen to my plan,
because he said that the babyans would kill us. At last I bribed him
with a knife that had four blades, and one afternoon we started,
Hendrik carrying a stout sack made of hide, with a rope running through
it so that the mouth could be drawn tight.

“Well, we got to the place, and, hiding ourselves carefully in the
trees at the foot of the kloof, watched the baboons playing about and
grunting to each other, till at length, according to custom, they took
the white one and three other little babies and put them in the cave.
Then the old man came out, looked carefully round, called to his
family, and went off with them over the brow of the kloof. Now very
slowly and cautiously we crept up over the rocks till we came to the
mouth of the cave and looked in. All the four little baboons were fast
asleep, with their backs towards us, and their arms round each other’s
necks, the white one being in the middle. Nothing could have been
better for our plans. Hendrik, who by this time had quite entered into
the spirit of the thing, crept along the cave like a snake, and
suddenly dropped the mouth of the hide bag over the head of the white
baboon. The poor little thing woke up and gave a violent jump which
caused it to vanish right into the bag. Then Hendrik pulled the string
tight, and together we knotted it so that it was impossible for our
captive to escape. Meanwhile the other baby baboons had rushed from the
cave screaming, and when we got outside they were nowhere to be seen.

“‘Come on, Missie,’ said Hendrik; ‘the babyans will soon be back.’ He
had shouldered the sack, inside of which the white baboon was kicking
violently, and screaming like a child. It was dreadful to hear its
shrieks.

“We scrambled down the sides of the kloof and ran for home as fast as
we could manage. When we were near the waterfall, and within about
three hundred yards of the garden wall, we heard a voice behind us, and
there, leaping from rock to rock, and running over the grass, was the
whole family of baboons headed by the old man.

“‘Run, Missie, run!’ gasped Hendrik, and I did, like the wind, leaving
him far behind. I dashed into the garden, where some Kaffirs were
working, crying, ‘The babyans! the babyans!’ Luckily the men had their
sticks and spears by them and ran out just in time to save Hendrik, who
was almost overtaken. The baboons made a good fight for it, however,
and it was not till the old man was killed with an assegai that they
ran away.

“Well, there is a stone hut in the kraal at the stead where my father
sometimes shuts up natives who have misbehaved. It is very strong, and
has a barred window. To this hut Hendrik carried the sack, and, having
untied the mouth, put it down on the floor, and ran from the place,
shutting the door behind him. In another moment the poor little thing
was out and dashing round the stone hut as though it were mad. It
sprung at the bars of the window, clung there, and beat its head
against them till the blood came. Then it fell to the floor, and sat
upon it crying like a child, and rocking itself backwards and forwards.
It was so sad to see it that I began to cry too.

“Just then my father came in and asked what all the fuss was about. I
told him that we had caught a young white baboon, and he was angry, and
said that it must be let go. But when he looked at it through the bars
of the window he nearly fell down with astonishment.

“‘Why!’ he said, ‘this is not a baboon, it is a white child that the
baboons have stolen and brought up!’

“Now, Mr. Allan, whether my father is right or wrong, you can judge for
yourself. You see Hendrika—we named her that after Hendrik, who caught
her—she is a woman, not a monkey, and yet she has many of the ways of
monkeys, and looks like one too. You saw how she can climb, for
instance, and you hear how she talks. Also she is very savage, and when
she is angry or jealous she seems to go mad, though she is as clever as
anybody. I think that she must have been stolen by the baboons when she
was quite tiny and nurtured by them, and that is why she is so like
them.

“But to go on. My father said that it was our duty to keep Hendrika at
any cost. The worst of it was, that for three days she would eat
nothing, and I thought that she would die, for all the while she sat
and wailed. On the third day, however, I went to the bars of the window
place, and held out a cup of milk and some fruit to her. She looked at
it for a long while, then crept up moaning, took the milk from my hand,
drank it greedily, and afterwards ate the fruit. From that time forward
she took food readily enough, but only if I would feed her.

“But I must tell you of the dreadful end of Hendrik. From the day that
we captured Hendrika the whole place began to swarm with baboons which
were evidently employed in watching the kraals. One day Hendrik went
out towards the hills alone to gather some medicine. He did not come
back again, so the next day search was made. By a big rock which I can
show you, they found his scattered and broken bones, the fragments of
his assegai, and four dead baboons. They had set upon him and torn him
to pieces.

“My father was very much frightened at this, but still he would not let
Hendrika go, because he said that she was human, and that it was our
duty to reclaim her. And so we did—to a certain extent, at least. After
the murder of Hendrik, the baboons vanished from the neighbourhood, and
have only returned quite recently, so at length we ventured to let
Hendrika out. By this time she had grown very fond of me; still, on the
first opportunity she ran away. But in the evening she returned again.
She had been seeking the baboons, and could not find them. Shortly
afterwards she began to speak—I taught her—and from that time she has
loved me so that she will not leave me. I think it would kill her if I
went away from her. She watches me all day, and at night sleeps on the
floor of my hut. Once, too, she saved my life when I was swept down the
river in flood; but she is jealous, and hates everybody else. Look, how
she is glaring at you now because I am talking to you!”

I looked. Hendrika was tramping along with the child in her arms and
staring at me in a most sinister fashion out of the corners of her
eyes.

While I was reflecting on the Baboon-woman’s strange story, and
thinking that she was an exceedingly awkward customer, the path took a
sudden turn.

“Look!” said Stella, “there is our home. Is it not beautiful?”

It was beautiful indeed. Here on the western side of the great peak a
bay had been formed in the mountain, which might have measured eight
hundred or a thousand yards across by three-quarters of a mile in
depth. At the back of this indentation the sheer cliff rose to the
height of several hundred feet, and behind it and above it the great
Babyan Peak towered up towards the heavens. The space of ground,
embraced thus in the arms of the mountain, as it were, was laid out, as
though by the cunning hand of man, in three terraces that rose one
above the other. To the right and left of the topmost terrace were
chasms in the cliff, and down each chasm fell a waterfall, from no
great height, indeed, but of considerable volume. These two streams
flowed away on either side of the enclosed space, one towards the
north, and the other, the course of which we had been following, round
the base of the mountain. At each terrace they made a cascade, so that
the traveller approaching had a view of eight waterfalls at once. Along
the edge of the stream to our left were placed Kaffir kraals, built in
orderly groups with verandahs, after the Basutu fashion, and a very
large part of the entire space of land was under cultivation. All of
this I noted at once, as well as the extraordinary richness and depth
of the soil, which for many ages past had been washed down from the
mountain heights. Then following the line of an excellent waggon road,
on which we now found ourselves, that wound up from terrace to terrace,
my eye lit upon the crowning wonder of the scene. For in the centre of
the topmost platform or terrace, which may have enclosed eight or ten
acres of ground, and almost surrounded by groves of orange trees,
gleamed buildings of which I had never seen the like. There were three
groups of them, one in the middle, and one on either side, and a little
to the rear, but, as I afterwards discovered, the plan of all was the
same. In the centre was an edifice constructed like an ordinary Zulu
hut—that is to say, in the shape of a beehive, only it was five times
the size of any hut I ever saw, and built of blocks of hewn white
marble, fitted together with extraordinary knowledge of the principles
and properties of arch building, and with so much accuracy and finish
that it was often difficult to find the joints of the massive blocks.
From this centre hut ran three covered passages, leading to other
buildings of an exactly similar character, only smaller, and each whole
block was enclosed by a marble wall about four feet in height.

Of course we were as yet too far off to see all these details, but the
general outline I saw at once, and it astonished me considerably. Even
old Indaba-zimbi, whom the Baboon-woman had been unable to move,
deigned to show wonder.

“Ou!” he said; “this is a place of marvels. Who ever saw kraals built
of white stone?”

Stella watched our faces with an expression of intense amusement, but
said nothing.

“Did your father build those kraals?” I gasped, at length.

“My father! no, of course not,” she answered. “How would it have been
possible for one white man to do so, or to have made this road? He
found them as you see.”

“Who built them, then?” I said again.

“I do not know. My father thinks that they are very ancient, for the
people who live here now do not know how to lay one stone upon another,
and these huts are so wonderfully constructed that, though they must
have stood for ages, not a stone of them had fallen. But I can show you
the quarry where the marble was cut; it is close by and behind it is
the entrance to an ancient mine, which my father thinks was a silver
mine. Perhaps the people who worked the mine built the marble huts. The
world is old, and no doubt plenty of people have lived in it and been
forgotten.”[*]

[*] Kraals of a somewhat similar nature to those described by Mr.
Quatermain have been discovered in the Marico district of the
Transvaal, and an illustration of them is to be found in Mr. Anderson’s
“Twenty-five Years in a Waggon,” vol. ii. p. 55. Mr. Anderson says, “In
this district are the ancient stone kraals mentioned in an early
chapter; but it requires a fuller description to show that these
extensive kraals must have been erected by a white race who understood
building in stone and at right angles, with door-posts, lintels, and
sills, and it required more than Kaffir skill to erect the stone huts,
with stone circular roofs, beautifully formed and most substantially
erected; strong enough, if not disturbed, to last a thousand years.”
—Editor.


Then we rode on in silence. I have seen many beautiful sights in
Africa, and in such matters, as in others, comparisons are odious and
worthless, but I do not think that I ever saw a lovelier scene. It was
no one thing—it was the combination of the mighty peak looking forth on
to the everlasting plains, the great cliffs, the waterfalls that
sparkled in rainbow hues, the rivers girdling the rich cultivated
lands, the gold-specked green of the orange trees, the flashing domes
of the marble huts, and a thousand other things. Then over all brooded
the peace of evening, and the infinite glory of the sunset that filled
heaven with changing hues of splendour, that wrapped the mountain and
cliffs in cloaks of purple and of gold, and lay upon the quiet face of
the water like the smile of a god.

Perhaps also the contrast, and the memory of those three awful days and
nights in the hopeless desert, enhanced the charm, and perhaps the
beauty of the girl who walked beside me completed it. For of this I am
sure, that of all sweet and lovely things that I looked on then, she
was the sweetest and the loveliest.

Ah, it did not take me long to find my fate. How long will it be before
I find her once again?




CHAPTER VIII.
THE MARBLE KRAALS


At length the last platform, or terrace, was reached, and we pulled up
outside the wall surrounding the central group of marble huts—for so I
must call them, for want of a better name. Our approach had been
observed by a crowd of natives, whose race I have never been able to
determine accurately; they belonged to the Basutu and peaceful section
of the Bantu peoples rather than to the Zulu and warlike. Several of
these ran up to take the horses, gazing on us with astonishment, not
unmixed with awe. We dismounted—speaking for myself, not without
difficulty—indeed, had it not been for Stella’s support I should have
fallen.

“Now you must come and see my father,” she said. “I wonder what he will
think of it, it is all so strange. Hendrika, take the child to my hut
and give her milk, then put her into my bed; I will come presently.”

Hendrika went off with a somewhat ugly grin to do her mistress’s
bidding, and Stella led the way through the narrow gateway in the
marble wall, which may have enclosed nearly half an “erf,” or
three-quarters of an acre of ground in all. It was beautifully planted
as a garden, many European vegetables and flowers were growing in it,
besides others with which I was not acquainted. Presently we came to
the centre hut, and it was then that I noticed the extraordinary beauty
and finish of the marble masonry. In the hut, and facing the gateway,
was a modern door, rather rudely fashioned of Buckenhout, a beautiful
reddish wood that has the appearance of having been sedulously pricked
with a pin. Stella opened it, and we entered. The interior of the hut
was the size of a large and lofty room, the walls being formed of plain
polished marble. It was lighted somewhat dimly, but quite effectively,
by peculiar openings in the roof, from which the rain was excluded by
overhanging eaves. The marble floor was strewn with native mats and
skins of animals. Bookcases filled with books were placed against the
walls, there was a table in the centre, chairs seated with rimpi or
strips of hide stood about, and beyond the table was a couch on which a
man was lying reading.

“Is that you, Stella?” said a voice, that even after so many years
seemed familiar to me. “Where have you been, my dear? I began to think
that you had lost yourself again.”

“No, father, dear, I have not lost myself, but I have found somebody
else.”

At that moment I stepped forward so that the light fell on me. The old
gentleman on the couch rose with some difficulty and bowed with much
courtesy. He was a fine-looking old man, with deep-set dark eyes, a
pale face that bore many traces of physical and mental suffering, and a
long white beard.

“Be welcome, sir,” he said. “It is long since we have seen a white face
in these wilds, and yours, if I am not mistaken, is that of an
Englishman. There has been but one Englishman here for twelve years,
and he, I grieve to say, was an outcast flying from justice,” and he
bowed again and stretched out his hand.

I looked at him, and then of a sudden his name flashed back into my
mind. I took his hand.

“How do you do, Mr. Carson?” I said.

He started as though he had been stung.

“Who told you that name?” he cried. “It is a dead name. Stella, is it
you? I forbade you to let it pass your lips.”

“I did not speak it, father. I have never spoken it,” she answered.

“Sir,” I broke in, “if you will allow me I will show you how I came to
know your name. Do you remember many years ago coming into the study of
a clergyman in Oxfordshire and telling him that you were going to leave
England for ever?”

He bowed his head.

“And do you remember a little boy who sat upon the hearthrug writing
with a pencil?”

“I do,” he said.

“Sir, I was that boy, and my name is Allan Quatermain. Those children
who lay sick are all dead, their mother is dead, and my father, your
old friend, is dead also. Like you he emigrated, and last year he died
in the Cape. But that is not all the story. After many adventures, I,
one Kaffir, and a little girl, lay senseless and dying in the Bad
Lands, where we had wandered for days without water, and there we
should have perished, but your daughter, Miss——”

“Call her Stella,” he broke in, hastily. “I cannot bear to hear that
name. I have forsworn it.”

“Miss Stella found us by chance and saved our lives.”

“By chance, did you say, Allan Quatermain?” he answered. “There is
little chance in all this; such chances spring from another will than
ours. Welcome, Allan, son of my old friend. Here we live as it were in
a hermitage, with Nature as our only friend, but such as we have is
yours, and for as long as you will take it. But you must be starving;
talk no more now. Stella, it is time to eat. To-morrow we will talk.”

To tell the truth I can recall very little of the events of that
evening. A kind of dizzy weariness overmastered me. I remember sitting
at a table next to Stella, and eating heartily, and then I remember
nothing more.

I awoke to find myself lying on a comfortable bed in a hut built and
fashioned on the same model as the centre one. While I was wondering
what time it was, a native came bringing some clean clothes on his arm,
and, luxury of luxuries, produced a bath hollowed from wood. I rose,
feeling a very different man, my strength had come back again to me; I
dressed, and following a covered passage found myself in the centre
hut. Here the table was set for breakfast with all manner of good
things, such as I had not seen for many a month, which I contemplated
with healthy satisfaction. Presently I looked up, and there before me
was a more delightful sight, for standing in one of the doorways which
led to the sleeping huts was Stella, leading little Tota by the hand.

She was very simply dressed in a loose blue gown, with a wide collar,
and girdled in at the waist by a little leather belt. In the bosom of
her robe was a bunch of orange blooms, and her rippling hair was tied
in a single knot behind her shapely head. She greeted me with a smile,
asking how I had slept, and then held Tota up for me to kiss. Under her
loving care the child had been quite transformed. She was neatly
dressed in a garment of the same blue stuff that Stella wore, her fair
hair was brushed; indeed, had it not been for the sun blisters on her
face and hands, one would scarcely have believed that this was the same
child whom Indaba-zimbi and I had dragged for hour after hour through
the burning, waterless desert.

“We must breakfast alone, Mr. Allan,” she said; “my father is so upset
by your arrival that he will not get up yet. Oh, you cannot tell how
thankful I am that you have come. I have been so anxious about him of
late. He grows weaker and weaker; it seems to me as though the strength
were ebbing away from him. Now he scarcely leaves the kraal, I have to
manage everything about the farm; he does nothing but read and think.”

Just then Hendrika entered, bearing a jug of coffee in one hand and of
milk in the other, which she set down upon the table, casting a look of
little love at me as she did so.

“Be careful, Hendrika; you are spilling the coffee,” said Stella.
“Don’t you wonder how we come to have coffee here, Mr. Allan? I will
tell you—we grow it. That was my idea. Oh, I have lots of things to
show you. You don’t know what we have managed to do in the time that we
have been here. You see we have plenty of labour, for the people about
look upon my father as their chief.”

“Yes,” I said, “but how do you get all these luxuries of civilization?”
and I pointed to the books, the crockery, and the knives and forks.

“Very simply. Most of the books my father brought with him when we
first trekked into the wilds; there was nearly a waggon load of them.
But every few years we have sent an expedition of three waggons right
down to Port Natal. The waggons are loaded with ivory and other goods,
and come back with all kinds of things that have been sent out from
England for us. So you see, although we live in this wild place, we are
not altogether cut off. We can send runners to Natal and back in three
months, and the waggons get there and back in a year. The last lot
arrived quite safe about three months ago. Our servants are very
faithful, and some of them speak Dutch well.”

“Have you ever been with the waggons?” I asked.

“Since I was a child I have never been more than thirty miles from
Babyan’s Peak,” she answered. “Do you know, Mr. Allan, that you are,
with one exception, the first Englishman that I have known out of a
book. I suppose that I must seem very wild and savage to you, but I
have had one advantage—a good education. My father has taught me
everything, and perhaps I know some things that you don’t. I can read
French and German, for instance. I think that my father’s first idea
was to let me run wild altogether, but he gave it up.”

“And don’t you wish to go into the world?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she said, “when I get lonely. But perhaps my father is
right—perhaps it would frighten and bewilder me. At any rate he would
never return to civilization; it is his idea, you know, although I am
sure I do not know where he got it from, nor why he cannot bear that
our name should be spoken. In short, Mr. Quatermain, we do not make our
lives, we must take them as we find them. Have you done your breakfast?
Let us go out, and I will show you our home.”

I rose and went to my sleeping-place to fetch my hat. When I returned,
Mr. Carson—for after all that was his name, though he would never allow
it to be spoken—had come into the hut. He felt better now, he said, and
would accompany us on our walk if Stella would give him an arm.

So we started, and after us came Hendrika with Tota and old
Indaba-zimbi whom I found sitting outside as fresh as paint. Nothing
could tire that old man.

The view from the platform was almost as beautiful as that from the
lower ground looking up to the peak. The marble kraals, as I have said,
faced west, consequently all the upper terrace lay in the shadow of the
great peak till nearly eleven o’clock in the morning—a great advantage
in that warm latitude. First we walked through the garden, which was
beautifully cultivated, and one of the most productive that I ever saw.
There were three or four natives working in it, and they all saluted my
host as “Baba,” or father. Then we visited the other two groups of
marble huts. One of these was used for stables and outbuildings, the
other as storehouses, the centre hut having been, however, turned into
a chapel. Mr. Carson was not ordained, but he earnestly tried to
convert the natives, most of whom were refugees who had come to him for
shelter, and he had practised the more elementary rites of the church
for so long that I think he began to believe that he really was a
clergyman. For instance, he always married those of his people who
would consent to a monogamous existence, and baptized their children.

When we had examined those wonderful remains of antiquity, the marble
huts, and admired the orange trees, the vines and fruits which thrive
like weeds in this marvellous soil and climate, we descended to the
next platform, and saw the farming operations in full swing. I think
that it was the best farm I have ever seen in Africa. There was ample
water for purposes of irrigation, the grass lands below gave pasturage
for hundreds of head of cattle and horses, and, for natives, the people
were most industrious. Moreover, the whole place was managed by Mr.
Carson on the co-operative system; he only took a tithe of the
produce—indeed, in this land of teeming plenty, what was he to do with
more? Consequently the tribesmen, who, by the way, called themselves
the “Children of Thomas,” were able to accumulate considerable wealth.
All their disputes were referred to their “father,” and he also was
judge of offences and crimes. Some were punished by imprisonment,
whipping, and loss of goods, other and graver transgressions by
expulsion from the community, a fiat which to one of these favoured
natives must have seemed as heavy as the decree that drove Adam from
the Garden of Eden.

Old Mr. Carson leaned upon his daughter’s arm and contemplated the
scene with pride.

“I have done all this, Allan Quatermain,” he said. “When renouncing
civilization, I wandered here by chance; seeking a home in the remotest
places of the world, I found this lonely spot a wilderness. Nothing was
to be seen except the site, the domes of the marble huts, and the
waterfalls. I took possession of the huts. I cleared the path of garden
land and planted the orange grove. I had only six natives then, but by
degrees others joined me, now my tribe is a thousand strong. Here we
live in profound peace and plenty. I have all I need, and I seek no
more. Heaven has prospered me so far—may it do so to the end, which for
me draws nigh. And now I am tired and will go back. If you wish to see
the old quarry and the mouth of the ancient mines, Stella will show
them to you. No, my love, you need not trouble to come, I can manage.
Look! some of the headmen are waiting to see me.”

So he went; but still followed by Hendrika and Indaba-zimbi, we turned,
and, walking along the bank of one of the rivers, passed up behind the
marble kraals, and came to the quarry, whence the material of which
they were built had been cut in some remote age. The pit opened up a
very thick seam of the whitest and most beautiful marble. I know
another like it in Natal. But by whom it had been worked I cannot say;
not by natives, that is certain, though the builders of these kraals
had condescended to borrow the shape of native huts for their model. By
the way, the only relic of those builders that I ever saw was a highly
finished bronze pick-axe which Stella had found one day in the quarry.

After we had examined this quarry we climbed the slope of the hill till
we came to the mouth of the ancient mines which were situated in a
gorge. I believe them to have been silver mines. The gorge was long and
narrow, and the moment we entered it there rose from every side a sound
of groaning and barking that was almost enough to deafen us. I knew
what it was at once: the whole place was filled with baboons, which
clambered down the rocks towards us from every direction, and in a
manner that struck me as being unnaturally fearless. Stella turned a
little pale and clung to my arm.

“It is very silly of me,” she whispered. “I am not at all nervous, but
ever since they killed Hendrik I cannot bear the sight of those
animals. I always think that there is something human about them.”

Meanwhile the baboons drew nearer, talking to each other as they came.
Tota began to cry, and clung to Stella. Stella clung to me, while I and
Indaba-zimbi put as bold a front on the matter as we could. Only
Hendrika stood looking at the brutes with an unconcerned smile on her
monkey face. When the great apes were quite near, she suddenly called
aloud. Instantly they stopped their hideous clamour as though at a word
of command. Then Hendrika addressed them: I can only describe it so.
That is to say, she began to make a noise such as baboons do when they
converse with each other. I have known Hottentots and Bushmen who said
that they could talk with the baboons and understand their language,
but I confess I never heard it done before or since.

From the mouth of Hendrika came a succession of grunts, groans,
squeals, clicks, and every other abominable noise that can be
conceived, conveying to my mind a general idea of expostulation. At any
rate the baboons listened. One of them grunted back some answer, and
then the whole mob drew off to the rocks.

I stood astonished, and without a word we turned back to the kraal, for
Hendrika was too close to allow me to speak. When we reached the dining
hut Stella went in, followed by Hendrika. But Indaba-zimbi plucked me
by the sleeve, and I stopped outside.

“Macumazahn,” he said. “Baboon-woman—devil-woman. Be careful,
Macumazahn. She loves that Star (the natives aptly enough called Stella
the Star), and is jealous. Be careful, Macumazahn, or the Star will
set!”




CHAPTER IX.
“LET US GO IN, ALLAN!”


It is very difficult for me to describe the period of time which
elapsed between my arrival at Babyan’s Peak and my marriage with
Stella. When I look back on it, it seems sweet as with the odour of
flowers, and dim as with the happy dusk of summer eves, while through
the sweetness comes the sound of Stella’s voice, and through the gloom
shines the starlight of her eyes. I think that we loved each other from
the first, though for a while we said no word of love. Day by day I
went about the place with her, accompanied by little Tota and Hendrika
only, while she attended to the thousand and one matters which her
father’s ever-growing weakness had laid upon her; or rather, as time
drew on, I attended to the business, and she accompanied me. All day
through we were together. Then after supper, when the night had fallen,
we would walk together in the garden and come at length to hear her
father read aloud sometimes from the works of a poet, sometimes from
history. Or, if he did not feel well, Stella would read, and when this
was done, Mr. Carson would celebrate a short form of prayer, and we
would separate till the morning once more brought our happy hour of
meeting.

So the weeks went by, and with every week I grew to know my darling
better. Often, I wonder now, if my fond fancy deceives me, or if indeed
there are women as sweet and dear as she. Was it solitude that had
given such depth and gentleness to her? Was it the long years of
communing with Nature that had endowed her with such peculiar grace,
the grace we find in opening flowers and budding trees? Had she caught
that murmuring voice from the sound of the streams which fall
continually about her rocky home? Was it the tenderness of the evening
sky beneath which she loved to walk, that lay like a shadow on her
face, and the light of the evening stars that shone in her quiet eyes?
At the least to me she was the realization of that dream which haunts
the sleep of sin-stained men; so my memory paints her, so I hope to
find her when at last the sleep has rolled away and the fevered dreams
are done.

At last there came a day—the most blessed of my life, when we told our
love. We had been together all the morning, but after dinner Mr. Carson
was so unwell that Stella stopped in with him. At supper we met again,
and after supper, when she had put little Tota, to whom she had grown
much attached, to bed, we went out, leaving Mr. Carson dozing on the
couch.

The night was warm and lovely, and without speaking we walked up the
garden to the orange grove and sat down upon a rock. There was a little
breeze which shook the petals of the orange blooms over us in showers,
and bore their delicate fragrance far and wide. Silence reigned around,
broken only by the sound of the falling waterfalls that now died to a
faint murmur, and now, as the wavering breeze turned, boomed loudly in
our ears. The moon was not yet visible, but already the dark clouds
which floated through the sky above us—for there had been rain—showed a
glow of silver, telling us that she shone brightly behind the peak.
Stella began to talk in her low, gentle voice, speaking to me of her
life in the wilderness, how she had grown to love it, how her mind had
gone on from idea to idea, and how she pictured the great rushing world
that she had never seen as it was reflected to her from the books which
she had read. It was a curious vision of life that she had: things were
out of proportion to it; it was more like a dream than a reality—a
mirage than the actual face of things. The idea of great cities, and
especially of London, had a kind of fascination for her: she could
scarcely realize the rush, the roar and hurry, the hard crowds of men
and women, strangers to each other, feverishly seeking for wealth and
pleasure beneath a murky sky, and treading one another down in the fury
of their competition.

“What is it all for?” she asked earnestly. “What do they seek? Having
so few years to live, why do they waste them thus?”

I told her that in the majority of instances it was actual hard
necessity that drove them on, but she could barely understand me.
Living as she had done, in the midst of the teeming plenty of a
fruitful earth, she did not seem to be able to grasp the fact that
there were millions who from day to day know not how to stay their
hunger.

“I never want to go there,” she went on; “I should be bewildered and
frightened to death. It is not natural to live like that. God put Adam
and Eve in a garden, and that is how he meant their children to live—in
peace, and looking always on beautiful things. This is my idea of
perfect life. I want no other.”

“I thought you once told me that you found it lonely,” I said.

“So I did,” she answered, innocently, “but that was before you came.
Now I am not lonely any more, and it is perfect—perfect as the night.”

Just then the full moon rose above the elbow of the peak, and her rays
stole far and wide down the misty valley, gleaming on the water,
brooding on the plain, searching out the hidden places of the rocks,
wrapping the fair form of nature as in a silver bridal veil through
which her beauty shone mysteriously.

Stella looked down the terraced valley; she turned and looked up at the
scarred face of the golden moon, and then she looked at me. The beauty
of the night was about her face, the scent of the night was on her
hair, the mystery of the night shone in her shadowed eyes. She looked
at me, I looked on her, and all our hearts’ love blossomed within us.
We spoke no word—we had no words to speak, but slowly we drew near,
till lips were pressed to lips as we kissed our eternal troth.

It was she who broke that holy silence, speaking in a changed voice, in
soft deep notes that thrilled me like the lowest chords of a smitten
harp.

“Ah, now I understand,” she said, “now I know why we are lonely, and
how we can lose our loneliness. Now I know what it is that stirs us in
the beauty of the sky, in the sound of water and in the scent of
flowers. It is Love who speaks in everything, though till we hear his
voice we understand nothing. But when we hear, then the riddle is
answered and the gates of our heart are opened, and, Allan, we see the
way that wends through death to heaven, and is lost in the glory of
which our love is but a shadow.

“Let us go in, Allan. Let us go before the spell breaks, so that
whatever overtakes us, sorrow, death, or separation, we may always have
this perfect memory to save us. Come, dearest, let us go!”

I rose like a man in a dream, still holding her by the hand. But as I
rose my eye fell upon something that gleamed white among the foliage of
the orange bush at my side. I said nothing, but looked. The breeze
stirred the orange leaves, the moonlight struck for a moment full upon
the white object.

It was the face of Hendrika, the Babyan-woman, as Indaba-zimbi had
called her, and on it was a glare of hate that made me shudder.

I said nothing; the face vanished, and just then I heard a baboon bark
in the rocks behind.

Then we went down the garden, and Stella passed into the centre hut. I
saw Hendrika standing in the shadow near the door, and went up to her.

“Hendrika,” I said, “why were you watching Miss Stella and myself in
the garden?”

She drew her lips up till her teeth gleamed in the moonlight.

“Have I not watched her these many years, Macumazahn? Shall I cease to
watch because a wandering white man comes to steal her? Why were you
kissing her in the garden, Macumazahn? How dare you kiss her who is a
star?”

“I kissed her because I love her, and because she loves me,” I
answered. “What has that to do with you, Hendrika?”

“Because you love her,” she hissed in answer; “and do I not love her
also, who saved me from the babyans? I am a woman as she is, and you
are a man, and they say in the kraals that men love women better than
women love women. But it is a lie, though this is true, that if a woman
loves a man she forgets all other love. Have I not seen it? I gather
her flowers—beautiful flowers; I climb the rocks where you would never
dare to go to find them; you pluck a piece of orange bloom in the
garden and give it to her. What does she do?—she takes the orange
bloom, she puts it in her breast, and lets my flowers die. I call to
her—she does not hear me—she is thinking. You whisper to some one far
away, and she hears and smiles. She used to kiss me sometimes; now she
kisses that white brat you brought, because you brought it. Oh, I see
it all—all; I have seen it from the first; you are stealing her from
us, stealing her to yourself, and those who loved her before you came
are forgotten. Be careful, Macumazahn, be careful, lest I am revenged
upon you. You, you hate me; you think me half a monkey; that servant of
yours calls me Baboon-woman. Well, I have lived with baboons, and they
are clever—yes, they can play tricks and know things that you don’t,
and I am cleverer than they, for I have learnt the wisdom of white
people also, and I say to you, Walk softly, Macumazahn, or you will
fall into a pit,” and with one more look of malice she was gone.

I stood for a moment reflecting. I was afraid of this strange creature
who seemed to combine the cunning of the great apes that had reared her
with the passions and skill of human kind. I foreboded evil at her
hands. And yet there was something almost touching in the fierceness of
her jealousy. It is generally supposed that this passion only exists in
strength when the object loved is of another sex from the lover, but I
confess that, both in this instance and in some others which I have met
with, this has not been my experience. I have known men, and especially
uncivilized men, who were as jealous of the affection of their friend
or master as any lover could be of that of his mistress; and who has
not seen cases of the same thing where parents and their children are
concerned? But the lower one gets in the scale of humanity, the more
readily this passion thrives; indeed, it may be said to come to its
intensest perfection in brutes. Women are more jealous than men,
small-hearted men are more jealous than those of larger mind and wider
sympathy, and animals are the most jealous of all. Now Hendrika was in
some ways not far removed from animal, which may perhaps account for
the ferocity of her jealousy of her mistress’s affection.

Shaking off my presentiments of evil, I entered the centre hut. Mr.
Carson was resting on the sofa, and by him knelt Stella holding his
hand, and her head resting on his breast. I saw at once that she had
been telling him of what had come about between us; nor was I sorry,
for it is a task that a would-be son-in-law is generally glad to do by
deputy.

“Come here, Allan Quatermain,” he said, almost sternly, and my heart
gave a jump, for I feared lest he might be about to require me to go
about my business. But I came.

“Stella tells me,” he went on, “that you two have entered into a
marriage engagement. She tells me also that she loves you, and that you
say that you love her.”

“I do indeed, sir,” I broke in; “I love her truly; if ever a woman was
loved in this world, I love her.”

“I thank Heaven for it,” said the old man. “Listen, my children. Many
years ago a great shame and sorrow fell upon me, so great a sorrow
that, as I sometimes think, it affected my brain. At any rate, I
determined to do what most men would have considered the act of a
madman, to go far away into the wilderness with my only child, there to
live remote from civilization and its evils. I did so; I found this
place, and here we have lived for many years, happily enough, and
perhaps not without doing good in our generation, but still in a way
unnatural to our race and status. At first I thought I would let my
daughter grow up in a state of complete ignorance, that she should be
Nature’s child. But as time went on, I saw the folly and the wickedness
of my plan. I had no right to degrade her to the level of the savages
around me, for if the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a bitter fruit,
still it teaches good from evil. So I educated her as well as I was
able, till in the end I knew that in mind, as in body, she was in no
way inferior to her sisters, the children of the civilized world. She
grew up and entered into womanhood, and then it came into my mind that
I was doing her a bitter wrong, that I was separating her from her kind
and keeping her in a wilderness where she could find neither mate nor
companion. But though I knew this, I could not yet make up my mind to
return to active life; I had grown to love this place. I dreaded to
return into the world I had abjured. Again and again I put my
resolutions aside. Then at the commencement of this year I fell ill.
For a while I waited, hoping that I might get better, but at last I
realized that I should never get better, that the hand of Death was
upon me.”

“Ah, no, father, not that!” Stella said, with a cry.

“Yes, love, that, and it is true. Now you will be able to forget our
separation in the happiness of a new meeting,” and he glanced at me and
smiled. “Well, when this knowledge came home to me, I determined to
abandon this place and trek for the coast, though I well knew that the
journey would kill me. I should never live to reach it. But Stella
would, and it would be better than leaving her here alone with savages
in the wilderness. On the very day that I had made up my mind to take
this step Stella found you dying in the Bad Lands, Allan Quatermain,
and brought you here. She brought you, of all men in the world, you,
whose father had been my dear friend, and who once with your baby hands
had saved her life from fire, that she might live to save yours from
thirst. At the time I said little, but I saw the hand of Providence in
this, and I determined to wait and see what came about between you. At
the worst, if nothing came about, I soon learned that I could trust you
to see her safely to the coast after I was gone. But many days ago I
knew how it stood between you, and now things are determined as I
prayed they might be. God bless you both, my children; may you be happy
in your love; may it endure till death and beyond it. God bless you
both!” and he stretched out his hand towards me.

I took it, and Stella kissed him.

Presently he spoke again—

“It is my intention,” he said, “if you two consent, to marry you next
Sunday. I wish to do so soon, for I do not know how much longer will be
allowed to me. I believe that such a ceremony, solemnly celebrated and
entered into before witnesses, will, under the circumstances, be
perfectly legal; but of course you will repeat it with every formality
the first moment it lies in your power so to do. And now, there is one
more thing: when I left England my fortunes were in a shattered
condition; in the course of years they have recovered themselves, the
accumulated rents, as I heard but recently, when the waggons last
returned from Port Natal, have sufficed to pay off all charges, and
there is a considerable balance over. Consequently you will not marry
on nothing, for of course you, Stella, are my heiress, and I wish to
make a stipulation. It is this. That so soon as my death occurs you
should leave this place and take the first opportunity of returning to
England. I do not ask you to live there always; it might prove too much
for people reared in the wilds, as both of you have been; but I do ask
you to make it your permanent home. Do you consent and promise this?”

“I do,” I answered.

“And so do I,” said Stella.

“Very well,” he answered; “and now I am tired out. Again God bless you
both, and good-night.”




CHAPTER X.
HENDRIKA PLOTS EVIL


On the following morning I had a conversation with Indaba-zimbi. First
of all I told him that I was going to marry Stella.

“Oh!” he said, “I thought so, Macumazahn. Did I not tell you that you
would find happiness on this journey? Most men must be content to watch
the Star from a long way off, to you it is given to wear her on your
heart. But remember, Macumazahn, remember that stars set.”

“Can you not stop your croaking even for a day?” I answered, angrily,
for his words sent a thrill of fear through me.

“A true prophet must tell the ill as well as the good, Macumazahn. I
only speak what is on my mind. But what of it? What is life but loss,
loss upon loss, till life itself be lost? But in death we may find all
the things that we have lost. So your father taught, Macumazahn, and
there was wisdom in his gentleness. Ou! I do not believe in death; it
is change, that is all, Macumazahn. Look now, the rain falls, the drops
of rain that were one water in the clouds fall side by side. They sink
into the ground; presently the sun will come out, the earth will be
dry, the drops will be gone. A fool looks and says the drops are dead,
they will never be one again, they will never again fall side by side.
But I am a rain-maker, and I know the ways of rain. It is not true. The
drops will drain by many paths into the river, and will be one water
there. They will go up to the clouds again in the mists of morning, and
there will again be as they have been. We are the drops of rain,
Macumazahn. When we fall that is our life. When we sink into the ground
that is death, and when we are drawn up again to the sky, what is that,
Macumazahn? No! no! when we find we lose, and when we seem to lose,
then we shall really find. I am not a Christian, Macumazahn, but I am
old, and have watched and seen things that perhaps Christians do not
see. There, I have spoken. Be happy with your star, and if it sets,
wait, Macumazahn, wait till it rises again. It will not be long; one
day you will go to sleep, then your eyes will open on another sky, and
there your star will be shining, Macumazahn.”

I made no answer at the time. I could not bear to talk of such a thing.
But often and often in the after years I have thought of Indaba-zimbi
and his beautiful simile and gathered comfort from it. He was a strange
man, this old rain-making savage, and there was more wisdom in him than
in many learned atheists—those spiritual destroyers who, in the name of
progress and humanity, would divorce hope from life, and leave us
wandering in a lonesome, self-consecrated hell.

“Indaba-zimbi,” I said, changing the subject, “I have something to
say,” and I told him of the threats of Hendrika.

He listened with an unmoved face, nodding his white lock at intervals
as the narrative went on. But I saw that he was disturbed by it.

“Macumazahn,” he said at length, “I have told you that this is an evil
woman. She was nourished on baboon milk, and the baboon nature is in
her veins. Such creatures should be killed, not kept. She will make you
mischief if she can. But I will watch her, Macumazahn. Look, the Star
is waiting for you; go, or she will hate me as Hendrika hates you.”

So I went, nothing loth, for attractive as was the wisdom of
Indaba-zimbi, I found a deeper meaning in Stella’s simplest word. All
the rest of that day I passed in her company, and the greater part of
the two following days. At last came Saturday night, the eve of our
marriage. It rained that night, so we did not go out, but spent the
evening in the hut. We sat hand in hand, saying little, but Mr. Carson
talked a good deal, telling us tales of his youth, and of countries
that he had visited. Then he read aloud from the Bible, and bade us
goodnight. I also kissed Stella and went to bed. I reached my hut by
the covered way, and before I undressed opened the door to see what the
night was like. It was very dark, and rain was still falling, but as
the light streamed out into the gloom I fancied that I caught sight of
a dusky form gliding away. The thought of Hendrika flashed into my
mind; could she be skulking about outside there? Now I had said nothing
of Hendrika and her threats either to Mr. Carson or Stella, because I
did not wish to alarm them. Also I knew that Stella was attached to
this strange person, and I did not wish to shake her confidence in her
unless it was absolutely necessary. For a minute or two I stood
hesitating, then, reflecting that if it was Hendrika, there she should
stop, I went in and put up the stout wooden bar that was used to secure
the door. For the last few nights old Indaba-zimbi had made a habit of
sleeping in the covered passage, which was the only other possible way
of access. As I came to bed I had stepped over him rolled up in his
blanket, and to all appearances fast asleep. So it being evident that I
had nothing to fear, I promptly dismissed the matter from my mind,
which, as may be imagined, was indeed fully occupied with other
thoughts.

I got into bed, and for awhile lay awake thinking of the great
happiness in store for me, and of the providential course of events
that had brought it within my reach. A few weeks since and I was
wandering in the desert a dying man, bearing a dying child, and with
scarcely a possession left in the world except a store of buried ivory
that I never expected to see again. And now I was about to wed one of
the sweetest and loveliest women on the whole earth—a woman whom I
loved more than I could have thought possible, and who loved me back
again. Also, as though that were not good fortune enough, I was to
acquire with her very considerable possessions, quite sufficiently
large to enable us to follow any plan of life we found agreeable. As I
lay and reflected on all this I grew afraid of my good fortune. Old
Indaba-zimbi’s melancholy prophecies came into my mind. Hitherto he had
always prophesied truly. What if these should be true also? I turned
cold as I thought of it, and prayed to the Power above to preserve us
both to live and love together. Never was prayer more needed. While its
words were still upon my lips I dropped asleep and dreamed a most
dreadful dream.

I dreamed that Stella and I were standing together to be married. She
was dressed in white, and radiant with beauty, but it was a wild,
spiritual beauty which frightened me. Her eyes shone like stars, a pale
flame played about her features, and the wind that blew did not stir
her hair. Nor was this all, for her white robes were death wrappings,
and the altar at which we stood was formed of the piled-up earth from
an open grave that yawned between us. So we stood waiting for one to
wed us, but no one came. Presently from the open grave sprang the form
of Hendrika. In her hand was a knife, with which she stabbed at me, but
pierced the heart of Stella, who, without a cry, fell backwards into
the grave, still looking at me as she fell. Then Hendrika leaped after
her into the grave. I heard her feet strike heavily.

“_Awake, Macumazahn! awake!_” cried the voice of Indaba-zimbi.

I awoke and bounded from the bed, a cold perspiration pouring from me.
In the darkness on the other side of the hut I heard sounds of furious
struggling. Luckily I kept my head. Just by me was a chair on which
were matches and a rush taper. I struck a match and held it to the
taper. Now in the growing light I could see two forms rolling one over
the other on the floor, and from between them came the flash of steel.
The fat melted and the light burnt up. It was Indaba-zimbi and the
woman Hendrika who were struggling, and, what is more, the woman was
getting the better of the man, strong as he was. I rushed towards them.
Now she was uppermost, now she had wrenched herself from his fierce
grip, and now the great knife she had in her hand flashed up.

But I was behind her, and, placing my hands beneath her arms, jerked
with all my strength. She fell backwards, and, in her effort to save
herself, most fortunately dropped the knife. Then we flung ourselves
upon her. Heavens! the strength of that she-devil! Nobody who has not
experienced it could believe it. She fought and scratched and bit, and
at one time nearly mastered the two of us. As it was she did break
loose. She rushed at the bed, sprung on it, and bounded thence straight
up at the roof of the hut. I never saw such a jump, and could not
conceive what she meant to do. In the roof were the peculiar holes
which I have described. They were designed to admit light, and covered
with overhanging eaves. She sprung straight and true like a monkey,
and, catching the edge of the hole with her hands, strove to draw
herself through it. But here her strength, exhausted with the long
struggle, failed her. For a moment she swung, then dropped to the
ground and fell senseless.

“Ou!” gasped Indaba-zimbi. “Let us tie the devil up before she comes to
life again.”

I thought this a good counsel, so we took a reim that lay in the corner
of the room, and lashed her hands and feet in such a fashion that even
she could scarcely escape. Then we carried her into the passage, and
Indaba-zimbi sat over her, the knife in his hand, for I did not wish to
raise an alarm at that hour of the night.

“Do you know how I caught her, Macumazahn?” he said. “For several
nights I have slept here with one eye open, for I thought she had made
a plan. To-night I kept wide awake, though I pretended to be asleep. An
hour after you got into the blankets the moon rose, and I saw a beam of
light come into the hut through the hole in the roof. Presently I saw
the beam of light vanish. At first I thought that a cloud was passing
over the moon, but I listened and heard a noise as though some one was
squeezing himself through a narrow space. Presently he was through, and
hanging by his hands. Then the light came in again, and in the middle
of it I saw the Babyan-frau swinging from the roof, and about to drop
into the hut. She clung by both hands, and in her mouth was a great
knife. She dropped, and I ran forward to seize her as she dropped, and
gripped her round the middle. But she heard me come, and, seizing the
knife, struck at me in the dark and missed me. Then we struggled, and
you know the rest. You were very nearly dead to-night, Macumazahn.”

“Very nearly indeed,” I answered, still panting, and arranging the rags
of my night-dress round me as best I might. Then the memory of my
horrid dream flashed into my mind. Doubtless it had been conjured up by
the sound of Hendrika dropping to the floor—in my dream it had been a
grave that she dropped into. All of it, then, had been experienced in
that second of time. Well, dreams are swift; perhaps Time itself is
nothing but a dream, and events that seem far apart really occur
simultaneously.

We passed the rest of the night watching Hendrika. Presently she came
to herself and struggled furiously to break the reim. But the untanned
buffalo hide was too strong even for her, and, moreover, Indaba-zimbi
unceremoniously sat upon her to keep her quiet. At last she gave it up.

In due course the day broke—my marriage day. Leaving Indaba-zimbi to
watch my would-be murderess, I went and fetched some natives from the
stables, and with their aid bore Hendrika to the prison hut—that same
hut in which she had been confined when she had been brought a
baboon-child from the rocks. Here we shut her up, and, leaving
Indaba-zimbi to watch outside, I returned to my sleeping-place and
dressed in the best garments that the Babyan Kraals could furnish. But
when I looked at the reflection of my face, I was horrified. It was
covered with scratches inflicted by the nails of Hendrika. I doctored
them up as best I could, then went out for a walk to calm my nerves,
which, what between the events of the past night, and of those pending
that day, were not a little disturbed.

When I returned it was breakfast time. I went into the dining hut, and
there Stella was waiting to greet me, dressed in simple white and with
orange flowers on her breast. She came forward to me shyly enough;
then, seeing the condition of my face, started back.

“Why, Allan! what have you been doing to yourself?” she asked.

As I was about to answer, her father came in leaning on his stick, and,
catching sight of me, instantly asked the same question.

Then I told them everything, both of Hendrika’s threats and of her
fierce attempt to carry them into execution. But I did not tell my
horrid dream.

Stella’s face grew white as the flowers on her breast, but that of her
father became very stern.

“You should have spoken of this before, Allan,” he said. “I now see
that I did wrong to attempt to civilize this wicked and revengeful
creature, who, if she is human, has all the evil passions of the brutes
that reared her. Well, I will make an end of it this very day.”

“Oh, father,” said Stella, “don’t have her killed. It is all dreadful
enough, but that would be more dreadful still. I have been very fond of
her, and, bad as she is, she has loved me. Do not have her killed on my
marriage day.”

“No,” her father answered, “she shall not be killed, for though she
deserves to die, I will not have her blood upon our hands. She is a
brute, and has followed the nature of brutes. She shall go back whence
she came.”

No more was said on the matter at the time, but when breakfast—which
was rather a farce—was done, Mr. Carson sent for his headman and gave
him certain orders.

We were to be married after the service which Mr. Carson held every
Sunday morning in the large marble hut set apart for that purpose. The
service began at ten o’clock, but long before that hour all the natives
on the place came up in troops, singing as they came, to be present at
the wedding of the “Star.” It was a pretty sight to see them, the men
dressed in all their finery, and carrying shields and sticks in their
hands, and the women and children bearing green branches of trees,
ferns, and flowers. At length, about half-past nine, Stella rose,
pressed my hand, and left me to my reflections. A few minutes to ten
she reappeared again with her father, dressed in a white veil, a wreath
of orange flowers on her dark curling hair, a bouquet of orange flowers
in her hand. To me she seemed like a dream of loveliness. With her came
little Tota in a high state of glee and excitement. She was Stella’s
only bridesmaid. Then we all passed out towards the church hut. The
bare space in front of it was filled with hundreds of natives, who set
up a song as we came. But we went on into the hut, which was crowded
with such of the natives as usually worshipped there. Here Mr. Carson,
as usual, read the service, though he was obliged to sit down in order
to do so. When it was done—and to me it seemed interminable—Mr. Carson
whispered that he meant to marry us outside the hut in sight of all the
people. So we went out and took our stand under the shade of a large
tree that grew near the hut facing the bare space where the natives
were gathered.

Mr. Carson held up his hand to enjoin silence. Then, speaking in the
native dialect, he told them that he was about to make us man and wife
after the Christian fashion and in the sight of all men. This done, he
proceeded to read the marriage service over us, and very solemnly and
beautifully he did it. We said the words, I placed the ring—it was her
father’s signet ring, for we had no other—upon Stella’s finger, and it
was done.

Then Mr. Carson spoke. “Allan and Stella,” he said, “I believe that the
ceremony which has been performed makes you man and wife in the sight
of God and man, for all that is necessary to make a marriage binding
is, that it should be celebrated according to the custom of the country
where the parties to it reside. It is according to the custom that has
been in force here for fifteen years or more that you have been married
in the face of all the people, and in token of it you will both sign
the register that I have kept of such marriages, among those of my
people who have adopted the Christian Faith. Still, in case there
should be any legal flaw I again demand the solemn promise of you both
that on the first opportunity you will cause this marriage to be
re-celebrated in some civilized land. Do you promise?”

“We do,” we answered.

Then the book was brought out and we signed our names. At first my wife
signed hers “Stella” only, but her father bade her write it Stella
Carson for the first and last time in her life. Then several of the
indunas, or headmen, including old Indaba-zimbi, put their marks in
witness. Indaba-zimbi drew his mark in the shape of a little star, in
humorous allusion to Stella’s native name. That register is before me
now as I write. That, with a lock of my darling’s hair which lies
between its leaves, is my dearest possession. There are all the names
and marks as they were written many years ago beneath the shadow of the
tree at Babyan Kraals in the wilderness, but alas! and alas! where are
those who wrote them?

“My people,” said Mr. Carson, when the signing was done, and we had
kissed each other before them all—“My people, Macumazahn and the Star,
my daughter, are now man and wife, to live in one kraal, to eat of one
bowl, to share one fortune till they reach the grave. Hear now, my
people, you know this woman,” and turning he pointed to Hendrika, who,
unseen by us, had been led out of the prison hut.

“Yes, yes, we know her,” said a little ring of headmen, who formed the
primitive court of justice, and after the fashion of natives had
squatted themselves in a circle on the ground in front of us. “We know
her, she is the white Babyan-woman, she is Hendrika, the body servant
of the Star.”

“You know her,” said Mr. Carson, “but you do not know her altogether.
Stand forward, Indaba-zimbi, and tell the people what came about last
night in the hut of Macumazahn.”

Accordingly old Indaba-zimbi came forward, and, squatting down, told
his moving tale with much descriptive force and many gestures,
finishing up by producing the great knife from which his watchfulness
had saved me.

Then I was called upon, and in a few brief words substantiated his
story: indeed my face did that in the sight of all men.

Then Mr. Carson turned to Hendrika, who stood in sullen silence, her
eyes fixed upon the ground, and asked her if she had anything to say.

She looked up boldly and answered—

“Macumazahn has robbed me of the love of my mistress. I would have
robbed him of his life, which is a little thing compared to that which
I have lost at his hands. I have failed, and I am sorry for it, for had
I killed him and left no trace the Star would have forgotten him and
shone on me again.”

“Never,” murmured Stella in my ear; but Mr. Carson turned white with
wrath.

“My people,” he said, “you hear the words of this woman. You hear how
she pays me back, me and my daughter whom she swears she loves. She
says that she would have murdered a man who has done her no evil, the
man who is the husband of her mistress. We saved her from the babyans,
we tamed her, we fed her, we taught her, and this is how she pays us
back. Say, my people, what reward should be given to her?”

“Death,” said the circle of indunas, pointing their thumbs downwards,
and all the multitude beyond echoed the word “Death.”

“Death,” repeated the head induna, adding, “If you save her, my father,
we will slay her with our own hands. She is a Babyan-woman, a
devil-woman; ah, yes, we have heard of such before; let her be slain
before she works more evil.”

Then it was that Stella stepped forward and begged for Hendrika’s life
in moving terms. She pleaded the savagery of the woman’s nature, her
long service, and the affection that she had always shown towards
herself. She said that I, whose life had been attempted, forgave her,
and she, my wife, who had nearly been left a widow before she was made
a bride, forgave her; let them forgive her also, let her be sent away,
not slain, let not her marriage day be stained with blood.

Now her father listened readily enough, for he had no intention of
killing Hendrika—indeed, he had already promised not to do so. But the
people were in a different humour, they looked upon Hendrika as a
devil, and would have torn her to pieces there and then, could they
have had their way. Nor were matters mended by Indaba-zimbi, who had
already gained a great reputation for wisdom and magic in the place.
Suddenly the old man rose and made quite an impassioned speech, urging
them to kill Hendrika at once or mischief would come of it.

At last matters got very bad, for two of the Indunas came forward to
drag her off to execution, and it was not until Stella burst into tears
that the sight of her grief, backed by Mr. Carson’s orders and my own
remonstrances, carried the day.

All this while Hendrika had been standing quite unmoved. At last the
tumult ceased, and the leading induna called to her to go, promising
that if ever she showed her face near the kraals again she should be
stabbed like a jackal. Then Hendrika spoke to Stella in a low voice and
in English—

“Better let them kill me, mistress, better for all. Without you to love
I shall go mad and become a babyan again.”

Stella did not answer, and they loosed her. She stepped forward and
looked at the natives with a stare of hate. Then she turned and walked
past me, and as she passed whispered a native phrase in my ear, that,
being literally translated, means, “Till another moon,” but which has
the same significance as the French “au revoir.”

It frightened me, for I knew she meant that she had not done with me,
and saw that our mercy was misplaced. Seeing my face change she ran
swiftly from me, and as she passed Indaba-zimbi, with a sudden movement
snatched her great knife from his hand. When she had gone about twenty
paces she halted, looked long and earnestly on Stella, gave one loud
cry of anguish, and fled. A few minutes later we saw her far away,
bounding up the face of an almost perpendicular cliff—a cliff that
nobody except herself and the baboons could possibly climb.

“Look,” said Indaba-zimbi in my ear—“Look, Macumazahn, there goes the
Babyan-frau. But, Macumazahn, _she will come back again_. Ah, why will
you not listen to my words. Have they not always been true words,
Macumazahn?” and he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

For a while I was much disturbed, but at any rate Hendrika was gone for
the present, and Stella, my dear and lovely wife, was there at my side,
and in her smiles I forgot my fears.

For the rest of that day, why should I write of it?—there are things
too happy and too sacred to be written of.

At last I had, if only for a little while, found that rest, that
perfect joy which we seek so continually and so rarely clasp.




CHAPTER XI.
GONE!


I wonder if many married couples are quite as happy as we found
ourselves. Cynics, a growing class, declare that few illusions can
survive a honeymoon. Well, I do not know about it, for I only married
once, and can but speak from my limited experience. But certainly our
illusion, or rather the great truth of which it is the shadow, did
survive, as to this day it survives in my heart across all the years of
utter separation, and across the unanswering gulf of gloom.

But complete happiness is not allowed in this world even for an hour.
As our marriage day had been shadowed by the scene which has been
described, so our married life was shadowed by its own sorrow.

Three days after our wedding Mr. Carson had a stroke. It had been long
impending, now it fell. We came into the centre hut to dinner and found
him lying speechless on the couch. At first I thought that he was
dying, but this was not so. On the contrary, within four days he
recovered his speech and some power of movement. But he never recovered
his memory, though he still knew Stella, and sometimes myself.
Curiously enough he remembered little Tota best of all three, though
occasionally he thought that she was his own daughter in her childhood,
and would ask her where her mother was. This state of affairs lasted
for some seven months. The old man gradually grew weaker, but he did
not die. Of course his condition quite precluded the idea of our
leaving Babyan Kraals till all was over. This was the more distressing
to me because I had a nervous presentiment that Stella was incurring
danger by staying there, and also because the state of her health
rendered it desirable that we should reach a civilized region as soon
as possible. However, it could not be helped.

At length the end came very suddenly. We were sitting one evening by
Mr. Carson’s bedside in his hut, when to our astonishment he sat up and
spoke in a strong, full voice.

“I hear you,” he said. “Yes, yes, I forgive you. Poor woman! you too
have suffered,” and he fell back dead.

I have little doubt that he was addressing his lost wife, some vision
of whom had flashed across his dying sense. Stella, of course, was
overwhelmed with grief at her loss. Till I came her father had been her
sole companion, and therefore, as may be imagined, the tie between them
was much closer than is usual even in the case of father and daughter.
So deeply did she mourn that I began to fear for the effect upon her
health. Nor were we the only ones to grieve; all the natives on the
settlement called Mr. Carson “father,” and as a father they lamented
him. The air resounded with the wailing of women, and the men went
about with bowed heads, saying that “the sun had set in the heavens,
now only the Star (Stella) remained.” Indaba-zimbi alone did not mourn.
He said that it was best that the Inkoos should die, for what was life
worth when one lay like a log?—moreover, that it would have been well
for all if he had died sooner.

On the following day we buried him in the little graveyard near the
waterfall. It was a sad business, and Stella cried very much, in spite
of all I could do to comfort her.

That night as I sat outside the hut smoking—for the weather was hot,
and Stella was lying down inside—old Indaba-zimbi came up, saluted, and
squatted at my feet.

“What is it, Indaba-zimbi?” I said.

“This, Macumazahn. When are you going to trek towards the coast?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “The Star is not fit to travel now, we must
wait awhile.”

“No, Macumazahn, you must not wait, you must go, and the Star must take
her chance. She is strong. It is nothing. All will be well.”

“Why do you say so? why must we go?”

“For this reason, Macumazahn,” and he looked cautiously round and spoke
low. “The baboons have come back in thousands. All the mountain is full
of them.”

“I did not know that they had gone,” I said.

“Yes,” he answered, “they went after the marriage, all but one or two;
now they are back, all the baboons in the world, I think. I saw a whole
cliff black with them.”

“Is that all?” I said, for I saw that he had something behind. “I am
not afraid of a pack of baboons.”

“No, Macumazahn, it is not all. The Babyan-frau, Hendrika, is with
them.”

Now nothing had been heard or seen of Hendrika since her expulsion, and
though at first she and her threats had haunted me somewhat, by degrees
she to a great extent had passed out of my mind, which was fully
preoccupied with Stella and my father-in-law’s illness. I started
violently. “How do you know this?” I asked.

“I know it because I saw her, Macumazahn. She is disguised, she is
dressed up in baboon skins, and her face is stained dark. But though
she was a long way off, I knew her by her size, and I saw the white
flesh of her arm when the skins slipped aside. She has come back,
Macumazahn, with all the baboons in the world, and she has come back to
do evil. Now do you understand why you should trek?”

“Yes,” I said, “though I don’t see how she and the baboons can harm us,
I think that it will be better to go. If necessary we can camp the
waggons somewhere for a while on the journey. Hearken, Indaba-zimbi:
say nothing of this to the Star; I will not have her frightened. And
hearken again. Speak to the headmen, and see that watchers are set all
round the huts and gardens, and kept there night and day. To-morrow we
will get the waggons ready, and next day we will trek.”

He nodded his white lock and went to do my bidding, leaving me not a
little disturbed—unreasonably so, indeed. It was a strange story. That
this woman had the power of conversing with baboons I knew.[*] That was
not so very wonderful, seeing that the Bushmen claim to be able to do
the same thing, and she had been nurtured by them. But that she had
been able to muster them, and by the strength of her human will and
intelligence muster them in order to forward her ends of revenge,
seemed to me so incredible that after reflection my fears grew light.
Still I determined to trek. After all, a journey in an ox waggon would
not be such a very terrible thing to a strong woman accustomed to
roughing it, whatever her state of health. And when all was said and
done I did not like this tale of the presence of Hendrika with
countless hosts of baboons.

[*] For an instance of this, see Anderson’s “Twenty-five Years in a
Waggon,” vol. i. p. 262.—Editor.


So I went in to Stella, and without saying a word to her of the baboon
story, told her I had been thinking matters over, and had come to the
conclusion that it was our duty to follow her father’s instructions to
the letter, and leave Babyan Kraals at once. Into all our talk I need
not enter, but the end of it was that she agreed with me, and declared
that she could quite well manage the journey, saying, moreover, that
now that her dear father was dead she would be glad to get away.

Nothing happened to disturb us that night, and on the following morning
I was up early making preparations. The despair of the people when they
learned that we were going to leave them was something quite pitiable.
I could only console them by declaring that we were but on a journey,
and would return the following year.

“They had lived in the shadow of their father, who was dead,” they
declared; “ever since they were little they had lived in his shadow. He
had received them when they were outcasts and wanderers without a mat
to lie on, or a blanket to cover them, and they had grown fat in his
shadow. Then he had died, and the Star, their father’s daughter, had
married me, Macumazahn, and they had believed that I should take their
father’s place, and let them live in my shadow. What should they do
when there was no one to protect them? The tribes were kept from
attacking them by fear of the white man. If we went they would be eaten
up,” and so on. Alas! there was but too much foundation for their
fears.

I returned to the huts at mid-day to get some dinner. Stella said that
she was going to pack during the afternoon, so I did not think it
necessary to caution her about going out alone, as I did not wish to
allude to the subject of Hendrika and the baboons unless I was obliged
to. I told her, however, that I would come back to help her as soon as
I could get away. Then I went down to the native kraals to sort out
such cattle as had belonged to Mr. Carson from those which belonged to
the Kaffirs, for I proposed to take them with us. It was a large herd,
and the business took an incalculable time. At length, a little before
sundown, I gave it up, and leaving Indaba-zimbi to finish the job, got
on my horse and rode homewards.

Arriving, I gave the horse to one of the stable boys, and went into the
central hut. There was no sign of Stella, though the things she had
been packing lay about the floor. I passed first into our sleeping hut,
thence one by one into all the others, but still saw no sign of her.
Then I went out, and calling to a Kaffir in the garden asked him if he
had seen his mistress.

He answered “yes.” He had seen her carrying flowers and walking towards
the graveyard, holding the little white girl—my daughter—as he called
her, by the hand, when the sun stood “there,” and he pointed to a spot
on the horizon where it would have been about an hour and a half
before. “The two dogs were with them,” he added. I turned and ran
towards the graveyard, which was about a quarter of a mile from the
huts. Of course there was no reason to be anxious—evidently she had
gone to lay the flowers on her father’s grave. And yet I was anxious.

When I got near the graveyard I met one of the natives, who, by my
orders, had been set round the kraals to watch the place, and noticed
that he was rubbing his eyes and yawning. Clearly he had been asleep. I
asked him if he had seen his mistress, and he answered that he had not,
which under the circumstances was not wonderful. Without stopping to
reproach him, I ordered the man to follow me, and went on to the
graveyard. There, on Mr. Carson’s grave, lay the drooping flowers which
Stella had been carrying, and there in the fresh mould was the spoor of
Tota’s veldschoon, or hide slipper. But where were they?

I ran from the graveyard and called aloud at the top of my voice, but
no answer came. Meanwhile the native was more profitably engaged in
tracing their spoor. He followed it for about a hundred yards till he
came to a clump of mimosa bush that was situated between the stream and
the ancient marble quarries just over the waterfall, and at the mouth
of the ravine. Here he stopped, and I heard him give a startled cry. I
rushed to the spot, passed through the trees, and saw this. The little
open space in the centre of the glade had been the scene of a struggle.
There, in the soft earth, were the marks of three pairs of human
feet—two shod, one naked—Stella’s, Tota’s, and _Hendrika’s_. Nor was
this all. There, close by, lay the fragments of the two dogs—they were
nothing more—and one baboon, not yet quite dead, which had been bitten
in the throat by the dogs. All round was the spoor of numberless
baboons. The full horror of what had happened flashed into my mind.

My wife and Tota had been carried off by the baboons. As yet they had
not been killed, for if so their remains would have been found with
those of the dogs. They had been carried off. The brutes, acting under
the direction of that woman-monkey, Hendrika, had dragged them away to
some secret den, there to keep them till they died—or kill them!

For a moment I literally staggered beneath the terror of the shock.
Then I roused myself from my despair. I bade the native run and alarm
the people at the kraals, telling them to come armed, and bring me guns
and ammunition. He went like the wind, and I turned to follow the
spoor. For a few yards it was plain enough—Stella had been dragged
along. I could see where her heels had struck the ground; the child
had, I presumed, been carried—at least there were no marks of her feet.
At the water’s edge the spoor vanished. The water was shallow, and they
had gone along in it, or at least Hendrika and her victim had, in order
to obliterate the trail. I could see where a moss-grown stone had been
freshly turned over in the water-bed. I ran along the bank some way up
the ravine, in the vain hope of catching a sight of them. Presently I
heard a bark in the cliffs above me; it was answered by another, and
then I saw that scores of baboons were hidden about among the rocks on
either side, and were softly swinging themselves down to bar the path.
To go on unarmed as I was would be useless. I should only be torn to
pieces as the dogs had been. So I turned and fled back towards the
huts. As I drew near I could see that my messenger had roused the
settlement, for natives with spears and kerries in their hands were
running up towards the kraals. When I reached the hut I met old
Indaba-zimbi, who wore a very serious face.

“So the evil has fallen, Macumazahn,” he said.

“It has fallen,” I answered.

“Keep a good heart, Macumazahn,” he said again. “She is not dead, nor
is the little maid, and before they die we shall find them. Remember
this, Hendrika loves her. She will not harm her, or allow the babyans
to harm her. She will try to hide her away from you, that is all.”

“Pray God that we may find her,” I groaned. “The light is going fast.”

“The moon rises in three hours,” he answered; “we will search by
moonlight. It is useless to start now; see, the sun sinks. Let us get
the men together, eat, and make things ready. _Hamba gachla_. Hasten
slowly, Macumazahn.”

As there was no help, I took his advice. I could eat no food, but I
packed some up to take with us, and made ready ropes, and a rough kind
of litter. If we found them they would scarcely be able to walk. Ah! if
we found them! How slowly the time passed! It seemed hours before the
moon rose. But at last it did rise.

Then we started. In all we were about a hundred men, but we only
mustered five guns between us, my elephant roer and four that had
belonged to Mr. Carson.




CHAPTER XII.
THE MAGIC OF INDABA-ZIMBI


We gained the spot by the stream where Stella had been taken. The
natives looked at the torn fragments of the dogs, and at the marks of
violence, and I heard them swearing to each other, that whether the
Star lived or died they would not rest till they had exterminated every
baboon on Babyan’s Peak. I echoed the oath, and, as shall be seen, we
kept it.

We started on along the stream, following the spoor of the baboons as
we best could. But the stream left no spoor, and the hard, rocky banks
very little. Still we wandered on. All night we wandered through the
lonely moonlit valleys, startling the silence into a thousand echoes
with our cries. But no answer came to them. In vain our eyes searched
the sides of precipices formed of water-riven rocks fantastically piled
one upon another; in vain we searched through endless dells and
fern-clad crannies. There was nothing to be found. How could we expect
to find two human beings hidden away in the recesses of this vast
stretch of mountain ground, which no man yet had ever fully explored.
They were lost, and in all human probability lost for ever.

To and fro we wandered hopelessly, till at last dawn found us footsore
and weary nearly at the spot whence we had started. We sat down waiting
for the sun to rise, and the men ate of such food as they had brought
with them, and sent to the kraals for more.

I sat upon a stone with a breaking heart. I cannot describe my
feelings. Let the reader put himself in my position and perhaps he may
get some idea of them. Near me was old Indaba-zimbi, who sat staring
straight before him as though he were looking into space, and taking
note of what went on there. An idea struck me. This man had some occult
power. Several times during our adventures he had prophesied, and in
every case his prophecies had proved true. He it was who, when we
escaped from the Zulu Impi, had told me to steer north, because there
we should find the place of a white man who lived under the shadow of a
great peak that was full of baboons. Perhaps he could help in this
extremity—at any rate it was worth trying.

“Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “you say that you can send your spirit through
the doors of space and see what we cannot see. At the least I know that
you can do strange things. Can you not help me now? If you can, and
will save her, I will give you half the cattle that we have here.”

“I never said anything of the sort, Macumazahn,” he answered. “I do
things, I do not talk about them. Neither do I seek reward for what I
do like a common witch-doctor. It is well that you have asked me to use
my wisdom, Macumazahn, for I should not have used it again without
being asked—no, not even for the sake of the Star and yourself, whom I
love, for if so my Spirit would have been angry. In the other matters I
had a part, for my life was concerned as well as yours; but in this
matter I have no part, and therefore I might not use my wisdom unless
you thought well to call upon my Spirit. However, it would have been no
good to ask me before, for I have only just found the herb I want,” and
he produced a handful of the leaves of a plant that was unfamiliar to
me. It had prickly leaves, shaped very much like those of the common
English nettle.

“Now, Macumazahn,” he went on, “bid the men leave us alone, and then
follow me presently to the little glade down there by the water.”

I did so. When I reached the glade I found Indaba-zimbi kindling a
small fire under the shadow of a tree by the edge of the water.

“Sit there, Macumazahn,” he said, pointing to a stone near the fire,
“and do not be surprised or frightened at anything you see. If you move
or call out we shall learn nothing.”

I sat down and watched. When the fire was alight and burning brightly,
the old fellow stripped himself stark naked, and, going to the foot of
the pool, dipped himself in the water. Then he came back shivering with
the cold, and, leaning over the little fire, thrust leaves of the plant
I have mentioned into his mouth and began to chew them, muttering as he
chewed. Most of the remaining leaves he threw on to the fire. A dense
smoke rose from them, but he held his head in this smoke and drew it
down his lungs till I saw that he was exhibiting every sign of
suffocation. The veins in his throat and chest swelled, he gasped
loudly, and his eyes, from which tears were streaming, seemed as though
they were going to start from his head. Presently he fell over on his
side, and lay senseless. I was terribly alarmed, and my first impulse
was to run to his assistance, but fortunately I remembered his caution,
and sat quiet.

Indaba-zimbi lay on the ground like a person quite dead. His limbs had
all the utter relaxation of death. But as I watched I saw them begin to
stiffen, exactly as though _rigor mortis_ had set in. Then, to my
astonishment, I perceived them once more relax, and this time there
appeared upon his chest the stain of decomposition. It spread and
spread; in three minutes the man, to all appearance, was a livid
corpse.

I sat amazed watching this uncanny sight, and wondering if any further
natural process was about to be enacted. Perhaps Indaba-zimbi was going
to fall to dust before my eyes. As I watched I observed that the
discoloration was beginning to fade. First it vanished from the
extremities, then from the larger limbs, and lastly from the trunk.
Then in turn came the third stage of relaxation, the second stage of
stiffness or _rigor_, and the first stage of after-death collapse. When
all these had rapidly succeeded each other, Indaba-zimbi quietly woke
up.

I was too astonished to speak; I simply looked at him with my mouth
open.

“Well, Macumazahn,” he said, putting his head on one side like a bird,
and nodding his white lock in a comical fashion, “it is all right; I
have seen her.”

“Seen who?” I said.

“The Star, your wife, and the little maid. They are much frightened,
but unharmed. The Babyan-frau watches them. She is mad, but the baboons
obey her, and do not hurt them. The Star was sleeping from weariness,
so I whispered in her ear and told her not to be frightened, for you
would soon rescue her, and that meanwhile she must seem to be pleased
to have Hendrika near her.”

“You whispered in her ear?” I said. “How could you whisper in her ear?”

“Bah! Macumazahn. How could I seem to die and go rotten before your
eyes? You don’t know, do you? Well, I will tell you one thing. I had to
die to pass the doors of space, as you call them. I had to draw all the
healthy strength and life from my body in order to gather power to
speak with the Star. It was a dangerous business, Macumazahn, for if I
had let things go a little further they must have stopped so, and there
would have been an end of Indaba-zimbi. Ah, you white men, you know so
much that you think you know everything. But you don’t! You are always
staring at the clouds and can’t see the things that lie at your feet.
You hardly believe me now, do you, Macumazahn? Well, I will show you.
Have you anything on you that the Star has touched or worn?”

I thought for a moment, and said that I had a lock of her hair in my
pocket-book. He told me to give it him. I did so. Going to the fire, he
lit the lock of hair in the flame, and let it burn to ashes, which he
caught in his left hand. These ashes he mixed up in a paste with the
juice of one of the leaves of the plant I have spoken of.

“Now, Macumazahn, shut your eyes,” he said.

I did so, and he rubbed his paste on to my eyelids. At first it burnt
me, then my head swam strangely. Presently this effect passed off, and
my brain was perfectly clear again, but I could not feel the ground
with my feet. Indaba-zimbi led me to the side of the stream. Beneath us
was a pool of beautifully clear water.

“Look into the pool, Macumazahn,” said Indaba-zimbi, and his voice
sounded hollow and far away in my ears.

I looked. The water grew dark; it cleared, and in it was a picture. I
saw a cave with a fire burning in it. Against the wall of the cave
rested Stella. Her dress was torn almost off her, she looked dreadfully
pale and weary, and her eyelids were red as though with weeping. But
she slept, and I could almost think that I saw her lips shape my name
in her sleep. Close to her, her head upon Stella’s breast, was little
Tota; she had a skin thrown over her to keep out the night cold. The
child was awake, and appeared to be moaning with fear. By the fire, and
in such a position that the light fell full upon her face, and engaged
in cooking something in a rough pot shaped from wood, sat the
Baboon-woman, Hendrika. She was clothed in baboon skins, and her face
had been rubbed with some dark stain, which was, however, wearing off
it. In the intervals of her cooking she would turn on Stella her wild
eyes, in which glared visible madness, with an expression of tenderness
that amounted to worship. Then she would stare at the child and gnash
her teeth as though with hate. Clearly she was jealous of it. Round the
entrance arch of the cave peeped and peered the heads of many baboons.
Presently Hendrika made a sign to one of them; apparently she did not
speak, or rather grunt, in order not to wake Stella. The brute hopped
forward, and she gave it a second rude wooden pot which was lying by
her. It took it and went. The last thing that I saw, as the vision
slowly vanished from the pool, was the dim shadow of the baboon
returning with the pot full of water.

Presently everything had gone. I ceased to feel strange. There beneath
me was the pool, and at my side stood Indaba-zimbi, smiling.

“You have seen things,” he said.

“I have,” I answered, and made no further remark on the matter. What
was there to say?[*] “Do you know the path to the cave?” I added.

[*] For some almost equally remarkable instances of Kaffir magic the
reader is referred to a work named “Among the Zulus,” by David
Leslie.—Editor.


He nodded his head. “I did not follow it all just now, because it
winds,” he said. “But I know it. We shall want the ropes.”

“Then let us be starting; the men have eaten.”

He nodded his head again, and going to the men I told them to make
ready, adding that Indaba-zimbi knew the way. They said that was all
right, if Indaba-zimbi had “smelt her out,” they should soon find the
Star. So we started cheerfully enough, and my spirits were so much
improved that I was able to eat a boiled mealie cob or two as we
walked.

We went up the valley, following the course of the stream for about a
mile; then Indaba-zimbi made a sudden turn to the right, along another
kloof, of which there were countless numbers in the base of the great
hill.

On we went through kloof after kloof. Indaba-zimbi, who led us, was
never at a loss, he turned up gulleys and struck across necks of hills
with the certainty of a hound on a hot scent. At length, after about
three hours’ march, we came to a big silent valley on the northern
slope of the great peak. On one side of this valley was a series of
stony koppies, on the other rose a sheer wall of rock. We marched along
the wall for a distance of some two miles. Then suddenly Indaba-zimbi
halted.

“There is the place,” he said, pointing to an opening in the cliff.
This opening was about forty feet from the ground, and ellipse-shaped.
It cannot have been more than twenty feet high by ten wide, and was
partially hidden by ferns and bushes that grew about it in the surface
of the cliff. Keen as my eyes were, I doubt if I should ever have
noticed it, for there were many such cracks and crannies in the rocky
face of the great mountain.

We drew near and looked carefully at the place. The first thing I
noticed was that the rock, which was not quite perpendicular, had been
worn by the continual passage of baboons; the second, that something
white was hanging on a bush near the top of the ascent.

It was a pocket-handkerchief.

Now there was no more doubt about the matter. With a beating heart I
began the ascent. For the first twenty feet it was comparatively easy,
for the rock shelved; the next ten feet was very difficult, but still
possible to an active man, and I achieved it, followed by Indaba-zimbi.
But the last twelve or fifteen feet could only be scaled by throwing a
rope over the trunk of a stunted tree, which grew at the bottom of the
opening. This we accomplished with some trouble, and the rest was easy.
A foot or two above my head the handkerchief fluttered in the wind.
Hanging to the rope, I grasped it. It was my wife’s. As I did so I
noticed the face of a baboon peering at me over the edge of the cleft,
the first baboon we had seen that morning. The brute gave a bark and
vanished. Thrusting the handkerchief into my breast, I set my feet
against the cliff and scrambled up as hard as I could go. I knew that
we had no time to lose, for the baboon would quickly alarm the others.
I gained the cleft. It was a mere arched passage cut by water, ending
in a gulley, which led to a wide open space of some sort. I looked
through the passage and saw that the gulley was black with baboons. On
they came by the hundred. I unslung my elephant gun from my shoulders
and waited, calling to the men below to come up with all possible
speed. The brutes streamed on down the gloomy gulf towards me, barking,
grunting, and showing their huge teeth. I waited till they were within
fifteen yards. Then I fired the elephant gun, which was loaded with
slugs, right into the thick of them. In that narrow place the report
echoed like a cannon shot, but its sound was quickly swallowed in the
volley of piercing human-sounding groans and screams that followed. The
charge of heavy slugs had ploughed through the host of baboons, of
which at least a dozen lay dead or dying in the passage. For a moment
they hesitated, then they came on again with a hideous clamour.
Fortunately by this time Indaba-zimbi, who also had a gun, was standing
by my side, otherwise I should have been torn to pieces before I could
re-load. He fired both barrels into them, and again checked the rush.
But they came on again, and notwithstanding the appearance of two other
natives with guns, which they let off with more or less success, we
should have been overwhelmed by the great and ferocious apes had I not
by this time succeeded in re-loading the elephant gun. When they were
right on us, I fired, with even more deadly effect than before, for at
that distance every slug told on their long line. The howls and screams
of pain and rage were now something inconceivable. One might have
thought that we were doing battle with a host of demons; indeed in that
light—for the overhanging arch of rock made it very dark—the gnashing
snouts and sombre glowing eyes of the apes looked like those of devils
as they are represented by monkish fancy. But the last shot was too
much for them; they withdrew, dragging some of their wounded with them,
and thus gave us time to get our men up the cliff. In a few minutes all
were there, and we advanced down the passage, which presently opened
into a rocky gulley with shelving sides. This gulley had a water-way at
the bottom of it; it was about a hundred yards long, and the slopes on
either side were topped by precipitous cliffs. I looked at these
slopes; they literally swarmed with baboons, grunting, barking,
screaming, and beating their breasts with their long arms, in fury. I
looked up the water-way; along it, accompanied by a mob, or, as it
were, a guard of baboons, ran Hendrika, her long hair flying, madness
written on her face, and in her arms was the senseless form of little
Tota.

She saw us, and a foam of rage burst from her lips. She screamed aloud.
To me the sound was a mere inarticulate cry, but the baboons clearly
understood it, for they began to roll rocks down on to us. One boulder
leaped past me and struck down a Kaffir behind; another fell from the
roof of the arch on to a man’s head and killed him. Indaba-zimbi lifted
his gun to shoot Hendrika; I knocked it up, so that the shot went over
her, crying that he would kill the child. Then I shouted to the men to
open out and form a line from side to side of the shelving gulley.
Furious at the loss of their two comrades, they obeyed me, and keeping
in the water-way myself, together with Indaba-zimbi and the other guns,
I gave the word to charge.

Then the real battle began. It is difficult to say who fought the most
fiercely, the natives or the baboons. The Kaffirs charged along the
slopes, and as they came, encouraged by the screams of Hendrika, who
rushed to and fro holding the wretched Tota before her as a shield, the
apes bounded at them in fury. Scores were killed by the assegais, and
many more fell beneath our gun-shots; but still they came on. Nor did
we go scathless. Occasionally a man would slip, or be pulled over in
the grip of a baboon. Then the others would fling themselves upon him
like dogs on a rat, and worry him to death. We lost five men in this
way, and I myself received a bite through the fleshy part of the left
arm, but fortunately a native near me assegaied the animal before I was
pulled down.

At length, and all of a sudden, the baboons gave up. A panic seemed to
seize them. Notwithstanding the cries of Hendrika they thought no more
of fight, but only of escape; some even did not attempt to get away
from the assegais of the Kaffirs, they simply hid their horrible faces
in their paws, and, moaning piteously, waited to be slain.

Hendrika saw that the battle was lost. Dropping the child from her
arms, she rushed straight at us, a very picture of horrible insanity. I
lifted my gun, but could not bear to shoot. After all she was but a mad
thing, half ape, half woman. So I sprang to one side, and she landed
full on Indaba-zimbi, knocking him down. But she did not stay to do any
more. Wailing terribly, she rushed down the gulley and through the
arch, followed by a few of the surviving baboons, and vanished from our
sight.




CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT HAPPENED TO STELLA


The fight was over. In all we had lost seven men killed, and several
more severely bitten, while but few had escaped without some tokens
whereby he might remember what a baboon’s teeth and claws are like. How
many of the brutes we killed I never knew, because we did not count,
but it was a vast number. I should think that the stock must have been
low about Babyan’s Peak for many years afterwards. From that day to
this, however, I have always avoided baboons, feeling more afraid of
them than any beast that lives.

The path was clear, and we rushed forward along the water-course. But
first we picked up little Tota. The child was not in a swoon, as I had
thought, but paralyzed by terror, so that she could scarcely speak.
Otherwise she was unhurt, though it took her many a week to recover her
nerve. Had she been older, and had she not remembered Hendrika, I doubt
if she would have recovered it. She knew me again, and flung her little
arms about my neck, clinging to me so closely that I did not dare to
give her to any one else to carry lest I should add to her terrors. So
I went on with her in my arms. The fears that pierced my heart may well
be imagined. Should I find Stella living or dead? Should I find her at
all? Well, we should soon know now. We stumbled on up the stony
watercourse; notwithstanding the weight of Tota I led the way, for
suspense lent me wings. Now we were through, and an extraordinary scene
lay before us. We were in a great natural amphitheatre, only it was
three times the size of any amphitheatre ever shaped by man, and the
walls were formed of precipitous cliffs, ranging from one to two
hundred feet in height. For the rest, the space thus enclosed was
level, studded with park-like trees, brilliant with flowers, and having
a stream running through the centre of it, that, as I afterwards
discovered, welled up from the ground at the head of the open space.

We spread ourselves out in a line, searching everywhere, for Tota was
too overcome to be able to tell us where Stella was hidden away. For
nearly half an hour we searched and searched, scanning the walls of
rock for any possible openings to a cave. In vain, we could find none.
I applied to old Indaba-zimbi, but his foresight was at fault here. All
he could say was that this was the place, and that the “Star” was
hidden somewhere in a cave, but where the cave was he could not tell.
At last we came to the top of the amphitheatre. There before us was a
wall of rock, of which the lower parts were here and there clothed in
grasses, lichens, and creepers. I walked along it, calling at the top
of my voice.

Presently my heart stood still, for I thought I heard a faint answer. I
drew nearer to the place from which the sound seemed to come, and again
called. Yes, there was an answer in my wife’s voice. It seemed to come
from the rock. I went up to it and searched among the creepers, but
still could find no opening.

“Move the stone,” cried Stella’s voice, “the cave is shut with a
stone.”

I took a spear and prodded at the cliff whence the sound came. Suddenly
the spear sunk in through a mass of lichen. I swept the lichen aside,
revealing a boulder that had been rolled into the mouth of an opening
in the rock, which it fitted so accurately that, covered as it was by
the overhanging lichen, it might well have escaped the keenest eye. We
dragged the boulder out; it was two men’s work to do it. Beyond was a
narrow, water-worn passage, which I followed with a beating heart.
Presently the passage opened into a small cave, shaped like a pickle
bottle, and coming to a neck at the top end. We passed through and
found ourselves in a second, much larger cave, that I at once
recognized as the one of which Indaba-zimbi had shown me a vision in
the water. Light reached it from above—how I know not—and by it I could
see a form half-sitting, half lying on some skins at the top end of the
cave. I rushed to it. It was Stella! Stella bound with strips of hide,
bruised, torn, but still Stella, and alive.

She saw me, she gave one cry, then, as I caught her in my arms, she
fainted. It was happy indeed that she did not faint before, for had it
not been for the sound of her voice I do not believe we should ever
have found that cunningly hidden cave, unless, indeed, Indaba-zimbi’s
magic (on which be blessings) had come to our assistance.

We bore her to the open air, laid her beneath the shade of a tree, and
cut the bonds loose from her ankles. As we went I glanced at the cave.
It was exactly as I had seen it in the vision. There burnt the fire,
there were the rude wooden vessels, one of them still half full of the
water which I had seen the baboon bring. I felt awed as I looked, and
marvelled at the power wielded by a savage who could not even read and
write.

Now I could see Stella clearly. Her face was scratched, and haggard
with fear and weeping, her clothes were almost torn off her, and her
beautiful hair was loose and tangled. I sent for water, and we
sprinkled her face. Then I forced a little of the brandy which we
distilled from peaches at the kraals between her lips, and she opened
her eyes, and throwing her arms about me clung to me as little Tota had
done, sobbing, “Thank God! thank God!”

After a while she grew quieter, and I made her and Tota eat some food
from the store that we had brought with us. I too ate and was thankful,
for with the exception of the mealie cobs I had tasted nothing for
nearly four-and-twenty hours. Then she washed her face and hands, and
tidied her rags of dress as well as she was able. As she did so by
degrees I drew her story from her.

It seemed that on the previous afternoon, being wearied with packing,
she went out to visit her father’s grave, taking Tota with her, and was
followed there by the two dogs. She wished to lay some flowers on the
grave and take farewell of the dust it covered, for as we had expected
to trek early on the morrow she did not know if she would find a later
opportunity. They passed up the garden, and gathering some flowers from
the orange trees and elsewhere, went on to the little graveyard. Here
she laid them on the grave as we had found them, and then sitting down,
fell into a deep and sad reverie, such as the occasion would naturally
induce. While she sat thus, Tota, who was a lively child and active as
a kitten, strayed away without Stella observing it. With her went the
dogs, who also had grown tired of inaction; a while passed, and
suddenly she heard the dogs barking furiously about a hundred and fifty
yards away. Then she heard Tota scream, and the dogs also yelling with
fear and pain. She rose and ran as swiftly as she could towards the
spot whence the sound came. Presently she was there. Before her in the
glade, holding the screaming Tota in her arms, was a figure in which,
notwithstanding the rough disguise of baboon skins and colouring
matter, she had no difficulty in recognizing Hendrika, and all about
her were numbers of baboons, rolling over and over in two hideous
heaps, of which the centres were the unfortunate dogs now in process of
being rent to fragments.

“Hendrika,” Stella cried, “what does this mean? What are you doing with
Tota and those brutes?”

The woman heard her and looked up. Then Stella saw that she was mad;
madness stared from her eyes. She dropped the child, which instantly
flew to Stella for protection. Stella clasped it, only to be herself
clasped by Hendrika. She struggled fiercely, but it was of no use—the
Babyan-frau had the strength of ten. She lifted her and Tota as though
they were nothing, and ran off with them, following the bed of the
stream in order to avoid leaving a spoor. Only the baboons who came
with her, minus the one the dogs had killed, would not take to the
water, but kept pace with them on the bank.

Stella said that the night which followed was more like a hideous
nightmare than a reality. She was never able to tell me all that
occurred in it. She had a vague recollection of being borne over rocks
and along kloofs, while around her echoed the horrible grunts and
clicks of the baboons. She spoke to Hendrika in English and Kaffir,
imploring her to let them go; but the woman, if I may call her so,
seemed in her madness to have entirely forgotten these tongues. When
Stella spoke she would kiss her and stroke her hair, but she did not
seem to understand what it was she said. On the other hand, she could,
and did, talk to the baboons, that seemed to obey her implicitly.
Moreover, she would not allow them to touch either Stella or the child
in her arms. Once one of them tried to do so, and she seized a dead
stick and struck it so heavily on the head that it fell senseless.
Thrice Stella made an attempt to escape, for sometimes even Hendrika’s
giant strength waned and she had to set them down. But on each occasion
she caught them, and it was in these struggles that Stella’s clothes
were so torn. At length before daylight they reached the cliff, and
with the first break of light the ascent began. Hendrika dragged them
up the first stages, but when they came to the precipitous place she
tied the strips of hide, of which she had a supply wound round her
waist, beneath Stella’s arms. Steep as the place was the baboons
ascended it easily enough, springing from a knob of rock to the trunk
of the tree that grew on the edge of the crevasse. Hendrika followed
them, holding the end of the hide reim in her teeth, one of the baboons
hanging down from the tree to assist her ascent. It was while she was
ascending that Stella bethought of letting fall her handkerchief in the
faint hope that some searcher might see it.

By this time Hendrika was on the tree, and grunting out orders to the
baboons which clustered about Stella below. Suddenly these seized her
and little Tota who was in her arms, and lifted her from the ground.
Then Hendrika above, aided by other baboons, put out all her great
strength and pulled the two of them up the rock. Twice Stella swung
heavily against the cliff. After the second blow she felt her senses
going, and was consumed with terror lest she should drop Tota. But she
managed to cling to her, and together they reached the cleft.

“From that time,” Stella went on, “I remember no more till I woke to
find myself in a gloomy cave resting on a bed of skins. My legs were
bound, and Hendrika sat near me watching me, while round the edge of
the cave peered the heads of those horrible baboons. Tota was still in
my arms, and half dead from terror; her moans were pitiful to hear. I
spoke to Hendrika, imploring her to release us; but either she has lost
all understanding of human speech, or she pretends to have done so. All
she would do was to caress me, and even kiss my hands and dress with
extravagant signs of affection. As she did so, Tota shrunk closer to
me. This Hendrika saw and glared so savagely at the child that I feared
lest she was going to kill her. I diverted her attention by making
signs that I wanted water, and this she gave me in a wooden bowl. As
you saw, the cave was evidently Hendrika’s dwelling-place. There are
stores of fruit in it and some strips of dried flesh. She gave me some
of the fruit and Tota a little, and I made Tota eat some. You can never
know what I went through, Allan. I saw now that Hendrika was quite mad,
and but little removed from the brutes to which she is akin, and over
which she has such unholy power. The only trace of humanity left about
her was her affection for me. Evidently her idea was to keep me here
with her, to keep me away from you, and to carry out this idea she was
capable of the exercise of every artifice and cunning. In this way she
was sane enough, but in every other way she was mad. Moreover, she had
not forgotten her horrible jealousy. Already I saw her glaring at Tota,
and knew that the child’s murder was only a matter of time. Probably
within a few hours she would be killed before my eyes. Of escape, even
if I had the strength, there was absolutely no chance, and little
enough of our ever being found. No, we should be kept here guarded by a
mad thing, half ape, half woman, till we perished miserably. Then I
thought of you, dear, and of all that you must be suffering, and my
heart nearly broke. I could only pray to God that I might either be
rescued or die swiftly.

“As I prayed I dropped into a kind of doze from utter weariness, and
then I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that Indaba-zimbi stood over
me nodding his white lock, and spoke to me in Kaffir, telling me not to
be frightened, for you would soon be with me, and that meanwhile I must
humour Hendrika, pretending to be pleased to have her near me. The
dream was so vivid that I actually seemed to see and hear him, as I see
and hear him now.”

Here I looked up and glanced at old Indaba-zimbi, who was sitting near.
But it was not till afterwards that I told Stella of how her vision was
brought about.

“At any rate,” she went on, “when I awoke I determined to act on my
dream. I took Hendrika’s hand, and pressed it. She actually laughed in
a wild kind of way with happiness, and laid her head upon my knee. Then
I made signs that I wanted food, and she threw wood on the fire, which
I forgot to tell you was burning in the cave, and began to make some of
the broth that she used to cook very well, and she did not seem to have
forgotten all about it. At any rate the broth was not bad, though
neither Tota nor I could drink much of it. Fright and weariness had
taken away our appetites.

“After the meal was done—and I prolonged it as much as possible—I saw
Hendrika was beginning to get jealous of Tota again. She glared at her
and then at the big knife which was tied round her own body. I knew the
knife again, it was the one with which she had tried to murder you,
dear. At last she went so far as to draw the knife. I was paralyzed
with fear, then suddenly I remembered that when she was our servant,
and used to get out of temper and sulk, I could always calm her by
singing to her. So I began to sing hymns. Instantly she forgot her
jealousy and put the knife back into its sheath. She knew the sound of
the singing, and sat listening to it with a rapt face; the baboons,
too, crowded in at the entrance of the cave to listen. I must have sung
for an hour or more, all the hymns that I could remember. It was so
very strange and dreadful sitting there singing to mad Hendrika and
those hideous man-like apes that shut their eyes and nodded their great
heads as I sang. It was a horrible nightmare; but I believe that the
baboons are almost as human as the Bushmen.

“Well, this went on for a long time till my voice was getting
exhausted. Then suddenly I heard the baboons outside raise a loud
noise, as they do when they are angry. Then, dear, I heard the boom of
your elephant gun, and I think it was the sweetest sound that ever came
to my ears. Hendrika heard it too. She sprang up, stood for a moment,
then, to my horror, swept Tota into her arms and rushed down the cave.
Of course I could not stir to follow her, for my feet were tied. Next
instant I heard the sound of a rock being moved, and presently the
lessening of the light in the cave told me that I was shut in. Now the
sound even of the elephant gun only reached me very faintly, and
presently I could hear nothing more, straining my ears as I would.

“At last I heard a faint shouting that reached me through the wall of
rock. I answered as loud as I could. You know the rest; and oh, my dear
husband, thank God! thank God!” and she fell weeping into my arms.




CHAPTER XIV.
FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER


Both Stella and Tota were too weary to be moved, so we camped that
night in the baboons’ home, but were troubled by no baboons. Stella
would not sleep in the cave; she said the place terrified her, so I
made her up a kind of bed under a thorn-tree. As this rock-bound valley
was one of the hottest places I ever was in, I thought that this would
not matter; but when at sunrise on the following morning I saw a veil
of miasmatic mist hanging over the surface of the ground, I changed my
opinion. However, neither Stella nor Tota seemed the worse, so as soon
as was practical we started homewards. I had already on the previous
day sent some of the men back to the kraals to fetch a ladder, and when
we reached the cliff we found them waiting for us beneath. With the
help of the ladder the descent was easy. Stella simply got out of her
rough litter at the top of the cliff, for we found it necessary to
carry her, climbed down the ladder, and got into it again at the
bottom.

Well, we reached the kraals safely enough, seeing nothing more of
Hendrika, and, were this a story, doubtless I should end it here
with—“and lived happily ever after.” But alas! it is not so. How am I
to write it?

My dearest wife’s vital energy seemed completely to fail her now that
the danger was past, and within twelve hours of our return I saw that
her state was such as to necessitate the abandonment of any idea of
leaving Babyan Kraals at present. The bodily exertion, the anguish of
mind, and the terror which she had endured during that dreadful night,
combined with her delicate state of health, had completely broken her
down. To make matters worse, also, she was taken with an attack of
fever, contracted no doubt in the unhealthy atmosphere of that accursed
valley. In time she shook the fever off, but it left her dreadfully
weak, and quite unfit to face the trial before her.

I think she knew that she was going to die; she always spoke of my
future, never of _our_ future. It is impossible for me to tell how
sweet she was; how gentle, how patient and resigned. Nor, indeed, do I
wish to tell it, it is too sad. But this I will say, I believe that if
ever a woman drew near to perfection while yet living on the earth,
Stella Quatermain did so.

The fatal hour drew on. My boy Harry was born, and his mother lived to
kiss and bless him. Then she sank. We did what we could, but we had
little skill, and might not hold her back from death. All through one
weary night I watched her with a breaking heart.

The dawn came, the sun rose in the east. His rays falling on the peak
behind were reflected in glory upon the bosom of the western sky.
Stella awoke from her swoon and saw the light. She whispered to me to
open the door of the hut. I did so, and she fixed her dying eyes on the
splendour of the morning sky. She looked on me and smiled as an angel
might smile. Then with a last effort she lifted her hand, and, pointing
to the radiant heavens, whispered:

“_There, Allan, there!_”

It was done, and I was broken-hearted, and broken-hearted I must wander
to the end. Those who have endured my loss will know my sorrow; it
cannot be written. In such peace and at such an hour may I also die!

Yes, it is a sad story, but wander where we will about the world we can
never go beyond the sound of the passing bell. For me, as for my father
before me, and for the millions who have been and who shall be, there
is but one word of comfort. “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath
taken away.” Let us, then, bow our heads in hope, and add with a humble
heart, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I buried her by her father’s side, and the weeping of the people who
had loved her went up to heaven. Even Indaba-zimbi wept, but I could
weep no more.

On the second night from her burial I could not sleep. I rose, dressed
myself, and went out into the night. The moon was shining brightly, and
by its rays I shaped my course towards the graveyard. I drew near
silently, and as I came I thought that I heard a sound of moaning on
the further side of the wall. I looked over it. Crouched by Stella’s
grave, and tearing at its sods with her hands, as though she would
unearth that which lay within, was _Hendrika_. Her face was wild and
haggard, her form was so emaciated that when the pelts she wore slipped
aside, the shoulder-blades seemed to project almost through her skin.
Suddenly she looked up and saw me. Laughing a dreadful maniac laugh,
she put her hand to her girdle and drew her great knife from it. I
thought that she was about to attack me, and prepared to defend myself
as I best could, for I was unarmed. But she made no effort to do so.
Lifting the knife on high, for a moment she held it glittering in the
moonlight, then plunged it into her own breast, and fell headlong to
the ground.

I sprang over the wall and ran to her. She was not yet dead. Presently
she opened her eyes, and I saw that the madness had gone out of them.

“Macumazahn,” she said, speaking in English and in a thick difficult
voice like one who half forgot and half remembered—“Macumazahn, I
remember now. I have been mad. Is she really dead, Macumazahn?”

“Yes,” I said, “she is dead, and you killed her.”

“I killed her!” the dying woman faltered, “and I loved her. Yes, yes, I
know now. I became a brute again and dragged her to the brutes, and now
once more I am a woman, and she is dead, and I killed her—because I
loved her so. I killed her who saved me from the brutes. I am not dead
yet, Macumazahn. Take me and torture me to death, slowly, very slowly.
It was jealousy of you that drove me mad, and I have killed her, and
now she never can forgive me.”

“Ask forgiveness from above,” I said, for Hendrika had been a
Christian, and the torment of her remorse touched me.

“I ask no forgiveness,” she said. “May God torture me for ever, because
I killed her; may I become a brute for ever till she comes to find me
and forgives me! I only want her forgiveness.” And wailing in an
anguish of the heart so strong that her bodily suffering seemed to be
forgotten, Hendrika, the Baboon-woman, died.

I went back to the kraals, and, waking Indaba-zimbi, told him what had
happened, asking him to send some one to watch the body, as I proposed
to give it burial. But next morning it was gone, and I found that the
natives, hearing of the event, had taken the corpse and thrown it to
the vultures with every mark of hate. Such, then, was the end of
Hendrika.

A week after Hendrika’s death I left Babyan Kraals. The place was
hateful to me now; it was a haunted place. I sent for old Indaba-zimbi
and told him that I was going. He answered that it was well. “The place
has served your turn,” he said; “here you have won that joy which it
was fated you should win, and have suffered those things that it was
fated you should suffer. Yes, and though you know it not now, the joy
and the suffering, like the sunshine and the storm, are the same thing,
and will rest at last in the same heaven, the heaven from which they
came. Now go, Macumazahn.”

I asked him if he was coming with me.

“No,” he answered, “our paths lie apart henceforth, Macumazahn. We met
together for certain ends. Those ends are fulfilled. Now each one goes
his own way. You have still many years before you, Macumazahn; my years
are few. When we shake hands here it will be for the last time. Perhaps
we may meet again, but it will not be in this world. Henceforth we have
each of us a friend the less.”

“Heavy words,” I said.

“True words,” he answered.

Well, I have little heart to write the rest of it. I went, leaving
Indaba-zimbi in charge of the place, and making him a present of such
cattle and goods as I did not want.

Tota, I of course took with me. Fortunately by this time she had almost
recovered the shock to her nerves. The baby Harry, as he was afterwards
named, was a fine healthy child, and I was lucky in getting a
respectable native woman, whose husband had been killed in the fight
with the baboons, to accompany me as his nurse.

Slowly, and followed for a distance by all the people, I trekked away
from Babyan Kraals. My route towards Natal was along the edge of the
Bad Lands, and my first night’s outspan was beneath that very tree
where Stella, my lost wife, had found us as we lay dying of thirst.

I did not sleep much that night. And yet I was glad that I had not died
in the desert about eleven months before. I felt then, as from year to
year I have continued to feel while I wander through the lonely
wilderness of life, that I had been preserved to an end. I had won my
darling’s love, and for a little while we had been happy together. Our
happiness was too perfect to endure. She is lost to me now, but she is
lost to be found again.

Here on the following morning I bade farewell to Indaba-zimbi.

“Good-bye, Macumazahn,” he said, nodding his white lock at me.
“Good-bye for a while. I am not a Christian; your father could not make
me that. But he was a wise man, and when he said that those who loved
each other shall meet again, he did not lie. And I too am a wise man in
my way, Macumazahn, and I say it is true that we shall meet again. All
my prophecies to you have come true, Macumazahn, and this one shall
come true also. I tell you that you shall return to Babyan Kraals and
shall not find me. I tell you that you shall journey to a further land
than Babyan Kraals and shall find me. Farewell!” and he took a pinch of
snuff, turned, and went.

Of my journey down to Natal there is little to tell. I met with many
adventures, but they were of an every-day kind, and in the end arrived
safely at Port Durban, which I now visited for the first time. Both
Tota and my baby boy bore the journey well. And here I may as well
chronicle the destiny of Tota. For a year she remained under my charge.
Then she was adopted by a lady, the wife of an English colonel, who was
stationed at the Cape. She was taken by her adopted parents to England,
where she grew up a very charming and pretty girl, and ultimately
married a clergyman in Norfolk. But I never saw her again, though we
often wrote to each other.

Before I returned to the country of my birth, she too had been gathered
to the land of shadows, leaving three children behind her. Ah me! all
this took place so long ago, when I was young who now am old.

Perhaps it may interest the reader to know the fate of Mr. Carson’s
property, which should of course have gone to his grandson Harry. I
wrote to England to claim the estate on his behalf, but the lawyer to
whom the matter was submitted said that my marriage to Stella, not
having been celebrated by an ordained priest, was not legal according
to English law, and therefore Harry could not inherit. Foolishly enough
I acquiesced in this, and the property passed to a cousin of my
father-in-law’s; but since I have come to live in England I have been
informed that this opinion is open to great suspicion, and that there
is every probability that the courts would have declared the marriage
perfectly binding as having been solemnly entered into in accordance
with the custom of the place where it was contracted. But I am now so
rich that it is not worth while to move in the matter. The cousin is
dead, his son is in possession, so let him keep it.

Once, and once only, did I revisit Babyan Kraals. Some fifteen years
after my darling’s death, when I was a man in middle life, I undertook
an expedition to the Zambesi, and one night outspanned at the mouth of
the well-known valley beneath the shadow of the great peak. I mounted
my horse, and, quite alone, rode up the valley, noticing with a strange
prescience of evil that the road was overgrown, and, save for the music
of the waterfalls, the place silent as death. The kraals that used to
be to the left of the road by the river had vanished. I rode towards
their site; the mealie fields were choked with weeds, the paths were
dumb with grass. Presently I reached the place. There, overgrown with
grass, were the burnt ashes of the kraals, and there among the ashes,
gleaming in the moonlight, lay the white bones of men. Now it was clear
to me. The settlement had been fallen on by some powerful foe, and its
inhabitants put to the assegai. The forebodings of the natives had come
true; Babyan Kraals were peopled by memories alone.

I passed on up the terraces. There shone the roofs of the marble huts.
They would not burn, and were too strong to be easily pulled down. I
entered one of them—it had been our sleeping hut—and lit a candle which
I had with me. The huts had been sacked; leaves of books and broken
mouldering fragments of the familiar furniture lay about. Then I
remembered that there was a secret place hollowed in the floor and
concealed by a stone, where Stella used to hide her little treasures. I
went to the stone and dragged it up. There was something within wrapped
in rotting native cloth. I undid it. It was the dress my wife had been
married in. In the centre of the dress were the withered wreath and
flowers she had worn, and with them a little paper packet. I opened it;
it contained a lock of my own hair!

I remembered then that I had searched for this dress when I came away
and could not find it, for I had forgotten the secret recess in the
floor.

Taking the dress with me, I left the hut for the last time. Leaving my
horse tied to a tree, I walked to the graveyard, through the ruined
garden. There it was a mass of weeds, but over my darling’s grave grew
a self-sown orange bush, of which the scented petals fell in showers on
to the mound beneath. As I drew near, there was a crash and a rush. A
great baboon leapt from the centre of the graveyard and vanished into
the trees. I could almost believe that it was the wraith of Hendrika
doomed to keep an eternal watch over the bones of the woman her jealous
rage had done to death.

I tarried there a while, filled with such thoughts as may not be
written. Then, leaving my dead wife to her long sleep where the waters
fall in melancholy music beneath the shadow of the everlasting
mountain, I turned and sought that spot where first we had told our
love. Now the orange grove was nothing but a tangled thicket; many of
the trees were dead, choked with creepers, but some still flourished.
There stood the one beneath which we had lingered, there was the rock
that had been our seat, and there on the rock sat the wraith of
_Stella_, the Stella whom I had wed! Ay! there she sat, and on her
upturned face was that same spiritual look which I saw upon it in the
hour when we first had kissed. The moonlight shone in her dark eyes,
the breeze wavered in her curling hair, her breast rose and fell, a
gentle smile played about her parted lips. I stood transfixed with awe
and joy, gazing on that lost loveliness which once was mine. I could
not speak, and she spoke no word; she did not even seem to see me. Now
her eyes fell. For a moment they met mine, and their message entered
into me.

Then she was gone. She was gone; nothing was left but the tremulous
moonlight falling where she had been, the melancholy music of the
waters, the shadow of the everlasting mountain, and, in my heart, the
sorrow and the hope.






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